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[Note: Marginal notes in this section are not shown here. To see them, please refer to the pdf file of the report.]

In the preceding sections of our Report we have dealt with the history and present condition of Secondary Education in England. We have now to deal with the evidence which has been submitted to us by our witnesses, and the changes, legislative and administrative, which they have suggested.

1. We have examined 85 witnesses, who were selected either because of their special experience, or because of their representative character; and the evidence which they gave has, of course, a corresponding value and significance. The Charity Commission was represented, not, only on the side of its policy and action relative to secondary schools, by Sir George Young and Mr. Richmond, but also, as regards its legal status, general work, and administrative responsibilities, by Lord Justice (now Lord) Davey, by the Chief Commissioner, and by the Secretary, Mr. Fearon. Its relation to Parliament and the Education Office was represented by Sir William Hart-Dyke, while Mr. H. J. Roby was able to speak from his experience both as Secretary to the Schools Enquiry Commission, and as a member of the Endowed Schools Commission. From those engaged in administrative and educational work under the Vice-President of the Council, we had the Science and Art Department represented by the Secretary, Sir John Donnelly, by the Director of Science, Captain Abney, and by Messrs. C. A. Buckmaster and G. R. Redgrave, Senior Inspectors; the Education Department by Mr. (now Sir George) Kekewich, the Secretary, the Senior Inspector, the Reverend T. W. Sharpe, and Mr. Barnett. But we conceived that it was no less necessary to possess ourselves of the opinions of men who had experience in connexion with those local authorities whose special function it was, or whose incidental duty it had become, to deal with education, whether elementary or secondary. We, therefore, appealed to the Association of School Boards, and they sent to us representatives of important and typical boards, in Lancashire and in Yorkshire, in Devonshire and in the Midlands; and to these were added later, by special invitation, two leading members of the London School Board.

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We also heard witnesses who might be said to represent typical county councils, belonging to different quarters of the country, each with its own special characteristics, like Somerset, Surrey, Norfolk, Lancashire, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and who could tell us of the needs and difficulties or their respective districts; how the councils conceived the needs were to be satisfied and the difficulties overcome, how they had distributed the excise money and had attempted to organise technical instruction. Besides the counties, we had also the educational work, both as regards range and methods, undertaken by the London County Council and the Corporation of Manchester explained by the Chairmen and Directors of their respective Technical Committees; and what may be regarded as the official opinions of the Municipal Corporations Association were duly laid before us by the President. We also thought it important to ascertain how the newer university colleges had been worked into the local educational system, and how they could be used as factors of its organisation and administration; and so we were favoured with evidence based on their respective and different local experiences, from the principals of the three colleges at Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds, which together constitute the Victoria University.

While we thus endeavoured to find information and guidance from those engaged in the public administration of education, both central and provincial, both rural and urban, we were also desirous of profiting by the experience of those who were concerned with its actual management and conduct, whether as governors or proprietors of schools, or as head or assistant teachers. We therefore invited evidence from witnesses such as Mr. W. H. Stone and Miss Gurney, Miss Beale and Miss Cooper, who could speak as to the work and province and claims of proprietary schools; from the late Mr. Brown and Miss Olney, who could inform us as to the number, quality, efficiency, achievements, and claims of private schools; from Mr. Vardy and Dr. Percival (now Bishop of Hereford), who were able, respectively, to represent, the one an endowed grammar school foundation, which had been developed into a complete system of first and second grade schools for both boys and girls, suitable to the needs of a great city, and the other, an endowed public boarding school of the first class, with a local as well as a national character. But the Commission was from the first especially anxious to see education from the teacher's point of view, and to study both legislation and administration in the light of the end to be achieved, viz., the creation of the conditions needed to enable both master and scholar to do the best possible work. We were not favoured by any representative from the Conference of Headmasters, but they submitted to us an instructive memorandum interpreted by the report of a no less instructive debate. And we had representatives from the associations both of Head and of Assistant Masters, as also from

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those of Head anal of Assistant Mistresses, from the College of Preceptors, from the Teachers' Guild, from the Association of the Headmasters of Higher Board and Organised Science Schools, and from the National Union of Teachers, besides several masters who had some special experience likely to be of use to the Commission. Again, as legislation and organisation would be helpless without an adequate supply of competent teachers, and the maintenance of a high standard of professional conduct, we also invited evidence from witnesses like Canon Daniel, Miss Hughes, and Miss Woods, who seemed peculiarly qualified to explain to us what were conceived to be the best methods for the training of teachers and for the creation of an adequate and significant register. We further took pains to find witnesses such as Mr. Augustus Steward, Mr. Halstead, and Mr. Peaker, competent to speak as to the best methods of reaching and helping those classes who depend on scholarships for almost everything they receive in the way of Secondary Education. And from the experience of Scotland we have sought to learn how such education can be efficiently tested, as well as how it can best be given in districts where secondary schools must of necessity be few. And on these points we were informed by Mr. Craik, the Secretary to the Scotch Education Department, and Dr. John Kerr, the Senior Inspector of schools in Scotland. We also thought it well to appeal to persons whose large and exceptional experience might help us to co-ordinate the facts and correlate the often rather intractably opposed forces with which we have had to deal, and here we lie under special obligation to the Bishop of London, Mr. Roby, and Dr. Percival.

2. In addition to the evidence of these witnesses, we have also had various memoranda submitted for our consideration. Representative members of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Victoria, find Durham, as well as of the colleges for the higher education of women, have contributed special papers for our information and guidance. Memoranda have also been supplied to us by Mr. F. C. Stevenson, the Fourth or Parliamentary Charity Commissioner, on the relation of the Charity Commission to Parliament and to the Education Department; by gentlemen experienced in the educational work of county councils, and the special needs and difficulties of rural districts, like Mr. Charles Dyke Acland; from governors of endowed schools, like Dr. Michael Sadler; from headmasters like Mr. Glazebrook, who knows both a great grammar and a great boarding school; from headmistresses, like the late Miss Buss, whose memorandum was, we believe, her last public word on behalf of the cause she had so long and so devotedly served; from teachers of organised science schools, like Mr. Scotson and Mr. Bidgood; from authorities in both the science and the art of education, like Professors Simon Laurie and James Sully, Mr. Fitch, and Canon Moore Ede. For a learned

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and most instructive memorandum on "the History of Endowed Schools", we are indebted to Mr. A. F. Leach, Assistant Charity Commissioner. We have received a memorandum by Mr. J. J. Findlay on "Registration and Training of Teachers in Germany", and one from Mr. Herbert Ward on the "Training of Secondary School Teachers in France"; and several by various friends in our own Colonies and in the United States of America, on the condition and organisation of education in their respective countries. Several members of our own body have also aided us by embodying the results of their personal enquiries and knowledge in separate memoranda; and here we would acknowledge as not least important the contributions made by our secretary, whether as the fruit of his work at the Charity Commission or of his special experience as Assistant Commissioner in Wales.

3. We propose to deal with the evidence and proposals before us under the following heads:

4. The problem before us is strictly limited and defined by the state of things described in the preceding part of our Report and its historical causes. So much has been done for education that still more must be done, and the thing that most needs to be done is to correlate and harmonise the forces and agencies already at work. We have to do with a field already occupied, and the occupancy, as we have seen, is of no ordinary sort. It is full of resources, national grants given on the most varied conditions, distributed through all sorts of bodies, local rates applied under many names to many things, endowments, ancient and modern, some more, others less restricted in their scope, some devoted to mixed, others to purely educational, purposes; it is full of agents, agencies, institutions, authorities, local and national, provincial and special, almost all independent in origin, unconnected in working, often occasional in purpose; and the problem which has in consequence been set the Commission is this; To discover how all these could be so co-ordinated as to be made contributory to a common end. In other words, How can the sporadically created and unorganised Secondary Education of England be organised into an efficient and satisfactory system?

The limits within which we have had to seek a solution are obvious enough. We could not deliberate and advise as if the financial resources at the command of education were unlimited, or as if those to be used in its service had never been assigned by deeds of private persons or by Acts of Parliament. We could not proceed as if the varied bodies concerned with it, whether governors of endowed schools, county or

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borough councils, school boards of technical instruction committees, had no rights or interest in it, no recognised function and no legislative sanction. Nor could we net as if there were no persons who had, at their own hazard, undertaken educational work and achieved results that even those most jealous of its good name would confess to be excellent. Nor could we frame recommendations, or draw conclusions, as if the men who educate were by their very profession disqualified from exercising any legal or constitutional functions on behalf of the cause in whose service their lives are spent. But if the occupancy of the field created our difficulties, it has also supplied us with some much-needed guidance. We did not begin our work on virgin soil, and had no need to labour at an a priori system. Such a system would, under the actual conditions, have been in the very degree that it was theoretically perfect really impracticable. But Secondary Education, especially as it exists in England, is not a thing which suggests or permits building in the air, even had we been so inclined, and in the experiences of the very bodies which created our difficulties we found, as we have just indicated, excellent counsellors. The bodies were too varied to have a uniform, or equal, or even consistent experience, and so their counsels were as often discordant as harmonious. The experiences, indeed, of highly specialised experts, who yet differ in office, function, standpoint, and aim, can hardly be expected to yield so peaceable a fruit as an identical policy or plan, for if doctors differ in their diagnosis they are not likely to agree in their remedies. But, happily, in this case there was helpfulness in the very differences; they compelled us to deliberate and discuss at every step in our progress, to have the quality of caution as well as courage; to feel that to every conclusion, however well weighed or carefully formed, various alternatives were possible, while the responsibility, alike for the whole and for all its several parts, was all the more manifestly that of the Commission alone. Yet we gladly recognise the benefit we have received through having had to study our problem in the mixed lights of so many and so varied specialised experiences.

5. This authority, so far as it can be said to have any existence, is at present represented by the various Departments whose spheres and functions have already been described (1). What we have here to recognise is mainly this: These Departments, because of their occasional origin, of the different and not always compatible functions conferred upon them by occasional legislation, and of the want of organic connexion and action; have an ill-defined relation to Secondary Education, involving as the too frequent result an inconsistent and expensive policy. Hence our problem here is: to evolve out of these independent and overlapping Departments one properly constituted and organised Central Authority, sufficiently strong and en-

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lightened to secure the effective and intelligent supervision of local bodies and institutions taking part in Secondary Instruction, to ensure the proper application of public funds, the conservation and adaptation of educational endowments, the adjustment of conflicting claims, the due recognition of existing agencies, the supplying of clearly ascertained deficiencies, the co-ordination of the universities, colleges, and schools of various grades, the assistance of local authorities needing information and advice - in a word, to effect the harmonious development of a well-balanced system of Secondary Education, nationalised without centralisation, organised without uniformity.

The evidence we have received points to a Central Authority composed of two constitutents, the one an administrative department directly connected with the executive, the other a more independent professional body. These, as is evident from the terms just used, are not conceived as throughout coincident and coextensive, but as capable of being combined for certain purposes while remaining separate and distinct for certain others.

6. There has been a remarkable consensus of opinion on this point: That, in order to constitute an efficient and satisfactory Central Authority there must be a Minister of Education, the head of a Department, responsible to Parliament, with a seat in the Cabinet, a Minister who, as Sir William Hart-Dyke said, would be a Secretary of State. On this matter witnesses of all orders, Charity Commissioners, Government officials, schoolmasters, representatives of local authorities, and statesmen were agreed. They were agreed, also, that as he was to be responsible he must be supreme, though his supremacy was not always heartily or willingly accepted. This general agreement was made the more significant by an occasional voice of protest, or of dissent more or less qualified. Thus Mr. Brown, one of the representatives of the private schools, would allow the Minister to be President of the Council of Education only provided he were "to take the advice of that body and to act upon it". The Bishop of London, whose position was one with which many secondary teachers would probably agree, thought that the central authority would be better "dissociated from any particular Ministry"; its "policy ought not to change with the Ministry of the day". Later, indeed, he recognised, in agreement with his own reading of the Report of the Schools Enquiry Commission, that were there a Minister of Education it was "inevitable" that "he should be President of the Central Authority", but while thinking it out of the question to "exclude the appointment of a Minister of Education as things were now going", he yet saw the obvious disadvantage of through him "letting in upon education, which ought to be a steady thing, all the fluctuations of political parties". And he very much deprecated the possibility of Secondary Education,

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if placed under a Minister, "being managed on the same centralised system as primary". This is a possible though a remote risk, balanced by an immediate and permanent gain. For we believe that education has more chance of a vigorous and a beneficent life if treated as a public question than were it allowed to become the concern of a special order; and it is of the very essence of our problem to find the means by which public control and educational policy, instead of counteracting, may supplement and fortify each other.

But besides the educational, there was another objection to a Minister based upon considerations of a more distinctly political character. Thus the Bishop of London did not approve the State aid that had as its inseparable adjunct parliamentary control, though he recognised the need of rate aid for certain purposes, such as scholarships and buildings; and he held that Secondary Education was "something to be paid for by the parents". But the representatives of the private schools were here more rigorous. They thought that Secondary Education should be self-supporting, except so far as maintained by endowments already existing, and because of the control they exercised over such endowments they objected to what they termed the "irresponsible powers" of the Charity Commissioners. Such powers, it was held, ought not to belong to a body charged with the care of those endowments which are a national concern, for they have been dedicated to a national good. But if in this case responsibility be so needful, it surely follows that as the sums from national taxes and local rates now being spent on secondary and technical institutions exceed in amount the income of our educational endowments, a responsible Minister of Education is an even greater necessity than a responsible Charity Commission. And in this connexion we may recognise the fact that the Minister's powers would, as the Bishop of London admitted, be much limited by the interposition of the local authorities, and of the governing bodies, between him and the schools. On the whole, then, it is well, in the face of what is now actual fact, to recognise, with Sir Henry Longley, that political control goes necessarily with the bestowment of public money.

7. It was suggested that the Department should be organised under this Minister, he being assisted by a parliamentary under secretary, and "a permanent official" or "common secretary", "who would be the head of all departments", with "under secretaries at the head of each (separate) department". He ought to have the charge of education, both primary and secondary, though there was division of opinion as to whether, while the Minister was one, the Departments ought to remain distinct. In every case it was held that the Minister was to be the centre of unity, and generally, though not universally, that there should be unification of all the bodies concerned with Secondary Education. The ideas of unification and how it was

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to be accomplished were very varied, but the necessity was admitted almost quite universally. The reasons for it were economy, efficiency, harmony of idea and purpose, as well as of legislative and administrative control.

The organisation of the Department under the Minister raised many most complicated questions, and this complexity was duly reflected in the evidence of our witnesses. But we may sum up the results as to the constituents of the proposed Department under the following heads: the Charity Commission; the Science and Art Department; the Education Department.

8. The jurisdiction, procedure, functions, and policy of the Charity Commission have already been described. Here it is enough to say that it has been, so far as endowed schools are concerned, the nearest approach we have as yet had to a Department of Secondary Education, not onIy because it has acted as the guardian of their funds, and issued and revised schemes for their better government, but also because it has attempted a measure of inspection, which is necessary as a means of ascertaining "the working of schemes already established under the Endowed Schools Acts". It has been explained to us that under the Charitable Trusts Acts the Commission may be regarded as a kind of extension of the Court of Chancery, a judicial body appointed, as it were, to work with delegated powers in a particular region, yet with administrative functions as well, which indeed are in a degree the consequence of application of the judicial; but under the Endowed Schools Acts it is rather the delegate of Parliament and so its functions are more largely legislative than judicial. Out of this twofold origin and constitution has come the usual crop of anomalies and difficulties. The legislative functions have been affected, on the one hand, by their too intimate association with the judicial body, and, on the other, from their comparative independence of the Ministry and the motive force it could have supplied. On the first point Mr. Roby's evidence was specially significant. The original Endowed Schools Commission was "the agent of the Government of the day", appointed to carry out the ministerial policy, able to do its work only "in agreement with the views of the Education Department"; but the Act of 1874 by attaching the Commissioners "to a body which had a certain judicial character", gave them "naturally a more independent position". This change had as its consequence an "extremely limited and fettered" power in the Minister, the Vice-President of the Council, who had come to feel only a sort of quasi-responsibility for schemes he had yet formally to "approve". On the second point Sir Henry Longley and Mr. Fearon were

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alike emphatic: the Commissioners had increasing difficulty in getting their endowed schools work done, more driving-power was needed, and this could only come through closer relations with a Minister. On all hands it was agreed that some change was necessary, and that this change must be effected through an alteration in the relations between the Commission and the Minister of Education.

9. The views of our witnesses may be reduced to four types of classes: the Charity Commission ought to be placed under the Minister, either (1) so far as concerns its powers and jurisdiction under the Endowed Schools Acts, as distinguished from the Charitable Trusts Acts; or (2) so far as it has educational, as distinguished from legal, functions under either set of Acts; or (3) so far as it has concern with educational endowments under either set of Acts; or (4) simply as a whole.

(1) The powers and jurisdiction which the Commission possesses under the Endowed Schools Acts should be transferred to the Department of Secondary Education. Sir George Young, one of our most important witnesses, thought that the work "would be better done if the central agency, for the purposes of organisation, were separated from the Charity Commission", and he held that as the endowments would be "no longer the sole or even the principal financial basis of organisation", it was better to reverse the policy of 1874 and "dissociate the work of organising Secondary Education from those eleemosynary associations which properly belong to the Charity Commission". The Bishop of London seemed to approve the separation of the jurisdiction under the Endowed Schools Acts from that under the Charitable Trusts Acts, and the closer connexion of what he termed the "educational side" with the Department of Education. Mr. Fitch wished to see the Commission "fused, so far as the administration of the Endowed Schools Acts is concerned, with the Education Department", though even for the more distinctly legal questions he desired closer relations than at present. Sir William Hart-Dyke considered that it would be better to transfer only the work which the Commission now carries out under the Endowed Schools Acts, but he admitted that "the whole question was full of difficulties" and the course he suggested only "the minor evil".

(2) Sir Henry Longley's line of division was different from the above; he would draw it, not between the two orders of Acts which have constituted the Commission, but between the two kinds of work it has been set to do, the legal and the educational. The former he would retain, the latter transfer. This means that all the legal work, under whatever Act, would remain with the Commission, but all the educational, under whatever Act, would go to the Department. He would "defer absolutely on all matters of education to the Department" but the Commissioners would deal with all legal

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matters touching educational endowments, including such distinctly Endowed Schools Commission work as "scheme-making". He recognised the difficulties, which he thought, however, admitted of the solvitur ambulando, but he was anxious not "to state his view dogmatically", and only as one that "on the balance of advantage and disadvantage", was in his judgment the better.

(3) Lord Davey proposed the complete separation of educational from non-educational charities, leaving the latter to the Charity Commissioners, transferring the former bodily, with all the legislative and administrative powers and responsibilities involved to the Education Department. As things are at present under the Endowed Schools Acts, once the Commissioners have made a scheme for a school or endowment, their functions cease until occasion for a fresh scheme arises; and meanwhile the foundation remains, like any other charity, under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Commission. But Lord Davey thought it would be better that there should be complete transference of all educational endowments, and that the Minister of Education "should have the whole control over the administration of the schools as well". Whilst he thought that it would not be worth while to give the legal and the educational work to different bodies, he would yet retain a reference to the Charity Commission of "questions involving judicial acts or the exercise of judicial discretion". But his general opinion was that when a trust had been declared educational, the Charity Commission should have no more to do with it; that, he held, "would be the simplest system".

(4) The transference of the Charity Commission as a whole to the Department of State connected with education was strongly urged by Mr. Fearon and Mr. Roby. Mr. Fearon held such tranference to be necessary for reasons both administrative and educational. The administrative reasons were based on the principle that all educational endowments are charitable trusts, and in many cases so "closely intermixed" with non-educational that any attempt to separate them would create "confusion and difficulty". The result would be two Charity Commissions instead of one, or the Education Office dealing with endowments administered either by the Charity Commission or the Court of Chancery. Thus there are a multitude of mixed endowments, some so intricately mixed that separation would be impossible, e.g., one charity has seven alternative ways of spending its income, "two of which are educational, and the other five non-educational". And as in such cases "the trustees are under legal disabilities at every turn of their work and procedure", administration under dual control might easily become practically impossible. It is necessary, therefore, "that for administrative purposes, the legal and educational administration of an educational charitable trust ought not to be widely separate but should be more or less combined". Without this. "the

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new Department will be bereft of all real power in controlling and directing the endowments." Then, as to the educational reasons; they are based on the principle that, if a trust be "disintegrated and resolved into its constituent elements, namely, the legal and the educational, it will gradually be found that the real power lies with the legal authority," while the legal authority, "divorced from the educational," will simply become the nurse and guardian of the charity, considering what was good for it rather than for the objects it was meant to serve. He did not think that there was any insuperable difficulty in placing the Charity Commission, so far as it is a judicial body, "under the control of an administrative department responsible to Parliament" for while the "appeal to the Chancery Division of the High Court" would remain, it would be entirely consonant with the custom and practice which prevails in other Departments (e.g., the Inland Revenue in its relations to the Treasury), for the Commission to appear without any formal appearance of the Minister himself as a party. Complete transference seemed, therefore, the most reasonable and satisfactory way.

With this position, though he did not so elaborately argue and illustrate it, Mr. Roby substantially agreed. He would "keep the whole of the work together"; in educational trusts would not divide the legal or judicial from the educational sides; he would create a central charities board, place it under the control of the Minister of Education, and transfer to it "all trusts", whether educational, non- educational, or mixed.

(5) We may add to these four alternative schemes a fifth, eclectic in its character, proposed by Mr. F. S. Stevenson, M.P.. His suggestion was to transfer the Endowed Schools Commissioners to the Education Department, to continue the Commission as constituted under the Charitable Trusts Acts, but to appoint the Minister, the parliamentary secretary, and the chief permanent secretary to seats on the Board. The advantages would be these: The Minister and his subordinates would be in a majority, would therefore have the "predominant voice" on the Commission, and would thus bring its policy and notion into harmony with the Department without over-burdening the Minister with responsibility and attention to detail, while efficient representation in Parliament would also be secured and "the separate identity" of the Commission would be retained.

10. In addition to these proposals which were all contained in evidence or memoranda directly submitted to us, we considered two others contained in two recently published reports concerned with the Charity Commission. The one was the report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Treasury in 1893, and presided over by the late Sir Robert Hamilton, the other two members being Sir Francis Mowatt and Mr. James Anstic, Q.C. The other was the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed April 1894. It was presided over by Mr . John Ellis, and consisted of fifteen members.

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(a) The Departmental Committee was asked to advise the Treasury, among other things, as to whether the work of the Department was of such a character that it should be administered by a commission rather than be placed under the ordinary system of departmental organisation. The Committee concluded that it was not desirable that the general operations of the Department should be placed under the control of a Minister of the Crown; and recommended its continued administration by a Board.

This recommendation was based upon their view that "the direct control of a Minister of the Crown is not applicable to the work of the Charity Commissioners whose functions partake so largely of a legal and quasi-judicial character, and whose operations do not therefore lend themselves to the direction and control of a parliamentary head to the same degree as those of an ordinary department of State." Speaking with special reference to the work of the Commissioners under the Endowed Schools Act, they considered that their action was so "minutely regulated by Act of Parliament that it was difficult to see what control a responsible Minister could exercise." They admitted, however, that ministerial control was actually exercised over schemes made under these Acts by the Vice-President of the Council in his capacity as head of the Education Department, though not as a Charity Commissioner.

Referring to the possible requirements of the Department, "if a policy were hereafter adopted of extending some description of State organisation to the Secondary Education of the country," the Committee declined to contemplate the contingency of a general State supervision over Secondary Education as a whole being entrusted to the Charity Commission, "as this would involve either the creation of that Commission as an independent educational authority without parliamentary responsibility (a most undesirable and scarcely practicable course), or the placing of the Department under the control of a Minister of Education."

(b) The Select Committee was "appointed to inquire whether it is desirable to take measures to bring the action of the Charity Commission more directly under the control of Parliament"; and they concluded that if any change was to be made "in the parliamentary position of the Charity Commission, one single Minister should be responsible to Parliament, both for Charitable Trusts and for the work under the Endowed Schools Act, and your Committee agree that a Minister or Ministers should be responsible to Parliament for the whole work of the Commission, provided always that necessary safeguards are secured for the rights, benefits, and privileges of the poorer classes in the trusts and endowments dealt with by the Charity Commission."

From this conclusion an influential minority dissented on the ground that the "Charity Commission was to a very considerable

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extent a judicial body, bound to administer law and to act in accordance with law."

We may add that the first report is published without the oral evidence on which it is based; but the second is published with the evidence which the Committee had taken. This evidence we have carefully considered independently, with a view to our own conclusions.

11. These deep and vital differences of witnesses so distinguished and experienced have laid upon us peculiar burdens and responsibilities. They represent the Charity Commission both on its judicial and legal, both on its administrative and educational, and on its parliamentary sides, as well as in its historical idea and its actual working. The evidence laid before us has not always been consistent with the evidence given, even by the same witnesses, to other Commissions or Committees of enquiry. This does not mean that a witness is really inconsistent, but only that the difficulties of the situation are such that he cannot always hold his judgment at the same level; the difficulties seen in greater mass, now on this hand and now on that, change the inclination. We may add that the frequency with which the Charity Commission has of recent years appeared before various Commissions or Committees of the House of Commons, is evidence of the number and gravity of the difficulties caused by its composite constitution and functions, and of the need of organic readjustment.

12. In order to complete the presentation of the case and to supply a standard for judging the merits of these several schemes, we must direct attention to some points expressed in the evidence or in other documents before us.

i. The Commission created under the Endowed Schools Acts has, alike in its separate existence and in its present form, been described as (a) provisional both in its jurisdiction and in its work, because through the absence of the Minister it has no direct political responsibility for its schemes and no connexion with the local authorities; (b) partial, because it looked only to endowments and not to "Secondary Education as a whole"; and (c) isolated, because it has dealt with the schools "one by one" rather than looked at "the whole of the schools in a given area together". While it is this in fact, it was meant by the Schools Enquiry Commission to be exactly the reverse - permanent, national, co-ordinative, and organising. And so it is a matter of simple historical justice that we look at the Charity Commission through what it was designed to be as an educational authority as well as through what it is.

ii. The Schools Enquiry Commission when they proposed that "the central authority might be constituted by enlarging the powers of the Charity Commission", had a

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very different body in view from the one which now exists under the Endowed Schools Acts, or would exist were this body separated from the Charity Commission. It was one which should (a) "continue in charge of educational as of other charities"; (b) have the Minister of Education as president for educational purposes; and (c) be represented and defended by him in Parliament. In the event of this scheme not being adopted, and one preferred which should keep the administration of schools independent of political parties, "the Commission desired that there should be added to the Charity Commission a member of Parliament who would be able to explain in his place the reasons for every scheme that was proposed, to show its relations to other schemes, and in the absence of a minister to answer any questions that might be asked." On either alternative, therefore, the Charity Commission was to be an executive department as well as a judicial body, with functions not only of "scheme-making", but of administration and organisation in a broadly national sense.

iii. They also considered Parliament as "the supreme trustee of endowments", and so held that its approval of schemes ought in "some form or other to be obtained". The notion that no doubt underlay this provision was the one so well expressed by Lord Davey; "I regard the educational endowments as a "public fund appropriated to education". The endowments were therefore considered as the financial basis on which the organisation or reconstitution of a national system of Secondary Education was to proceed; and so the Charity Commission was conceived as a body created by Parliament to legislate under its control and to administer for the common good the funds of which it was "the supreme trustee".

iv. In harmony with this conception the Schools Enquiry Commission were careful to say that "the power of the Charity Commissioners to deal with trusts in the manner they had described should be limited to educational charities", but they expressly said, "the word educational ought to be construed in a wide sense". They did not seem therefore to have any difficulty in conceiving the same body as at once legislative, judicial, and administrative, and in no respect disqualified by possessing special powers over educational for continuing "in charge of other charities".

v. But this central authority was to be stimulative rather than supersessive of local action, and so the burden of framing schemes was to be left to the local authority which knew the local needs, while the power to resist or sanction remained with the central.

vi. The actual constitution and functions of the Commission are thus much narrower than our predecessors proposed that they should be, and this has resulted in a corresponding restriction in the field and effects of its operations. Its action has been neces-

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sarily too piece-meal and too divorced from the educational policy of the period to accomplish all that was expected and desired. For the matters in which there has been success and failure we must refer to the evidence.

13. If we now turn to the five competitive schemes which have been laid before us, and attempt a comparative estimate of their respective claims, we find we must judge them by those broad views of policy which guided our predecessors rather than by the limitations which have been imposed on the Charity Commission by the Acts which have constituted it, and the methods under which it has been forced to do its work. The change in the whole field of education, the growing demand made upon the resources of the country for its organisation and maintenance, compel us to consider how the older schools, with all their energies and experience, can best, in all matters educational, be correlated with the new, and made with them contributory to the common object, the completeness and efficiency of Secondary Education. In order to do this the Charity Commission, which is the body charged with such central supervision or control as is at present exercised over our older schools, ought in our view to be so associated with the office of Secondary Education as to be fitted for its part in the common work. The alternative schemes which we have just described are so many ways and methods of effecting this association, and accomplishing this end. Our question, therefore, is: Which of these schemes seems best adapted to fulfil the purpose all have in view?

(1) We may begin with Mr. Stevenson's scheme, and of it we may say, it seems to us a scheme that would be as little satisfactory to the Minister and the secretaries, parliamentary and official, who would constitute the majority of the Board, as to the permanent Commissioners who would constitute the minority. It would tend to relieve the last-named of their most serious and regulative responsibilities, while it would burden the Minister and the secretaries with the most disagreeable of all things, duties they were only half expected to fulfil. Besides, the "separate identity" of a board where the permanent Commissioners could be habitually out-voted by the Minister and the secretaries would not amount to much.

(2) Passing to the Report of Sir Robert Hamilton's Departmental Committee, we cannot but feel that its chief value lies in its clear and forcible statement of some of the leading objections to the transference of any judicial or semi-judicial work to a body directly under political control, rather than in the cogency of its conclusion as affecting the questions referred to us. It must, indeed, be remembered that -

(i) While the evidence upon which, it was based has not been fully published, yet, having regard both to time and witnesses, we may say that it has been partly superseded and partly supplemented by the later and further evidence submitted both to us and to the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed in 1894.

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(ii) The question of departmental organisation submitted to the Departmental Committee is subsidiary to the question of a national system of Secondary Education referred to us. But they naturally followed the reverse order, and dealt with the educational as subsidiary to the departmental question. Thus they say, "to whatever educational agency a State supervision over Secondary Education as a whole might be entrusted by Parliament, the Charity Commission must of necessity retain such jurisdiction as they now possess over secondary schools enjoying charitable endowments."

(iii) But exactly on this fundamental question, which holds the key of the whole position, and is a matter of national policy rather than departmental organisation, they had not conducted the enquiries needed for a really judicial finding, for these lay outside the scope of their reference.

(3) As to the other four schemes proposed by our witnesses we may say this:

(a) The first appears inadequate. Simply to withdraw the Endowed Schools Commissioners from the Charity Commission and place them under the Minister, would be, so far as the endowed schools are concerned, to reduce the Central Authority to little more than a scheme-making department, and this for only a proportion of the schools. It would, once the schemes were made, hand over the educational endowments as charitable trusts to the Commission, and would leave certain of our most important schools without any relation to the educational authority. This would be fatal to effective organisation and co-ordination.

(b) The second proposal, with its line of division between the legal and educational sides, would go a long way towards paralysing the educational authority, especially where it most needed support, save on the condition of such an amount of influence being reserved to it as would reduce the significance of the line, or even obliterate it altogether.

