The total expenditure (exclusive of capital outlay) of the local authorities (1906-1907) in England only upon elementary education, including “industrial” and “special” schools, was £19,776,733, of which (a) £10,408,242 Expenditure on elementary education. was met by the ordinary parliamentary grant, and (b) £8,930,468 was the balance required to be met by rates, the difference being represented by receipts from various sources. The average cost per child of elementary schools in England and Wales (excluding London) may be taken at £3 (including London £3, 4s. 10d.), and the average central grant (excluding grants for special purposes) at 41s., leaving 19s. to be raised locally.
The training of teachers for the two great branches of public education, elementary and secondary respectively, is an important part of the general administrative problem. Since the middle of the 19th century there has been Preliminary training of elementary teachers. a great development of public opinion with regard to their professional qualifications. Sir Joshua Fitch (Ency. Brit. 10th ed.) pointed out that the full appreciation of the importance of training began at the lower end of the social scale. Shuttleworth and Tufnell in 1846 urged the necessity of special training for the primary teacher, and hoped to establish State Training Colleges to supply this want; but the one college at Battersea which was founded as an experiment was soon transferred to the National Society (the “National Society for educating the poor in the principles of the Established Church”: founded in 1811). Before this, Bell and Lancaster had made arrangements in their model schools for the reception of a few young people to learn the system by practice. In Glasgow, David Stow, who founded in 1826 the Normal Seminary which afterwards became the Free Church College, was one of the first to insist on the need of systematic professional preparation. The religious bodies in England, notably the Established Church, availed themselves promptly of the failure of the central government, and a number of diocesan colleges for men, and separately for women, were gradually established. In 1854 the British and Foreign School Society (founded 1808) placed their institutes at the Borough Road and Stockwell on a collegiate footing, and subsequently founded other colleges at Swansea, Bangor, Darlington and Saffron Walden; the Roman Catholic Church provided two for women and one for men; and the Wesleyans two, one for each sex. The new provincial colleges of university rank were invited by the Education Department to attach normal classes to their ordinary course and to make provision for special training and suitable practice in schools for those students who desired to become teachers. Thus the government came to recognize two kinds of training schools—the residential colleges of the old type and the day colleges attached to institutions of university rank; both were subsidized by grants from the Treasury, and regularly inspected. As the need of special training for teachers became further recognized by the consideration of the same question as regards teachers in higher and intermediate schools (Cambridge instituting in 1879 examinations for a teacher’s diploma, and other universities providing courses for secondary as well as primary teachers, and establishing professorships of education), the attitude of the government, i.e. the Board of Education, towards the problem gradually became more and more a subject of controversy and of public interest, as indicated by the clause in the Act of 1899 providing for a public registration of qualified teachers and for the gradual elimination from the profession of those who were unqualified. And meanwhile the increased solidarity of the National Union of Teachers (founded in 1870), the trade union, so to speak, of the teachers, brought an important body of professional opinion to bear on the discussion of their own interests.
The question of the preliminary education of elementary teachers had after some years of discussion reached a critical stage in 1909. The history of pupil teachership as a method of concurrent instruction and employment shows that it was in its inception something in the nature of a makeshift; the ideal placed before local education authorities in the recent regulations and reports of the Board of Education is the alternative system whereby with the aid of national bursaries (instituted in 1907) “the general education of future teachers may be continued in secondary schools until the age of seventeen or eighteen, and all attempts to obtain a practical experience of elementary school work may be deferred until the training college is entered, or at least until an examination making a natural break in that general education and qualifying for an admission to a training college has been passed.” Under the revised pupil-teacher system established by the regulations of 1903 provision is made for the instruction of pupil teachers in centres which as far as possible are attached to secondary schools receiving grants from the Board of Education under the regulations for secondary schools, about two-thirds of the secondary schools on the grant list undertaking this work. Accordingly, the result of recent changes is to modify the old system in two ways: first by providing the alternative of a full course of secondary education, secondly by associating pupil teachership itself as far as possible with part-time attendance at a secondary school. The total number of pupil teachers recognized during the year 1907-1908 was 20,571, and of these 9770 were in centres forming integral parts of secondary schools. The number of bursars who passed the leaving examination was 1486.
One of the principal difficulties which confronted the state and the local authorities in their task of organizing an improved system of public education under the act of 1902 lay in the deficiency of training colleges in view of Training colleges. the increased number of teachers. Local authorities naturally hesitated to burden themselves with the cost of providing such institutions in view of the fact that there is nothing to prevent teachers trained at great expense by one authority taking service under a less public-spirited authority who had contributed nothing to such training; hence a widespread feeling that the provision of training colleges should be undertaken by the state as a matter of national concern. Under these circumstances a new system of building grants in aid of the establishment of training colleges was instituted in 1905. In 1906 these grants were raised from 25 to 75% of the capital expenditure, but were limited to colleges provided by local authorities. A further difficulty in view of the municipalization of education arose from the fact that the majority of the residential colleges were in the hands of denominational trusts which did not admit a conscience clause. Under the presidency of Mr McKenna in 1907, the Board of Education, in regulations which excited much controversy, “with a view to throwing open as far as possible the advantages of a course of training in colleges supported mainly by public funds to all students who are qualified to profit by it irrespective of religious creed or social status,” laid down that the application of a candidate might in no circumstances be rejected on any religious ground, nor on the ground of social antecedents or the like. The same regulations provided that no new training colleges would be recognized except on terms of compliance with certain conditions as to freedom from denominational restrictions or requirements. The obligation as to religious exemptions has since been limited to 50% of the admissions. There were in attendance (Statistics, England, 1907-1908) in the various colleges, 6561 women and 2835 men, of whom 1619 women and 335 men were in colleges provided by local education authorities. The grants made by the Board of Education for training colleges were as follows: maintenance grants £383,851; building grants £45,000. These figures include Wales.
