MOTION FOR A RETURN. (Hansard, 17 July 1885)

§ LORD NORTON,

in moving for a Return of secondary instruction, in day schools for boys, now being given in London—namely, Number of boys being taught any of the subjects called Specific in the Code; number over 10 years of age, and of the highest age, number of teachers engaged in such instruction, 1021 or teachers of special subject; the maximum and minimum salaries of such teachers; number of elementary or higher schools in which such instruction is given; and how many of them have laboratories or apparatus for experimental lectures, said, that at this period of the Session he would not attempt to go into the whole question, but would merely call attention to the subject, which was of great importance, and which should be dealt with without delay. The Return moved for would show, from the sample of boys' schools in London, how the secondary education of England, the deficiency of which was reported by the Commissioners of 1868, was being wrongly undertaken by the public elementary schools, wastefully and injuriously competing, by an extravagant use of public money, with independent schools. They were superseding and overlapping much of the work better done from private resources, or self-supported, in schools for higher instruction, following after elementary preparation. That the public elementary schools, under the Act of 1870, were not intended for secondary instruction was clear from all debates on the subject. The author of the Act of 1870, Mr. W. E. Forster, lately re-asserted the first intention, and considered that departure from it involved a disregard of many parents' claims to their children's industry, and an unwarranted assumption of general taxation for education of all kinds in this country. The first explanatory Circular from the Department, after the passage of the Act, strictly limited the public undertaking to elementary teaching. The Code now showed a wide departure, offering instruction in three schedules of subjects, the first only being called elementary; a second called class subjects, which the revised instructions just issued declared ample to form those habits of observation and reasoning which were needed for the intelligent conduct of life; and a list besides called specific subjects, which were described as beyond the scheme of ordinary elementary instruction. But the London School Board were eager to go further, and had expressed regret at their delay in embracing secondary education altogether, and at Provincial towns having preceded them. They said they looked to the coming Election to force on this general undertaking. Might it not 1022 rather give a better promise, in foreshadowing schemes of county government, of a possible revision of our national education, relegating each portion of it to its proper province? Public Departments were naturally ambitious, and school boards had drifted into excess from their large command of public money and a magnificent idea that to do anything' by halves was beneath their dignity. The Government seemed equally liberal in their view, offering to open the Treasury to make grants to Wales for three Colleges, besides intermediate schools between them and the elementary schools, on the score of Welsh poverty, and offering a duplicate establishment to Scotland on the score of Scotch educational superiority. Thus opposite reasons wore assigned, for the common object of Government undertaking. If the State was to undertake the secondary education of this country, it should not be done covertly, wastefully, and imperfectly, in elementary schools, but openly and completely by public secondary schools throughout the Kingdom. If this was not to be, the present attempt should be stopped in time from encroaching on independent undertakings. There were many reasons against a public provision for our secondary education in England. It would be repugnant to general feeling not yet seduced by offers of the the public purse. Parents of the middle classes preferred independent education for their children. The Commissioners of 1868 condemned a rate-paid system as injuriously weakening the sense of parental obligation. At a late inauguration of a Day School Company there were high authorities taking this view. Lord Aberdare joined this independent enterprize— Because he felt sure this country would never submit to a system of middle-class schools supported by taxes and controlled by the State. Mr. Forster added that— We did not look to rate-paid or tax-helped education for children whose schooling went on beyond the age of 14. Lord Carlingford, then President of the Council, said that— What they were dealing with was not what the Education Department had to do with. And others of great practical experience agreed that the ground they were on 1023 could not be effectively occupied otherwise than by such private undertakings in England, and that schemes such as this might be made wide enough for all the needs of the country. The Commissioners of 1868 gave another reason against Government undertaking— That it was most undesirable, even if possible, to have such schools moulded in one type. Any attempt at securing the same subjects to be taught, the same method of organization to be followed, the same discipline to be adopted for all our middle-class schools would fail of the highest objects of education. The want of freedom and elasticity and of adaptation to various situations and circumstances; the loss of all advantage from special aptitudes of teachers; the being tied to same standards and textbooks imperatively used to meet the Code, all belonged to an educational system foreign to our national requirements. The cost of such a Government undertaking, even in its present incipient state, whether applied to a few children in each elementary school, or to groups in super-elementary schools, was producing a ratepayers' outcry hazarding the whole cause of national education. Already the school rate of London had gone up from 3d. to over 9d. in the pound. If allowed to proceed, the present Estimate of £7,000,000 a-year would have to be doubled; and, if offered freely, which meant to all at public expense, trebled. Nor would this be all. When Mr. Mundella took credit to his Department for the decrease of crime in the country he forgot all the reformatory and industrial schools outside his Department to which it was more attributable. The multiplicity of institutions necessary to a complete State system was another objection of which they were amply warned by the example of the Continent, as described and recommended by the Technical Commission. But the greatest objection to the Government undertaking our secondary education was its adopted mode of payment on results. The London School Board had condemned this method as fatal to education. They took the Treasury payments to general account, and by fixed salaries saved their teachers from the temptation of earning a livelihood by prizes got out of their pupils. The overpressure, so absurdly tested by medical cases, was an inseparable feature of such 1024 a method of payment for education by an ascending scale of prizes earned through crammed-up scholars. The Board had Inspectors of their own to report on the whole school work, It was payment on results that excluded religious teaching, to which public grants could not be attached. To bring secondary education on to such a system would be a national disaster. But could it be otherwise better supplied? Would sufficient independent supply be forthcoming? The Technical Instruction Commissioners, who had just reported, and the Commissioners of 1868, agreed in showing how much was already provided by independent foundations and private establishments. Both also agreed in looking to much unused endowment being made further available. There was, then, only a residue of deficiency to be supplied. To meet this, both suggested that more power might be given to towns to rate themselves voluntarily for the purpose. But the Commissioners of 1868 proposed this only as a last resort, failing all further independent supply; the Technical Commissioners, as a part of an entire public educational undertaking, to which independent supply was only contributory. They assumed such a State system to be the object in view; and their main idea of national education altogether seemed to be to make our trade and manufactures meet foreign competition. They were commissioned to report on the instruction of industrial classes in foreign countries, for comparison with, and suggestions on, our own system. Their opening text was the formidable display of manufacturing improvements in the Paris Exhibition of 1878; and they took the foreign State system of education as their model. Yet it was remarkable that they traced the foundation of the Continental technical schools to a dread of British superiority, and concluded that, great as had been the progress and keen as was their rivalry, our people still maintained their position at the head of the industrial world. Secondary education they almost exclusively discussed as preparatory to technical instruction. It really was something much wider—namely, a general education of children from the age of 14 to 18, preparing them for industrial employment higher than the manual work for which others left school at 14. They seemed to think all manual work 1025 a degradation from which all children should be delivered. The special training for skilled employment was what the spirit of this country would not fail to supply. For this we should rather look to the State standing out of the way than interfering. It had already gone far in impeding much fitter institutions than its own for the purpose. At Liverpool a finely endowed College was being deserted for the cheaper offer of similar instruction in elementary schools at public expense. The Manchester Grammar School now dwindled under the competition of a rate-paid elementary rival. That any independent higher schools could compete with the unlimited resources of school boards for buildings, appliances, and salaries, proved the superior attraction of independent teaching. At Leeds the Grammar School adherents had baffled the ambition of the Board. In Birmingham large endownments had completely undertaken middle-class education. The Day School Companies, handicapped as they were at starting, had proved successful, popular, and even profitable. But the effort and skill required in the struggle was great. The Government deny that the board schools competed with the middle independent schools. As their scholars could not earn grants after passing their Standards once they were let go at the utmost age of 14. They therefore said that, at present, they had not got the children who continued schooling till 18. Some specific subjects also had been put down on the lower paid list, and were consequently dropped. Elementary examination had also been continued always in company with secondary examination, and much artificial display was so abandoned. There were shifts to meet the rising outcry. But all this was only to confess the sham of their undertaking the province of higher instruction; yet it none the less hindered better provision. It was also a covert advance towards the complete State system. Let the State provide free exhibitions for poor clever children from its elementary to the secondary schools, which were, and would be much more, if unimpeded, independently provided. If this Return gave the evidence he anticipated he would move a Resolution on it next Session. The noble Lord concluded by moving for the Return of which he had given Notice.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT CRANBROOK)