(c) The third scheme appears to lie open to the grave objection that it would create what the former Commissioners thought, undesirable, two Charity Commissions, a creation which would "necessitate the discussion of many embarrassing questions on the limits of the province of each, and on the assignment of particular charities to one or the other". This bi-section, as we may term it, of the Commission, would not be an easy or even in every respect a complete process, the mixed endowments would not be severed into their several parts without long and toilsome labour; the educational, quite as much as the non-educational, endowments would require the exercise of judicial or quasi-judicial functions; and so each body would have all the characteristics of a Commission dealing with charities; but their relative importance might be seriously affected by the one standing alone while the other was incorporated with a great and expanding Department. Over against these disadvantages there are, however, obvious advantages to be set. We

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feel that our special duly was to consider the question as it affects educational trusts; and on a careful review of our evidence, and full discussion of the principles and issues involved, we came to think that it would be a real national gain to place these endowments under a Minister of Education. And we were also, in the face of the growing disinclination to consent to the conversion of charities, forced to the conclusion that some such separation as this might tend to an increase of confidence in the administration of the non-educational charities, and in the acceptance of a broader policy in the treatment of the educational.

(d) The fourth scheme, that of complete transference, raises issues that run outside our reference; but it was laid before us by witnesses in a form which compelled us to consider it. We could not but feel that it had the conspicuous merit of simplicity, and, under certain aspects it appeared as attractive as it seemed simple. The following considerations appeared to us not without weight:

i. There were precedents for such a transference in other Departments, notably the Local Government Board, in whose hands similar "judicial or semi-judicial work" has been placed by statute. Sir William Hart-Dyke admitted that there were no serious difficulties in the way of Ministers dealing with the legal side of the Charity Commission, as indeed the vice-president already had legal functions in connexion with its schemes. For the rest, relations regulated by statute must always be more satisfactory both for Ministers and officials than relations of semi-responsibility. This is well illustrated by the reasons which induced Mr. Forster, when he was, as was then the custom, both Vice-president of the Committee of Council and the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner, to decline to attend the board meetings. He had Ministerial status without Ministerial power, and so he refused to incur responsibility for what he did not sanction.

ii. It would be very undesirable indeed were the large experience in dealing both with schools and endowments gained during the past 25 years to be even partially lost to the Department by the Commission being divided or broken up.

iii. It would be a very doubtful policy which divorced the body which is the statutory guardian of the accumulated charities of the country from the Department which has so large a proportion of these charities in charge for a really great national purpose. Rivalries between charities, and the constant clearing up of their always varying and uncertain marches ought, if at all possible, to be avoided.

iv. The Charity Commissioners themselves, in a most impressive and judicial statement as to that branch of their work "which deals with educational endowments specially in their educational aspect", say, "This work is, in the main, different in kind from our current administrative work upon charitable

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Endowments generally; and, though incapable, on grounds alike of convenience and economy, of absolute official severance from it, must, we think, continue to be separately transacted within our office." This statement is the more significant that it comes in a Report which is a Summary of their own experience under both the Charitable Trusts and the Endowed Schools Acts.

v. In answer to the fear that charities under a Minister might be liable to suffer from political bias or control, we would suggest that the frequency with which the Charity Commission has of late been subjected to Parliamentary enquiry may be a greater hindrance to its judicial functions than even incorporation with an administrative Department.

vi. Two considerations may be added in conclusion. (a) The clear responsibility of a minister would greatly improve the parliamentary situation. (b) Legal questions could still be determined by an appeal to a court of law.

But while the scheme had, so far as it came within our province, much to commend it, we conceived that it involved too many things lying outside our province to be embraced in our conclusions.

We are here concerned with this Department only in respect of its present action and proposed place in Secondary Education. This limitation excludes from our purview its functions outside this province, notably the Museum at South Kensington and the Royal College of Science.

14. The most significant points in the opinions expressed by our witnesses may be stated thus: (a) The sort of instruction the Department aided was described by the Secretary as "distinctly secondary instruction, except drawing in elementary schools". (b) The form of its aid was by grants given as payment on results, "except as regards the organised science schools", which, "under the old regulations, received a capitation grant in addition". (c.) It was claimed for the mode of ascertaining and testing the results, viz., by examination, that it "has succeeded in doing what no other system could have done, carrying science instruction all over the country, without ever raising any sectarian difficulty of any kind". But, it may be added, as regards science schools, inspection is being used in an increasing degree. (d) The range or field of studies is science, in a very liberal sense of the term, and art, but not literature. This has had two very noteworthy effects, on the one hand it has

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made possible the creation of higher grade elementary schools as organised science schools, and so has added Secondary Education of a peculiar and limited character as a crown to our elementary system, and, on the other hand, it; has hitherto made a demand of time for science that the endowed grammar schools could not very well satisfy without unduly contracting their literary instruction. The consequent educational results have not been altogether satisfactory. (i) The organised science schools "which are practically the higher grade schools in the country", have been compelled so to organise themselves as to live out of the grants. For these schools can live only so far as they are independent of the local rates, and their education, alike as regards subjects selected and method of instruction, is necessarily of a kind that must satisfy the authorities who supply the income. Hence has come a narrow curriculum, a neglect of literature, and an unsuitable style of instruction, i.e., the schools have had to cultivate "those subjects for which they can be paid", i.e., those specified "in the syllabus of the Science and Art Department". It is indeed contemplated that in organised science schools more regard should in future be had to literature, but this as at first interpreted did not seem to mean much, as "the literary instruction" would not be of a kind to require "any large amount of inspection or examination". But we had later important modifying evidence which showed that new regulations were about to be introduced, which should allow a larger place to literature, a higher scale of capitation grant, lay less emphasis on results, and make more liberal use of inspection. (ii) There has also been an undue exclusion of schools constituted for a more liberal system of education. "Up to now it has not been really the function of the Department to aid the secondary instruction which is given by the grammar school." (e) But a no less significant matter is that as far as higher grade elementary schools, not being organised science schools, are concerned the present system duplicates inspection and introduces a double scale of grants. On the one side are those below the seventh standard, whom the Education

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Department knows, but not the Science and Art; in the middle those in the seventh standard, whom both Departments know; and on the other side, those above it, whom the Science and Art Department knows, but the Education Department does not know. And hence comes this mischievous consequence: Schools suffer from a chronic examination fever, and are ever being prepared either for the inspectors, who may, for example, come in November, or the examiners, whose papers appear in May. (f) In dealing with schools, the Science and Art is much more independent of legislative control than the Education Department, and so tends to harass them by a too frequent change of rules.

15. This, however, represents only one side of its action, its dealings with education through the schools. On the other side it has relations with those who govern schools or locally assist and control some kinds of instruction. The Science and Art Department, as the only "central authority for technical education", comes into varied and complex relations with local authorities, county councils, technical committees, school boards, and bodies of various sort who have charged themselves with some functions in regard to special branches of Secondary Education. But while the Education Department and the school boards stand in organic and defined relations to each other, there is in the case of the Science and Art Department no such clear and regulated connexion between the central and the local authorities. The subjects aided are similar, and indeed often identical in kind, but the aid is not always given with full and exact knowledge by the givers of the grants they respectively and severally allow. The central and local authorities, besides, frequently subsidise in kindly ignorance the same schools. It is complained, too, that the Department offers scholarships which attract boys from those offered locally, the action of the centres thus making work in the provinces at once more difficult and more expensive. On the whole it may be said that, in the view of our witnesses, there was overlapping and confusion at both ends of the scale, i.e., alike at the centre, between the Education and the Science and Art Departments as well as the Charity Commission, and at the circumference, where these Departments touch the local authorities and the schools.

16. In the face of this evidence as to the working of the Science and Art Department as a Department of Secondary Education, we felt bound to enquire as to whether it ought not to be combined or co-ordinated with other Educational Departments. Its present connexion with the Education Department is only a personal one, through the Vice-President of the Council, "in every other respect", it is "independent". Sir John Donnelly saw "no necessity for any amalgamation"; all that was necessary was systematic "co-operation". The work "might be co-ordinated more than at present" with that of the Charity Commission, but he did not see "how it could be (co-ordinated) more closely with the

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Education Department". In this view he stood quite alone. Sir George Kekewich advocated that the Science and Art and his own Department should be joined together "through the permanent officials as well as through the parliamentary head". The Bishop of London thought union would be an advantage. Sir William Hart-Dyke would have it affiliated, which he explained meant "subordinated" to the new Department. Fusion was advocated by the representatives of the National Union of Teachers, of the Headmasters of the Organised Science Schools, of school boards, of the county councils, as well as by independent witnesses. The grounds on which this union or incorporation has been urged are, (a) efficiency both as regards inspection of schools, methods of instruction, distribution and range of subjects; (b) economy both as regards imperial and local funds; (c) unity of spirit and aim in education; and (d) harmony of relation in all sections of work between the central and the local authorities.

17. Now there are two points of view from which the evidence thus submitted to us, and the policy it recommended has to be studied, the educational, and the political and financial. Under the first head, the question is, whether the Department, as now situated and organised, is adequately serving the cause of Secondary Education; and under the second, whether it is using, or causing to be used, to the best advantage the resources intended for the studies it directs.

(1) We gladly recognise the services which the Department has rendered to both science and education, and indeed to the whole field of knowledge. It has encouraged studies which our traditional methods of education had completely ignored; fostered institutions that without it could never have lived; created an interest and an attitude of mind which has been a real culture to multitudes of our English people. But we feel that the objections, based on the experience alike of managers, masters, and inspectors of schools to its continued existence as a separate department, are very serious indeed. Its defects are not those of administration, but they are, as it were, inherent in its constitution. It is too centralised and too specialised, too little able to adapt itself to the changes it has been a main factor in effecting, while also too irresponsible in its modes and times of adaptation. It was not originally intended to be, in the strict sense of the term, a department of education, i.e., its functions were not those of the creation, the control, the inspection, and the development of schools; but it was designed to encourage the study of subjects which the ordinary curricula of schools did not recognise, and which seemed to lie mainly outside their province. Hence it was not so much education it had in view as instruction in special subjects, especially those that promised

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to be of most use for our arts and industries; and its examinations were, alike as regards forms and time, more adapted to adults than to school boys. But the course of events has made it what it was not intended to be - an education department, supplementing in some respects, duplicating in others, the Department properly so-called. And now, in order to meet the new conditions, it needs to be more liberal in its recognition of literary subjects, to feel that they are essential to education, and not alien to science; to have regard to schools as wholes, and not simply to sections or subjects; to judge scholars as it judges schools, and test more by inspection and less by examination. We need, too, less of the disturbance which comes to education from the multitude of authorities which have to do with it, and more of the feeling of responsibility to a single head. In a word, it appears as if we can secure unity in administration only by a united department.

(2) The political and the financial considerations are even stronger. Two things seem to characterise the present situation, (i) the variety of the sources, national and local, whence money can be drawn for scientific and technical education, and (ii) the multitude of bodies through which and by which it can be spent. Now economy will not come simply by massing the money in the hands of a central authority; for that would mean its distribution by an iron uniformity of method that would often make expenditure equivalent to waste. What was needed at the extremities would not be always known at the centre, and what the centre enforced would often be more injurious than beneficial to the extremities. Hence the most advantageous and economical line of policy is for the central authority to spend in an increasing degree through the local; but in order to regulate and harmonise their aim and policies, the central must be a united authority. For only as it is this can co-ordination be promoted in the provinces or educational districts. The rise of the local authorities has increased, as it were, the centrifugal tendencies in education, and has shown how easily the very vigour of the local life may become creative of conflicting interests and aims. Thus we have at Manchester the Grammar School under its Charity Commission scheme, the Organised Science Schools under the school board, the Technical Schools under the corporation, and the Owens College, all at certain points rivalling rather than supplementing each other, while the science grants encourage and increase the confusion rather than repress and reduce it. The new powers, too, for the guidance of local authorities, with the exceptional responsibilities they involve, which have come to the Department through the grants to technical education, greatly strengthen the case for incorporation. The Department is the only central body which exercises any guidance over the expenditure of the local taxation grants so far as they are appropriated to what we may call our now Secondary Education. And this should help to define its

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place and work within the new department. While the Charity Commission represents the endowments which are our inherited educational wealth, South Kensington represents in great part the taxation which is our current educational income. The one thus conserves the accumulations of the past, but the other distributes and regulates the resources of the present. And the correlatives of the means they possess are the schools, or the departments in schools, they respectively control, the one mainly the older schools with their classical traditions, the other chiefly the more modern schools or departments, with their more practical aims, with the result that the one influences largely, though by no means solely, the more literary learning, the other the newer and the more scientific. And these are so many reasons for the co-ordination of these two offices. The accumulated and the current wealth of the nation ought not to be, as here, divided in idea and use, but so combined as to bring about a more excellent result. For our witnesses have frequently complained that technical instruction has been hindered or even made useless by a defective early training. Then it would be more economical, especially in the more necessitous districts, to work through the older than to create new schools; and it would be more statesmanlike to help inexperienced local authorities by concordant advice from the centre, instead of perplexing them by counsels which are always independent and often inconsistent. Thus the Charity Commission and the Science and Art Departments would, were they co-ordinated, form an office capable of fulfilling the functions of husbanding educational resources and making it easier to harmonise educational ideals.

18. The evidence analysed and the discussions pursued in the previous sections have involved almost all that need be here reported as to this Department. Its relations to Secondary Education have already been indicated as also the evidence as to what its future connexion with the central authority ought to be. We may repeat that this evidence has, as a whole, been in favour of unification, the note of dissent only helping to accentuate the general agreement. But the unification is not to be understood as implying an identity or even uniformity of administrative methods in all branches of education. Greater variety and freedom are necessary in secondary schools than the old uniform codes allowed in elementary. Teachers and others interested in the ideal of a more liberal education have shown a proper and becoming fear lest the hard reign of these codes, which has, indeed, of late years been, with happiest results, gradually made lighter, should be introduced into secondary schools, or lest all spontaneity should be ground out of them by the iron machinery of "payment by results". It would certainly be most calamitous were any methods and rules, similar to those

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which in their former rigidity proved so mischievous to elementary education, to be applied to secondary. But we believe that the precisely opposite result would follow from the establishment of a closer relation between the elementary and secondary departments, the Minister and the office would have to survey the whole field, and to think of it as a whole, and not simply of its several parts, while the influence of the higher education would penetrate downwards and enormously increase the forces that work towards the higher ideals. Then, too, as the different degrees in which the schools of the two classes depend on Imperial and local funds creates an almost fundamental difference of relation to the central authority, the most probable result of a united office would be that much of tire consideration extended to secondary schools would find its way into the treatment of the elementary. On the other hand it is necessary to remember that a good deal of Secondary Education is given in the higher grade elementary schools, that there are districts of the country where one of the easiest methods of providing for it is to use these schools, while in not a few places endowments exist which a united department would be more able to make available for it. Again, too, the passage both of qualified teachers and scholars from one kind and grade of school to another will be made more easy if the various central agencies can be so co-ordinated within a single office. Any tendency to undue expansion it may show will be checked and counterbalanced by the enhanced importance of the education it has to administer, the profession which has to conduct, and the local authorities which will have to control it. It may fairly be expected that the department which speaks with one voice in Parliament will have a systematic and well-considered policy throughout the country, though this policy ought to be capable of adaptation to all the varied circumstances of the counties and county boroughs. And this policy will have a larger and more liberal spirit when it has to reckon with Secondary, than when it had to deal with Elementary Education alone.

19. We found on the part of those who appeared before us, either as teachers or as their representatives, remarkable unanimity of opinion as to the need for a Council or Board of Education; but there was the utmost variety of views as to its place and power, how it should be related to the Minister and to Parliament, and how and after what model it should be constituted. Much of this variety proceeded from insufficient acquaintance with the intricate administrative problems involved or from inadequate knowledge of the institutions or departments in which analogies were sought; but the significant thing was,

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not the range and variety of opinion as to what the Council ought to be and to do, it was rather the strength and unanimity of the feeling that some such Council or Board was necessary. The Headmasters' Conference, the Headmasters' Association, the College of Preceptors, the Representatives of the Teachers' Guild, of the Private Schoolmasters, of the National Union of Teachers, of the School Boards, of representative Schoolmasters were all agreed as to the need for forming such a Council, and in this they had the support of so experienced an inspector as Mr. Fitch. On the other hand, doubt of its expediency, or anxious restriction of its scope, or explicit objection to it under any form, proceeded from officials, politicians, or jurists.

20. On several points, over and above the need of the Council, there was tolerable unanimity of professional opinion. (a) There was general agreement as to its constitution; the common view being that it ought to be composed of representatives of the Crown, the universities, and the teachers. (b) It was admitted, even by witnesses who were dubious as to its expediency, that it would have a very distinct function in making and keeping a register of teachers, and in maintaining some form of discipline within the profession. (c) It was also generally recognised that the regulation of examinations might very properly fall within its province. But when we passed beyond these points radical differences of view began to appear. The most fundamental point was the relation to the Minister. The Headmasters' Conference recommended that "the central authority consist of a statutory commission composed to a great extent of persons experienced in educational matters, independent of any other department, and responsible to Parliament through a Minister of the Crown". But they did not explain how this Commission was to be constituted, what was meant by "persons experienced in educational matters", how its independence was to be understood and maintained, how it was to be responsible to Parliament, how related to the Minister who was to speak for it, whether in the case of disagreement he was to have the power of over-ruling it, or it was to have the power of dispensing with him, or whether Parliament was to be called in to adjudicate between them, and, if necessary, dismiss both. The private schoolmasters were of opinion that the Minister was "to take the advice of the body (i.e., the Council) and act upon it", which apparently meant, to use the words of another of our witnesses, "that the supreme control of education should rest with a body largely professional". But, as a rule, the proposals were of a much more moderate character. Supremacy was to remain with the Minister, the Council was to be consultative or advisory, and in all cases of difference his will was finally to prevail. The administrative bodies ordinarily used as types were the Medical Council, the

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Indian Council, and, in rarer cases, the Admiralty and the Board of Trade. The two former are, indeed, the only serious comparisons; the two latter have no real points of analogy.

21. We could not but feel that the views of so many important witnesses, all intimately and practically acquainted with education and vitally concerned in its prosperity and progress, were entitled to our most serious consideration. It is evident that so large a body of capable and experienced men, representing, too, so many and divergent ideals and interests, could not be so unanimous on this point without some strong reason; and it is no less evident that we were bound to consider the reason in their demand and the mode in which it could be most justly satisfied. The position will be generally conceded that it is impossible to organise Secondary Education simply as a Department of State, were it only for this reason, that it has never been, is not now, and, under present conditions, cannot possibly be made a Government monopoly. It has been largely dependent on individual enterprise; it has been served by men whose genius has been the passion to instruct, and by their invention and enthusiasm, which no Department could have created, education has profited richly. Schools, too, have been founded by private or voluntary energy out of nobler motives than the struggle for the means to live, and those who have founded, built up and adorned them, have an experience the State may most wisely take advantage of. Then, the men who carry on the education of the country occupy a very peculiar position. They are a profession rather than a service, but they differ from other professions in this: that so many draw almost their whole income, directly or indirectly, from public funds, while many more fill posts under schemes which have received express legislative sanction. But a profession which holds so exceptional and responsible a position is one that ought to be careful, both as to the competence and character of those who enter it, and as to the conduct of those who belong to it. And though these are largely professional questions, they are not questions for the profession alone; they concern no less the Minister who embodies the public care for education, and is in charge of the public funds to he used in its support. And so it seems as if somebody were needed, on the one hand, to organise the profession by seeing that only the duly qualified were enrolled among its recognised members, and, on the other hand, to keep it in some sort of organic connexion with the central authority. Moreover, education is not a mere policy which a department can direct and administer; it is a living art, and to practise it, skill and discipline are required. Science is ever discovering for it new methods and

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new subjects, experience is ever improving it, while the growing complexity of our social and mental conditions are ever making demands for some new element or field for its enterprise. The conclusion, then, may be stated thus: the highest authority for education ought to be an educational authority in the highest sense, i.e., an authority which understands it, not only on its legislative and administrative sides, but also on its actual and practical. i.e., as it is in the schools, and for the masters, and in the associations and institutions which garner their experience, shape their minds, and formulate their ideas. Hence arises the problem which the teachers have so uniformly and so persistently urged upon us: How may the State, i.e., the Minister who here impersonates it, be best informed and aided in making education itself, as distinguished from the machinery needed to its organised existence, more satisfactory and efficient, without having his authority in any way restricted or his responsibility lessened?

22. The Board or Council largely "composed of persons experienced in educational matters", is the mode of dealing with this problem, which has, as we have just seen, been strongly recommended to us by witnesses whose experience and competence we are bound to respect. But, of course, such a council may be so constituted as to lie open to obvious and serious objections. There is the want of precedent; the Medical Council, though it has a great and statutory function within the profession, has no place under the Crown as either the legislative or consultative council of a Minister. The Council for India is no real parallel, because of the simple fact that it is Indian, and India is not England, with the relations and mutual obligations of the central and local authorities governed by English law and custom. Indeed an expedient for governing a Dependency can hardly be a fit analogy to a Home Department concerned with the matters about which English feeling is most sensitive and the English mind most justly jealous. Then it is in contradiction to our ideas of political responsibility that a Minister should be advised in matters of high policy by a Statutory Commission which he did not appoint and cannot dismiss, yet may be bound to disregard. It would be as if a Prime Minister had his Cabinet created for him rather than by him, and were set to administer affairs by means of agents with whom he did not agree. And as in this case the majority of the council might be without responsibility to the Parliament which would hold the Minister responsible, the anomalies would be vastly increased. Then the control, however carefully disguised or qualified by a non-political body, or a body with only the most limited political responsibility, of what is perhaps the most serious question in our domestic politics, would seem to be opposed to the most familiar yet most deeply-rooted principles of our public order. Finally, it is contended that the action of a body without financial experience

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within a province which very closely touches, on the one hand, both national and local finance, and, on the other hand, the interests of certain among its own members and the classes they represent - is one which could not co-exist with our ordinary principles and methods of government.

23. But though the statement of these objections is enough to show what the council cannot possibly be, yet they do not prove that any or every council is impossible. A council, either superior to the Minister or co-ordinate with him, is a proposal that cannot bear discussion, but this does not mean that every kind of council is to be excluded. If there is a sphere for it and it can be so constituted as to be adapted for work within its sphere, the objections just stated will lose their force. On these points we have to submit the following considerations.

(a) As to sphere (i) there is a large and important province in education, which lies quite outside the field of parliamentary politics. In this province lie the questions as to the terms on which men are to be admitted and to remain members of the teaching profession, as to the most efficient methods under which schools can be inspected and examined, as to the means by which educational ideals can best be made to penetrate the educational machinery, scholastic and political. Were a body of educational advisers to help in such matters it would tend to correct the rigid habit of the official mind, and to modify the equally rigid rules of a State office. It is significant that the Schools Enquiry Commission proposed the creation of a council for purposes akin to these. (ii) Local authorities, especially at the critical moments of creating new schools or initiating new schemes, are often in need of skilled advice other than an administrative department can supply, and it would be of immense consequence that there was a recognised and responsible public body to whom they could appeal for what they needed. (iii) The Minister, who cannot always be a master of all matters educational, may be as often in need of advice as the local authorities themselves, and it is better that he have this from a regularly constituted body, acting deliberately and after discussion, than from persons called in for the occasion and hidden from public criticism. (iv) In any system of examinations that may be instituted the existence of a body at the centre related as well to the schools on the one hand, and to the universities and similar examining bodies on the other, as to the Minister, would be of advantage in preventing the abuse and securing the beneficial use of any such system. (v) Certain schools, as non local in character, will be outside any local system, but ought all the more to be within the national. And so far as these schools may fall under the central authority, a council would be the fittest body to consider and decide their peculiar questions. (vi) In the local administration of education, questions affecting many interests, educational, professional, and public, are certain to arise; and it would be a matter of the utmost importance if there

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were a duly constituted body, which was not simply an administrative or executive office, to which schools or localities could on such questions appeal for advice or decision. If, then, the sphere within which the council is to move be so defined, there is evidently both a place and function for it. Most of the matters specified are non-political in character, and where they touch policy, the supremacy of the Minister must of course be secured. But clearly it would be a distinct gain were he in so immense a field relieved of those responsibilities which are of a non-political and strictly professional or scholastic character.

(b) As to constitution, we have seen that almost all our witnesses were agreed; the council was to be composed of men, however appointed, who could be regarded as representative of the Crown, the universities, and the teachers. No one of these elements could be omitted. (i) The Crown must of course have its nominees, who would naturally be persons of adequate public or administrative experience. By them the council would be kept in touch with the Minister, and the Minister with the council. (ii) The universities are proper bodies to be represented. For them Secondary Education is largely a preparation, by them secondary schools will probably be in a large degree examined, in them their masters will mostly be trained. Their relations to Secondary Education are thus organic and vital. The schools need to feel the influence of the universities and the universities of the schools. The only thing that can give unity to our education is continuity of spirit and idea. The quality of instruction given in the schools determines the degree of culture realised in the university, while the ideal of the university penetrates and elevates the work of the schools. The greatest interest of the universities is thus the schools; the greatest interest of the schools, is the universities, and their co-ordination in a central council would tend to the happier development of our educational system as a whole. (iii) But even more do those who teach in the schools themselves need here a place. There is no profession which exercises a more potent influence on our national character and destinies than the scholastic, or through which and on which our legislature is acting more powerfully. It may be a most mischievous and indeed disintegrative thing to make a profession an imperium in imperio, but legitimate influence within its own province legislatively recognised tends to dissolve the smaller into the larger imperium. Only good, it seems to us, would follow were the teachers through members of their own body made to see education not only through the atmosphere of their profession and school, but also from the standpoint both of national policy and of the administrative aims and difficulties of the Department. And it is no less important that the ideals and perplexities of the educators be interpreted to the Minister of Education. (iv) And this Minister would require for certain purposes to be not only a member of the council, but also its president. It would never do to have two co-ordinate

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authorities legislating and administering within the same province, but while there is a distinct province for the Minister, there is a no less distinct province for the council; and even where it acted, and ought to act, independently of him, those nominated by him would yet remain constituent members of it. We feel, however, somewhat doubtful as to whether these three elements, however important and necessary, be exhaustive or sufficient. In the organisation and direction of Secondary Education the local authorities are destined to play an even greater and more important part than the central, and play it under greater difficulties. To secure their mutual intelligibility and good understanding seems, therefore, a necessity of the situation. To see the local problem at the centre from the local point of view, to see the national question in the province from the national standpoint, would tend to the happier relations of the two authorities on whose wise and concordant action the future of education depends. And so we believe that if some scheme could be framed by which the local authorities could be represented on the central council, the organisation of Secondary Education would be the completer and more efficient. But in view of the necessarily small size of the central council and the large number of the local authorities as well as the peculiar difficulties attending every attempt to form them into a special electoral body, such a scheme appears impracticable. However, the desired connexion may be established in another way by the representation of the central on the local authority, a question which falls more naturally to be discussed in the next section.

24. On no point were our witnesses more entirely unanimous than on this, - the necessity of local authorities to a national system of Secondary Education. There was, indeed, almost every possible variety of opinion as to how they should be constituted; over what area they should reign; what they should be empowered to do; what schools they should have to do with; and what they should have to do with the schools; but as to some form of local authority being a necessity of the situation, there was no difference of opinion whatever. There was, however, a well-marked distinction of intellectual attitude: on the one side, professional scholastic opinion was, on the whole, though by no means unanimously, fearful of local authorities, and inclined to propose that they should be if not muzzled, yet so constituted and conditioned as to be made as innocuous us possible: on the other side, what we may term the administrative and political mind looked hopefully to such authorities us the most potent and promising factors for the solution of the problem. Each attitude is explicable enough. The schoolmaster, the more

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competent he is and the more assured In position, wants the more to be let alone. What he needs in order to attain the best results is, on the one side, command of means and possession of pupils, and, on the other, freedom of hand and method; and so he desires what he conceives to be the simple conditions of success. But the administrator sees the other side of the question: the necessity of creating and maintaining the machinery which the schoolmaster has to work, and he knows that this can best be done by evoking popular interest and allowing parental or family care for posterity to inspire the educational work and agencies of the present. It would be a serious evil if education were allowed to become the business of the schoolmaster alone; the more completely it grows into the concern of the whole people, and is made an integral part of their common life and civil policy, the more will it flourish and the better will it become. On this point we may refer to the remarkable evidence, already alluded to, of the late Lord Lyttelton before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1873, as quoted, endorsed, and emphasised by Mr. Richmond before another Committee in 1894. Lord Lyttelton, speaking as a member, first, of the Schools Enquiry Commission, and, next, of the Endowed Schools Commission, called attention to the fact that the former had proposed, over and above a central authority, a local or provincial authority, and that whilst the central had, though in a defective form, been created, the local had not come into existence at all. "They intended to rest the whole fabric (of their report) on two great equal pillars - a central and a local authority", but while the one pillar had been built in a fashion, the other remained not only unbuilt but even unattempted. He stated emphatically, as a result of his experience as an Endowed Schools Commissioner, that the want of local bodies had seriously hampered the central authority, had made its work far more difficult, and at times altogether ineffectual. And so he conceived that without the local authority it would be idle "to look for more than an imperfect realisation of the Report and of the Act, at least for a long time to come". And when we turn from his evidence to the Schools Enquiry Report itself, what strikes us is not so much the wisdom of the particular recommendation as the cogency of the reasons advanced. The Commissioners held that "No skill in organisation, no careful adaptation of means in hand to the best ends can do as much for education as the earnest co-operation of the people" and so they propose a board "for the provincial management of schools. Such a board would, no doubt, be much more likely to make mistakes, would represent not only the popular wishes but the popular prejudices; would, perhaps, delay many excellent arrangements; but in whatever else it might be deficient, it would not be deficient in force, and if it made mistakes it would be much more likely to find them out in time and correct them."

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The local authority which the Schools Enquiry Commissioners proposed had some interesting features. It was to be either a provincial or a county board. If provincial, "the Registrar-General's divisions" were to be taken as a basis, and the board was to be constituted of an "Official District Commissioner" appointed by the Charity Commission, and "six or eight unpaid district commissioners appointed by the Crown from the residents in the division". But this was only recommended as a pis aller; what the Commission really desired to see was a much more popular and representative board. They shrank indeed from proposing "the compulsory formation" of such a board in every county, but suggested that its existence was a point which might be left for local decision. If a county determined to have a board then it might be constituted either by indirect or direct election. If by indirect, they proposed "to take the chairman of the boards of guardians, and to add to these half their number nominated by the Crown". But their decided preference was for a board "constituted by direct election" with the "members elected by the ratepayers" balanced by "half as many more members nominated by the Crown" and the official district commissioner as a member ex officio. "Towns of 100,000 inhabitants or more" were to be allowed "to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the provincial boards and rank as provinces or themselves". These urban boards were to be formed of "a certain number of members named by the trustees of all the larger endowed schools and an equal number added by the town council", together with the ex-officio commissioners.

We may further mention as a matter of more than mere historical interest that a similar view as to the need and value of local authorities had been expressed six years earlier, in 1861, by the Commission on Popular Education presided over by the Duke of Newcastle. They recommended that in every county or division of a county a county board of education should be appointed, and that every corporate town of more than 40,000 inhabitants might appoint a borough board of education which was not to exceed six persons, not more than two to be ministers of religion. This was proposed in the interests of decentralisation, and to escape from "the enormous complication in the (London) office due to the central system". Again, in 1884, the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction said, in agreement with their predecessors, "It is to be desired that in the proposed reorganisation of local government, powers should be given to important local bodies, like the proposed county boards and the municipal corporations, to originate and support secondary and technical schools in conformity with the public opinion for the time being of their constituents." We are warranted then in saying that a local authority was the ideal of successive Commissions dealing with elementary, technical, and secondary education respectively, and to this

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authority they looked for the organisation of education and its adaptation to the special needs of each district. And this expectation is one well justified by experience. Here we need only call attention to the report of our Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Findlay, on "Secondary Education in the United States and in Canada", especially in its illustration of the position that, "while elementary education may properly be imposed upon a nation, the higher education ought only to be organised in response to the people's demand, and hence it ought to be mainly under popular control". He sharply points the moral by noticing the evils which have befallen over-centralised Germany, and the elasticity and adaptability which have been attained in America under "popular control and popular support". He further thinks that the centralised system tends to the production of men disqualified by their education for absorption- - or disinclined to it, even where it is most desirable - into any form of manual industry, but that the experience of America shows that Secondary Education popularly organised and administered avoids this unfortunate result.