The fear has been widely entertained that a considerable part of the national expenditure upon elementary education is wasted for want of an effective system of continuative instruction to be given out of working hours to adolescents engaged in Continuative education. industrial employment. The whole subject was exhaustively treated by the report in 1909 of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education. This report seeks to base an efficient continuative system upon the improvement of elementary education by reducing the size of the classes in the elementary schools upon the lines now laid down by the new staffing regulations of 1909; by increasing the amount of instruction in hand-work with a view to rendering the curriculum less bookish and more efficient as a training for industrial and agricultural life; and by legislation to reform the system of half-time attendance and raise the age of compulsory attendance to thirteen and ultimately fourteen. Upon the foundation of an improved and prolonged elementary education there would be reared a superstructure of continuative schools or classes, attendance at which up to seventeen would be compulsory under bye-laws adoptive locally at the option of the local education authorities. In 1906-1907 about 21 per thousand of the population of England and Wales attended evening schools and classes inspected by the Board of Education, and grant amounting to £361,596 was paid in respect of 440,718 regular attendants.
The most marked progress has undoubtedly been in secondary education, and in no direction has the act of 1902 proved more fruitful. At the end of the 19th century secondary instruction in England was still provided chiefly by Secondary education. endowed grammar-schools, by proprietary schools established by religious bodies or joint-stock companies, and by private enterprise. No public provision was made for secondary education as such; what financial assistance was forthcoming from municipal sources was given indirectly under cover of the grants under the Technical Instruction Acts, while in the administration of central grants for the first years of the working of the Board of Education Act 1899, no absolute differentiation between secondary and technological functions was recognized. The establishment of local authorities with direct duties in respect of secondary education, and the reorganization of the central office with reference to the three branches of education, elementary, secondary and technological, rendered possible for the first time an adequate treatment of the problem of public secondary education as a whole. “The regulations for secondary schools,” says the prefatory memorandum to the regulations of the Board of Education, “grew up round the old provisions of the Directory of the Science and Art Department. Detached science classes were gradually built up into schools of science. Schools of science were subsequently widened into schools of what was known as the ‘Division A’ type, providing a course of instruction in science in connexion with, and as part of, a course of general education. Aid was afterwards extended to schools of the ‘Division B’ type in which science did not form the preponderating element of the instruction given. In 1904 the board recast the regulations so as to bring all schools aided by grants within the general definition of a school offering a general education up to and beyond the age of sixteen through a complete graded course of instruction, the object of which should be to develop all the faculties, and to form the habit of exercising them.”
Two main tendencies distinguish the recent development: on the one hand the tendency to municipalization, or at least to the establishment of public control; on the other hand the tendency (marked especially by the regulations of 1907) to greater elasticity in regard to curricula, and so to the freer encouragement of local initiative and local effort.
In 1907 the government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman placed greatly increased funds at the disposal of the Board of Education for the purpose of secondary education. The regulations under which the increased grant was administered imposed conditions in respect of freedom from denominational restrictions or requirements, representative local control, and accessibility to all classes of the people, which, like the analogous rules with regard to training colleges, roused considerable controversy. With regard to religious instruction, the requirement was made that no catechism or formulary distinctive of any particular religious denomination might be taught in the school except upon the request in writing of the parent or guardian and at the cost of funds other than grants of public money. Power was at the same time reserved to the board to waive the new conditions in the event of the local education authority passing a resolution that the school was in their view required as part of the secondary school provision for their area, and that the conditions, or one or more of them, might be waived with advantage in view of the educational needs of the area. It will be noticed that one effect of the regulations (as of the training college regulations) was to recognize as a kind of established religion those elements of Christianity which are shared in common by the various Protestant churches, according to the system of Lancaster and the Cowper-Temple compromise. Normally schools are required to provide 25% of free places for scholars from public elementary schools, and, with a view to encouraging the transference of children from the public elementary school at an early age, a grant of £2 was made payable on account of ex-public elementary scholars between ten and twelve years of age. The full scale of grants is £2 for ex-public elementary scholars between ten and twelve, and £5 for scholars between twelve and eighteen. To schools previously recognized and failing to comply with the new conditions, grant may be paid on the lower scale of £2 and £2, 10s. respectively.
Secondary school grants are assessed upon average attendance, and efficiency is guaranteed by inspection and not by individual examination. All recognized schools must provide at least the substantial equivalent of the four-years’ course formerly required, and recognition is withheld or withdrawn if an adequate number of the scholars do not remain at least four years in the school, or do not remain up to sixteen; in rural areas, however, and small towns, a school life of three years and a leaving age of fifteen may be accepted. “The board are now in a position, through their inspectorate, to keep a watch and exercise a guidance which were previously impossible over the planning and working of school curricula. Detailed reports following upon full inspections, and the more constant if less obvious influence exercised through informal visits, conferences, reports and suggestions, may now be relied upon to guard against the risks of one-sided education, of ill-balanced schemes of instruction, and of premature or excessive specialization” (Report of Board of Education, 1906-1907, page 68). The curriculum must provide instruction duly graded and duly continuous, in the English language and literature, in geography and history, in mathematics, science and drawing, and in at least one language other than English. Where two languages other than English are taken, Latin must ordinarily be one. Provision must be made for organized games, physical exercises and manual instruction, and in girls’ schools science and mathematics other than arithmetic may be replaced by an approved scheme of practical housewifery for girls over fifteen. The total number of secondary schools recognized for grant (Statistics, 1907-1908) was 736, of which only 220 were directly provided by local authorities. The number of pupils in attendance was 68,104 boys and 56,359 girls, total 124,463. The government grants for 1907-1908 amounted to £320,873 besides grants from local authorities.
Wales.