said, that everybody was aware of the great interest which the noble Lord had for so long taken in education, both elementary and secondary; and, therefore, his remarks were listened to with the respect they deserved. His opinion, however, differed on this question from that of the noble Lord, and he spoke from experience gained from a general knowledge of the subject. He agreed with his noble Friend that the elementary system was not meant to give secondary education, and that at present all authorities on educational matters, and also all economical authorities, were equally opposed to giving secondary education at the expense of the country. He, 1027 however, failed to see how that fact advanced the object which the noble Lord had in view, which was, as he understood it, not to go now into the question of secondary education as a State system, but, merely to show how the present system of elementary education was extended beyond the sphere allotted to it until it became secondary education on a large scale. As their Lordships knew, there were Seven Standards now instead of six, which were entirely confined to elementary education. But it was not to be supposed that reading, writing, and arithmetic were mere mechanical processes, and were not to imply reading of subjects giving information or writing something to improve the mind. The security that they had in the matter, however, was that when a child had once passed its Seventh Standard its further education was entirely at its own expense. If the noble Lord could show that the very small number indeed who endeavoured to get education which was beyond that included in the Standards injured the teaching in the schools, then he would, no doubt, have a strong argument to induce the Education Department to stop the system. But that was not the case; and if a child was able to advance beyond the school Standard, and at his own cost learn something beyond, he did not think that anyone could complain of that. The object of the Education Act was to carry into effect that which was supposed to be elementary education, and no child could be examined in specific subjects unless the school the year before had passed 70 per cent of its pupils. This, therefore, acted as a direct check in insuring that the mere formal elementary education was conducted upon right principles and in an effective manner. Besides that, they had merit grants, which further tended to insure the teaching of elementary education, of which an experienced Inspector said that they prevented waste of time in over-taxing memories by cramming text books on physiology, etc. The noble Lord's Return related to the Metropolis. He had not the figures relating to London; but he could give their Lordships figures with respect to the country generally. There were 28,000 departments in the country, and of those only 2,000 took specific subjects. Out of the 4,300,000 children on the books of the schools, there were 1028 only 33,226 who passed in one specific subject, and 12,804 who passed in two. There was no intention on the part of the Department to extend secondary education at the expense of the country, but rather to check any tendency to do so, and it remained to be proved that good secondary schools were required— indeed, it seemed evident that well-conducted ones had been an immense success, and some re-organized by the Charity Commission were most efficient. He could not conceive that these class subjects and specific subjects, of which English must always be one, could in any degree interfere with elementary education.

	Public Elementary Schools.	Independent Schools.
	Board	Voluntary	Endowed	Companies'.
Number of boys being taught any of the subjects called Specific in the Code
Number over 10 years of age, and of the highest age.
Number of teachers engaged in such instruction, or teachers of special subjects
The maximum and minimum salaries of such teachers
Number of elementary or higher schools in which such instruction is given
How many of them have laboratories or apparatus for experimental lectures.