25. We may assume, then, as conceded by universal consent, that local authorities of some kind are necessary, but it is when we come to consider of what kind that our difficulties begin. We have here repeated many of the problems we met with in the case of the central authority; but their solution is a still harder task owing to the much greater complexity of the factors which have to be employed. Thus a local authority must be suited to its locality, and localities differ in many respects, especially in such cardinal matters as aggregation and distribution of population, social and industrial condition, presence or absence of great towns, the character and traditions of public life, the ease or the difficulty with which this life can be expressed and realised, the paucity or abundance of schools or educational endowments, the accessibility of schools or possible school situations to the outlying districts, the homogeneity or the difference of the various parts or populations of which it may be composed. These were matters which had to be patiently analysed and considered before we could articulate even the skeleton of a possible local authority, and this done we were confronted by difficulties of an altogether different order. The Schools Enquiry Commissioners were harassed by poverty; we are embarrassed by riches. They could find no local body sufficiently representative in character and important in function that could be made the nucleus of the organisation, and so they had, as it were, to extemporise one. And we have it on Mr. Richmond's authority that it was because there were then "no representative bodies covering sufficiently large areas", that the provision for local authorities was omitted from the Bill of 1869. But now we find the field occupied with representative bodies which either have had educational functions thrust upon them or have voluntarily assumed such functions, or have been expressly

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created for their exercise, now in a restricted and now over a more extensive district. Hence come a variety of questions, such as how and out of what materials can local authorities best be created? What ought to be their area, composition, functions? How can they be so constituted as to be adapted, to their several widely differing localities, able to organise their resources, evoke their possibilities, satisfy their needs in the matter of Secondary Education? These are the questions we have now to consider in the light of our evidence.

26. The main proposals which were under this head submitted to us may be said to fall into four classes, the area of the local authority ought to be-determined by (1) the parliamentary division, (2) geographical considerations, such as, e.g., spring out of suitability of a district for educational grouping; (3) population, (4) the existing municipal and county division.

(1) The parliamentary division. This was proposed by various witnesses for districts lying outside boroughs, and was designed to get rid of the unwieldiness of certain counties like Devonshire, or still more the West Riding and Lancashire, with their great variety of interests, their immense areas, and the many important towns within them which just fall short of being county boroughs.

The objections to this proposal are obvious enough. A parliamentary division has nothing permanent about it, is a recent creation, easily made, easily unmade, of no local administrative significance, intended only as a rough method of proportioning political representation to population. Manifestly a division so artificial and unstable, and possessing no rating authority, could not be used to define the area of a permanent and efficient local authority.

(2) The geographical grouping. The simplest and most satisfactory form in which this grouping was proposed had an excellent representative in Sir George Young, who thought that the educational districts could be arranged upon a somewhat larger basis than the small counties, and he illustrated his idea by proposing to "treat Cumberland, and Westmoreland, and Barrow-in-Fumess" as one district. So, too, on the east coast he would associate "the North Riding of York, or, at all events, the Cleveland district of it", with the southern district of Durham. We had two further adaptations of this idea to the case of county and county borough areas presented by two witnesses, the one of whom, in the interests of schools and their constituencies, would merge all boroughs in counties, the other of whom, in the interest of municipalities, would "supersede the school boards by the municipal authorities", and make "each county borough an independent authority for some purposes over education", even preserving the autonomy

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of the non-county boroughs "in reference to their own local education"; but would group "all the boroughs, along with the county in which they stand, into a provincial area governed by a provincial authority".

Of these schemes the first would give a symmetrical district, with all its parts lying well together and supplementing each other, capable of being happily handled by a scheme-making authority. The second would eliminate the local element as much as possible from the authority, which, if thus constituted, would, it might be thought, be likely to leave schools a freer hand. The third would secure to boroughs the double advantage of independence; and a commanding voice in the councils of the county. But when the proposals are broadly, yet closely, considered, they are seen to be impracticable. They would add to our already perplexing multitude of local bodies another, which might have to be fused out of conflicting interests by an organising and delimiting commission. They would involve a complicated system of election, of cross-voting, of assigning the rate when levied, which might beget the suspicion that the stronger localities were being satisfied at the expense of the weaker. The very attempt so to limit local feeling would intensify its force. Westmoreland would complain that it did not compete on equal terms with well schooled Barrow-in-Fumess. Barrow would complain that it was shut out from the numerous and rich scholarships of its own county. Manchester might say that, judged by history, all Lancashire might, in matters educational, be with advantage put under her, but that she could never consent to surrender to any new body the authority she had so long and successfully exercised within her own borders. And we may be sure that nothing would persuade the West Riding to accept a system which gave to boroughs all the advantages of independency with all the privileges of corporate being. We feel, therefore, that we must dismiss the attempt at geographical grouping for one which keeps nearer to the order, social and political, which is actually at work.

(3) Population. This was used in a twofold way, to determine (i) the total area to be covered by the local authority, and (ii) the size of the borough that was to have its independence secured. (i) Whether the area was to be a county or group of counties was to be fixed by the population being, said one, "something like one million or two millions", or, said another, "about half a million". (ii) Here the standard was more varied. A county borough was to remain an independent authority, if it had, said one, a population of "about half a million", or, said another, "exceeded 150,000, or possibly even 100,000", "the latter figure is the best", said a third, quite decisively.

The objection to such a classification is its arbitrary character, and the difficulty of uniformly and rigorously applying it. There are counties and boroughs that fall just below the line,

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yet are yearly approaching it; that, therefore, would be all the more jealous of their position; and that could not be added to a neighbour or merged in a district without raising its population above the line. Then the institutions, or agencies through which any new educational authority must work, have not been fixed by population as it now is, but by older and more historical causes; and if a new authority is to work well, it will have to create as few cross divisions, and do as little violence to local feeling as possible, i.e., it must be as much adapted to the means it has to employ as to the ends it has to serve.

(4) There remains the fourth method of delimitation, viz., that which accepts the existing municipal area of the administrative county or county borough. It has certain conspicuous conveniences; it is a defined electoral area, with a public spirit of its own, acquainted with its available representative men, and already organised alike for purposes of rating and allocation of national grants. Its inconveniences are also obvious: the area may be too small or too large, too thickly or too thinly populated, or its line may be drawn through a dense population, with the well-endowed and equipped schools on one side of the line, and the greater body of the people on the other. But these inconveniences may be obviated by a less burdensome and revolutionary measure than the special creation of educational areas or provinces, with all the electoral, fiscal, and administrative readjustments it would involve. Almost all the witnesses who had special knowledge have recognised that, in certain cases, considerations of geography, population, distribution of endowments, or social and economic unity, may make it desirable that counties should be allowed to combine with counties, or boroughs with counties or with other boroughs, and in this matter the central authority might fitly enough have something to say. Grouping, in short, may often be effectually secured without being made compulsory, and it will work the more happily that it comes from within rather than is imposed from without. But this is a point where the central authority may be able to intervene with excellent results. Combination for special purposes is a separate question which will be noticed in a later part of our Report.

27. There was no question we more anxiously considered, and on which we more carefully and constantly examined the witnesses competent to speak upon it, than this: How ought the local authority to be constituted? In this, three distinct questions are involved. (1) Of what elements ought the body to be composed? (2) In what relative proportion ought they to exist? and (3) How are they to be obtained or appointed? As regards (1) our witnesses showed remarkable unanimity of opinion; as regards (2) their opinions varied,

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yet without serious difference; and as regards (3) they showed both a remarkable variety and diversity of opinion.

28. It was generally, though not universally, held that the local authority ought to consist of representative and of expert members, or, in other words, of representatives of the ratepayers directly or indirectly elected; and of persons skilled in the conduct of schools and the work of education. We have no need to argue the case of the representative members, it goes without dispute; but as to experts the matter is altogether different, and must be dealt with more in detail. Experts may be said to be of five classes: (a) members of learned bodies, such as universities, (b) teachers, (c) managers of schools, (d) inspectors, (e) (more especially with reference to technical education) persons possessing special knowledge of the conditions of industry.

(a) Importance was attached by many witnesses to the representation of the universities and university colleges. Of these latter there is now a considerable number, fairly well distributed over most part of the country, in touch with many counties, alive to their needs, organised with a view to their satisfaction, with all their promise and possibilities bound up with the local education. These colleges, too, as aided by national funds are, part of a national system, their teachers form a learned corporation, and are men at once of academic culture and experience and of local interest and knowledge. The experience of Wales also seems to show that these colleges are eminently fit bodies to be represented on any local authority in education. The case of the universities is rather different. They are, of course, at once local and national, and in the former character would have a distinct and legitimate part to play within defined areas. Certain, too, of the colleges of the older universities have ancient and intimate relations to certain localities as, for example, Exeter College, Oxford, with Devonshire and Cornwall, and Queen's with Yorkshire and Westmoreland; and these relations might be most fitly maintained and extended by representation on the local authority. But the difficulties of general university representation are serious. The representatives would have to be either local men or men still in residence. If the former, there is a danger that they might be representatives only in name. Their knowledge of the university might be slight and altogether out of date, its knowledge of them still slighter; what was done in its name it might never know, what was learned by its representative it might never ascertain; and so the very end desired - mutual influence of school on university and university on school, exercised through mutual knowledge, would not be gained. If, again, the men in residence be taken we are met by difficulties of another order, those of expenditure, both of men and means. The already overburdened working members of the university would be severely taxed, and the service would be a costly one to render both as regards time and money. It is probable that, except in the case of neighbouring localities,

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or where there exists some special connexion with more distant parts of the country, the universities would usually prefer to be represented by graduates not in residence, and it might well deserve to be considered by the universities whether the objections to this alternative would not be largely removed if they were to convene annual meetings of those appointed to represent them on the local educational authorities. Such conferences, especially if they were held at the various universities in turn, would be an effectual way of bringing the experience of their representatives before the universities, the views of the universities before their representatives. If, therefore, a way could be found by which the universities could join in the work of organising the schools, there would be gain all round. There would be more unity of spirit and aim in all the branches and stages of our educational system. The knowledge the university gains by examination it could use in administration; the experience it got in the schools it could apply to the ordering of its own studies. With such an interchange of experience, regular, systematic, and continuous, we might hope that education would cease to fall into a multitude of sections and would become a single complete cycle.

(b) Teachers. Most of our witnesses were agreed on the need of teachers being present on the local authorities. Without in any degree anticipating the question, which is discussed below, as to the mode of electing teachers, we may say here that education could not be well-organised and administered unless the mind and method, the difficulties and aims of the educators, were known. Teachers are a skilled and experienced class, and it is not good for the community that their skill and experience should not be utilised. Misunderstanding is the fruit of ignorance, and only as the administrator sees education through the teacher, and the teacher sees administration through the problems and responsibilities of office, will they be able, competently and intelligently, to work together for a common end. All blunders are costly, and the costliest blunders are easy to bodies possessed of large constructive powers; and it would certainly be a safeguard were men who knew the kinds and qualities of schools, the methods and standards of education, made in a constitutional way, to share the responsibilities of the authority which has these things in charge.

(e) There was not the same agreement as to managers and governors of schools. As a matter of fact, managers can hardly be brought into the category of experts in education; they represent much the same type of intelligence and experience that we have in locally elected bodies, and do not stand in this matter on the same level as either the universities or the teachers. It is, nevertheless, very important that the local educational authority should be kept in close touch with the managers of secondary schools within its district, but

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this may he effected by representations of the Authority on managing bodies as well as by the converse plan.

(d) Inspectors. The case for them was strongly urged by several influential witnesses; and was also advocated by the Schools Enquiry Commissioners in their Report. The inspector was to be the expert par excellence for the guidance of the provincial or county authority. It was argued that "he could supply all the special knowledge that was necessary, and in return he would probably learn a great deal that he could, not otherwise learn of the best mode of disarming prejudice, of conciliating hearty support, and of overcoming interested and short sighted opposition. It may be added that he might be of value as a medium of reciprocal influence and informal communication between the central and the local authorities, a position and function which will gain in importance the further the process of decentralisation is carried.

But there are two points which it seems important to bear in mind in determining the relation to local bodies of an official representative of the central authority. Though he may undertake also such inspection as the State may find necessary, he will be useful at meetings of local authorities as an assessor rather than as inspector; and he should be there, not to assert authority, but to give advice and information. In the second place, if his advice is to have due weight, and if he is to be a satisfactory link between the central and local authority, or between one local authority and another, he must not imperil his character of impartiality by too close contact with questions involving purely local or personal considerations. This danger may best be avoided by his not having a vote.

(e) Persons with special knowledge of the conditions of industry. It is evident that an authority which is entrusted with the provision or supervision of technical education will, in many cases, need a full knowledge of the special conditions of local industries. It has not been suggested to us, nor does it seem necessary, that the presence on the local authority of persons so qualified should be made a matter of statutory obligation. Such persons will often be found among the members nominated by representative bodies, But it is a merit of the system of co-optation that, where an authority finds itself, without such special knowledge, there is a way provided of selecting persons to supply the deficiency.

We may then conclude that, in the opinion of our witnesses, it is most desirable that the local authority should be so constituted as to be able, not only to know and represent the mind of -the people, but also to know what suitable and sufficient education is, when it is being provided, and how, it can be extended and improved.

29. The ideas as to the proportion of the various elements were much less definitely expressed, but the general effect may be substantially stated thus: Almost all admitted that the representative

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members must be in a majority, which some would have made two-thirds, while others would either have preferred or have been satisfied with less. The proportion of experts was conceived in a correspondingly varied manner. Some were anxious to have a larger, others were ready to be content with a smaller number of skilled or specially selected persons. The varying opinions of the witnesses may be largely explained by the fact that some regarded the question more from the point of view of rates and representation, others more from that of the teaching profession. Of course, the purpose of both classes of witnesses was the same, the sufficiency of the education provided, and the efficiency of the educational means; and the proportion between the two factors, the representative and the professional, ought to be decided on the principle that they are rather complementary than either contradictory or mutually exclusive. The representative member is all the better for being aided by the skilled experience and cogent criticism of the profession. The profession is all the better that it feels itself in the hands of those whose intelligence is disciplined by administrative experience. And we can conceive only good coming to education from the co-operation of these two classes in the organisation and administration of schools. Only it is obvious that if education is to be organised by the State and aided out of taxes and rates, it ceases to be the affair of a profession; and the profession must accept with the increased dignity and emolument the supervision of an authority whose power is rooted in the will of the community. And this supervision will be an the completer and the more helpful that it is informed by educational interest and experience.

30. The variety and diversity of opinion elicited by the question as to how the local authority was to be appointed was at once intelligible and significant. If the position be granted that the local authority is to consist of representative and expert members in given proportions, two further questions emerge, (A) How are the representative members to be elected? and (B) How are the expert, or professional, or specifically educational?

As to (A) two modes for election of representative members were advocated, (1) direct, (2) indirect.

(1) Direct. This falls into two forms: (i) an election ad hoc, i.e., a board directly elected by the ratepayers for the purpose of the local organisation and administration of Secondary Education. It was also urged by some "that the authority thus created should have external control over all recognised forms of education in the area", i.e., be the board for both Elementary and Secondary Education. This scheme, it was argued, would do three things - (a) by increasing the importance and dignity of the position, induce able and distinguished men to become candidates for election; (b) by making the function purely educational, it would attract only those interested in education and specially qualified to administer it; and (c) by placing Elementary and

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Secondary Education in the same hands, it would bring the two into organic relations, in a word systematize education right up to the university.

There is, no doubt, much that is attractive in this form of election. It has the merits of simplicity and a certain consistency with precedent; and would seem to have something thorough and final in it, especially were it combined with the proposal that "elementary, intermediate, secondary, and technical education should, in every district, be under the management of one body or authority so far as such education may receive aid from the local rates". But we feel precluded by the terms of our reference from entering into the consideration of this proposal. Were we to consider it we should be bound to examine and discuss the whole local organisation of elementary as well of Secondary Education; and this precisely is what we have neither the means nor the power to do. Whatever, then our feelings, may be as to the need of unifying the various authorities, central and local, concerned with education we have no alternative save to confine ourselves to the questions, whether the local authority for Secondary Education ought to be constituted by direct election. But however abstractly desirable direct election may be, the practical objections to it are irresistible. (a) The electorate is already overburdened with elections, and is growing restive under their combined annoyance and expense. In rural areas parish, district, and county councils, members of Parliament, and, occasionally, school boards; in urban areas, vestries, boards of guardians, councillors, school boards, and members of Parliament, make up, especially when taken along with their different electoral areas and modes of election, a rather anxious burden for both electors and candidates. And it becomes us to consider well before adding another item to this over-full programme. This is the more necessary as it is certain that the increase in the number of elections tends to beget carelessness in the electors, who begin to feel that what comes so often requires little thought when it does come. Then the law of parsimony, the need for doing with the least expenditure of energy and resource what has to be done so often, tends to throw all these varied elections into the hands of single organisations, which are inevitably the organisations of the great political parties, and so it directly results in turning a question which ought to be in its essence non-political, into a distinctly political question. (b) The school board, at any rate in small areas, can hardly be regarded as a satisfactory institution. The mode of election to it was frequently condemned, and seemed to be without a friend among our witnesses. The present school board area in counties, viz., the parish, would, of course be far too small for a board concerned with Secondary Education, and any change in the area would involve a multitude of other changes which would radically affect the character of the board. It would,

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therefore, be too serious a responsibility to advise that a board which satisfies so few should be duplicated. (c) The board is not as yet universal; indeed it seems to have taken vigorous root mainly in the greater boroughs, and not even in all of these, while there are whole counties in which school boards are neither numerous nor popular; and though it may seem possible to make secondary boards compulsory, even where elementary boards are unknown, yet it would not be a very statesmanlike procedure to give direct control over secondary schools, which concern only a very few of their children, to ratepayers who are without any control whatever over the elementary schools, which concern the whole community. If school boards were universal and compulsory, the case for direct election would stand on a different footing, but as matters now are we do not see how it could be made practicable.

(ii) The second form was to confer educational functions upon the directly elected council, whether of county or borough, as the body best fitted to deal with it. This view in its baldest form received but little support, and as in any case the council would naturally commit the administration to some selected members, it really falls over into our next division.

(2) Indirect election. This term as here used means election by a body which has itself been directly elected, and which is possessed of full powers for this purpose. There are three directly elected bodies already existing which may be either, severally or jointly, so empowered; county councils, borough councils, and school boards. Each of these has found amongst our witnesses its advocates and each its opponents, but the general state of the case may be represented thus: (a) All the three are in a more or less regular form, and in a higher or lower degree authorities in Secondary Education. The measure in which it is true as to county councils has been already described in our Report, and has been abundantly proved in our evidence. As to the councils of our great cities and county boroughs we had, in addition to what is elsewhere stated, most impressive evidence of what had been attempted and achieved in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Sheffield. As regards the non-county borough councils, though these have, in common with the other urban district councils, powers of rating for technical instruction, yet all these authorities practically form part of the county for the administration of the funds at present applied to the purposes of Secondary Education, and are each represented on the county council itself. In the face of these facts it is impossible to deny to the county and county borough councils the character of being already, in a sense, educational authorities . And the school boards, especially in certain of the greater boroughs, have organised schools that must under any definition

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be classed as secondary, a point on which it is enough to refer to the evidence of their representatives, of the Science and Art Department, and of the masters of organised science schools. (b) The duties and functions of these bodies in connexion with Secondary Education, while irregular in their exercise and incidental in their origin, have yet either been created for them by the direct act of the Legislature, or have grown out of the administrative necessities of their position. The local taxation grants threw a new duty unexpectedly upon the county and borough councils, and compelled them to advance further into the field of education than they might otherwise have been inclined to go; while their own success, the growing demands of their constituents, and the temptation of the South Kensington grants made the opportunity which the school boards were forward to seize. The work which these bodies have already done and the experience which they possess, constitute a distinct and, indeed, an indefeasible claim to consideration. It would be both a serious and superfluous thing to create now constituent bodies when bodies which can be used for this purpose already exist. (d) There are, of course, differences in the areas occupied. In county boroughs, with but few exceptions, councils and school boards exist on what may be described as fairly equal terms, but, as we have already seen there are counties where school boards are to a large extent wanting. And this practical difference between counties and county boroughs necessitates, in the two cases, a difference in the bodies that may be used for constituent purposes.

31. As to (B) the mode for the election of expert or educational members, opinions were much more mixed, and as a consequence more difficult to analyse. But they may be classed under three heads: (1) co-optation, (2) nomination, (3) election by bodies specially recognised and enfranchised. Each of these suggestions covered distinct ideas as to the elements that ought to be incorporated in the constitution and character of the local educational authority.

(1) Co-optation was to be the act of this authority itself so far as it had been created by the constituent body or bodies; and its purpose was conceived to be to secure persons competent to deal with education who were yet not within the circle of the directly elected, nor would be likely to offer themselves for election. This is simply to invest the educational authorities with the same sort of power as is possessed by our county and borough councils. The co-opted members would be as it were the aldermen of the local council of education. In this matter two alternatives were possible, either to leave the choice entirely free, or to define the classes from whom the choice was to be made. If the right to elect is granted to a class like the teachers or to academic bodies, definition of special classes might be an undue restriction upon the liberty of the local authority. If, on the other hand, the election of teachers is not otherwise secured,

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it may be necessary to state in express terms that a certain number are to be co-opted, and this applies also to the election of women.

(2) Nomination was, as a rule, regarded by our witnesses as the proper form of securing that the central authority should be represented on the local, or be helpful to it; and was conceived as a means by which it might place at the service of each locality the knowledge of some highly experienced official or eminent authority in education.

(3) Election was represented as the method likeliest to secure the presence of influential persons belonging to those bodies or classes specially concerned with education, which have been already specified, viz., (a) universities and university colleges, (b) teachers, and (c) managers or governors of schools. But for reasons already stated need not be discussed.

(a) Universities and university colleges are evidently qualified and competent electoral bodies, though it must be granted that the competence is lessened in the degree that the body is distant from the locality, and so without local knowledge and feeling. Hence it might be necessary to introduce a distinction, and allow a full or a qualified electoral power as the university or college had or had not its habitation in the locality.

(b) As to the teachers two modes of election were suggested: (i) by the body of registered teachers, (ii) by recognised representative organisations. (i) Could not become actual till a register had been formed, and even then it would have to be determined, whether all teachers or only secondary teachers, and whether all of the latter, whatever the kind of school in which they held office, or only those under the local authority, should be for this purpose enfranchised. (ii) Seems easier, but has difficulties of its own, organisations are many, and, were each to elect, the numbers might come too near those of the representative members. Further, organisations tend to multiply, and the new would ever strive after equality with the old; they tend, too, to encourage corporate rivalries and sectional interests, and so they might bring into the council conflict of educational parties rather than unity of educational aim.

32 . On the whole, then, (i) seems a more practicable scheme than (ii); it would carry out in the local authority a principle which would make teachers not only instructors in schools, but factors of educational policy, would give dignity to all branches of the profession, and by the promise of exceptional privilege, become a stimulus to general proficiency. On the other hand, we cannot conceal from ourselves the objections which may be held to lie against the proposal. It would be argued that it was not only without precedent, but a dangerous innovation; that it was the representation of a special class or profession on a body that had to do with the distribution of National funds and with the levying and spending of local rates; that this class or profession

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would be directly interested in the objects to which the taxes and rates were to be applied; and that it might result in the choice of persons with whom considerations of economy would have little weight. To obviate these objections, the force of which would be lessened by an honourable understanding that a teacher should abstain from voting on a matter affecting his pecuniary interest, two alternatives to the election of teachers by teachers have been either proposed or considered. (a) The local authorities might be instructed to co-opt a certain number of teachers. By this means it would retain a certain control over the election, while the teachers would know how to make their mind known. (b) The central authority might nominate, possibly from lists submitted by the registered teachers or their organised representative bodies. This might be a recognition, not only of the teachers, but of the right of the central authority to representation on the local body because of the large sums the latter receives from the Imperial Exchequer.

33. It is perhaps unnecessary to say, in conclusion, that an authority constituted mainly, or even solely, by indirect election is yet an independent authority. It would not in this case be a mere creature of the principal electing body, whether council or school board, but would have an existence and executive powers of its own, with its province, powers, and functions defined and secured by statute. The power to elect would not involve the right to control the policy or throw out the measures of the educational authority. It would be a body elected for a specific purpose, able to accomplish its purpose, but steadied throughout by the sense of its responsibility to the ultimate source of its being. The ratepayers would have control over it through the council or board they returned; the council or board would have control over it by the persons they elected, and thus the ancient relation between representation and rating would be maintained. Yet as the presence of the expert would also be secured by statute he would be there neither by the favour nor by the sufferance of the council or board, but by precisely the same right as its own representatives. A body so constituted would seem to have the promise of fitness for the work to be laid upon it.

34. We could not but recognise that London is so immense and so exceptional as to require special consideration and treatment. Mr. Richmond described its schools as in a condition "not improperly called chaos". There are, under the Endowed Schools Acts, nearly 50 secondary schools for boys and girls, and these schools are governed by about three dozen separate governing bodies. Besides these there are certain schools of city companies, many excellent proprietary schools, a multitude of private schools more or less efficient, and a large number of technical institutes, and, under the school board, two organised science schools, and a few reckoned as higher grade

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elementary schools. Superinduced upon the top of all, and beginning to affect all, is the Technical Education Board of the county council, with its large funds and extensive operations. What ought to be the area and the composition of the body which will have to grapple with the complicated problem presented by this state of things? We had submitted to us two theories as to the area, and three as to the constitution of the local authorities for London.

(a) Mr. Richmond proposed to divide London into 10 or 12 districts, each with a population of about half a million, grouping the endowments within the district so as to secure a fairer distribution of resources, and co-ordinating the schools so as to avoid competition and meet the wants of the different localities. And then he would co-ordinate and comprehend these in a "metropolitan area", which "should extend beyond the limits of the administrative county of London", and include "parts of Essex; Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent." He would do this because it is almost impossible "to limit the schools, which ought to be largely upon the fringe of the metropolitan area, to children within the area". Under examination he recognised "the difficulty of founding ourselves upon any other lines than these which exist in the limits of the administrative county"; but he was still inclined to think his own scheme simpler and more complete. (b) Other witnesses specially connected with London were strongly of opinion "that the administrative county of London must be the educational area with regard to the metropolis". They were alive to the difficulties which tempted Mr. Richmond to propose the larger area, but thought these could be best overcome by voluntary arrangements with the neighbouring authorities. To break down the limits of the administrative county for this one special purpose would create greater difficulties than it would surmount. In this matter the instincts of the London representatives seem to us substantially right.

Here we had three schemes submitted to us: (a) Mr. Richmond's local authority, like his area, was twofold, divisional and metropolitan. He would have 10 or 12 divisional boards, corresponding to the districts, into which he would divide the metropolitan area. These boards would be, within their respective districts, the governing bodies of all the public secondary schools, except those of the first order, like St. Paul's, Westminster, and the City of London. He would thus concentrate the power which is frittered away over a large number of small governing bodies, and also the endowments, which would thus become those of the whole district rather than of a restricted

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locality. The metropolitan authority, on the other hand, would have to do with education as a whole, and be constituted on a different basis. The district authorities would be constituted after the type of governing bodies; with the exclusion of teachers, which is usual in schemes. But the metropolitan authority would consist of representatives, elected by the county council, the contributory counties (these together being a majority of the whole), the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, the school board, and the teachers in secondary schools. (b) Mr. Webb and Dr. Garnett proposed a single authority, which should be formed by the county council being required by statute to delegate its functions in Secondary Education to a mixed committee "the composition of which would necessarily vary from time to time". In it there ought to be "a fair dilution of external experts"; but, while their opinion was in favour of outside bodies nominating or approving, they seemed to feel that some power of confirming nominations should be reserved to the council. (c) Mr. Lyulph Stanley and Mr. Diggle were at one in substituting the school board for the county council of the previous witnesses, and putting under it technical, secondary, and elementary instruction. Mr. Stanley thought the board might be made fitter for this work if it had "some power of creating aldermen", and, though his preference was for "a body chosen entirely for educational considerations", yet he would accept a compromise which admitted, by "co-optation or nomination", the "non-educational popular element of the county council", and also "a very substantial body of educational experts".

These three proposals are alike in this: the emphasis they give to the representative element. In every case it forms the majority. But they differ in their notion of what may be called the constituent factor: in (a) it is a number of co-ordinate bodies; in (b) the county council; in (c) the school board. The claims of (b) and (c) can hardly be maintained in this exclusive form. Both bodies equally represent the ratepayers of London. The County Council also receives and superintends the distribution of the Local Taxation grant, and thus exercises a considerable influence over secondary schools. It has proved its willingness to constitute its technical education board in a generous spirit, and to include representatives of the principal educational agencies at work within its district. In this respect the board, so formed, occupies a unique position among the committees dealing with technical instruction throughout the country. Its vigorous action, though restricted to only a portion of the field of Secondary Education, has yet been sufficient to show its capacity to deal with a wider sphere. Its history is, however, too brief to be a basis for induction as to its permanent policy. On the other hand, the school board has a longer history, but its connexion with Secondary Education, has been too slight to give it a claim to be entrusted with the whole

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of it. Nevertheless, as representing public agencies which prepare pupils for the secondary schools, it should have some measure of representation on the new local authority for Secondary Education. But here, as elsewhere, our witnesses recognised with us that other elements than those of the constituting bodies would be necessary such as the universities, the teachers, and the trustees of certain great charities which have been used for educational purposes.

35. The functions of the local authority as conceived by our witnesses may be said to fall into two great classes; (a) the constitutive, which has to do with the creation of schools and their organisation into a system, and (b) the administrative, which has to do with their maintenance and management as thus created and organised. The qualities and powers needed for the fulfilment of these two classes or functions are so different that Sir George Young proposed to entrust them, after the model of the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, to two distinct bodies. The distinction was possible in Wales, for there the work was clearly defined and the field comparatively free; but in England, where the work is so much more extensive and difficult, two bodies would needlessly complicate a situation too complex already. Indeed, these two things seem to be necessary to a satisfactory local authority; it ought to be one and it ought to be within its own province sufficient. Unification is even more necessary here than at the centre. The variety of local bodies which have to do with Secondary Education - councils, school boards, committees, all able to act independently of each other - tends directly to extravagance and inefficiency. What is needed is such a local concentration of power as will bring home responsibility to those who exercise it. The evils of centralisation have been strongly presented to us, and the hopeless impotence of an overburdened Ministry of Education. The only possible way of relieving the central is to make the local authority sovereign within its own domain, yet sovereign in a strictly constitutional sense, with all its powers limited and guarded by law, and all its actions performed in view of those who gave it being. By its relation to the central authority, the schools it creates and administers will be made parts of a national system; by its relation through the electoral bodies to the ratepayers, it will be bound to adapt the national system to the local needs. By these means we shall have at once the unity of the whole and the adaptation of each part to its place and specific purpose.

What, then, ought to be the functions of this single local authority? The briefest, if not the completest, enumeration was given by Sir George Kekewich, "to supply, maintain, and

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aid schools". The supply of schools was regarded as a primary function. Sir William Hart-Dyke "would so constitute the local authorities that they must undertake the task" of "securing an efficient supply of secondary schools", and would even "make it a statutory duty that they should do so." This is a point which needs no elaboration; our witnesses were here, with a few exceptions, practically unanimous. But to provide an "efficient supply" did not mean that in every case the schools were to be new creations. Old schools might be enlarged and adapted to new conditions. Proprietary and private schools might, under proper safeguards, be drawn into the public system; and by a process of correlation overlapping might be prevented, and each school be made to supplement all the other schools in the district. In other words the local authority was to be charged with the duty of supplying and controlling Secondary Education within its area, and this involved the exercise of certain functions of a varied and extensive character as regards schools, funds, scholars, and teachers. Only when we have discussed our evidence as it relates to these subjects, will the functions of the local authorities, as well as those of the central, have been completely reviewed.

36. But before taking up these questions there is one to which we must briefly allude here; viz., the proposal to insert between the local and the central a provincial authority. Two witnesses, in particular, developed what we may term provincial schemes, Sir George Young and Mr. Fearon. Though these are classed together yet they were really altogether different. Sir George Young's was designed, if not to supersede the county authority, yet to possess functions and exercise a jurisdiction that would render it superfluous. Mr. Fearon's implied the county and borough authority, and, indeed, could neither exist nor act without it. His scheme was peculiarly detailed and definite. He would divide England into five provinces, give to each province an educational council, constituted in equal parts of nominees from the local authorities, the teachers of schools recognised as county schools, and universities, or university colleges within the province. He would assign to it certain important functions, e.g., the power to administer general endowments, such as Betton's charity, to provide for the inspection and examination of schools and the training of teachers, to establish a system for pensioning teachers, to create a joint board for conference on educational matters, and to report to the central authority annually on the state of education within the province. However excellent some of the features of this scheme may be, it is open to certain serious objections. The more the machinery can be simplified, the more smoothly and effectively is it likely to work; and it seems to us that the creation of a third authority between the local and the central would, however well defined its formation, tend to the increase,

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rather than a decrease, of friction. Intermediate authorities, with special and exceptional duties, would raise questions or enjoin duties which the local authorities would carry to the central, and the central would refer to the local. And it would involve five subordinate education offices, with the inevitable growth in an expenditure for which there is no adequate provision, and in the range of an activity to which it would be hard to set a clearly-marked limit. Then, of the duties assigned, certain, such as the training and the pension system (if carried out), are better in the hands of the central authority, while others, like the annual reports, can best be discharged by the local. On the whole, then, we think that a careful apportionment of these functions between the central and local authorities will render the provincial superfluous, and tend to the easier and more-efficient working of our Secondary Education system.

37. The questions which belong to this section may be described as, in general, concerned either with the organisation and development of Secondary Education, or with the creation, correlation, and administration of secondary schools. The special problems that hence arise are these: How may the local authority best provide for the educational wants of its district? How may schools be classified? What kinds are most needed? Ought they to stand in any exact proportion to population? How ought they to be organised; managed, and maintained in efficiency? What use may be made of existing schools, public, proprietary, or private? What functions ought to be assigned to the central and local authorities respectively?

38. But here we are met by a question which has been following us through all our discussions, viz., What is Secondary Education? It has of course been variously and often vaguely conceived by our witnesses, and a clear or coherent idea of it is by no means easy to formulate. It is the less easy that our idea of what Secondary Education ought to be, may be very different from our idea of what we must for the purposes of our inquiry conceive and hold it to be. The definitions or descriptions in the evidence were all of a rough and ready kind, occasioned, for the most part, by the experience of the witness or the need of enforcing some special point. The most common standard was age, the education given to boys and girls between 14 and 19 was held to be secondary. By another class of witnesses the line was departmental; Sir John Donnelly regarded "all the instruction aided by (his) department" as in a certain sense distinctly secondary instruction. Sir George Kekewich drew the line between primary and elementary education at the

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point "where the elementary stages of the Science and Art Department begin. By other witnesses subjects were taken as determinative, Secondary Education being strongly divided and distinguished from technical. What seemed the most comprehensive description was the education which lies between the elementary school and the university, but as the universities are the goal of only a few secondary schools, and are by no means so organised and equipped as to cover the whole field of secondary instruction, the description can scarcely be regarded as adequate.

What, then, is Secondary Education? The Schools Enquiry Commission discussed this question most elaborately by means of what may be termed the external standards then available. They divided it into three grades, the grade in each case being determined by age, "or the time during which parents are willing to keep their children at school". The education of the first grade was continued till 18 or 19; that of the second ended about 16; that of the third stopped about 14. "These distinctions corresponded roughly, but by no means exactly, to the gradations of society". The bulk of those who wished for "first grade education consists of two very different classes"; "parents of ample means", who are "identical, or nearly so, with those whose sons are in the nine (public) schools"; and "parents of good education, but confined means, who wish to cheapen education". Education of the second grade was desired by parents also of two classes, well-to-do parents, who "intend their children for employments, the special preparation for which ought to begin at 16", and "parents of straitened means" who "require their "boys to begin at 16, wholly or partially to find their own living". These two grades met "the demands of all the wealthier part of the community", while the third grade "belongs to a class distinctly lower in the scale, but so numerous "as to be quite as important as any; the smaller tenant farmers, the small tradesmen, the superior artisans". Passing from social classes to school curricula, they classified "the subjects of instruction under three heads - language, mathematics (including arithmetic), and natural science". Of these they held language to be "distinctly" the most educative; and made it at once the differentiating note of the several grades, and "the leading study" which could serve "as a link between the three", though the lower grades were not intended to prepare for the highest, each being regarded as the final school stage in three distinct types of education. "Except for education of the first grade, Greek cannot be usefully taught", and even here it "should not be considered absolutely essential", though "there was a very great preponderance (of opinion) in favour of Latin". In schools of the second grade there was to be Latin, but no Greek, in those of the third there was to be "the elements of Latin or some modern language". English literature and history and political

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economy were commended for schools of all grades, and modern languages for those of the first and second. Arithmetic was "simply indispensable", but "the branches of mathematics which follow arithmetic" were important rather than necessary. As to the place of "natural science in schools" there was a very careful discussion, its neglect was regretted; and certainly difficulties in the way of teaching in it recognised. In some second grade schools "natural science would be the preponderating subject", while schools of the first grade and the universities were gently advised to co-operate in its cultivation. We may conclude this brief statement of their views by giving their answer to the questions "whether schools should endeavour to give general education, or as far as possible to prepare boys for special employments". "There should be no attempt to make school a substitute for apprenticeship, but that a school should teach what might fairly be considered as likely to be useful to all its scholars, whether as mental discipline or as valuable information.

39. The question which the Schools Enquiry Commissioners thus fully considered, has been since their day seriously affected by the rise of other studies and other ideas in education. Amongst the factors of this change, we may enumerate the Endowed Schools Acts, the Elementary Education Acts, especially so far as they have occasioned the foundation of the higher grade and the organised science schools, the Technical Instruction Acts, and the Local Taxation Act. It is, therefore, necessary to consider whether and in what sense the idea of education in secondary schools requires modification.

(1) The standard of age is not exactly what it was. For first grade schools it may seem to stand where it did, but the limit of age, 19, set for college scholarships appears to favour the higher year as the normal end of the school course. For second and third grade schools, the limit of age has distinctly advanced in the one case to 17 or 18, in the other to 15 or 16. On the other hand, there has been a fall in the average

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age at which the more capable children pass the standards in the elementary schools and this change has contributed to the rise of the Higher Grade Board Schools. Whether the higher age be a gain to Secondary Education as a whole is a matter open to doubt. Where the university follows the school and the profession the university, some of our witnesses thought there was room for still graver doubt. But, without discussing this question, we may recognise that the extension of the time at secondary schools is due to many causes, social as well as educational. Men enter the universities and they probably begin business later than they used to do. But as the rise in age is most evident in education of the second and third grades, it is there that we find in most potent operation the causes which may be described as educational. The curriculum has been extended beyond what the Commissioners would have thought desirable. New subjects, dealing with problems they would have considered too complicated for a secondary school, have been introduced to give what they termed "special preparation for employments". Schools of a new order have been founded. In a word, technical subjects have been introduced in the secondary schools, and a whole system of technical institutes and colleges has come into being. And so the school curriculum has been enlarged and scholars have in consequence tended to stay longer, and this is in many cases made possible by the amount of money from both local rates and imperial taxation which is now being spent on these new forms and subjects of education.

(2) Their gradation of social classes in relation to their educational grades requires to be modified. The legislation they recommended has done something to open schools which lead directly to the universities, to the sons of men who fall in to the categories neither of the rich nor of the educated. We have convinced ourselves that in certain selected colleges in one of our older universities, such men formed a considerable proportion of the scholars on the foundation; in one case an actual majority. And we may here cite as typical cases the success which has attended the efforts of first grade schools like King Edward's, Birmingham, and the Bradford Grammar School, to attract children from the board schools. And we believe that the rise of certain great urban schools; among them schools under the management of the school boards, is tending still more strongly against the association of a distinction of class with the difference of grade in education.

(3) The growth of special and technical studies in schools has created a branch of Secondary Education which, while not "a substitute for apprenticeship", is yet as distinctly a preparation for it, or for an industry, as the old first grade school was for a profession or the university. By a perfectly natural process, this type of Secondary Education has become in a quite exceptional degree what we may term a civil concern. The large funds which Parliament has placed for its encouragement

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in the hands of local authorities, these authorities have, as a rule, been willing to use in whole or in part in its service. The technical college, while in the strictest sense a school of applied science and art, yet supplies what is so distinctly a propædeutic to industry that its encouragement may well seem a primary duty of the bodies specially charged with the care of both our wealth as a State and our well-being as a people. And its rise has no doubt modified our ideas as to Secondary Education.

(4) This modification has, acting along with older and less obvious forces, created conditions that need to be reckoned with. For one thing it has tended to make what the Commissioners of 1864 termed, "a general education", at once more difficult, and more necessary; more difficult, because the premium placed upon proficiency in special studies has thrust the preparation for them back to a too early stage in the educational process; more necessary because special, without a broad basis in general, studies are both ineffective and narrowing. And this tendency has been intensified by the use which has been too often made of scholarships and exhibitions. It has indeed been the prevailing opinion of our witnesses, that the primary education which prepares for secondary should not be more restricted or special than the elementary which is, as it were, an end in itself; but that it ought to be broader, more liberal both in what it includes and what it attempts. They seemed to feel that no more serious danger threatened modern education than a too early specialisation. It is instructive that witnesses representative of technical and classical education were agreed in regarding instruction in their special subjects as inadequate by itself, and in holding that Secondary Education suffered from a too narrow early curriculum, and we may add a too utilitarian spirit. Thus, Mr. Bothamley complained that in technical instruction they were "constantly hampered by the want of mathematics and the want of foreign languages". Mr. Reynolds said "that boys came, especially from the private and public schools, singularly ill-prepared to take advantage of the curriculum" in a technical college. And in some of our University memoranda the same note was even more clearly sounded. Thus, the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, deplores the tendencies that limit "the student to a narrow curriculum and frequently render his intellectual growth stunted and partial. A boy of tender years is trained for a school scholarship, and, no sooner has he won or lost this object of his parents' ambition, than he is run through a similar groove for a college scholarship. He had thus hardly any opportunity for independent intellectual development, and, as the college scholarships are usually confined to some special class of subjects, classics, mathematics, science, or the like, he is 'specialised', as it is called, long before he leaves school, and thus cut off from some of the most useful and stimulating branches of school education. A boy may win a classical scholarship, even with considerable

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distinction, though he is entirely ignorant of science, knows nothing of mathematics, beyond the meagre minimum which is required for responsions, and is limited in his acquaintance with literature, history, and geography to his recollections of early lessons or the scraps of information which he has recently had resort to for illustrating his essays." With this severe judgment the Rector of Exeter College agrees. "The competition for endowments", he says, "from the time boys enter a preparatory school, or even earlier, certainly produces a disastrous effect on some minds. It prevents them throughout their lives from feeling the independent attraction of any branch of knowledge or study, and it often narrows their views of life. There are many boys whose whole energies from a very early period in life, are turned to the pursuit of endowments, and at the end of their university career they have no desire except to go on in the same groove. As these endowments in Oxford are chiefly bestowed for proficiency in classics, a large number of men drift into the calling of teacher, not because they are specially qualified for it, but because their aims in life have been contracted." These are very serious charges against our methods of giving what ought to be a liberal education; they signify that "the keen competition for scholarships" is, just when the spirit is most sensitive, turning our old humane studies into "bread and butter sciences", the means and instruments of a new academic craft.

40. We have spoken as if technical and classical instruction alike fell as subordinate or co-ordinate divisions under the common head of Secondary Education. We are aware that there are some who would limit the term education to the discipline of faculty and the culture of character by means of the more humane or generous studies, and who would deny the name to instruction in those practical arts and sciences by means of which man becomes a craftsman or a bread-winner. But this is an impossible limitation as things now stand. We have just seen that the training in classics may have as little liberal culture in it as instruction in a practical art; modern literature may be made a field for as narrow and technical a drill as the most formal science. Education inevitably becomes more and more practical, a means of forming men, not simply to enjoy life; but to accomplish something in the life they enjoy. We may, therefore, describe its general idea thus: All education is development and discipline of faculty by the communication of knowledge, and whether the faculty be the eye and hand, or the reason and imagination, and whether the knowledge be of nature of art, of science or literature, if the knowledge be so communicated as to evoke and exercise and discipline faculty, the process is rightly termed education.

Now, Secondary Education may be described as a modification of this general idea. It is the education of the boy or girl not

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simply as a human being who needs to be instructed in the mere rudiments of knowledge, but it is a process of intellectual training and personal discipline conducted with special regard to the profession or trade to be followed. Plato draws a distinction between the man who learns the arts of the grammarian, the musician, or the trainer as a craftsman, [Greek], for trade, and the man who learns them as a private person or freeman, [Greek], for education or culture. But even culture is not an end in itself, it makes the private person of more value to society and to the State. All secondary schools, then, in so far as they qualify men for doing something in life, partake more or less in the character of institutes that educate craftsmen. Every profession, even that of winning scholarships, is a craft, and all crafts are arts. But if Secondary Education be so conceived, it is evident that under it technical instruction is comprehended. The two are not indeed identical, but they differ as genus and species, or as general term and particular name, not as genus and genus or as opposed terms. No definition of technical instruction is possible that does not bring it under the head of Secondary Education, nor can Secondary Education be so defined as absolutely to exclude from it the idea of technical instruction. Under the common head there are many species, each distinguished by the particular means and instruments employed and faculties exercised, but all agreeing in method and end, viz., the discipline of faculty by exercise. Technical instruction is secondary, i.e., it comes after the education which has awakened the mind by teaching the child, the rudiments, or, as it were, the alphabet, of all knowledge, and the better the whole of this alphabet has been mastered the better and the easier will the later learning be. And secondary instruction is technical, i.e., it teaches the boy so to apply the principles he is learning, and so to learn the principles by applying them, or so to use the instruments be is being made to know, as to perform or produce something, interpret a literature or a science, make a picture or a book, practice a plastic or a manual art, convince a jury or persuade a senate, translate or annotate an author, dye wool, weave cloth, design or construct a machine, navigate a ship, or command an army. Secondary Education, therefore, as inclusive of technical, may be described as education conducted in view of the special life that has to be lived with the express purpose of forming a person fit to live it.

41. But now we come to another question - the schools needed to supply the various branches or types of the education which we have just described. Of course, the first duty of a local authority would be to examine and classify the secondary schools already existing within its area, especially with the view of discovering the adequacy or inadequacy of the supply to the local needs; and in the one case ascertaining how it can be used to

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the best advantage, or, in the other case, how it can best be supplemented, developed, and made sufficient. Now a double classification of schools is here possible, (i) one based on their constitution and origin; (ii) another based on their educational function and character.

(i) Secondary schools are, as regards origin and constitution, either public, proprietary, or private. (1) Public secondary schools fall into three classes; (a) endowed schools, (b) municipal or county council schools, (c) public elementary schools founded for subjects that lie beyond or outside the standards. (2) Proprietary schools are either (a) owned and managed by public companies; or (b) held by private trustees or shareholders whether conducted for profit or not; or (c) the property of some denomination or some religious or other society. (3) Private schools are schools where the proprietor is also the manager, though the property may be held either singly or in partnership. Schools of the latter two classes are currently characterised as "schools conducted for private profit", or "schools in which the headmaster has a pecuniary interest". The phrase is invidious, although it has a certain technical accuracy. The public school, whether endowed or rate-founded and supported, is the property of no man, and as a property does not yield profit to any man; but this cannot be so truly said of it when viewed as a school conducted by men who have made teaching the business of their lives. The headmaster of a public school may benefit, in his own way, quite as much as the master of a private school, by the school's success. In the case of boarding houses, or under that most undesirable state of things in which schools are farmed by the governors to the master, there is no distinction in principle between public and private schools, as regards the financial interest of the master. It is, therefore, hardly just to lay suggestive emphasis on a point which may be common to many kinds of schools as if it were peculiar to one. But it is evident that the attitude of a public local authority must be very different to a school possessed of public funds and working under It scheme publicly sanctioned, or created and supported out of local rates and national taxes, and managed under a public constitution, from what it will be to a school founded and equipped by the means and energies of one man or several men. Public interests and public law give rights and impose duties in the one case which are necessarily withheld in the other; and the difference ought to be recognised, as much with a view to the protection of private rights as to the promotion of public interests.

(ii) Secondary schools are, as regards educational function and character, very difficult to classify; and we do not propose to introduce any new descriptive nomenclature which might only add to the confusion, and be no more accurate than the old. Without being at all satisfied with the terminology of the

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Schools Enquiry Commissioners, we shall yet continue to use, as the more convenient course, their classification into schools of the "first", "second", and "third grade". These grades are distinguished by the kind of education they respectively give, the age at which it terminates, and what it is meant to fit for, but they differ thus: (1) and (2) are usually held to imply a broader primary education than without such a sequent would be necessary, while (3) may be described as the continuation and completion of our public elementary system.

42. "First Grade" Schools are those whose special function is the formation of a learned or a literary, and a professional or cultured class. This class comprehends the so-called learned professions, the ministry, law, medicine, teaching of all kinds, and at all stages, literature and the higher sciences, public life, the home and foreign civil service, and such like. This is the class whose school life continues till 18 or 19, and would naturally end in the universities. The more highly organised our civilisation becomes, the more imperative grows the need for men so educated and formed, the more generous ought their education to become and the greater the necessity for recruiting their ranks with the best blood and brain from all classes of society. And we conceive one of our functions to be to save this higher education from becoming the prerogative or preserve of any special order, and to make the way into it, and into all it leads to, more open and accessible to capable and promising minds from every social class.

These "First Grade Schools" fall into two classes, Boarding and Day Schools. Into the relative merits of these two classes of schools the Schools Enquiry Commissioners rather elaborately entered. They thought it "probable that the boarding school, if it be good, is the more efficient instrument of teaching". That is a question very hard to discuss, and possibly incapable of determination. For one thing, perfectly equal and explicit terms of comparison cannot be obtained. It is much easier to define those necessary to a good boarding than to a good day school; for the conditions of efficiency and success are largely contained within the one, and lie largely outside the other. The tone and character of the home, the ruling interests and ambitions of the parents, are much more potent and constant factors of the result in the day than in the boarding school. Ideally the day school many be the more perfect system, for the presence of the child is as good for the home as the influence of the home ought to be good for the child. Each educates the other; and the parent may lose more from being without the responsibilities and restraints imposed by daily contact with a quick and critical boy or a sensitive and observant girl, than he or she loses by being withdrawn from parental supervision and care. Besides, a system which, as a fundamental condition of the educational process, postulates the complete separation of the sexes, is conducted without some of the more

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refining influences which nature supplies. But this only shows how hard it is to create equal terms between the day and the boarding school. In the former case the master has to do his work under the direct help or hindrance of home; in the latter case the home is more remote, and, though it is ever in the background, exercising a favourable or unfavourable influence, yet the pupil is much more completely in the master's hands. He has, therefore, an opportunity such as seldom comes to the day-school master, though that opportunity has drawbacks of its own. The individual scholar is a greater force for good or evil in a boarding than in a day school, but then the very function of a master, and the distinguishing quality of capacity for his place, is ability to neutralise and overcome the evil influence of the bad; and to use and enlarge the ameliorative influence of the good. And along with this potency of the individual goes the power of the school, the action of its traditions and its history, the memories of its heroes, the pressure of its public opinion; or its established customs and fixed habits - in a word, the corporate feeling, or esprit de corps, which at once enforces discipline and produces characters of a specific type. On the other hand, the day school is in things educational a stronger local force; if it feels more easily and deeply the influence of the home, the home is in turn more susceptible to its presence. It stands open to the neighbourhood, visible to its eyes, accessible to its ambitions; what it can do for the competent is manifest to all, every success achieved in it and through it being a challenge to imitation or emulation. For a school to be non-local may mean that a locality hardly feels the presence of the meaning of the school, while the more a school lives in and through and for a locality, the more it enables the locality to achieve. Thus the day school exercises a more direct influence on its neighbourhood, is less respective of class and more common to the whole people, and, in order to its healthy life, needs a keener and more widely distributed interest in education. But the neighbourhood is, as a rule, very different in the two cases. The fit home of the Boarding School is the country, or the country town; but the Day School needs a population around it, and so has its proper seat in our greater cities or towns.

From this difference between the two classes of schools it follows, that a school which is so without local character and does so little local service, is no proper object for the help or supervision of the local authority. Local claims and responsibilities must always be in proportion to the local duties performed, and where these latter are almost or altogether absent, formal connexion were more likely to be a weakness and an irritation to both than a pleasure or a benefit to either. On the other hand, the schools that most need to be cultivated, and that the local authority can do most to help, are precisely those schools which are by their very form and constitution compelled

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to serve their several localities. The great non-local schools are not likely to lack support at the hands of those classes which the Schools Enquiry Commissioners so well described; but the local schools cannot live without the favour of their own neighbourhood. The Commissioners of 1864 said that "classical education of the highest order is every day quitting the small grammar schools for the great public schools", and so men can no longer find such an education,"as they could in the last century, close to their doors". It may not be possible or indeed desirable to re-create the small classical Grammar School - for the revival would under modern conditions tend rather to inefficiency than success - but our aim ought to be to restore as far as possible the reality which these old schools symbolised, viz., the accessibility to all the competent of the education, whether classical or modern, which fits for the service of God, whether in Church or State. How much the Endowed Schools Commissioners have, by means of reformed and reconstituted Endowed Schools, done to restore it we shall presently, by an example or two, indicate, and we trust the local authorities, which it is proposed to constitute, will, by means of a well-conceived and administered system of scholarships, as well as by stimulating local interest in education, do still more. And it may be well to add, that as places of the higher education, the local schools, which for this purpose must be those mainly used, need be no whit inferior to the great boarding schools. History since 1868 has here a moral of its own. The Girls' Public Day Schools have proved what "an efficient instrument of teaching" the day school may be, and we have only lo submit in further illustration of the same position, some statistics from boys' Grammar and High Schools. Thus, the Bradford School in the 10 years previous to 1871, had sent only five boys to the universities, and gained only one scholarship; but in the 10 years previous to 1893 it sent 108 boys, took 73 scholarships, 44 first classes, 4 fellowships, and 10 university scholarships and prizes. And a vast proportion of these honours were taken by boys who had been at public elementary schools.

43. The "Second Grade" Schools are those whose special function, although it does not at all exclude an ideal of culture, is the education of men with a view to some form of commercial or industrial life. The variety of means and instruments is here of necessity much greater than in the previous class, but it may be represented as, roughly speaking, threefold: (a) Concerned with the subjects necessary to the mercantile or commercial side of trade, modern languages, geography, ethnography, arithmetic, economics, in a word, the varied studies needed for the intelligent conduct of business, whether on the exchange or in the counting house, with persons or firms at home, or with peoples and countries abroad. (b) Concerned with the sciences which underlie our industries, whether mining or textile, whether agricultural or mechanical, and are necessary

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to their progress and development. Into the list of subjects that ought to be taught in this connexion principles or elements and sections of almost every physical science enter, yet not in the same form and degree as if they were branches of academic culture, but only as so far helps to the understanding of the material with which the man will have to work. (c) Concerned with the application of these scientific ideas to specific arts of industries, as of chemistry to dyeing or to agriculture, or of mathematics and mechanics to engineering, we may term schools of the type of (a) Modern, (b) Science, (c) Technical; but though they are distinguishable, they have necessarily much in common, and may often with advantage exist in combination rather than in independence. Adaptation to the locality is a main matter in schools of this kind. Each ought to reflect in its organisation the industries of the district. The modern, or the scientific and the technical subjects emphasised in Lancashire or Yorkshire will be different from those most cultivated in Norfolk or in Devonshire. But while this tendency to variation and adaptation ought to be as far as possible encouraged, one thing should characterise all alike, the schools ought to remain schools and not become warehouses or workshops, i.e., their educational value will depend on their being much more than mere makers of human instruments for the industries. Thus the modern languages are not mere media for commercial correspondence; they have literatures that may be made almost as educative as those of Greece and Rome. The sciences are not mere catalogues of materials that may be used in trade, or abstracts of principles regulative of their economical use; they are systems or symbols of great ideas that may be used to exercise the reason and fill the imagination. The arts and crafts are not mere methods of producing certain effects or results; they are opportunities for the cultivation of taste, the exercise of constructive skill or inventive faculty. If these schools can so teach their subjects, they will become homes of the humaner studies, the parents of a new culture in no way lower than the classical, and this they have the more need to do, as their purpose is to send men, not to the university, but straight into the work of life. Schools of this type have a function so important, and may have a range of studies so extensive, that the leaving age may easily be forced up to the higher limit. From this point of view we can see the reason in Sir George Young's advice, "to give up the distinction of first and second grade schools altogether, and confine ourselves merely to the distinction of a classical and what the Germans call a Realschule."

Schools of the kinds here meant have in our evidence three excellent representatives, the Modern in the King Edward Grammar Schools, Birmingham, the Organised Science in the Central School at Leeds, and the Technical in the Municipal School at Manchester. These are all creations of public bodies; and

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the names are in each case fairly descriptive. The Grammar Schools are excellent representatives of the older second grade education, though on a higher scale than the Commissioners of 1864 ventured to conceive it. The curriculum is at once modern and literary, languages - Latin, French, German, and English - compete on favourable terms with natural science and mathematics.

What is aimed at in the Birmingham schools is a "general education", terminating at about 16, given at a fee of £3 per annum, but at a cost of £10 10s for boys and £8 for girls, and drawing 62 per cent of the boys and over 50 per cent of the girls from elementary schools. The Organised science schools are, as their name indicates, less literary and more scientific, largely, we may add, for reasons that concern the central rather than the local authority.

At Leeds the secondary course is four years, i.e., after Standard VII has been passed, and terminates at about 17. The purpose of the school was defined by its master as "culture and training", or, as at once "educational and practical", the practical being "to fit children for the special occupations of the district", and the educational was by means of such literary instruction as was now possible under the new rules of the Science and Art Department. In this school there were 2,200, between 1,000 and 1,200 being in Standard VII and above it, as against 1;757 in the seven King Edward Grammar Schools.. It had a classical as well as a science side, and was really a "secondary school of the first grade preparing children for the universities", but the "classical education" aimed at was limited to such requirements as would be needed for the Victoria or London matriculation, and the degree it prepared for was the B.Sc. rather than the B.A. What was true of the Leeds School was true of "many other schools" of the same type.

The Manchester Technical School is one of "the highest class". It has 3,731 students, of whom about one-sixth attended the day school. Of the total, 1,970 belong to Manchester, and 1,761 come from the surrounding districts. The age of admission to the day school is 15, and the work implies such a "preparation as may be got in any good secondary school", though as a matter of fact its best pupils come from "the higher grade schools", but even their time would be better spent were it given "mainly to English subjects", and not to getting "a smattering of a great many sciences". It may be properly described as "a specialised industrial school", not "'an open door" to any college, but as it were an educational "end in itself". It is thus less literary than the grammar school, less theoretical than the science school, and distinguished from both by its functions being mainly industrial.

These very distinct types of schools may be regarded from different points of view. The King Edward Grammar Schools were the work of governors who, because of their large endow-

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ments, were enabled to realise with a comparatively free hand their own ideal of a second grade education. The Leeds school was the creation of a board which could build but could not maintain out of the rates, and had thus to organise its studies so as on the one hand to earn the necessary grants, and on the other to supply an education for which there was no adequate provision. The Manchester Technical School owes its existence to the Manchester Corporation using powers it has under the Technical Instruction Acts and funds it has received under the Local Taxation Act. The schools reflect, too, the needs of their several localities, and are types of the sort of adaptation we may expect at the hands of local authorities, but of course with the important modifications which we hope to see follow from the changes we shall later propose. We must here recognise that there is a function for all these types of schools, though their scale must be determined by local needs. In the case of the specialised science and of "the specialised industrial school" it is desirable that the education of the one become less rigid and more liberal, and the pupils of the other be more thoroughly prepared for their work.

44. The "Third Grade Schools" are those whose special function is the training of boys and girls for the higher handicrafts, or the commerce of the shop and the town. This can best be done by continuing and enlarging the education of the elementary school, with, of course, such addition of manual instruction as may be needed to educate the hand and eye of the craftsman, and at once define and illustrate the principles he has learned. We have an example of the type required in the higher grade board school, which has been described as a school which "simply puts the completion on to the primary school course", as "a sort of cul de sac". "The pride of the higher grade school is that it has engrafted a system on the system already in existence in connexion with, and in continuation of it." They are held to be "an absolute necessity in any efficient system for Secondary Education. Properly organised they would become the crown of the elementary school system." They were also described as "the connecting link with secondary schools, as having stepped into the province of what the Schools' Enquiry Commissioners would have considered strictly Secondary Education." They were judged very differently by different witnesses. Sir George Kekewich thought that "the system worked exceedingly well". The council of the Teachers' Guild "are against the development of any more than there are at present", but Mr. Garrod's own opinion was that "they ought to be maintained and developed". But one thing was admitted generally, viz. that such schools were necessary to the completion and efficiency of our educational system. In Manchester there are six such schools, accommodating 7,104 children, though 5,102 of these are below the sixth standard.

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For boys and girls whose education will cease at 16, in the opinion of Mr. Wyatt, these schools supply the secondary instruction best suited to their wants. "The demand for these board secondary schools ... has increased year by year in volume and intensity in the large centres of population"; and it is held that "no Government would venture to recede from the position which popular pressure has required the various administrations since 1870 to assume in this matter." We may hold it as certain, then, that these schools have risen to meet a legitimate demand, and admit of correlation and development, but not of abolition or even repression.

45. So far we have been concerned with the several varieties of Secondary Education and the distinct types of public schools in which it is being given. Our next question concerns the relation of the local authority to these schools as agencies for giving this education. The question is an intricate one; for, as the schools differ in constitution and history, their relation to the local authority can hardly be made one and uniform. The endowed schools work, as a rule, under schemes framed for them by the Charity Commission, i.e., the central authority for Secondary Education; and these, of course, no local authority can at present either supersede or overrule. On the other hand, the municipal and board schools have been created by duly constituted public bodies in the exercise of their legitimate and recognised functions; and these bodies are at once the de facto and de jure governors over the schools they have created. Councils whose main interests are industrial developments may well feel that they are more competent than a strictly educational authority to govern technical schools; while the secondary board schools are so distinctly offshoots of the elementary system that it may be cogently argued that that system will without them lose much of its efficiency and all its completeness. It is thought by many that here the largest policy would be the simplest and most effectual, viz., a single authority for both elementary and secondary education. But we feel, for reasons already stated, precluded from considering this policy, and so we are shut up to the question - in what relation ought the local authority to stand to these older and newer public schools This relation will be twofold: (a) to the schools as public institutions, and (b) as places supplying a given kind or grade of Secondary Education. But as (b) will be general, i.e., common to all the recognised schools in the district, it is with (c) that we are at this point more particularly concerned.

46. Endowed schools, it has already been noted, are, for the most part, managed under schemes framed by the Charity

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Commissioners, and these schemes are from time to time altered so as to adapt the school to new educational conditions, or to any changes in the locality. The scheme-making is thus a sort of re-constituting authority, an agency for the creation of new efficiencies in old institutions. Now, one of the most important suggestions made to us was that the local authority should, in the words of Mr. Fearon, be empowered to make proposals to the central authority for schemes dealing with educational endowments, with certain exceptions. Sir George Young would "look to the provincial boards as having an initiative" in the matter of schemes. With this the Bishop of London, Sir William Hart-Dyke, Lord Davey, and Mr. Roby, agreed. Sir Albert Rollit, who had "special knowledge of this subject in the case of Hull", gave it as his experience that "local opinion is far better on the question of endowments either as to their transfer or their use, than any central opinion." It deserves to be noticed that our evidence here but repeats a proposal of the Schools Enquiry Commissioners. They were "of opinion that the duty of framing schemes should not rest chiefly with the Charity Commission as it has hitherto done, but with the provincial boards".

And the reasons for this opinion are cogent. It would relieve the central authority from the excessive pressure of piecemeal scheme-making, would secure the force needed to carry forward work which is often hindered by local prejudice and resistance, would save the schemes from the uniformity which is inseparable from a centralised system, and introduce more flexibility and adaptation to special conditions. For the local authority would know much better than the central what are the local needs; it would, too, be less suspected, and so more able to deal broadly with endowments without provoking prejudice. Mr. Fearon further pointed out how desirable it would be that the body which is to frame the scheme should be so constituted as to be capable also of administering it. Such an administrative supervision of endowments would include the right to see that schemes were properly carried out; the power to appoint representatives on the governing bodies; and in some cases, even the direct control of the school by the local authority as governors. In the view of Mr. Fearon there would require to be three exceptions to this jurisdiction: (a) the non-local schools within the area; (b) denominational schools, such as the cathedral schools; and (c) general endowments, like Betton's Charity. Of course, all these witnesses recognise the need of requiring the local authority which they invested with such extensive powers to submit its schemes or its proposals for schemes to the central office. Upon the local body, with all its special knowledge and responsibilities, would lie the onus of proposing the idea or policy of the scheme which it would have to realise; upon the central would be the duty of sanctioning it.

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47. There was little or no difference of opinion as to the main outlines of the relation to be established between the local authority and endowed schools within its area. With regard to other public schools and classes, however, the problem was more complicated. These include higher grade elementary schools, evening science and art schools and classes, municipal and other technical schools, and evening continuation schools under the Education Department. The nature of the questions raised, and of the difficulties to be overcome, is well exemplified in the case of the higher grade elementary schools. We have already expressed our concurrence in the opinion that these schools form a part of the existing supply of Secondary Education, and must be recognised as so doing in any organised system which may be established. But this being so, how are they to be correlated with institutions established solely for the provision of Secondary Education? We are unable, as we have said, to accept the solution offered by the plan for a local authority which would be a development of the existing school board, or in which the school board would be merged. The remaining suggestions are in favour either of leaving things as they are, or of an absolute transfer of higher grade elementary schools to the local authority for Secondary Education.

The first alternative is advocated by some on the ground that these schools are the proper continuation schools for those who can only spare a year or two for education after the ordinary elementary school course, and that to require them to pass so short a time under a new system would tend to discourage them from prolonging their education at all. Others despair of obtaining the transfer of these schools, but think the authority for Secondary Education should nevertheless undertake the same kind of work and endeavour to prove that they can do it better. This plan, by whatever argument it may be supported, appears to cut at the root of any system of co-ordination of schools. It must be remembered that the elementary schools are being resorted to by an increasing number of those who can afford to prolong their education for more than a year or two; and that there is no well-defined limit to the age to which scholars may stay in the schools or to the curriculum which may be offered to them. To those who urge that the schools should be let alone, because under the present system they can best do a particular kind of work, it may be replied that there is no guarantee that they will confine themselves to that work. Least of all would they be likely to do so if they were to be provoked to competition with new schools established avowedly for the purpose of beating them in their own field. In such a rivalry their connexion with the elementary schools, and the fact that they can offer education either actually free or at an inconsiderable cost, to the parent, would give them an indubitable advantage.

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The alternative of transfer to the Secondary Education Authority has much in the abstract to recommend it. If the ground were clear, no one would wish to have public Secondary Education controlled by two distinct local authorities, especially if the one which had the smaller interest of the two in the matter were to be in a position to undersell the one which had the larger. But the practical difficulties in this case also are very serious. The ground is, in many parts of the country, not clear. School boards have, in many great centres of population, endeavoured to fill up a serious gap in the educational supply, and are justly proud of the success they have achieved. The schools in question are conducted in buildings parts of which are often required for the work of ordinary elementary schools. Again, the schools contain varying proportions of scholars who would properly be classified as primary rather than secondary, and experts differ as to where the line should be drawn. One of our witnesses would meet this difficulty by transferring only those schools or parts of schools which are managed as organised science schools. But this expedient would leave behind a considerable amount of secondary work, and would not remove the other difficulties to which we have alluded.

There remains a third or middle course, which on the whole seems to offer the best solution of these difficulties. In order to avoid a breach of continuity between the elementary schools and those schools to which elementary school children most naturally and easily pass in continuation of their education, arrangements might in many cases be made for allowing the practical management of higher grade elementary schools to remain in the hands of the existing authorities. Effective co-ordination and organisation would be secured by placing general powers of supervision in the hands of the Local Authority for Secondary Education. But it does not follow that this or any one plan will be always the best, and cases may arise in which the Central Authority may be usefully called in to adjust any differences between the Local Authority and the existing managers.

48. The position and claims of private and proprietary schools is a subject which has demanded a considerable share of our attention, on account both of the difficult questions involved and of the anxiety felt by those interested in such schools lest any organisation of Secondary Education should tend to destroy them.

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A large proportion of the Secondary Education in the country, especially that of girls, is given in private schools. There are private schools of every grade, and giving education of almost every kind and at almost every variety of fee. There are private schools, too, of every degree of merit, from those which, conducted in excellent buildings by an excellent staff, are in the van of educational progress, to those which, carried on in ill-ventilated rooms by ignorant persons with no qualifications as teachers, represent the lowest depth of educational stagnation from which we have during the past 30 years been emerging. There is, however, a good deal of evidence that private schools have improved since 1869; that there are more of the better schools and fewer of the bad ones than formerly; and this is still more conspicuously the case if we include proprietary with private schools. There is an almost universal agreement among our witnesses that it would be a misfortune if good private and proprietary schools were to cease to exist, that they are doing much good work, that they fill a place which cannot be altogether taken by public schools, and that they ought therefore to be reckoned as part of the educational supply of the country.

In one sense, they must inevitably be so reckoned, for, as is shown by the experience of other countries, private schools would certainly continue to exist and flourish to meet the demands of certain parents, even if public schools were free. But it is something more than a mere recognition of their existence that the proprietors of private schools, or many of them, desire. All seek to have some protection against competition from schools aided by public funds, and those of the better type desire protection against incompetent rivals. With these objects in view, many witnesses inform us that they would be quite ready to submit their school to inspection, both as respects sanitary conditions and educational efficiency, and indeed would welcome such inspection if it led to public recognition of their satisfactory condition.

49. Partly to carry out this object, many witnesses dwelt on the importance of instituting a register of schools - public as well as private - besides the register of teachers (see p. 192), believing that the publication of such a document would guide the parents, stimulate the teachers, and provide for the recognition and reward of efficiency. It was suggested that, for admission to the register, schools should be required to satisfy the sanitary authorities, the local inspector of schools, and the

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University Board of Examiners. The Headmasters Association thought that registration of schools should have regard to buildings, equipment, and sanitary condition, and to the educational efficiency of the staff. They would make such registration ultimately compulsory, but at first optional, in the meantime forbidding any unregistered school to receive public aid or to enjoy public recognition. The Teachers' Guild and the Headmasters' Conference thought that the conditions of registration should be fixed by the Central Authority. Miss Buss proposed that there should be both a local and a central register of schools, but that the actual grant of a place on the register should be made by the Central Authority. Another teacher whom we consulted preferred that the schools should be placed on the register by the Local Authority, but would allow them a right of appeal to the Central. A third witness would apparently leave the whole matter to the discretion of the Local Authority alone.

It is clear, however, that for practical reasons, the Local Authority must in any case make a list of the secondary schools within its area. Such information will be indispensable to it in determining questions of the supply and correlation of schools. And the list once formed, it would be convenient to keep it up to date. Such a list, might, in many respects, answer the purpose of a register, while avoiding certain objections to the publication of a register. One such objection is that a register would necessarily draw a sharp line between registered and unregistered schools, while there is no sharp line, in fact, between schools which may just be reckoned efficient and schools which may not. Schools just good enough to be included in a register would be apt, as registered schools, to claim a degree of superiority which they did not possess.

50. As to the general conditions, to be complied with by a private or proprietary school seeking recognition as contributing to the supply of efficient education, there was little important difference of opinion among witnesses. All agreed that the schools must be inspected. Some thought that this should be done annually. Professor Laurie, speaking however of secondary schools in general, prefers a triennial inspection. The inspector, in Professor Laurie's words, "will report on the buildings, sanitation, and apparatus; on the curriculum, the staff, the resources of the school, the payment of the masters, the general character, organisation and aims of the school and the success with which these were carried u out".

51. We found, however, much less agreement as to the privileges which recognition is to confer. An extreme view was here taken by witnesses representing the Private Schools' Association, who were anxious that public authorities should be precluded from giving any pecuniary support whatever to public secondary

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schools which they did not give to efficient private ones, as such aid would enable the public schools to compete unfairly, as the witnesses considered, with private schools. On this ground they objected either to giving education under cost price, or to the giving of buildings or of any grants in aid. This view was also taken by witnesses on behalf of the Council of the College of Preceptors, a body closely connected with private schools; and objection to aid from rates being given to public schools to the exclusion of private ones was expressed by other witnesses connected with private schools. But this view received no support from any other class of witnesses, and, even by those who advocated it, was hardly felt to be tenable as regards sparsely populated districts where there would be a difficulty in establishing schools large enough to be self-supporting except at fees too large for the pupils to pay.

It is easy to understand the desire of the private schoolmasters not to be competed with, and it no doubt adds a special aggravation to the idea of such competition that the funds for it would partly come out of the pocket of the aggrieved rival. But it would clearly be impossible to restrict the freedom of action of the local authority in the manner proposed, nor would it be right to make the interests of private schoolmasters a first consideration in the organisation of education for the public good. We think, however, that the more moderate suggestions of other witnesses are in better accord with the public interest, and that, to quote the words of Mr. Eve, "new public schools should be founded only to supply distinct deficiencies". Where it can be shown that private or proprietary schools sufficiently provide for any educational need of a district, the Local Authority should not compete with them; nor do we think that the Local Authority with the limited funds at its disposal will be under any temptation to do so. To prevent any feeling of injustice, an appeal to the Central Authority might be allowed to any school which thought it could show that the Local Authority had unfairly refused to recognise it.

There will be cases where, with the utmost goodwill towards private schools, it may appear to the Local Authority practically impossible to supply satisfactorily the education of a district without injuring a private school, which yet may efficiently supply part of that education. In such cases it is suggested that private schools should be taken over by the Local Authority, and it is believed that the owners of the schools concerned would often not object to this, and in some cases might even be glad thus to secure a greater degree of permanence for their schools. Mr. Stone, Chairman of the Girls'

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Public Day Schools Company, suggested a sort of semi-taking over. According to his plan, the Local Authority would have power to enter into an agreement with the Company for the carrying on of a Company's school, would aid the school with funds, and would, if necessary, be represented on the board of directors in London.

52. There are two privileges which a large proportion of our witnesses were in favour of conceding to private and proprietary schools recognised as providing efficient Secondary Education; namely, (1) that scholarships founded out of public funds should be tenable at these schools; and (2) that their pupils should be allowed to compete for all scholarships from public money that are not restricted to primary schools or to special schools. From the side of the schools this was urged by Mr. Brown and Miss Olney on behalf of the Private Schools' Association; Mr. Stone and Miss Gurney on behalf of the Girls' Public Day Schools Company; Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Pinches, representing the College of Preceptors; Mr. Storr and Mr. Garrod, speaking for the Teachers' Guild. From the side of the county councils it was urged by Mr. Brigg and Mr. Dixon for the West Riding County Council, though with a reservation; and by Mr. Webb and Dr. Garnett, who, speaking for the London County Council, say that it is absolutely necessary that it should be allowed. Mr. Lee Warner says the same thing as regards the Norfolk County Council, and Mr. Headlam, one of our assistant commissioners, urges it in the interests of the county of Surrey. Mr. Snape, Chairman of the Technical Instruction Committee of the County Council of Lancashire, also approves of scholarships being held at suitable private schools, as does Mr. Bothamley, secretary of the Somersetshire Technical Instruction Committee. Indeed, so great is the inconvenience of restriction in this respect, especially in the case of girls, for whom the provision of endowed schools is comparatively small, that some county councils have actually allowed their scholars to attend private and proprietary schools, notwithstanding that the interpretation of the Technical Instruction Acts is usually adverse to this. Among the persons interested in education, but not directly concerned either with private schools or with county councils, who have advocated the same thing, we may name the Bishop of London, Dr. Percival (now Bishop of Hereford), Sir George Young, Mr. Sharpe, Dr. Scott, Mr. Hance. On the other hand, two of our witnesses objected to public scholarships being held at private schools: Sir Bernhard Samuelson on the ground that it is not "desirable to aid private adventures by public money", and Mr. Fearon on account of the frequently ephemeral nature of private schools, which might be efficient one year and, owing to the death of the master, either have disappeared or become inefficient another. This last objection does not apply to the case of proprietary schools like those of the Girls' Public Day School Company, and is, we think, of little weight in the case of any private schools,

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of whose continued efficiency the Local Authority satisfies itself at suitable intervals, and we may observe that uninterrupted efficiency cannot be guaranteed even in the case of publicly managed schools. With reference to Sir Bernhard Samuelson's objection, it may be pointed out that a scholarship enabling a pupil to pay his school fees is directly a payment to the scholar and only very indirectly a payment to the school.

53. Before closing the discussion of this part of the evidence, we must note that, in saying that good private schools desired recognition, and would not object to inspection, most of our witnesses meant recognition and inspection by the Central, and not by the Local, Authority, and that considerable fear was expressed of interference by the Local Authority. This preference for a Central Authority depended to some extent on the belief that inspectors of greater educational experience could thus be secured, and that the educational point of view of teachers would be better understood by a Central than by a Local Authority; but there was also a fear that the Local Authority might be influenced by personal considerations and local prejudices. The inspector must not be "in any way liable to the feelings of the district", was the way the sentiment was expressed by one witness. The giving of this function to the Central Authority would, however, in our opinion, introduce all the evils of centralisation, and the danger of a rigid and uniform system applied to all districts, which we are especially anxious to avoid; and since, according to our scheme, it is the Local Authority which must decide what kind of schools their district requires, it is that authority which in the first instance must judge whether any private school supplies education of the required kind. The utmost that it seems desirable to concede in the direction of interference by the Central Authority is that private and proprietary schools should, as we have already said, have a right of appeal to it against non-recognition. In case of such appeal, the Local Authority would have to convince the Central that its action in the matter had not been arbitrary or unfair, which would afford a substantial guarantee to the private schools that they would not be ignored without due consideration. We may add that we think the alarm felt by the private schoolmasters and mistresses about the intervention of the Local Authority in their affairs is sometimes due to a misconception as to the functions of that authority and the area with which it will have to deal. Petty or personal considerations which might possibly affect a small local committee, could hardly influence a body which has to supervise the Secondary Education of a whole county or county borough.

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Many of our witnesses - owners of private schools and others - were of opinion that sanitary inspection should be extended to all schools, whether claiming to be recognised or wishing to remain entirely independent and unconnected with the educational organisation. They thought that it should be the duty of the educational authority to ascertain that the conditions as to ventilation and drains in any building used as a school should be such as not to be injurious to the health of the pupils. Abuses in this respect are certainly liable to occur, so that such inspection seems desirable, though it should be conducted under conditions as little vexatious and onerous as possible.

54. The supply and organisation of Secondary Education in the country present special problems widely differing from those which call for solution in the towns. There is less belief in the value of education, unfortunately coupled with the need for a greater effort to obtain it.

The secondary schools in the country, being generally small in numbers, require for an equally good education a greater expenditure per scholar than the larger schools in towns, while it is much harder to find the money.

Various causes have deprived many ancient grammar schools of the support of the gentry and the larger farmers, with the result that these schools have sunk in too many instances to the level of elementary schools, while the smallness of the local area for the administration of the Elementary Education Acts has made it impossible in rural districts even to approach the results in the direction of higher education which have been achieved under those Acts in the towns. The Charity Commissioners, and more recently the Education Department by means of evening continuation schools, and the county councils by means of grants under the Technical Instruction Acts, have made serious efforts to overcome these difficulties and defects, but much still remains to be done.

55. We had no lack of suggestions from our witnesses. Some would trust partly to bursaries or travelling scholarships to bring rural children to secondary schools in more populous centres, partly to a system of travelling teachers to give lessons in special subjects at selected rural centres. One dwelt on the importance of bringing the country grammar schools more into touch with modern requirements, and suggested that in many cases they might with advantage be converted into higher grade elementary schools. The same witness also suggested that rural parishes might group themselves together and contribute from the rates to the maintenance of a joint secondary school. The plan of having upper departments attached to elementary schools was advocated by several witnesses, and reference was not infrequently made to

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the encouragement given to the teaching of higher subjects in the parish schools of certain counties in Scotland by means of the endowment known as the Dick Bequest.

56. The establishment of an upper department attached to an ordinary elementary school, and designed to fulfil tIle functions of a continuation school for children in the elementary schools, and of a third grade school for the children of farmers and others, has been frequently resorted to by the Charity Commissioners as a means of using small endowments to provide Secondary Education in rural districts. They are, however, much dissatisfied with the results of the experiment, and, indeed, regard it as a "complete failure". But it is not difficult to see that the conditions under which they have been forced to make the experiment have been anything but favourable. It is commonly made with a small endowment, enjoyed by custom or right by the inhabitants of a single, parish, and up to the date of the scheme applied to maintain an ordinary elementary school. Money taken from that object renders it difficult or impossible to maintain the elementary school without an appeal to the parishioners for subscriptions. The chances are that no one is much interested in the upper department, or particularly anxious to see that it gets its fair share of support from the funds, the governors, or the schoolmaster. The governing body represents a very limited area, and, unless there happens to be some institution for higher education in the neighbourhood, may contain not a single member with experience in the field of Secondary Education, and have no system of inspection to which to look for criticism, advice, or encouragement. It must be remembered, too, that the experiment has to be tried not in a place carefully selected for its suitability, but in the particular village or hamlet where the foundation happens to be. Finally, to all these drawbacks has to be added the inadequate supply of teachers who are competent to give some higher instruction, and at the same time willing and qualified to conduct an elementary school in the country.

This last difficulty apart, an effective local organisation of Secondary Education would entirely alter the conditions. Local authorities would be interested in the success of the experiment, would select the best ground for its trial, supply adequate funds for its execution, and, through their inspectors, bring educational knowledge and experience to test and promote its success.

57. The administration of the Dick Bequest in the counties of Aberdeen, Moray, and Banff deserves attention here, rather because it is directed to a similar end than on account of the special applicability to English conditions of the methods adopted, though some valuable hints may be gathered from these also. For instance, the fund is administered by a body surveying a wide area, thoroughly competent to deal with questions of secondary and higher education, and testing the

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result of its operations by a regular system of inspection. Again, it is a condition of the grant that the headmaster should be set free to devote himself to the higher instruction, and that the staff should be adequate to deal with the elementary work without him. The plan adopted differs from that of the upper department chiefly in the circumstance that instead of a formal provision for a separate branch or department of the school, grants are given, either to the master himself or to the school board, in such a way as to secure that any child who requires it shall be able to obtain efficient instruction in higher subjects. The important point, however, is the difference of the conditions under which the plan is worked from those which prevail in England. In the first place, the parochial schools of Scotland have always, to some extent, combined secondary with elementary instruction. Secondly, it is found possible to insist that no grant shall be made from the Dick Bequest to a master who is not a university graduate. It is the impossibility of insisting on such a condition at this moment which constitutes the chief obstacle to the application of the principles of the Dick Bequest in England. But unless this obstacle can be removed there is hardly more to be hoped from the plan of upper departments. And the outlook in this respect is, fortunately, encouraging. The increased supply of university institutions, the tendency to bring the training colleges for teachers into connexion with them, the aspirations of the teachers themselves, the gradual removal of the barriers between elementary and secondary schools, must rapidly produce a number of teachers of the requisite standard, whether possessing a University degree or not, who will be glad to enter upon a new field, in which, to quote Dr. Percival's words, "Many a good schoolmaster would make quite as good an income as a parish clergyman, and be in as good a position, and would be bringing some of the best possible influences to bear upon all classes of children."

58. When the most has been made of existing institutions public, proprietary, and private, there will still, no doubt, be many cases in which it will be the duty of the Local Authority to exercise the power we think it should have to make new provision for Secondary Education, and here we are met by the question on what principle the need for such provision is to be determined. From time to time various estimates more or less speculative have been made of the number of children per 1,000 of the population who are, or ought to be, in secondary schools.

The Schools Enquiry Commission took great pains to make such an estimate. Their conclusion was based on the income and occupations of parents. It was assumed that parents in certain

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occupations, or in receipt of a certain income, gave, or ought to give, a secondary education to their children, and an estimate was accordingly made of the number of such children. The conclusion arrived at was that there were 1228 boys per 1,000 of the population requiring a secondary education and that the average limits of age of these boys, balancing those who left the school before 15 against those who stayed at school longer, were 8 and 15.

In the secondary education required were included of course the preparatory stages between the ages of 8 and 12, which, it was assumed by the Commissioners, should be given in special preparatory schools or preparatory divisions of schools, except that they thought a few of the boys taking a third grade education might take the preparatory stages of it in national schools (see Report, p. 90), though this does not seem to have been allowed for in their estimate of secondary school places required.

This estimate has been the basis of most of the calculation made since, but, however satisfactory it may have been at the time it was made, it cannot be expected to agree with the facts as they stand now, for three reasons:

First, a considerable proportion of the children included in that estimate now appear to receive the education they require entirely in public elementary schools, which have of course improved and enlarged their scope in the last 30 years. Secondly, even of those children who continue their education after the elementary school age many - in some districts a very large proportion - begin it in elementary schools, and not in preparatory secondary schools. Thirdly, there is no reason to suppose that the distribution of incomes, on which the estimate of the Schools Enquiry Commission was based, is now the same as it was thirty years ago.

59. It would have been an advantage if it had been possible to frame an estimate more in accordance with the present facts, so as to afford useful guidance to the new local authorities. But after the most careful consideration, we have been forced to the conclusion that the problem contains so many indeterminate elements that any attempt at a solution applicable to the whole country would be necessarily misleading. The demand for secondary education in any district will vary not only with the character and wealth of the population, but with the grade and quality of the education offered, and the price at which it is provided. Under these circumstances the only practicable course appears to be for each local authority, instead of relying on any general forecast, to endeavour to determine for itself the amount of secondary school accommodation required of the type and at the price which it may deem suited to the circumstances of its district. The first step in such an enquiry would be to ascertain the actual number of children in secondary schools for every district in its area, It would then be comparatively easy to

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select the localities in which more secondary school accommodation was required, and to decide how far these deficiencies could be supplied by enlarging and improving schools already in existence, or by adding to them new departments. It would be only where these expedients were inadequate or unsuitable that the local authority would proceed to set up new schools, giving the type of instruction required, and charging such fees as the parents would be prepared to pay.

60. The first of these steps, i.e., an enquiry into the actual number of children in secondary schools, has been already taken by the London Technical Education Board, and the result will be found in the Appendix. Every school was asked to furnish for ages under 13, between 13 and 16, and over 16, the number of pupils coming to it from each parliamentary borough separately. The collected results show, therefore, for each borough the number of pupils attending the schools and their distribution among the schools. Thus gaps and local inconveniences in the school supply are easily detected, and the present demand for Secondary Education in each district made clear. It could not of course be expected that a first enquiry would bring in statistics from all the private schools over so vast an area. These will come in no doubt by degrees, and meanwhile the facts must be taken as lying within the mark.

In a district like London we might expect to find great inequality. The high-water mark is reached by Lewisham, where there are 9.45 boys per thousand of the population and 10.08 girls, making the large total of 19.53. At the other extreme stands Shoreditch, with .65 boys and .58 girls, making only 1.23 in all. The fall from one extreme to the other is gradual and steady, the mean number being 3.4 per 1,000 of the population for boys and 2.8 for girls, making 6.2 for both. Islington may be taken as fairly representative of this mean, with 3.2 for boys and 3 for girls. A memorandum printed in an Appendix to this Report gives particulars with regard to the number of children receiving secondary education in a few provincial districts selected as having apparently an adequate supply of secondary schools. This memorandum may be of use to local authorities in other districts in making their own enquiries.

61. The supervision of public secondary schools, which such a Local Authority as is contemplated would exercise, could hardly be extended generally to the details of administration which form a large part of the duties of the governing body of a school. It is no doubt advisable that the Local Authority, as has been suggested to us, should be capable of performing all the functions of a governing body; in many boroughs, and even in the smaller counties, there would be advantage in their doing so. But in the larger areas such a course would overburden them and interfere with their more important functions. On

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this ground, and from a desire to preserve continuity as far as possible in the management of schools, most of those who addressed us on the subject were in favour of governing bodies, independent, within their own sphere, of the Local Authority. As a rule, no doubt, these would, in the case of endowed schools, continue to be constituted separately for each school, but where there are a considerable number of schools fairly close to one another, a suggestion made to us, with regard to London, for placing groups of schools under a single governing body well deserves consideration. As to the constitution of governing bodies of ordinary secondary schools, it appeared to be generally agreed that they should include persons appointed by the Local Authority for Secondary Education, by representative local bodies in the neighbourhood of the school, and also some distinctly educational element.

In county boroughs an adequate representation of the municipal council and of the school board on the local authority would keep these bodies well in touch with each other, and arrangements for leaving the internal management of existing public schools and classes, other than endowed schools, in the hands of those who now administer them should present no special difficulties. In town and country the representation of the authority under the Technical Instruction Acts on the managing bodies of institutions which receive aid from it has worked well, and will have prepared the way for a more general application of the principle.

We have already observed (see Part II, par. 84) that the information collected and facts examined by our Assistant Commissioners go to show that difficulties are not found in practice to arise as regards the giving of religious instruction in secondary schools, and the presence in the same schools of pupils belonging to different religious denominations. The same absence of friction is testified to in the evidence which has been given. Very few of the witnesses have adverted to the subject. One has complained of the law as it stands, but he directed his strictures to certain provisions of the Endowed Schools Acts into a criticism of which it seems unnecessary for the purposes of this Report that we should enter. Two witnesses of great weight, the Bishops of London and Hereford, indicated their belief that, under the existing arrangements, the rights of parents were, in fact, respected, and general good feeling prevailed; and Dr. Percival, now Bishop of Hereford, in particular, referring to his long experience as headmaster, first, of Clifton College, and then of Rugby School, remarked:

"I have never felt hampered at all" (i.e. in giving religious instruction), "and I should be sorry to see any system adopted which would tend to interfere with the tendency to what I have called Christian harmony, which has grown up so appreciably within the last 25 years, between the members of

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different denominations. I feel that nothing tends more to Christian life than that the boys should grow up to manhood living together, and, as far as possible, under common Biblical teaching; supplemented as, much as may be at home, or in churches, but feeling that they are members of a common Christian body."

It is with satisfaction that we record these facts, and find that they relieve us from the necessity of entering further upon a topic which has often given rise to acute controversy.

Some important points concerning the internal administration of schools are reserved for treatment in subsequent sections dealing with finance and with the position of teachers.

61. We may also notice here such information as we have been able to collect on the subject of the teaching of boys and girls in the same school. From an economical point of view the subject has a most important bearing on the question how to provide secondary instruction in rural districts, and is one of the topics to which we specially directed the attention of our Lady Assistant Commissioners.

62. Mixed schools for boys and girls, as is well known, are common in the United States of America and in parts of Canada, girls and boys of all ages being frequently taught together, and it seems to be generally thought that the plan works well. In Scotland the boys and girls have long been taught together; and with success in many schools.

In England, the principal mixed schools are public elementary schools, higher grade schools which have developed out of these, and some pupil teachers' schools, The higher grade elementary schools are still young, but so far the mixed system in them seems to have worked well. Some of them, e.g., the central board school at Leeds and the central school at Manchester, are dual schools rather than simply mixed schools, i.e., the boys and girls have separate departments, but under a common staff, and meet in class for certain subjects.

Among other schools in England, the mixed schools which exist are mostly private schools. There are, however, a few endowed grammar schools in the north. In a school of this kind at Upholland there are 40 children, of whom 16 are girls, and their ages vary from about 11 to about 17. The association of girls and boys is carried so far that they play together, which is unusual, but with proper supervision no difficulties seem to arise, and the headmaster appears to think the mixture altogether an advantage. There are, apparently, a good many private second grade schools of a similar type to this scattered about the towns in Lancashire. An account of a successful private

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school near London, in which boys and girls were taught together through the whole of their school life, has been specially submitted to us.

Preparatory schools for boys and girls together are perhaps more common. We have evidence respecting two - one in Manchester, a rather expensive and very successful private day school of 70 children, half boys and half girls, who stay at the school till twelve years of age, and could do so till fourteen; and one near London.

63. With regard to the advantages and disadvantages of mixed schools, those who have had experience of them seem almost always to have found the advantage considerable and the drawbacks unimportant, while the objections to them appear to be mainly theoretical, and felt by those who have no practical acquaintance with such schools. Thus, the headmaster of the Upholland Grammar School objected, we are told, to receiving girls when he first was appointed to the school, but consented to try the experiment at the wish of the parents, and is now quite converted to the mixed classes. His children remain at school till about seventeen. The general rule that doubt as to the success of mixed schools is felt by those only who have not had experience of them, applies also as regards their advisability for particular classes and ages. Thus, Mr. Lloyd-Jones, whose experience on the subject was gathered in a large elementary school, speaks strongly of the advantage of mixture there, but will not advocate the adoption of the system in private secondary schools, where the pupils are older and drawn from a different class of society. Miss Anderton, on the other hand, whose experience was gained in precisely such a private secondary school, doubts "whether the system would be successful where the class of children is not high". Miss Herford, again, whose own (mixed) school is limited to the age of fourteen, claims up to that age advantages for the mixed system, both for intellect and character, but does not, Mrs. Kitchener tells us, advocate mixed schools for older boys and girls, at any rate at present.

There is one alleged drawback to mixed schools which should be mentioned, though it does not seem essential to the system, namely, the loss to girls from not having the influence of a headmistress. The principals of mixed schools, except preparatory secondary schools, are generally men; but there seems to be no reason why a woman who has the necessary capacity, knowledge, and organising power should not be regarded as equally eligible for the position; and when a man is at the head it should not be difficult to arrange - as often is arranged in higher grade elementary schools, and always, of course, in dual schools - that there should be a woman on the staff who should in many respects take the place of a headmistress for the girls. On the other side of the same question we may remark that in America it is thought advantageous, quite apart from the teaching of girls and boys together, that men should have a share in the teaching of girls, and women in the teaching of boys.

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64. Since the report of the Schools Enquiry Commission much has been done, and chiefly by the co-operation of the universities with the schools, to solve in part the problems which arise under this head, and to indicate the direction in which it is desirable to proceed for the development of a solution sufficiently complete. That it should not be so complete as to take the lead out of the hands of the teacher with reference to particulars of curriculum and methods of teaching, was an essential condition in the minds of most of our witnesses. No one advocated anything like a code, and the plea for the schoolmaster's liberty to invent and discover was in the mouths of many. "The first thing to secure is, that there should be a public guarantee of efficiency; and the second, that there should be the largest possible liberty both to teachers in regard to their methods and plans, and to governing bodies in regard to the educational aim and scope of the various schools."

One test of efficiency is the soundness of the scholar's attainments, more especially in the final school stage; and a certificate attesting this has a value for the individual scholar which makes such a test otherwise desirable. Success in a final examination, it should be noted, is a test of school efficiency that parents individually understand. Some other test, either by inspection or examination, is generally admitted to be also necessary to ensure that the work of the school is sound throughout, and that the results in final examinations are not gained by concentration of attention on the senior forms, with over-pressure in them as a probable consequence. The subject, therefore, falls into two divisions.

65. We had much evidence to show that the examinations already provided by the universities and the College of Preceptors go far to serve this purpose satisfactorily. The Oxford and Cambridge schools examination and the London University matriculation were instanced by Mr. Eve as supplying two contrasted types of such a test suitable for the scholars of first grade schools; between these two types schools are free to choose. There is also much demand for the certificates of the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, with their well-marked distinction or pass and honours, amounting, as one witness pointed out, to a useful distinction of leaving certificates at an upper from those at a lower level of attainment. The examinations of the College of Preceptors are also largely used for a similar purpose, especially by second grade schools.

A considerable body of experienced opinion was in favour of retaining these examinations. Their multiplicity was said to be

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an educational advantage, since each school selected the examination suited to its ideals, and no school need consider more than one, unless it required different examinations for scholars of different types. But the desirability of systematic classification and modification, so as to make the system fairly simple though far from uniform, was generally admitted. It was said that the requirements of the various entrance examinations leading into the professions higher and lower, are a source of disturbance in some schools, and that a system of leaving certificates, simple enough to be easily understood, and definitely taking the place of these, would be a gain both to the individual scholars and to the school. Sir George Young enters a strong plea that the special professional examinations should be abolished, and that in their place should be substituted, not one system, but a few systems which should be placed under definite authorities, educational rather than professional. Certificates might be classified as of two kinds, (1) those suitable for students proceeding to the universities, and (2) those accepted as exempting from the preliminary examinations of the medical corporations, the Incorporated Law Society, and others of a similar type.

66. Other views were, however, advanced in favour of the establishment of a uniform system of leaving examinations by the Central Educational Authority, or by a single university board on which all the universities should be represented, and, according to some, the secondary schools also. The headmistresses were of opinion that the existing university examinations should still continue, side by side with this new and more important one which many of them would like to see instituted. It was not to be, however, a single examination, but one which offered much variety of choice - many alternatives as regards the subjects to be taken. Mr. Storr expressly recommended that it should be conducted on the German plan, those teachers who sit on the examination board taking part in it with the inspector. This plan provides against the danger of dead uniformity in written examinations conducted over a considerable area, and makes the course or examination follow that of teaching in the schools. On the other hand, unless an open outside examination be also provided, the scholars of very small schools and private students would be left out, and it is not desirable to require that all children should either attend school or be debarred from the privilege of gaining a certificate.

It should be noticed that the advocates of a single examination board, offering variety in alternative groups of five or six subjects, did not appear to have realised that the deepest difference of educational opinion in this matter is the difference between those who believe that the final school examination should be wide, including subjects representative of all branches of school study, and those who hold that it should be more specialised. Until the truth is decided between these two, it would seem necessary to

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lend an ear to both, and provide for examinations suitable to each ideal. Agreement may some day be found, possibly by the division of the wider examination into two or even more parts, to be taken with a considerable interval of time between. Meanwhile the universities do provide for both ideals.

We had interesting evidence from Scotland as to the working of the new leaving certificate system there. This is conducted by the State, and the utmost liberty is allowed both as regards the subjects taken and the number of them. A certificate is granted for each subject separately. One of our witnesses stated his objection to this, as discouraging realisation of the view that school education aims at some ideal of general culture, not at knowledge of a few subjects here and there.

67. An important distinction was made with great clearness by Mr. Fearon as between "official and educational inspection". The latter does not, however, necessarily include any examination. "He (i.e., the educational inspector) perhaps might wait two hours in a school and never open his lips; but looking at the time table and seeing this go on, he formed a very good idea of how things were conducted. He saw the discipline exhaustively; he saw the arrangement of time; he saw whether they lost any time in moving classes and the rest of it. He saw the control and the moral relation between the teachers and the scholars; and he saw whether the teacher kept his place and governed the scholars by his moral force, and never went near them or touched them; and he saw the inferior teacher who went from one end of the class to the other and fidgeted about. He saw the whole school except one thing What is the result of all this upon the knowledge acquired by the scholar? That is examination. The other thing I call educational inspection." From this, again, is distinguished "official" inspection. "Roughly it consists in seeing the buildings, the premises, conferring with the teachers, noting whether the scheme or regulations of the scheme are duly carried out, and taking note of any suggestions made for amendment or improvement." This distinction is useful as clearly suggesting the very wide limits between which the range of the inspector's enquiry may vary. For the practical purposes which we have to consider, a sharp line of demarcation need not be drawn as between two types of inspection differing in kind. We have rather to treat all inspection as more or less educational, making, however, a distinction in degree between complete systematic detailed inspection and the inspection of a more general, but by no means merely "official" type to be presently described in our recommendations.

68. Our witnesses appeared to be for the most part agreed that all public schools should be open to the periodical inspection

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of some public authority, at least, in this latter, more limited sense. To these must be added all schools forming part of the recognised school supply. More especially, the proposal for sanitary inspection as part of this inspection was received with a chorus of consent. General inspection, of the kind proposed, does not, it is obvious, presuppose that the inspector is a critic of the schoolmaster's art, more highly skilled in knowledge of its details than the schoolmaster himself. Nevertheless, such an inspection, as a check on inaccuracy, indolence, inattention, and blind routine, may be most effective as an educational force, and may be trusted to reveal gross cases of neglect or error. If it includes inspection of the school equipment and the teacher's qualifications, with such general observations of the time table and the teaching as naturally form part of the visit of an intelligent observer, it would suffice to decide that a school is really doing its work as part of the school supply, though not to determine how efficiently it is doing it.

69. For this purpose it may be necessary to add, from time to time, either a more complete educational inspection or an examination of the school as a whole. It does not seem necessary to add both. If a school undergoes a general inspection and has its pupils periodically examined by some recognised authority reporting the result, this test of its efficiency ought to suffice. Such a test leaves the teacher free as regards choice of methods and order of studies in so far as the examination is not conducted according to a code, but follows the lines of the individual school. This result is secured by allowing the headmaster to supply the syllabus on which the examination is held. For examinations which come in the middle of the school course, not at the end, this requirement has undoubtedly reason on its side. Examination thus conducted has an advantage similar to that claimed by general inspection; it does not exalt the examiner into being a person fit to tell the schoolmaster what and in what order he should have taught his pupils; but it obliges the latter, nevertheless, to have a plan of studies and to carry it out effectively. We gather from the general tenor of the evidence that periodical general inspection, or visitation, with periodical examination of the kind described, would be a test of efficiency acceptable to educational opinion in general.

70. The other possible test, in addition to leaving examinations, is that of complete educational inspection, without the necessary exclusion of examination by the inspector. In this also there is no attempt to take the educational initiative from the teacher, but it is his methods that are criticised, not simply their knowledge results. It would seem, therefore, that such educational inspection, well carried out, requires a higher degree of educational skill and experience in the inspector than is required to test efficiency by examination of scholars in their subjects of study. Inspection supervises the teacher at his work, and the inspector, therefore, should under-

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stand how to do the work at least as well as the teacher does. It is another matter to appraise the work when done. It was with this idea in view, no doubt, that one experienced teacher told us he was "against inspection altogether". On the other hand, the representatives of the National Union of Teachers preferred inspection to examination as a test of efficiency. Mr. Easterbrook, from the Headmasters' Association, held that the proper test consists of inspection with a good system of leaving examinations, and the representatives of the private schools also expressed a preference for inspection. But these latter witnesses seem to have had in view inspection of the less comprehensive type, and they may all be taken, therefore, as advancing the opinion, probably shared by many, that to a moderate amount of inspection need only be added examination of their pupils at discretion. Most of the witnesses, however, did not discuss the question of examination versus inspection as here considered, but, assuming generally that some kind of examination and some kind of inspection would be necessary, discussed very fully the question of the authority to be charged with each of the functions.

71. "Inspection should be provided by the State, and examination by the universities", and the State means here the central authority. The impulse of the majority of the educational witnesses certainly was to look to the central authority as the proper body to guarantee the efficiency of schools, though with the reservation implied that the report of an examiner responsible to some body of the nature of a university syndicate should be accepted as one part of the guarantee. There were some teachers, however, who held that inspection should be by the local authority, with possibly some power of applying to the central authority, as supreme referee, for another inspection and report, in case of dissatisfaction. Witnesses who had paid attention to the work of inspection already done by such local authorities as the technical education boards in connexion with the distribution of grants, were generally in favour of some system of local inspection, though rather general than strictly educational in character. Interesting evidence as to the working of such a system was given by Mr. Webb and Dr. Garnett for London. There is nothing to alarm the schoolmaster in Dr. Garnett's picture of the local inspector making his round from school to school, conversing with the teachers, observing the equipment, suggesting new ideas here, receiving new suggestions there, supervising all the more effectively because not too systematically.

There is no real opposition between the two views. If the local authority is to make grants in aid, and to decide on the sufficiency and efficiency of the school supply, inspectors report-

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ing to it are essential. It is conceivable that inspectors appointed by the central authority should so report, but persons receiving their instructions altogether from a distance might very well fail to report to the local authority those things which it was most concerned to know. Hence there are good reasons why the local authority should appoint inspectors to report to it. Moreover, it is probable that inspection would tend to be more elastic the more local its origin, and this makes for the preservation of educational liberty in the schools.

But all this is not inconsistent with making the central authority responsible for the efficiency of the inspector and the soundness of his methods. This condition, it will be seen, is fulfilled by our recommendations. It was urged upon us by more than one witness that experience in teaching should be regarded as an essential qualification in the appointment of inspectors; and others suggested that it is very desirable to include in a list of inspectors a certain number of qualified women.

It was held that sanitary inspection at least should be in the hands of the local authority, though we note an able argument to the contrary on the ground that neither the local sanitary inspector nor the general inspector could be expected to be sufficiently qualified; that therefore a special set of inspectors are required, and that, a county not being large enough to employ one man's time, these should be appointed by the central authority.

Respecting the great non-local schools, those witnesses who adverted to them did not shrink from the admission that they also should be inspected sanitarily, and there was one even bold enough to add educationally also.

72. The teachers' ideal of a system for examining schools as a whole is easily described. Such an examination should not occur too frequently. It involves much expenditure that might often better go to improvements in equipment and staff. Secondly, the governing body should be itself required to arrange, as it does now, in some approved manner, for this periodic examination, and to report the result to the supervising authorities. Thirdly there should be examining boards in connexion with the universities, but open to the influence of scholastic opinion, to which application for examiners could be made by the schools. Finally, the examiner should examine on the teacher's syllabus, or co-operate with the headmaster in the examination. The importance of viva voce questioning in school examinations was also indicated. Junior classes cannot indeed be fairly tested without it, and for classes of every age it is a necessary part of a complete test, and is, moreover, the least laborious and therefore the least expensive part.

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To this the present practice more or less imperfectly corresponds. The chief imperfection lies in the provision of examining boards. The College of Preceptors does a considerable amount of work in providing examiners for the second grade schools, and the universities have admitted this as one of their functions. It has been fulfilled for first grade schools by the Oxford and Cambridge schools examination Board; and for an increasing number of schools by the Local Examinations Syndicate, Cambridge, and the Local Examinations Delegacy, Oxford. The feeling of the teachers seemed, on the whole, to be clearly in favour of the formation by the universities of examining boards, on which persons of experience in school work should co-operate with members of the university. Some stress was laid on the danger that young men with university experience only should be sent down to examine schools; and much can, no doubt, be said for developing more systematically, but within limits, through the medium of some controlling body, the custom by which schoolmasters examine each other's schools.

It was not generally contemplated that the central authority should itself act as an examining board, or form such a board. Its function with reference to examination, as also to inspection, lies in the laying down of such general rules as are applicable to all cases. According to the English conception of variety and elasticity in educational organisation, this is a function which, though important, is not large.

73. There has been a remarkable degree of unanimity among our witnesses as to the desirability of scholarships and exhibitions being founded in considerable numbers, to enable children of scanty means and exceptional ability to prolong their education. Even those who, like Mr. Roby, most strongly objected to free Secondary Education as "an enormous waste of money", and those who thought with Lord Davey, Sir George Young, and others, that well-to-do parents should pay for the education of their children, equally insisted on the need for "a liberal system of scholarships". The Bishop of London, while maintaining that Secondary Education should be self-supporting, would allow exhibitions to be paid for out of the rates. Even the representatives of the private schools, with their far-reaching objections to all aid from public funds, acquiesced in the continuance of a scholarship system, subject to certain important modifications; and those few who thought that the effect of scholarships was to draw promising boys from the less wealthy schools, and would, therefore, like to see them abolished, did not see the same objection to exhibitions for passing poor boys and girls on from elementary schools.

Despite the large number of scholarships founded recently by the local authorities, and usually stated to have worked satisfactorily, there is a general agreement, with but few

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exceptions, that, the demand has not yet been satisfied, especially in the case of "minor scholarships", i.e., those leading from elementary to secondary schools. Mr. Fitch estimated that of the places in secondary schools 5 per cent. should be kept free for children of merit who are able to make a right use of Secondary Education, but we had a much higher estimate from Dr. Bruce, who would have one-third of the places absolutely free, and a representative of the primary teachers went even further. In the case of these minor scholarships, the general view was that, while the scholarships should be within reach of the poorest, they should be awarded to candidates of exceptional rather than of average ability. This rule applies with still stronger force to higher scholarships, since, in Mr. Roby's words, "it is not desirable to force up boys who have not got capacity and industry into a totally different stratum to which they are not used, and where they will not move with ease".

In the country districts, more especially, it was clearly established that scholarships are most urgently required, owing to the absence from many localities of any good secondary or higher grade elementary schools. Here it was generally agreed that maintenance scholarships or bursaries should be provided to enable the clever children to proceed to higher schools in urban centres.

Proceeding from the general demand for scholarships to the particular qualifications and conditions, we were led to ask the following questions: Should scholarships and exhibitions be close or open, and, if close, to what classes or schools and pupils should they be restricted or attached? At what ages should they be awarded? What should be their value? What are the best methods of award? We had also to consider whether girls should be treated differently from boys, how far private schools should be put on the same footing as public schools, and how the anomalies arising from the diversities of local administration could be best overcome.

74. The majority of our witnesses seemed to approve of the ordinary system of confining the competition for the lower grades of scholarships to pupils from the public elementary schools. This restriction was considered by at least one important witness to be a satisfactory test of poverty, if a broad line had to he taken. But we had evidence that in London, Birmingham, and other large towns the public elementary school test has long since ceased to differentiate the poor from the well-to-do. It is not sufficient, we were told, to confine scholarships to public elementary schools, as the wage-earning classes have, for various reasons, less chance than tradesmen, clerks, and professional men, who often now send their children to these schools, sometimes with the special object of

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obtaining scholarships. Thus, on the ground of justice to the poor, as well as of economy of public resources, a further poverty test was demanded, either confined to income, or taking into account the number of children as well as the income of the family. While such a test was regarded by some as of too inquisitorial a nature, it was thought by others that if the value of the scholarships were made augmentable, the stigma of poverty might be avoided by a private arrangement between the parents and the school committee.

75. With respect to the attachment of scholarships to particular schools, it was thought desirable, by the Bishop of London and other important witnesses, to have both leaving exhibitions attached to the lower school and entrance scholarships attached to the higher school, but a scholarship or exhibition must never be tied at both ends. While some of the representatives of secondary schools were more inclined to favour entrance scholarships, those of primary education considered it preferable to attach close leaving exhibitions to each elementary school. Dr. Percival laid stress on the importance of opening "leaving" exhibitions for competition among the schools of a town or district, rather than attaching them to particular schools, on the ground that this system tends to stimulate good education in the district and enables people to find out which are the good schools. He admitted, however, that an entirely open system might discourage the education of the country districts. Sir George Young hoped that limited competitions might be arranged between the children from a particular neighbourhood. He also pointed out the difficulty of inducing trustees and other local bodies to apply their endowments to leaving exhibitions rather than to scholarships - an objection which might, however, be overcome hereafter by the action of a local educational authority having a wider area of jurisdiction and a wider range of view. Dr. Scott, while thinking it undesirable to attach scholarships to particular elementary schools, admitted the necessity of having different standards of examination for "rural" and "urban" districts. It was, however, generally felt that no strict rule could be laid down in view of the widely varying needs of different localities.

76. The ordinary limit of age for the passage of scholars from elementary to secondary schools appears to fall between 11 and 14. We have weighty evidence in favour of the view that this transfer should, as a rule, take place at the earlier rather than at the later age. This is urged both in the interests of the children who, if transferred at 13, often only gain a "smattering" of knowledge, and in the interests of the secondary schools whose organisation, especially if on classical lines, is apt to suffer from the introduction of elementary-school pupils at too

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advanced an age. The Headmasters' Association resolved that the maximum age of candidates from elementary schools should not exceed 13, preferably 12, and that an allowance should be made for age. It was, moreover, pointed out to us by the clerk of the Liverpool School Board that the tendency was to retain children in the public elementary school until the maximum age at which a scholarship is attainable is past, and that the effect of fixing a high limit might thus be to raise the general age of entrance to the secondary schools. The Bishop of London, on the other hand, speaking of scholarships not confined to elementary schools, advocated a higher limit of age than 13 on the ground that a boy might only develop promise at 14 or 15.

The prevalent view seemed to be that these "minor" scholarships should be awarded for not more than two years in the first instance and be renewable for longer periods, if the scholars are found efficient.

Various local authorities award scholarships for taking boys from secondary schools either at the ages of 14 or 15 to other schools of a higher grade, or at the age of 16 or 17, or even later, to universities or places of higher education. These two classes of scholarships are sometimes known as "Intermediate" and "Major" or "Senior" respectively. The demand for scholarships of the latter class appears to be considerable, and the committee of the Headmasters' Association has recently framed an examination scheme for them. The comparative scarcity of the intermediate scholarships seems due to the difficulty of promoting boys from one school to another at an advanced age, especially where the promotion takes place to a first grade classical school.

77. With respect to the value of such scholarships, while we have had evidence in favour of their covering tuition fees only, the bulk of our witnesses agree that a system of free places will not satisfy the needs of the wage-earning classes, and that some addition should be made towards the cost of the child's maintenance, or "to replace earnings", so as to induce parents to permit their children to remain at school for a longer time. The Headmasters' Association thought that scholarships should consist of two separate parts - (a) cost of tuition, books, &c., (b) a contribution towards maintenance, and held (in common with other witnesses) that "those scholars only should be allowed the maintenance grant, whose parents satisfied the awarding body of their actual need of such assistance".

Considerable stress was also laid on the desirability of the value being graded according to the age of the children. The actual value of scholarships now awarded from elementary schools would seem to range up to £30 a year, a figure which we were informed was too large in London, but which may be

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necessary to cover boarding charges in certain parts of the country. The higher scholarships are of various values up to £60 a year, according to the age of the scholar and the class of institution to which they are to be sent. The number of these latter scholarships is at present proportionately small, and a large increase in their number might possibly involve the danger which Mr. Fitch apprehended, that a good many persons might seek them not for the sake of the education, but for the sake of the maintenance. But, limited in number as they are, they would seem to be indispensable steps in that educational ladder by means of which boys of rare capacity may pass from elementary schools to the universities.

78. The method most generally approved for awarding scholarships and exhibitions was undoubtedly that of competitive examination. "Examination is the only fair way in the long run, all selection is apt to degenerate into personal favouritism." There were, however, serious objections raised to an unrestricted system of competition, principally on account of its unsuitability for young children. This objection was usually limited to the case of children below the age of twelve or thirteen, but Miss Beale, speaking with special reference to girls, thought that 16 or 17 was quite early enough to attempt competitive examination. On the other hand, Mr. Vardy, in the light of his large experience at Birmingham, did not consider it inapplicable to children under 11 or 12, though he thought it was more difficult to distinguish the comparative excellence of the younger candidates. In order to obviate any injury to children of tender years, it was suggested that in the case of elementary schools the teacher should have power to nominate his most promising boys; or that exhibitions should be awarded to the youngest children who attain a certain qualifying standard, or that there should be a combination of the methods of selection and competition.

The further objection raised to the award of scholarships by competition pure and simple, was that it resulted in many cases in the scholarships being won by the children of parents who could afford private tuition and special coaching. It was, however, suggested that this evil might be to a large extent obviated by confining the examinations to the subjects obligatory in elementary schools together with one additional class subject, by introducing viva voce examination, and by varying the questions from year to year. In this connexion we think it right to refer to the interesting explanation given by Dr. Scott of the scholarship scheme drawn up by a committee appointed by the Headmasters' Association, which seems to have fairly met most of the objections urged to a system of competition, and already to have been largely adopted by schools and local authorities. Among other advantages he pointed out that it

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gave a means whereby governing bodies awarding close scholarships might compare their candidates with those who win open scholarships, and that it would thus affect the standard of scholarships generally.

Our witnesses were generally in accord as to the desirability of extending the scholarship system to girls as well as boys, though several witnesses informed us that the demand was smaller in the case of girls. Thus in London the candidates were in the proportion of two boys to every girl, and in the West Riding of Yorkshire the proportion of girl competitors was small, while in Lancashire the two sexes competed in almost equal numbers. Some witnesses thought that no separate regulations were required for girls, but perhaps it would be truer to say that the matter was one for local rather than general regulation.

79. We have had some evidence, from the representatives both of the schoolmasters and of the local authorities, as to the need for a larger degree of uniformity in the scholarship schemes for examinations. The scheme of the Headmasters' Association, which has been alluded to above will, if adopted generally, undoubtedly tend to promote this desirable object, without, it is hoped, imposing any excessive rigidity on the action of the county councils and other awarding bodies.

Under the present diversity of systems great difficulties and anomalies arise on the borders of the different local areas, a candidate being not unfrequently disqualified by moving from one side of a street to another. It has been suggested to us that if more uniformity were introduced these difficulties might be met by "a committee of a central department acting as a kind of scholarship clearing house, with power to decide that in such a case the boy shall have his scholarship, and that each county shall pay a certain quota towards it."

Besides these geographical anomalies, we are informed that there are instances of scholarships offered by the Science and Art Department attracting boys from the local scholarships, and of different endowments in the same locality conflicting with each other, so as to keep up a useless competition.

80. The opinion of many of the most important of our witnesses points to the fact that there are in most parts of the country many existing endowments which might be utilised for founding scholarships and exhibitions. The largest class of these endowments and that which might perhaps be most appropriately converted to this purpose, consists of those now attached to elementary schools, and formerly applied for the purpose of giving free elementary education. As this purpose has, since the Act of 1891, become in most cases

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obsolete, it would seem reasonable that these endowments should, in some cases, be used for the kindred object of providing select children taken from these schools with free education of a more advanced character than these schools afford. It is admitted, however, that in these cases, as in the conversion of endowments generally, there is a vast amount of local prejudice and opposition to be overcome. This opposition might possibly be successfully met by a strong local educational authority, but in the absence of such an authority, it appears hopeless to expect a central board like the Charity Commission to contend against it.

81. We have also had strongly urged upon us the desirability of effecting important changes in the award of scholarships at our largest and best known first-grade schools, especially the non-local boarding schools, It appears that large and increasing sums of money have been recently devoted by the governing bodies of many of these schools, in competition with such old foundations as those of Eton and Winchester, to the establishment of valuable scholarships to attract clever boys. This unhealthy competition seems to have given rise to more than one evil. There is much evidence to show that a considerable portion of these scholarships go to the sons of well-to-do parents who are able to pay for a special preparation at expensive preparatory schools, and that the children of poorer parents have comparatively little chance of obtaining them.

The headmaster of Clifton says: "The standard of the entrance examinations is such that few boys stand a chance of success who have not been trained at an expensive preparatory school. Parents with an instinct for business recognise this." At the Headmasters' Conference in 1888 an instance was given of a parent of a very promising boy asking leave of absence for his son to see an uncle just returned from Australia. The leave was granted, but it was taken advantage of to have the boy examined for a large scholarship at another school, without the knowledge of the authorities of the first school. It seems clear, therefore, that the general effect of offering abundant pecuniary rewards for intellectual attainment must be to lower the motive for intellectual effort, first by acting on the parents, then on the children. To quote again from the same memorandum: " If parents are demoralised, so are boys. They are hawked about from school to school, and early come to think of themselves as articles of commerce." Injury, moreover, is done by this system to very many schools which are far from wealthy. The vast majority of modern scholarships are paid for out of the school funds, in other words, by the

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parents of unsuccessful boys, or by the staff of masters, or out of the fund for general school equipment, and it appears that schools which are in great financial straits continue to offer handsome scholarships. And on the smaller boarding schools the system tells with great severity. It seems that it is not uncommon for a clever boy to be attracted away from one of these schools by a pecuniary bait offered by a larger school, and that, too, just when his abilities are becoming really useful to the smaller school. As to the evil of over-pressure, opinions among the headmasters of boarding schools appear to be be divided, but it is difficult to resist the impression that the results of the competition on the unsuccessful candidates have not always been taken into account. Lastly, owing largely to the fact that these valuable scholarships are mostly awarded in classical subjects, the preparatory schools have their curricula unduly affected and distorted, so that, according to one of our witnesses, English subjects are almost wholly ignored.

82. To obviate these evils it has been suggested by more than one headmaster that a minimum value should be fixed for these scholarships (corresponding perhaps to the tuition fee), with power to augment in case of need, or to extend the benefits of the scholarship fund to unsuccessful candidates who have done well in the examination, but that such help should only be given on the application of the parents, and where the governing body making the award may deem it necessary. Such a change as this, towards which we are assured the opinion of the public schools is now tending, is yet one which no single school can be expected to adopt by itself; united and simultaneous action on the part of all is required. The effects that might fairly be hoped for would be to check the commercial character and extravagance of the present competition, and to bring back considerable sums of money to more appropriate and useful objects; more boys would receive help, and they would be those who needed it; while the selection of a school by the parents of clever children would be determined by the merits and prestige of a school, not by the amount of the pecuniary bait offered. Hence there is no reason to fear that the older foundations would suffer from a diminution of their intellectual supplies.

83. College scholarships, at the universities, although lying somewhat beyond the scope of our reference, exercise so considerable an influence on the field of Secondary Education, that they could not be altogether excluded from our consideration. But we have preferred to deal with them in the subsequent portion of this part of our Report which deals with the relation of the Universities to Secondary Education.

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Throughout these paragraphs on finance, which involve many questions of a thorny character, or which must eventually be determined by considerations rather of general political, than of purely educational policy, we have aimed primarily at giving a fair statement of views entertained by persons of different types of opinion, and we desire not to be taken as delivering our own opinions except where this is expressly stated or obviously implied.

84. A better organisation of the authorities connected with Secondary and Technical Education appears to be called for on financial no less than on administrative and educational grounds. Opinions differ as to how far existing resources will be found sufficient, but there is practical unanimity in the demand for the adoption of a simpler and sounder method for their distribution. From the administrative point of view there is constant risk of waste and confusion from the overlapping, in the field of finance, of Government Departments with one another or with local authorities. The Charity Commissioners, make financial provisions in their schemes without knowing whether, or to what extent, or for how long the schools will obtain aid from the Science and Art Department, or from a county council. Higher grade elementary schools to some extent, and such of them as are organised science schools to a very large extent, depend for their existence on grants from the Science and Art Department. For the expenditure of these sums the responsibility of school boards is divided. They are obviously responsible to the ratepayers who elect them, to the Science and Art Department, and, in a less direct way, to the Education Department. But while it is admitted that money from the rates is expended on these schools, it is well nigh impossible to say, in any given case, to what extent this is so, or at what point the responsibility of the managers to the ratepayers begins or ends. Again, the Education Department gives grants for the maintenance of evening continuation schools, and has framed a code for their regulation. In large towns, these schools are often, and very properly, aided out of the rates for elementary education, but in the country districts we are told that in many cases they could not be carried on if the county council did not come to the rescue with grants given on such conditions as may be required or allowed under the Technical Instruction Acts. The unfortunate effect of a system by which education is cut up into sections, paid for by different and independent authorities, has been already sufficiently noticed in our preceding observations on the Science and Art Department (pp. 101-3). It remains to describe briefly the suggestions made to us for meeting the financial requirements of secondary and technical education in the future. It will be convenient to consider them under the following heads: (i) Endowments; (ii) Grants under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890; (iii) Rates; (iv) Parliamentary Grants; and (v) Fees.

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85. Endowments, though of greater value than any other single item of our resources for secondary education, no longer constitute the principal part of those resources, and in many large districts of the country would not be sufficient to form, as one witness suggested, even a "substratum" for a public system of Secondary Education. Mr. Fearon gave a list of 11 towns (including the county boroughs of Birkenhead, Brighton, Gateshead, Huddersfield, Liverpool, Rochdale, and Sunderland) which are wholly unsupplied with endowed secondary schools.) Witnesses from Norfolk, Somerset, and Surrey complain that there are towns and whole districts in those counties which are no better off.

86. But though this inadequacy was generally assumed, even where it was not explicitly stated, it was not attributed solely to insufficiency of amount; existing endowments are constantly found to be in the wrong place, or to have become too big, or too little, for the purposes for which they were intended, or for the needs of the locality in which they are applied. Well-endowed schools in country places, according to one witness, should be moved nearer to towns, where they would be really useful to the people. Where schools of that kind succeed at all, they are, in his opinion, educating the children of the wealthy who come from other districts, and only benefit the district in which they stand by bringing "custom to the shopkeepers from the boarding houses". Another advocated the consolidation of small endowments with a view to a more useful distribution. Lord Davey was prepared to give to a county authority the widest powers to remove the difficulties presented by the present unequal distribution of endowments. He wished to see the various educational endowments "merged in the general county endowments for Secondary Education", which would be used "for the best advantage of all the dwellers within the area, quite irrespective of whether the particular fund came from one place or another". But the general feeling was that so bold a policy, however expedient in itself, was not practicable. "Generally", said Mr. Roby, "you must have regard very largely to the existing local position of endowments." Mr. Lee Warner admitted that more might be made of endowments in Norfolk by a better geographical distribution, but feared that the gain would not counterbalance the evil arising from the ill-feeling that such a course would inevitably arouse. It is, however, encouraging to find that, while no one was very sanguine that great results would be obtained, there was a general agreement that the necessary powers should be given. And, indeed, there is no question of creating a new power; that possessed by the Charity Commissioners is more than sufficient. We were reminded that it has been said that the Endowed Schools Acts made it possible to turn a boys' school in Northumberland into a girls' school

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in Cornwall, and it is not improbable that the very greatness of the power may largely account for the notorious inability of the Charity Commissioners to exercise it. However that may be, it is certain that our witnesses, with a single exception, were emphatically of opinion that if powers for the better distribution of endowments are to be successfully exercised, they should be entrusted, in the first instance, not to it centralised body dealing with the whole country, but to a local authority of a representative character, which would have control only over endowments within its own limited area.

87. Endowments for Secondary Education may be made to go further than they do at present. They may also be supplemented by other endowments not now applied for that purpose. Several witnesses drew our attention to the class of endowments applicable or applied to the maintenance of elementary schools, or in paying the fees of children in those schools. Mr. Macan gave a striking picture of the state of these endowments in Surrey. He mentioned an endowment of nearly £600 a year, half of which goes to the support of the national elementary school of the place; a still larger endowment in another place, a great part of which is applied to keep up a "select elementary school", not under the Education Department, "which the sons of small tradesmen and others use". At another place he found charities of the yearly value of £51 which had been spent on the national elementary school until the creation of a school board, since when they have been applied in doles. He maintained that endowments of this class, as now applied, "operate in relief of the ratepayers", by saving them from a school board or from the burden of voluntary subscription. He stated that these charities, if applied to Secondary Education, would provide schools to accommodate 660 children, and that these schools would be used in the main by those who would be properly described as poor. Other witnesses were in favour of more effectually safeguarding the interests of the poor by using these endowments only for scholarships to carry children from elementary schools to a higher stage of education. The effect of the fee grant now made to elementary schools upon the large number of schemes making endowments applicable in the payment of tuition fees at such schools has received the special attention of the Charity Commissioners, and there is reason to believe that in many cases trustees are applying these funds to the maintenance of the schools, that is to say, to the relief of ratepayers and subscribers. The Charity Commissioners recommend the adoption of one or more of the following methods, payment of fees in evening continuation schools, prizes and rewards for good conduct and progress in day elementary schools, scholarships to encourage longer continuance in the schools, provision of technical instruction in elementary schools, and scholarships to enable children to pass from these schools to places of higher instruction. They finally recommend that the

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endowments in question should be made applicable to any of these purposes by a general legislative enactment. There is much to be said for the adoption of some such plan, not only in the case of endowments for the payment of tuition fees, but for all endowments connected with elementary schools and not already applied in the form of scholarships to take children to places of higher instruction. There is no doubt that, at present, they are very largely spent in a way that confers no benefit on children, parents, or education generally. On the other hand it is often difficult to apply them entirely to secondary instruction in the ordinary sense, and yet to preserve a fair share of the benefits for the poorest members of that class for whose education they were originally intended. Nor are scholarships always the most suitable or useful way of improving the educational opportunities of poor children; the elementary school itself especially in rural districts, will often be found to be a better instrument. The true safeguard against the use of such funds for work which ought to be left to the unassisted efforts of the elementary school authorities will be found by entrusting the supervision of the endowments to the Local Authority for Secondary Education, rather than by insisting too strongly on their divorce from the elementary schools.

88. Those of our witnesses who alluded to apprenticeship charities took the view, as a rule, that apprenticeship as an institution was dead or dying. "They are not used", we are told, of certain apprentice charities in Surrey, "for the benefit of the lads to be apprenticed, but for the benefit of a certain number of selected tradesmen, who take other boys on the same terms without the premium, but take these boys with the premium because it is offered." Scholarships tenable at places of technical instruction are the alternative usually suggested, though we also received a proposal that such endowments should be largely devoted to the development of the pupil teacher system, that is to say, to a particular form of apprenticeship. But it would not be wise to ignore the existence of a feeling that the abuse of apprenticeship charities does not necessarily imply that the system of apprenticeship is effete. Sir George Young, while entertaining no doubt that apprenticeship charities are of little use, confesses that he has not seen "any quite satisfactory reason why apprenticeship in the old sense should have gone into disuse." And Mr. Charles Acland considers it very doubtful "whether apprenticing is not one of the most useful of endowments".

89. There is practical unanimity in the suggestions offered to us with regard to the money available for technical education under the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act. In the first place it must be permanently devoted to educational

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purposes. The present state of things causes a double uncertainty. The county councils do not know that they will continue to receive the grant from Parliament, and, if they receive it, whether they or their successors will continue to apply it, or any part of it, to education. Undoubtedly the second danger is the greater of the two. And it is not merely a question as between a county council and its successor. In each year of their existence county councils are called upon to decide afresh whether this money shall go to education or not. At any time some fresh demand upon the rates, some adverse turn in the prospects of agriculture or trade, may weaken or destroy the majority in favour of education on the most favourably disposed council. Hence there is a constant anxiety and tension of feeling eminently unfavourable to a well-considered educational policy, even where it does not lead to a positive waste of resources in the attempt to keep a dangerous minority in good temper by "throwing sops to Cerberus". Secondly, to make security complete, it should be the duty of the county council to devote the whole grant to education.

90. Thirdly, the money should be applicable, not only for technical education, but for all branches of Secondary Education. There were one or two dissentient or doubtful voices upon this point, but on the whole the representatives of schools and of county and borough councils were emphatically in favour of the removal of the present educational restrictions, to a great extent, if not altogether. They dislike the tendency of the present system to disturb the balance of the curriculum of schools. In many counties, the councils, recognising that a good modern education is the necessary basis of technical instruction, give grants to the secondary schools in their area in such a way as to promote their general efficiency, and it is felt that there should be power to do this and to establish new schools on similar lines without the necessity of resort to roundabout methods. This conclusion receives support even from those who admit that in their counties the money from this source is not more than enough to supply the needs of technical instruction in its limited sense. The restriction should be removed, said one witness, whether the money available be adequate or inadequate. If more money is required, let it be given in one grant, not in two. It is a mistake to introduce a large sum of this kind into "the fabric of our education, restricting it to a particular province". It is clear, however, that a Local Authority, in estimating its resources for Secondary Education, will find a very large portion of the Local Taxation Act grant already most usefully appropriated to various forms of special instruction, and may have to look further for additional funds.

91. The rates were suggested as the next source to be drawn from, the general view being that the Local Authority for

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Secondary Education should have power to rate, or issue a precept for a rate, but should not be obliged to exercise it. In many districts a rate may not be necessary; and in the more rural counties, and perhaps elsewhere, it is likely to be unpopular. In more populous parts, where the local taxation grant is more largely drawn upon for special technical instruction, it is considered impossible to make adequate provision for general Secondary Education without a rate. We have already mentioned that as many as seven county boroughs are stated to be wholly unsupplied with endowed secondary schools. The representatives of the Private Schools' Association stand alone in rejecting the idea of a rate under any circumstances or conditions. And they do so on the triple ground that there is enough money without it, that public opinion would not sanction it, and that it would be unfair to private enterprise.

Most of our witnesses were in favour of a limitation in the amount. In one county, we are told, a rate of three farthings in the pound, would suffice. Others suggested a halfpenny or a penny in the pound.

Limitations of the purposes to which the rate should be applicable were also suggested to us. The Bishop of London, following the lines laid down by the Schools Enquiry Commission, would confine expenditure from the rates to the provision of school buildings and scholarships. Mr. Fearon was inclined to restrict it absolutely to buildings.

If the rate is limited in amount, and that seems to be both generally desired, and in accordance with recent precedent, the expediency of further restrictions as to its application within that limit seems very doubtful. In the places where schools are most wanted, it would be very difficult to say that one kind of help was more urgent than another. If such restrictions are not acceptable to those whom they are meant to bind, they can generally be evaded, and in the long run are not likely to secure economy and efficiency any better than would be done by a general sense of responsibility to the ratepayers.

92. The existing parliamentary grant for Secondary Education is that made through the Science and Art Department. It is true that the grant made through the Education Department to evening continuation schools is, or may be, applied for instruction of a secondary character; but it has been in operation too short a time for our witnesses to speak of it with much confidence.

In discussing the more financial aspects of the science and art grants, the witnesses concentrated their attention on them mainly as they affect day-schools, and particularly organised science schools. Their suggestions, however, are generally applicable to the whole system, and show a remarkable unanimity

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of opinion. It must be remembered that the system criticised by our witnesses was that in force prior to the new regulations (mainly affecting organised science schools) issued by the Department in 1894.

93. There is a general demand that the system of payment on the result of the examination of individual scholars should be abolished, or largely modified, in the case of these grants as in that of grants made through the Education Department. Some examination, particularly in the advanced stages, there must be, but the greater portion of the grant should be in the form of a capitation payment, based on inspection and oral examination. This is held to be a necessary reform, but much more than this is required. Grants can only be earned by the adoption of an inelastic and one-sided curriculum. Many schools, particularly the higher grade elementary schools, adopt it, because, without these grants they cannot live at all; but the education is cramped, and the teachers are hampered. "If they are compulsorily required to devote 15 hours every week to a particular branch of education, they must be hampered". Small grammar schools would be glad to enlarge their curriculum on the modern and scientific side, but they cannot do so without financial aid, and they cannot accept the conditions on which aid can be obtained from the Science and Art Department. When asked what they would do, there is but one reply. The National Union of Teachers, the Association of School Boards, the Association of Headmasters of Higher Grade Elementary and Organised Science Schools, as well as individual witnesses, agree that this sectional administration of education is an evil, and that a healthy balance between science and literary subjects should be secured by the payment through one department of one grant distributed over a liberal and elastic curriculum.

94. While we were examining these witnesses, the Science and Art Department was taking important steps in the direction indicated by their suggestions, so far as organised science schools are concerned. By regulations issued in 1894, and now in operation, the minimum number of hours to be given to science (including mathematics and drawing) in these schools is reduced from 15 to 13; the grant is given more as capitation grant and on result of inspection, and less on the results of examination; before the grant can be earned the Inspector must be satisfied, among other things, that the instruction in literary subjects is adequate; and, lastly, only scholars in the advanced stages are required to be presented at the May examinations. It is not yet possible to predict with any confidence, what will be the financial effect of these important changes. On the one hand, it is not unreasonably expected that the formal recognition of literary subjects, and, indeed, the positive requirement that they shall receive proper attention, coupled with the abandonment to such a large extent of the system of "payment by results" will soon lead to the creation of many new higher grade

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elementary schools, and to the removal of the objections which have deterred many of the smaller grammar schools from becoming organised science schools, and that consequently there will be a large and rapid growth in the grants made through the Science and Art Department. But this view is not entirely accepted by the Department. An increase in the number of organised science schools does not necessarily mean an increase, or at any rate a corresponding increase, in the total grant. For, a school which becomes an organised science school may have been earning grants under the other rules of the Department almost to the same extent, and so the change would be mainly a transfer from one form of grant to another. Further, in spite of the more favourable conditions offered to schools where literary subjects hold a prominent place, it is held that the organised science school will still be predominantly a school for science, and not for literary instruction, although steps will have been taken to secure that the general education of the scholars shall not be neglected. The Department also expects that the condition, that organised science schools must be provided with chemical and physical laboratories, will prevent any great increase in the demands for recognition from the smaller grammar schools. It is possible, however, that the Department has not here taken sufficiently into account the extent to which county councils are aiding schools in many parts of the country to provide buildings and apparatus for instruction in science. On the whole, Sir John Donnelly stated the view of the Department to be that the present rate of increase in the number of organised science schools may be somewhat, but not very largely, accelerated; but that "there is nothing in the new regulations to make that rate of increase much more rapid than it is at present".

If the local administration of the Science and Art grants were handed over to the Local Authority for Secondary Education, that Authority would receive them, as they would receive the local taxation grants, subject to some heavy charges on account of existing institutions. Thus, though much good may be effected, from an administrative point of view, by entrusting the Local Authority with the general supervision of the evening classes earning these grants, the classes would still have to be maintained, and the money which now goes to their support would form no new asset for the provision of Secondary Education, except in so far as there may be room for a more economical method of application or distribution.

95. The need for any new parliamentary grant in aid of Secondary Education was a matter on which our witnesses did not, as a rule, give a very decided opinion. The representatives of the School Boards Association showed the least hesitation. They think the nation as well as the locality is interested, and should show its interest by bearing part of the cost. One of them, however, would have a national grant applied only to the provision of buildings. Those who spoke for the county

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councils were not all of one mind. In the case of Lancashire and the West Riding the necessity for further State aid seemed to be accepted. Another witness thought the poorer parts of the country could hardly be supplied in an effective way without it. But in Surrey, we were told, endowments, the local taxation grant, and a three-farthing rate would do all that was required. Of those who took a more general survey of the field, the Bishop of London had no objection to a contribution by the State to the provision of buildings and scholarships; Sir W. Hart Dyke was disinclined to recommend State aid, at any rate at first, and thought that, if it were given at all, it should be for such general purposes as inspection, while Mr. Fearon met the proposal with a plain negative.

Those who were in favour of a grant were, for the most part, agreed in thinking that it should be made to meet local effort, on the principle of pound for pound. It was said that, if this were done, it would make it much easier to obtain assistance from the rates.

There are two considerations, besides the diversity of opinion among the witnesses, which help to make the evidence on this question very inconclusive. In the first place much depends upon the future development of the grants now administered by the Science and Art Department, from which one witness at least expected all that would be necessary in the way of State aid. In the second place, any attempt to forecast the financial situation under an organised system for the provision of Secondary Education is, for the purposes of a national grant, greatly depreciated by the diversity of requirements and resources in different localities, and by the inability or disinclination of the best-informed witnesses to make any but the vaguest estimate of the numbers for whom Secondary Education is wanted.

96. Before dealing with tuition fees as a source of revenue it will, perhaps, be convenient to consider the attitude of our witnesses towards the question, whether Secondary Education should be paid for by the parent at all. None of the witnesses who came before us as representatives of associations appeared to have received any mandate in favour of free Secondary Education, and, in several instances, where a particular representative expressed his private opinion on the subject, he found himself opposed by his colleague. Free education found two thorough-going advocates in Professor Anthony of Plymouth, who would have the local authority supply free secondary schools "on the lines of the school board system", and the Rev. T. W. Sharpe, who demanded it mainly in the interests of poor professional men, but thought that all who claimed remission of fees should receive it. He admitted the difficulty of drawing the line anywhere, and expressed his own preference for a completely free

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system. Another witness accepted the principle, but thought it could not be carried further in this generation than the stage now reached by higher grade elementary schools. But here we may note that not only are these schools, with only one or two exceptions, still charging fees, but some of our witnesses, who were especially interested in their development, think they should continue to do so, and state that the action of the Education Department in refusing to sanction fees in new schools of this class has produced a good deal of local friction.

97. Some partial measure of free education, quite distinct in principle from that which might be attained by a scholarship system, however liberal, received rather more support. Mr. Fitch, though he considered that the restriction of free places to children of special merit was right in principle, expressed the opinion that free education was nevertheless a legitimate object on which to spend local or national funds if the nation or locality were disposed to tax itself for the purpose, and he saw no objection to localities being allowed to do so if they wished. Sir George Kekewich seemed to share this view. Another interesting suggestion was that parents should be entitled to exactly as much and no more help from the State for the education of their children in secondary, as they are in elementary schools; that is to say, the State should in every case be ready to provide the buildings, and to pay towards the cost of maintenance of the school, the "amount per head which is required for the teaching of children in the elementary schools", leaving the parent to provide the balance. This was an attempt to meet the grievance of a large class of taxpayers and ratepayers who have at present to pay for schools from which they derive no direct benefit. But the implied theory that everyone is to receive a direct return for what he pays in rates and taxes is hardly admissible, and the proposal appears to involve the further assumption that Primary and Secondary Education are matters of equal importance for the safety and welfare of the community. It may indeed be argued that the proposal would be only to do generally what endowments are already doing in favoured localities, but as the Bishop of London pointed out, in the one case the money is given freely, while in the other it is taken compulsorily from many who decidedly object to the imposition of such a tax. Two of our witnesses who were specially representative of the wage-earning class had each his own limitation to suggest. Mr. Halstead admitted readily the force of the argument that it would be wasteful to pay for the education of children whose parents are able and willing to pay for it themselves. He proposed to meet the difficulty by fixing a limit of income - he suggested £300 - as the dividing line between those entitled to free Secondary Education and those required to pay fees. Mr. Steward would adopt an age limit, 18 years, up to which no fees should be required.

98. In estimating the value of these suggestions, it is necessary to observe that the severe pressure in many localities upon the

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poorer inhabitants, and the urgent necessity which exists of giving opportunity to intellectual ability to rise, have accustomed the community to the establishment on a large scale of a system of scholarships, in spite of those considerations of parental responsibility, which are often urged as a principal argument against free education. This responsibility may be thought to be ignored quite as much in the case of a clever boy who gains a maintenance scholarship as in that of a dullard sent to a free school; and it might reasonably be argued that a system of free schools would be saved from the serious difficulties inseparable from the selection and competition of promising children.

Again, it has been urged that the sense of injustice which is said to be fostered by the present system, whereby many citizens pay with great difficulty for the education of other people's children as well as their own, cannot be otherwise relieved. And if it be objected that the country would be flooded with a "literary proletariate", it may be answered that education is no longer confined to literary subjects, but embraces, or soon will embrace, all those arts or crafts, a careful training in which is felt to be absolutely necessary if "England is to retain her commercial supremacy"; so that such training, though costly at the outset, may be expected ultimately to bring in an adequate return to the country. This means that the curriculum of subjects has been greatly widened; hence, the larger will be the proportion of boys and girls who will show special aptitude in one or other of them, the larger therefore will be the number of children to whom it will be worth while to give the best available training, and as this percentage increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to exclude the remainder from the benefits of free education.

99. On the other side of the question, we shall be reminded that the greater the provision for free education made by the State, the greater will be the check applied to private munificence. Hitherto, so it will he said, great benefits have accrued to the country from the desire of individuals to found schools of a certain educational complexion, or for the benefit of a certain profession. But under an advanced system of free education, such patriotic spirit would languish for want of opportunity, and it is impossible to forecast how far the movement may advance when once free schools begin to be set up.

Our witnesses were, on the whole, disposed to count upon a substantial contribution from the parent. Many no doubt were influenced by their sense of the impossibility of inducing the taxpayer or the ratepayer to accept such an enormous burden, rather than by considerations of principle. But these also were forcibly expressed by some, and probably entertained by others, the general tenor of whose evidence made it unnecessary to press them on the subject. With regard to the possible weakening of parental responsibility, such risk as was apprehended from the State provision of primary education, was

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deliberately incurred in order to avoid greater and more certain evils. But the advantages to be gained for the community by relieving the parent of the duty to provide for his child's education, are supposed to diminish rapidly as the kind of education under consideration becomes more advanced. We are also warned of the danger of leading not the parents but the authorities to fancy that the number of children who can make good use of such education is greater than it really is, and that education is obtained only in schools. Again, from an educational point of view, it has been urged that there is a serious risk that the establishment of free secondary schools might widen the gap between what are called the great public schools, such as Eton and Rugby, and the ordinary run of grammar schools; that "the wealthier classes would provide education for themselves independently of the provision made by the State, and would beat all the State provision". But perhaps the weightiest argument of all, in a country where very practical considerations are apt to outweigh first principles or the fear of remote consequences, is summed up in Mr. Roby's emphatic protest against "wasting a lot of public money by paying the fees of a number of well-to-do people who are perfectly well able to pay for their own children".

100. In conclusion we may remark that it has not been contended that the making Secondary Education free will improve its quality. On the one hand, it is recommended to us chiefly on the ground that no child who is capable of benefiting by the full course of school education should miss the opportunity by reason of poverty; but no serious attempt has been made to prove to us that this end cannot be adequately attained, now and for some time to come, by the safer method of a liberal provision of scholarships. On the other hand, the evidence we have received goes to show that the arguments urged against free secondary education still exercise a potent influence - an influence which has not been seriously affected by recent changes in the elementary school system. Adding to this the general agreement that there is no hope of obtaining the necessary funds either from national or local sources, we may say that our witnesses generally appeared to believe that the desire for this measure is still comparatively small, and to think that it is scarcely within the horizon of practical politics.

101. Starting, then, from the position that the normal system will be one of payment of fees balanced by a liberal provision of scholarships, we are met by the question whether the fee is to cover the whole cost of the education or only a part, and, if the the latter, how is that part to be determined,

In discussing the question of cost, our witnesses generally assumed that the great need to be satisfied was that of schools of what we have called the second grad.e, giving a good general education to children up to the age of 16 or 17. The representatives of the Headmaster's Association, themselves headmasters of flourishing endowed schools, put the cost per head of maintaining

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such a school one at £10, the other at £12. This estimate excludes rent or interest on capital for buildings and provision for scholarships, and in the case of the larger estimate assumes that the number of scholars will be about 300. Sir Bernhard Samuelson and Mr. Bothamley thought it should be rather over than under £10. Miss Beale suggested the same figure. The Assistant Masters' Association have submitted a detailed estimate, showing that £12 4s. per head would be required for a school of 300. The Assistant Mistresses' Association have also submitted an estimate giving £10 as the minimum cost per head in a school of 25O girls, but this includes the important item of rent. Comparing these estimates with the actual cost in schools of the same class, as to which we have trustworthy information, we find that the cost per head in the three grammar schools for boys of King Edward VI foundation at Birmingham, where the numbers average about 300, is £10 10s; at the Bedford Modern School with 620 boys it is £10 13s.; at Parmiter's School, London (320 boys), it is £10 6s., and at Owen's School, London (377 boys) it is nearer £12 than £11. The representative of the College of Preceptors, speaking from a wide experience of private schools, estimated the cost at £10, but included in that figure, the rent of buildings, and, of course, the profit on which the headmaster lives. The class of school, however, was in this case perhaps rather lower than that generally contemplated. In the schools of the Girls' Public Day Schools Company the cost, deducting rent, would seem to be nearer £13 than £12 per head, but these schools are distinctly above the type to which the figures already given refer.

102. Conclusions as to the cost of schools cannot be drawn from these figures without some important qualifications. The most important item in a school budget is the sum required for the payment of teachers, and the scale of those payments particularly in the case of assistant teachers is a question which is now exciting a great deal of interest, and cannot be determined without taking into account economical and other considerations which vary at different times and in different places. Further, even within the limits of the class of school contemplated above, there is room for considerable difference in the range of the curriculum, and, as a rule, the requirements of the country in this respect will be found to be more modest than those of the great towns with which our witnesses on this subject mainly concerned themselves. Schools in the country have another important advantage over those in the towns in respect of outgoings for rates and taxes. This item, indeed, introduces a serious element of variation in the cost of schools in different towns also. On the other hand, the country school is at a disadvantage in seldom having as large a number of scholars as is required for the most perfect combination of economy and efficiency. That number appears to lie somewhere between 200 and 300. Some interesting figures on this subject will be found in an appendix

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to the evidence of the Assistant Mistresses Association. But probably, when all allowances are made, the mean estimate, as between town and country, of £10 per head will not be very wide of the mark for schools of moderate size.

103. The need for schools of what we have called the third grade is also a pressing one, and there is no less difficulty in estimating the cost of their maintenance. In these schools, even more than in those of the second grade, calculations based on existing facts are apt to be vitiated by the tendency of the school to do work outside the limits assigned in theory to its grade. There will probably be a marked difference as regards expense between schools in towns and in the country, but even in the country the advance in the educational standard, the improvement in the elementary schools, and the demand for instruction in science combine to make it impossible that the cost should be as low as the £3 to £4 a head contemplated by the Schools Enquiry Commission. The higher grade elementary schools which are conducted as organised science schools in many cases earn more than that in grants from the Science and Art Department alone, and many of them receive in addition as much as £2 a head in fees, and some aid, direct or indirect, from the rates. The Charity Commissioners think £4 should be the minimum fee, and as they usually allow some portion of the endowment to be applied towards the cost of maintenance of the school, they presumably estimate the cost at a higher figure. From £6 to £7 a head will probably not be an excessive estimate for town schools of this class.

104. There are various answers to the question, what proportion of this cost should be borne by the parent. The whole, say some. Subsidies to university colleges are admissible, so are those to elementary schools, but subsidies to secondary schools would lead to the extinction of private schools and to free education. The Bishop of London, adhering to the view of the Schools Enquiry Commission, thinks that public funds should not be drawn upon for more than buildings, scholarships, and inspection. The Charity Commissioners have cherished the same ideal, though their experience has taught them to regard it rather as a counsel of perfection. It is not the policy of the Commissioners, says Sir G. Young, to let endowments be spent on the reduction of fees. They apply them in the first place to buildings, secondly to improvements and appliances, thirdly to scholarships, and only where there is still a considerable surplus to fees. And in many cases this policy has been carried out. Thus, the cost per head at Manchester Grammar School is stated by Mr. Roby to be £13 12s.; this is nearly covered by the fee of £12 12s., and more than four-fifths of the endowment goes in scholarships. But where the endowments were large, local opinion has been generally too strong for the Commissioners, and this has been especially the case where the endowments had, before they took action, been applied in giving gratuitous

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education. The great foundations at Birmingham and Bedford are prominent examples. At Birmingham, in spite of the fact that about one-third of the places in the school are made free by means of scholarships, the fee for the rest of the pupils is less than one-third of the cost in the grammar schools, and less than one-half of the cost in the high schools. At Bedford the proportion of fee to cost in the First Grade Grammar School is about the same as in the Birmingham High School, and in the Modern School so much of the endowment goes in reduction of fees that there does not appear to be adequate provision for the payment of the staff.

The more common view among those of our witnesses who wished to see fees charged, was that some mean should be taken between the view that the parent should pay nothing and the view that he should pay for all but the buildings. There is, so they seemed to think, a class of people who ought to have Secondary Education for their children, and cannot be expected to pay the whole price. Two witnesses suggested that the parent should not be called on to pay more than one third. But the degree in which they should be helped must vary to some extent in different localities, and it will be one of the most serious duties of the Local Authority to give due weight to the local or other considerations affecting the problem. They must take account of the means of the majority of those who are likely to use the school. In schools of the less advanced type the problem has, no doubt, been affected, as Dr, Percival points out, by the gift of free education in elementary schools, nor in many districts can the traditionary use of endowments to cheapen education to the parent be ignored. But, above all things, the school must be efficient, and when the cost has been estimated, it is the first duty of the Local Authority to see that efficiency is not sacrificed in order to cheapen the cost of education to the parent.

105. During the last quarter of a century the position of the teacher has sensibly improved. The report of the Schools Enquiry Commission, the working of the Elementary Education Acts, the developments in scientific training, the labours of the Charity Commission, and the extension of university influence, have all helped to kindle a new interest in educational questions and have caused the work of the teacher to be viewed by the public with an ever-growing sympathy and respect. Nor have other changes operated less powerfully in the same direction. The new opportunities for the education of women, the increasing proportion of graduate teachers in all grades of school, and the efforts of educational societies have worked almost a revolution in the status of the teacher, and have given a higher tone and dignity to the whole profession.

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But, though great improvements have been accomplished, much remains to be done. Several of our witnesses were disposed to think that in some respects the status of teachers still fell short of that enjoyed by the other professions. Another contrasted the somewhat frigid attitude of the English teacher towards educational theories with the sincere though often crude enthusiasm of the American. And throughout our enquiry, we have been struck by the lack of unity between teachers in different types of schools, which, in spite of the praiseworthy efforts which are being made to remove it, still remains a weakness of English as compared with American education.

106. There are some, therefore, who perceiving the excellent effects which have resulted from efforts to consolidate the teaching profession - a movement in which the College of Preceptors was the pioneer - would push professional organisation to a still further point. The ideal of one of our witnesses was that "the teaching profession should in the future be a self-governing profession, on a level with law and medicine. Law is governed by a council elected by itself: ... and I should look for a time when educationalists would be sufficiently homogeneous to elect a council to be entrusted with their own government." On the other hand, such proposals as these did not meet with general favour, there being divers objections to any attempt to turn the teaching profession into a close corporation. One witness emphasised this danger, believing that "the system of registration is being carried too far. We have registration of architects; we have registration of patent agents; we have registration of accountants; and those various bodies are becoming, to a very great extent, holders of monopolies, in some cases exercising their privileges not altogether to the public advantage."

107. The fact is that the body of teachers must necessarily occupy a somewhat anomalous position in the economy of national life. The service which they render is one over which the State must in self-defence retain effective oversight; the provision of teaching and the conduct of education cannot be left to private enterprise alone. Nor, on the other hand, do the teachers stand in the same relation to Government as does the Civil Service. Education is a thing too intimately concerned with individual preference and private life for it to be desirable to throw the whole of it under Government control. It needs organisation, but it would be destroyed by uniformity; it is stimulated by inspection, but it could be crushed by a code. In the public service, where the chief object is administrative efficiency, the individual officer is necessarily subordinate: in education, where a chief object is the discovery of more perfect methods of teaching, the individual teacher must be left comparatively free. Every good teacher is a discoverer, and, in order to make discoveries, he must have liberty of experiment.

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The exceptional position therefore of the body of teachers in the State involves a double treatment of the problems with which they are concerned. On the one hand, their professional organisation needs strengthening and amendment, chiefly because in no other learned occupation is the line between skilled and unskilled labour more difficult to draw. On the other hand, in the growing complexity of national life, the position of the teacher must always stand in need of readjustment to the organisation of central and of local government. Here new difficulties and perils arise. How ought the State to deal with teachers? Should "they be considered as skilled workmen engaged in work requiring consummate skill, who understand their work, and are ready to do it; or, as carrying out the instructions of a higher authority that understands the work which they merely execute as instruments? If so, who are these authorities that understand complicated work which they have never done?" It was from this point of view that the Bishop of Durham addressed to us the warning "that any regulations which impair the freedom and individuality of the teacher will, just so far, prove to be destructive of that force which has hitherto been most effective in forming English character".

108. That there is real danger of injury to education through the over-repression of the teacher is evident from the experience of France, where efforts are now being made to restore his freedom, and from that of Germany, in which country, though it was in the first half of the century the great source of educational ideas, Froebel and Herbart had, in consequence of the strict establishment of school systems, few successors - the kindergarten, for example, having at one time been banished from Prussia, because the Prussian authorities did not approve of it. Educational progress generally comes, in the first instance, through the originality and experiments of individual teachers. It is worthy of notice that much that is best in our public secondary schools is due to the fact that, in matters affecting curriculum and the choice of educational methods, almost absolute freedom has traditionally been left to experienced teachers. Some of our witnesses have also laid emphasis on the fact that enthusiastic teachers have taken to private schools because of the great freedom which these schools afford for experiments; that Kindergarten methods were first introduced into England by private effort; and that thus what may prove to be an almost revolutionary change in English methods of teaching first entered the national system of education through the channel of private initiative. Milton's scheme of education was the result of his experiments in "his wonder-working academy in Aldersgate Street". Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster both developed their systems in little schools in private houses. Individual teachers start reforms, it is for public authority to adopt and to generalise them. But the proper liberty of the teacher does not necessarily

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involve free scope for ignorant imposture. It is possible so to order the conditions of educational life as to secure at once the freedom of the teacher and the protection of the public; and reform in this direction seems to involve the registration of those qualified to teach, their preparative training, and the provision in all schools under public management of salaries on a scale calculated to draw ability and trained skill into work, on the excellent performance of which national welfare largely depends.

109. Upon no subject, of all those on which we have taken evidence of received memoranda, was there more general agreement than as to the necessity of some measure for the registration of teachers. The demand has come from all the associations of teachers alike; from the Headmasters' Conference; from the four several Associations of Head and Assistant Masters and Mistresses; from the Teachers' Guild, the College of Preceptors and the National Union of Teachers; from the Private Schools Association, and from the Association of Headmasters of Preparatory Schools. And the representations thus made to us by the societies which speak on behalf of different parts of the teaching profession, have been fully endorsed by individual witnesses, addressing us from the most varied experience and from widely different points of view - by Dr. Percival, Mr. Arthur Sidgwick, Mr. Vardy, and Mr. Fitch; by Professor Laurie, Canon Daniel, and Mr. Sharpe.

The chief purpose for which registration is desired is the exclusion or discouragement of incompetent persons from the business of teaching. By requiring evidence of intellectual attainment and of trained power to teach, a system of registration would, it is held, shut out the charlatans, and impostors who now prey upon the credulous portions of the public. Any parent who took the trouble to turn over the pages of the register would have only himself to blame if he were misled by the "bogus" degrees which are occasionally paraded on prospectuses. The register would help him in the choice of teachers. Its establishment, by recognising the teaching profession, would raise its qualifications and improve its tone. It would stimulate the imperfectly qualified teacher to seek further qualification, and in particular to secure degrees or diplomas certifying professional attainment. It has also been pointed out to us that the registered teachers would form a constituency which could be readily consulted on educational questions; and that the register itself might serve as an electoral roll.

110. There was general accord with the recommendation of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, and with the provisions of the Teachers' Registration Bills, that the Educational Council should have power to determine what degrees or certi-

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ficates of attainment and skill should be accepted as qualifying for registration. No less general was the agreement that the qualification should include evidence of general attainments, and a certificate or diploma of adequate knowledge of the theory and practice of education. Against accepting (except as a merely transitional measure) a university degree alone as qualifying for registration one of those whom we consulted spoke in the strongest terms. He thought it would be "a disastrous mistake; in the higher secondary schools it would leave things exactly as they are, i.e., the teachers would not be trained at all. It would saddle the schools with the same number of incompetent teachers, and of teachers who begin by being incompetent, and learn their business at the expense of the boys; and it would give explicit support to the baseless theory that a graduate, as such, is a superior person, who can teach by the light of nature without having learnt how to do it." Another writer, pointing out that the system of university examination for the B.A. degree is not "perfectly adapted to test and attest the qualification of teachers for secondary schools", maintained that "it would be a decided advantage to education that the universities should be made to say how far the recipient of the B.A. degree by examination is intended to be certified as a qualified teacher of the subjects in which he has been examined, i.e., qualified, so far as knowledge is concerned. In such a case", he thought, "the certification of the university might be accepted without question - reliance being placed on the academic conscience, assisted by free criticism from the outside, but it would not be an undue interference to compel it to take the responsibility of explaining the meaning - for educational purposes - of its symbolic pronouncements". Some of our witnesses maintained that the requirement as to intellectual qualifications should ultimately not be lower than a university degree, or a certificate awarded by some body recognised for that purpose by the Educational Council, and accepted by it as satisfactory. To show how easily such a requirement might be enforced, evidence was given by them to the effect that, of the assistant masters now employed in 465 public secondary schools in England and Wales, 63 per cent are graduates. Others, again, preferred that the certificate of knowledge of the theory and practice of education should also bear theimprimatur of a university. In regard however, to the requirement of evidence of practical skill, some of our witnesses held that a diploma in the art and theory of education would not be sufficient, and that the candidate should obtain some practical experience in school before his definitive registration was allowed. A similar view is propounded in the draft scheme with which we were favoured by the Conference of Headmasters. They suggest that "for registration, evidence of teaching capacity and professional knowledge should be required, but a probationer should be allowed to teach for a a limited period on giving evidence of sufficient attainments, as

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attested by a degree or other recognised examination. The test of teaching capacity should include the testimony of the authorities of a school where the probationer has taught as well as the certificate of a recognised examining body". This suggestion is compatible with Mr. Sidgwick's view that the training of teachers should consist of three things: (1) instruction in the theory and history of education; (2) instruction in the practice; and (3) apprenticeship.

Whatever regulations, however, were imposed, hard cases might, occasionally arise. An excellent teacher, of whose professional ability there could be no dispute, might yet be unable, for one reason or another, to produce a formal proof of intellectual attainment. The general sense of our evidence is that some powers of discrimination should be given to the Educational Council.

111. The question of making registration compulsory had engaged the thoughts of many of our witnesses. In the Teachers' Registration and the Secondary School Teachers' Registration Bills it was provided inter alia that, after a certain date, unregistered teachers were to be disabled from recovering their salaries or fees by process of law. It has been pointed out, however, that the penalty would be between honourable persons inoperative, and in other cases an incentive to fraud. And the proposal entails the still more serious difficulty that, were such legal disability imposed on all non-registered teachers, the Educational Council would find itself practically forced to prevent unmerited hardship by lowering the standard of registration. To do this would be to defeat the primary object of the measure. It would indeed make bad worse by giving a State guarantee to comparative inefficiency. If, on the other hand, this particular disability were not attached to non-registration, the Educational Council would be free to keep its standard high from the first, and thus to give distinction to the privilege of admission to the register. There was, however, a general agreement on the part of the witnesses that registration should be made practically compulsory. Such a result would be indirectly, but hardly less effectually, secured by the method proposed by the Headmasters' Conference, viz., that "after a reasonable time no unregistered person should be competent to hold office in any registered school". And, as it is more important that the standard of the register be high than that the legal consequences of non-registration should be serious even this provision might appear somewhat too stringent if not limited to cases of new appointment.

112. As to the basis of the register there was sharp difference of view. Some witnesses wished to include in one register all teachers who could produce the required qualification; others, however, declared that registration was required only for teachers in secondary schools, the objects of registration being already secured for teachers working in elementary schools by

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arrangements of the Education Department. Hence the latter witnesses protested emphatically against the admission to the new register of any certificated teachers engaged in public elementary schools. Those who took this more exclusive attitude urged that, in any election on a common register, the teachers in elementary would swamp those in secondary schools, the latter being less united and therefore, for electoral purposes, comparatively weak. They also dwelt on the arguments that the spheres of Elementary and Secondary Education should be kept distinct and separate; that, as a secondary school teacher, much as he would often like to do so, cannot at will enter into certificated service in a public elementary school, an elementary school teacher would be unfairly favoured if, preserving his own territory for his own exclusive use, he was free to make excursions at pleasure into the field of Secondary Education, and finally that, when this partial registration became soundly established, the method might be extended downwards so as to make registration take the place of certification. The rejoinder of those who desire that employment in a public elementary school should form no bar to registration, was that one of the causes of weakness in English education is the social estrangement between different grades of teachers; that the middle wall of partition should be broken down, and facilities given for good teachers to pass, as the case may be, from secondary to elementary, from elementary to secondary, schools; that the present separation between elementary and secondary instruction has its roots, not in the nature of things, but in the diversity of administrative regulations which can be more easily reformed by a united profession than by one divided into sections; that distinctions between teachers in different grades of schools are artificial and unreal, save only as they correspond to differences in intellectual attainment or professional competence; that a register which drew a line between secondary and elementary schools, irrespective of the attainments or aptitude of the teachers engaged in them, would include many who should be shut out, and shut out many who would satisfy any reasonable test of mental qualification or of technical skill; that the simple policy of having one register for all duly qualified teachers is also the sound one; that any other plan would fail to achieve its fundamental object of marking off the skilled teacher from the-unskilled.

This difference of opinion is, as is well known, one of long standing. It has become almost a traditional dispute. It has helped to delay legislation and has prevented the teaching profession from realising what seems - this one point apart - to be its undivided aim. Unless, therefore, some via media of compromise can be found, it would seem as if the two parties, though both desiring registration, must remain in the position of stale mate. It is consequently much to be wished that a way may be found to compose this difference. To some extent, indeed, it is

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admitted that the lapse of time has changed the position of affairs and, by altering the outlook, has opened the way to a settlement of the dispute. When registration was first proposed in 1860 - and it should be remembered that the pioneers in the movement were those who still desire to limit the register to teachers in secondary schools - it was conceived by its promoters that the registration council would be the starting point for the organisation of Secondary Education. They wanted to know the facts; and the machinery of registration would, they thought, make it possible to collect them. Obviously, therefore, there were practical reasons why the register should then be confined to teachers actually engaged in secondary schools. To include others would have been to embarrass the council with a mass of irrelevant information. So far as knowing the exact numbers of teachers working in secondary schools was concerned, they would have been very little the wiser with a widely inclusive register than they were without it. But now the position has changed. Registration is proposed, not as a single measure to come by itself, but as a part of a larger scheme. For the collection of statistics and information as to the position of schools and teachers other machinery will be provided. Registration can no longer be considered as preceding or preparing the way for further legislation, but as one factor in a larger statute providing that part of the machinery which will ensure improvement in the qualification of the teachers.

These considerations suggest the possibility of an arrangement which should meet the views of both parties to this long dispute. Everyone agrees that the register should prescribe a high level of qualification. It should only register what is worth registering. To pitch the standard low would be to deprive the register of its chief value as a guide to the public and as a stimulus to the teaching profession. For, if registration conferred no distinction, many teachers of high standing would not trouble to enter their names on the roll, and, consequently, absence from the register would not necessarily imply inferiority of qualification. If, however, the standard were kept high, if admission to the roll were granted only to those who produced evidence of considerable attainment and practised skill, then registration would be coveted as a distinction, exclusion would be a recognised mark of inferiority and incompetence. The public would soon come to know that, in seeking registration, a candidate had a fair field and no favour, and that they had some guarantee of the skill and knowledge of those whose names were inscribed on the roll. To the impartial tests imposed on candidates for registration, all teachers would justly be admitted without regard to their sphere of employment or place of previous preparation. Whether a teacher chose to work in a private or endowed, in an elementary or a secondary, school, or was engaged by a private family, would be indifferent to the registering authority. Its duty would be to secure the due qualification of every person

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who aspired to a place on the list. It is probable that in every grade of the profession some would prudently shrink from such an ordeal. It is certain that in every branch of teaching many would be found worthy to challenge it.

113. It was suggested by some of our witnesses that the register, presumably arranged in alphabetical order, would show in four columns, (a) the names of the teachers, (b) the date of registration, (c) their qualification as regards attainment, and (d) their qualification as regards professional competence. This would meet the admitted difficulty of any classification by grade of school. The latter plan would, indeed, prove in practice to be impossible, because teachers already pass from one grade and kind of school to another, and such transferences are likely to become more frequent, not rarer, in the future. Therefore, were classification by schools adopted as the basis of its arrangement, the register would need incessant revision, and would at any moment be misleading. At the same time, if classification by qualification were introduced, it would be a simple matter to add to each teacher's name a letter or mark to show his or her range of scholastic experience. Convenience might also suggest a second part of the register in which the same names would be arranged in separate divisions according to the special character of their qualification. Similarly there would need to be appendices containing supplemental lists of teachers qualified to teach special subjects, such as foreign languages, drawing, music, domestic economy, gymnastics, &c.

114. Upon the question whether, at the first formation of a register, all existing teachers should by vested right be admitted to its privileges, some diversity of opinion showed itself. One view was that, in order to conciliate opposition, all existing teachers, however indifferently qualified, should be allowed to register. Those who held this opinion preferred to have the register complete from the first, and to purge it by degrees. One witness argued that such indiscriminate admission would do no harm because a teacher without qualifications, degrees, or anything of the kind, would appear on the register, without anything to recommend him. Another thought that all who had been teaching continuously for a period of, say, two years, should be placed on the register "as an act of fairness and policy". A second view was that, as it is very desirable to diminish anything like fear, jealousy, or antagonism, there should be formed a transitional, or preliminary, as distinguished from the permanent, register. Teachers admitted to this would have time given them to prepare themselves for the tests imposed by the Educational Council. A third view was that proposed by the Headmasters' Conference, viz., that existing teachers should only be admitted to the register on satisfactory evidence of attainments, not suffering, however, any legal disability in case of their exclusion. This opinion, which had already received the

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sanction of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, was strongly maintained by some of our witnesses, one of whom stated that "he would be very glad indeed to take a class, for instance, before Mr. Fitch, and let him judge whether he handled the class properly or not". He would value very much, he added, the entry against his name in the register, showing that he was qualified to teach as well as that he possessed a university degree. It may be presumed that if persons who had been engaged in teaching in secondary schools for, say, three years, before the formation of the register, were entitled to registration on producing satisfactory evidence of intellectual acquirements and competence to teach, the Educational Council would exclude very few existing teachers possessed of reasonable qualifications and of long experience.

It should be added that several witnesses expressed the opinion that the formation of a register should take place as early as possible and might well precede the organisation of Secondary Education. In this way, it was explained, there would be constituted a professional body whom the central and local authorities could, on their establishment, consult, from whom, as they thought, the teachers' representatives could be drawn, and by whom they could be elected. There was also a general disposition among the witnesses to concur with the proposals made to the Select Committee that a fee should be charged for registration, but that its amount, which it was thought should be kept as low as possible, might properly be left to the determination of the Educational Council.

115. With two exceptions the witnesses who dealt with this subject agreed that intending teachers should prepare for their work by going through some course of special professional education. Mr. Bowen, of Harrow, expressed the opinion that such preparation was not worth the trouble, expense, and delay which it involved. In his view, the teacher's natural gifts and character are so pre-eminently the determining cause of his success that the addition of training as a qualification has a value so small that it may be disregarded. He admitted, indeed, that he spoke specially from the point of view of the great public boarding school, and thought it possible that the value of professional education, as compared with that of original character, might count for more in day schools of all grades. Mr. Raleigh, who holds that "it is not the office of the university to train men for teaching, or for any other profession", combined with this the optimistic view that "almost any honours man will make a good, teacher, if he is conscientious, and if he has the luck to fall into the hands of a good headmaster".

116. But the case for professional preparation was urged with impressive force by many witnesses who had paid considerable

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attention to the subject. Mr. Fitch, Mr. Sharpe, Canon Daniel, Mr. Barnett represent a very wide experience of training colleges for teachers both in secondary and in elementary schools. Miss Beale, Miss Hughes, and Miss Woods were able to lay before us in detail an account of the ideals and methods under which women are trained for the work of teaching in the women's training colleges. University witnesses in their memoranda affirmed, on general grounds, the needs of the case; and Professor Sully in particular contributed to the same effect the result of much experience as a lecturer to teachers on the sciences that underlie their subject. Nor did the witnesses from the schools dissent: masters and mistresses were generally agreed, no less that professional preparation is a proper means to practical efficiency, than that practical efficiency is a necessary condition for registration.

An idea so generally accepted scarcely seemed to need defence, but its more ardent advocates were prepared to expound and defend it. "There is a great deal that can be learnt by experience", said Miss Hughes, "that can also be learnt by gaining a certain amount of knowledge of the sciences that underlie the art of education". These sciences are psychology, logic, and ethics, regarded more especially as throwing light on the natural development of thought and character, and the part which the educator can play in stimulating, modifying, or, by inadvertent ignorance, checking this development. To learn by reflection before experience is better than to learn by experience merely, because thus the pupils are protected from injuries wrought by a mere "'prentice hand", and also because experience, apart from a thoughtful habit of analysing and understanding it, is apt to degenerate into a routine, which is likely to remain uncriticised so far as it may be fairly comfortable. Experience may confirm error, instead of correcting it. The problem of keeping order in a class was frequently referred to as an example of what preliminary study and discipline can do to prevent failure from the first. It furnishes no less an example of what may be done by study of the human sciences to prevent the iron-handed pedagogue from imagining that the silence or terror which he succeeds in inspiring has much in common with the orderliness of a self-respecting will. The man who fails to keep order is the bugbear of the schools, but the man who succeeds in keeping it by the wrong means is as great a danger. To keep order with "the least friction possible" is to solve the problem of combining freedom with law, and this is obviously a problem on the solution of which philosophy has much to say, and the experienced teacher much to tell, by which the novice can profit beforehand.

The need of minimising the proportion of experience gained at the expense of the children was insisted upon in answer to the argument against professional education based on the greater importance of natural ability. "The very good men who would

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be good teachers under any circumstances were saved a very a great deal by the training they got; they did not make the same number of mistakes, nor was it necessary for them to make the same number of experiments". The same witness, after having instanced several special points of method in which the novice could be trained, went on to point out that the chief value of such study of method consists in the suggestion thus made to him, in a great variety of ways, that it may always be possible to discover more scientific methods of work. Thus he is guarded permanently against becoming a bond-slave to mere tradition. In short, the object of professional education and, to a large extent, its defence, consist, as the witnesses conceived it, in laying the foundations for building up in the teacher a right attitude of mind towards all questions of teaching and influence, and this on the moral no less than on the intellectual side. Even the teacher's necessary qualities of sympathy and patience may be taught, i.e., "developed under instruction and counsel", in the teacher's noviciate.

117. Here again there was considerable agreement as to the essential factors of the teacher's professional education. This "should include a careful and thorough study of principles along with that of methods, and adequate practice in the actual business of teaching". According to their personal experience and natural bent, different witnesses were disposed to lay different degrees of stress on these three parts of the necessary preparation. Miss Cooper felt that it was more important to see to the theoretical than to the practical side. Mr. Barnett emphasised the self-critical habit of mind and practical interest in the discovery of method developed by the discipline of teaching under criticism. But no one recommended practice only, or theory only, though many dwelt on the difficulties of securing conditions favourable at the same time to both.

The study of principles includes such study of physiology, psychology, logic, and ethics, as bears more especially on educational problems. The limits of this study were not discussed by the witnesses, but obviously it has no definite limit, and, in so far as the proper life-study of the teacher is the problem of education, his preparatory studies can only be regarded as laying the foundations of an interest to be afterwards satisfied more fully. As an educator, he is called upon to study without ceasing the endless variety of human nature. As an instructor, he needs to be master of logical method in the subjects of knowledge with which he deals.

With this study of the ground sciences of education should go the consequent study of methods, both general and special. The witnesses were also of opinion, and the custom of the

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colleges corresponds, that some time should be devoted to the history of education. Out of this study treated by a skilful lecturer there arises, in perhaps the easiest and most attractive way, the philosophical discussion of fundamental questions as to the nature of the object pursued in all educational efforts. Principles, methods, and history together constitute what is known as the theory of education.

118. By "practice" is meant for the most part "practical teaching under the eye of the teacher, and also watching the teacher teach". This includes the supervision of notes of lessons, criticism of the lessons as given, reports of progress, the observation of individual children, the discussion of concrete difficulties as they arise in the student's experience of the schools, the management or partial management of a class continuously, and visits to schools to hear teachers.

Apart from difficulties of execution, to be considered presently, there was a fairly general presumption in favour of carrying on pari passu, as far as possible, the two sides of the teacher's training. That the practice should not precede the theory is of the very essence of the conception as above described. But there is more room for debate in determining how far it is necessary that practice should not lag far behind theory in time. On this point Professor Sully is the most emphatic witness, speaking for practice in the interest of theory much as the teachers speak for theory in the interests of practice. "The theoretical and practical parts of training ought, I think, to be brought as closely together as possible in time, and to inter-penetrate each other." This is done by the appeal to principles in the criticism of lessons and notes of lessons. It is "only when students have thus clothed the principle with ample practical illustration that it acquires a definite meaning; but for this it is apt to lie in their minds as little more than a meaningless verbal formula". As thus regarded, the relation of theory to practice is similar to the relation of books and lectures on chemistry to work in the laboratory.

Miss Beale, whose ideal was a course of two years, held that the best arrangement is to attach the theory to the practice, by establishing departments for the professional education of teachers in connexion with large schools. This view was bound up with the opinion that students should not begin to practise themselves until they had made some progress in educational studies, and spent time in observing good teachers, it being better to begin by understanding why a good lesson is good than by criticising the bad points of a bad one. Contrasted with this is the custom of the Cambridge Training College, where model lessons are not given by the staff; on the ground that the danger of blind imitation is serious, and where the ideal is that in all particulars, the student's own mind must take the lead in his training. The student's own practice, rather than observation of another person's methods, is, on this view, even from the first, the true necessary complement

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of the lecture on theory. The model lesson corresponds to the demonstration in science teaching. Like the demonstration, however, its value cannot be denied, though it should not, as it can, be overrated. If the object of training is to make the teacher scientific in his work, then the essential conditions are that the studies of the lecture-room shall go hand in hand with the student's own experimental work in the school, and with observation of similar work more skilled.

119 . For the length of the training course, a session of about 30 weeks extending through an academic year was claimed generally for the teachers' colleges, though two years would have been preferred by some, and the year of probation after training, suggested by several, and supported by the experience of Germany, goes near to being a variant of this view. According to it, the one year spent in combined study and practice, as above described, is to be followed by another year of practice with some supervision under the actual conditions of regular school work.

120. Opinions under this head fall into three divisions, but in each case there was a notable absence of dogmatism and a most tolerant desire that different experiments should be tried, and every variety of effort made in order to cover the ground and overcome practical difficulties.

a. Colleges for Teachers The ideal of the college for teachers, as carried out in those that have been established specially for women teachers in secondary schools, is the association of 40 or 50 students under the control of one educational head, to attend lectures, and practise under collegiate supervision in a school or schools. This is the experiment that has been tried In London, Cheltenham, and elsewhere, and, combined with the use of the university lectures, at Cambridge. Apart from the difficulty of inducing the best educated students to spend another year, and its cost, on professional education, there is evidence to show that this method has worked well and is capable of great developments. The close association in collegiate life of a group of persons for a limited time, all intent on the same study - a study fraught with incitements to intellectual interest and social enthusiasm - is in itself certain to develop a concrete unity of thought and character corresponding to the aim proposed. To several of our witnesses the college for teachers seemed the ideal.

The English colleges for women teachers send out annually over 100 women prepared to teach, exclusive of kindergarten mistresses. It must be admitted, however, that in the amount of their knowledge equipment there is great variety among these teachers. From all, at entrance on the training course, some certificate of knowledge is required, but the requirement varies between wide limits, those examinations which correspond

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to a good school leaving examination standing at the lower limit. The requirements are in the main the same as those prescribed for admission to the Cambridge examination for teachers. The evidence goes to show that the less qualified at present predominate in numbers over those more fully equipped, a fact which is no doubt largely due to the difficulty many students have in providing funds for one year's professional education in addition to a three or four years' university course, and to the objection which more have to so large an expenditure with so uncertain a result. But, whatever the cause, the fact is certain that, notwithstanding the excellent work that has been done, there is still a scant supply, even of women, who are trained and, at the same time, highly qualified in knowledge. There are, on the other hand obvious reasons why those less qualified in knowledge should turn to the teachers' colleges for the sake of making up their deficiencies. It still remains to find means by which students of academic standing shall be drawn freely into these colleges; and in due course, no doubt, the standard for admission should be raised for all.

It nevertheless remains as a solid fact, satisfactory so far as it goes, that 86 women who had previously received a university education have been trained to teach at the Cambridge College. 52 of these are graduates of London, Victoria, or the Royal University, Ireland: 10 have taken a Cambridge Tripos, and the Oxford Examination equivalent to the degree: the remaining 23 have taken a course of two years or so at one of the women's colleges. This college, it should be noticed, "was originally started to train those who had been graduates". The 86 above-mentioned are out of a total of 283.

.A. more general demand on the part of schools for the double qualification would certainly increase the number of teachers possessing it. One large girls' school, for example, has on its staff 13 women holding certificates as secondary teachers, of whom 9 have also, with more or less distinction, the qualification of university graduates. Out of 140 graduates on that staff these 9 have the teachers' qualification. But as a general rule there can be no doubt that women, like men, with good university qualifications can obtain employment without special professional preparation.

121. b. Apprenticeship in Schools The primitive form of apprenticeship is the student-teacher system, still much used in some girls' schools, and affording at least a partial training to many girls who afterwards become teachers. It resembles the pupil-teacher system of the elementary schools, differing, however, in the superior age and attainment of the student teacher in the secondary school, who is an ex-school girl combining a continuance of some portion of her school studies with a certain amount of teaching. Miss Kennedy found student teachers employed in three-fifths of the public schools, endowed and proprietary, which she visited in the West Riding. Mrs.

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Kitchener found in the part of Lancashire she visited, that schoolmistresses, "all, without exception, spoke highly of the student-teacher system, and said that, provided these girls did not count as part of the school staff and there were not too many of them, there was not the least danger to the pupils of the schools where they were trained". This approval of the student-teacher system was in contradistinction to expressions of doubt or disapproval of training as given in training colleges. The former makes of course no provision for instruction in theory, but there are those who think such instruction of little value.

The school apprentice proper differs from the student teacher in this essential respect, that he is giving his whole time to the study and practice of his profession. He has already been equipped with knowledge of his subject. The proposal to train schoolmasters by apprenticeship in good schools found favour with the Headmasters' Conference, as a proposal, as long ago as 1873, but it does not appear to have been systematically carried into effect in English schools for boys. It has been put on trial in some girls' schools, but we were told by two headmistresses who have tried it that their inability to combine the training of a few apprentices with other work have proved a serious drawback to the experiment. This experience points to the employment of a mistress or master of method as an essential part of the scheme, which on the whole cannot be said to have had a fair trial in England as yet. The desirability of giving it such a trial in the present experimental stage of the matter was recognised by witnesses who did not specially advocate it.

It remains, for the most part, still as an idea very imperfectly realised, obviously in need of development, and apparently capable of such development. The German system of "probationers" who are attached for one year to an accredited school before admission to the ranks of teachers, may be taken, however, as the same idea realised in its simplicity. It is noteworthy that in Prussia a year's training at a Seminar has now been made a previous condition of the probationer's "Probejahr". This is not so much the development of the probation or apprenticeship system as the addition to it of something like the college for teachers.

122. Certain of our witnesses proposed to develop the apprenticeship system in two ways: (1) by securing in the schools the presence of a master or mistress of method to take charge of the apprentices; (2) by making definite provision for instruction in the theory of education. According to one scheme, the students would be attached to particular schools in a local group, and instruction in theory added by attendance on occasion at one centre. According to another scheme, the university colleges were to become the centres where theory should be studied with a first-rate professor, while practical experience should be gained, first, as in Miss Beale's view, by visiting schools to hear

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teachers, and afterwards by being attached to special schools giving part time under experienced teachers. It was thought that, by the development of these schemes, more variety of experience could be gained than is possible to the teachers' college and its practising schools. On the other hand, it should be noticed that the students of teachers' colleges do visit other schools, and if this be not sufficient it would be possible to remedy the defect by systematically adding a period of such study to the regular course. Miss Cooper's proposal, however, approximates to the improved Prussian practice of a year's training in a university "Seminar", followed by the probationer's year in a school. It is not far from coincidence with the next proposal in its most developed form.

123. (c) Provision of professional education by the Universities There was a consensus of opinion in favour of associating all methods for the professional education of teachers as closely as possible with the universities. The problem of the direct provision of such education by the older universities is discussed most fully in the memoranda from members of the University of Oxford. Lectures on theory could readily be provided, and the weight of opinion inclined to the view that studies in educational science, in order to be real, should form a post-graduate course. Several were, and, as we think, rightly, disposed to consider this rule absolutely necessary. There is no room for professional studies in the years now devoted to other work by aspirants to university honours.

As regards the provision of a complete course, including practice in the schools of the university town, opinions were divided. Some held that the university should provide for courses in theory, and that the half-fledged teachers should then be scattered to the schools, where arrangements for practical training should be made, this being no concern of the university lecturer on theory. On the other hand, the experience of the University of Cambridge appears to be in favour of making it somebody's business to undertake the supervision of the work as a single whole. Owing to a formal request, made by the headmasters in 1873, and to a memorial in 1877 addressed to the older universities, a teachers' training syndicate was formed at Cambridge in 1878, to give opportunities for teachers to be trained mainly on theoretical, partly on practical, lines. The university supplied, and has ever since continued to supply, courses of lectures on teaching. Appointments to masterships, however, continued to be made independently of any previous professional preparation, and facilities for supplementing the university lectures by practical training in the schools were not forthcoming. In its original form the attempt failed, although the opportunity of connecting colleges for teachers with a university was speedily utilised on behalf of women, and the university lectures were made the starting point for the foundation of the Cambridge Training College for Women.

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Mr. Arthur Sidgwick's proposal may be taken as the most complete expression of the idea that the training of teachers as a whole is the business of the universities. He divides training into three parts: (1) instruction in the theory and history of education; (2) instruction in the practice; (3) apprenticeship. (2) corresponds exactly to the practical work in the training college at Cambridge. (3) is a further stage added to this: "A prolonged period of trial where the student is teaching largely by himself, but under the general supervision of an experienced person." Of these three parts of training, "the two first might be taken at the university, and the third at school". For (2) of course a practising school would be required, but "experience shows that it would not be difficult to obtain". On the other hand, Dr. Jackson proposes that schools should be selected throughout the country suitable for practice in its first stage, and points out that the number of intending teachers is too great to be provided for in Oxford practising schools. To this contention the answer may be made that at first there will certainly be no excess of numbers, that all the university colleges, as well as the universities, will, as the demand increases, take part in the work, and that the difficulty of numbers had better be faced when it arises, by new developments, the nature of which will become clearer by solving the problem in its limited form as it presents itself now. The training of 50 students a year for five years in the best conceivable way will make it easier to face the demand of 500 at a later date. Teachers, like doctors, will not all require to be trained at the Universities. Much will no doubt be done by the co-operation of schools and university colleges, as in the Birmingham scheme described by Miss Cooper, and any scheme which holds good for a university may be undertaken also by a university college.

We are glad to learn that steps are being taken at the University of Oxford to realise the idea sketched by Mr. Arthur Sidgwick. A group of university students, under one master of method assisted by a lecturer on educational science, would have all the advantages of the training college, practice in the schools concurrently with study in the lecture room being granted. If to this the year of probation in a school can be added - a supervised, but not an unsalaried year - all the advantages claimed for the most developed type of the apprenticeship system would be secured also.

The University of Cambridge has already done so much, both by its examinations and its lectures for teachers, that we look forward with confidence to some development of this work by it which will take practical effect on young men, as well as young women, intending to teach.

Nevertheless, there will no doubt be room and need for other experiments, one important type of which might, in the absence of a university college, be apprenticeship in a group of schools with a university extension centre to maintain collegiate unity of influence, and provide lectures on the educational sciences.

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124. An obvious additional means of training for secondary school teachers is the use of the day-training colleges for elementary school teachers attached to the university colleges and universities. Hence the importance of deciding whether there is any reason why teachers having these two different destinations shall not be trained together. The evidence tends to show that there is some difficulty in adapting the same courses of lectures to both, but that the difference is in the kind of education each has previously received, "rather than in the spheres to which they go". The secondary student comes better provided with general education, the elementary student has already some practical skill. The training college has to deepen and widen the culture of the one, and to teach the most elementary technique of his profession to the other. And when they meet in the lecture room to study educational theory, the better educated mind is more prone to seize on principles, the less educated, but more practical, to look for rules. The inference is not far to seek. So far as secondary teachers are trained, the order of development in their training is better: (1) general knowledge, (2) special training. The elementary system needs reform to bring it more into line with this order; and by such reform the special training of the elementary training college would become available for secondary teachers, at the same time that the elementary school teacher in his noviciate becomes more capable of taking his special course in the university training college. This view carries with it the suggestion that the literary course should precede the training course in the training departments of the university colleges.

But at present there is some difference in the work traditionally required in the spheres to which, respectively, the secondary and the elementary school teachers go, a difference mainly consequent on the large classes required by the economy of elementary schools. Large classes require methods of teaching which secure order, attention, and clearness of exposition; but the subtle educational art which makes every learner do his own thinking - not rote learning - for himself can only be exercised in a large class when both its teacher and its members have received part of their training in smaller groups. The elementary school teacher aims at the virtues incident to a large well-managed class - order, attention, a clear lead by the teacher, docile co-operation in the class. The secondary school teacher, with his smaller group, needs these virtues less, whilst he needs others more, because it is more open to him to cause his pupil to learn by stimulus rather than guidance, by suggestion rather than exposition, by the active effort of thought rather than by comparatively passive attention. The teachers in the two spheres have tasks laid upon them which do so far differ in the first requirements of each; but neither is a master in his own sphere if he cannot practice the arts most necessary to the other. The

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faults of the commoner sort in each may be cured by study of the other's perfections. And so an inference may be drawn in favour of unity of training. Separate provision may always tend to stereotype the characteristic faults to which each is liable.

125. Almost all the advocates of professional education for teachers looked to the universities for at least such supervision as consists in granting certificates of efficiency to the trained teacher. The Universities of Cambridge, London, and quite recently Victoria, have already undertaken this function. The present examinations are, however, of an elementary character, regarded from the point of view of those who are anxious for the development of the science of education. Several witnesses advocated, for the encouragement of higher studies, the establishment of a degree in educational science, to follow the regular degree and be of an advanced character; and Professor Sully submitted to us a definite scheme for such a degree passed in 1893 by the Convocation of the University of London.

126. We were met on all sides by two difficulties as regards the cost of training: (1) It was shown by the experience of the two women's training colleges that with 40 or 50 students the current expenses could be just paid at a moderate fee, £65 for residents, £30 for non-residents, but that buildings and equipment could not be provided without endowment in some form. Suggestions as to the possible source of such endowments were, however, conspicuously absent. Private donation may be expected to aid in the future as it has done in the past, and there appears to be no reason why the supply of buildings, when these are necessary, might not even be made the object of grants from local authorities of the State. (2) While there seems to be a general acceptance of the view that, apart from buildings, training colleges should be fee-supported - that it was better for education that the rank and file of teachers should pay for their professional preparation - the need of an ample scholarship fund was pressed upon us by evidence, again and again repeated, that the expense and time required for an additional year of preparation was a serious stumbling block to the university student intending to teach. Some means for enabling university scholars to hold their scholarships for an additional year after graduation does certainly seem necessary. There is much to be said for leaving others to train at their own expense. This is the case in other professions; there is no good object to be gained by bribing ordinary persons to enter into any one rather than another of the learned professions. If professional qualifica-

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tion is required by law, and the professional outlook fairly good, a sufficient number of the rank and file will be found ready to pay their way.

127. As regards school finance and the remuneration of the teacher, some interesting and important, though necessarily incomplete, evidence has been submitted to us, more especially by the Associations of Assistant Masters and Assistant Mistresses respectively. The masters estimated the necessary current cost of education per boy in a second grade school as ranging from £14 in a school of 100 to £12 in a school of 300. The mistresses estimate the corresponding cost per girl to range from £13 in a school of 100 to £10 in a school of 250, it being expressly stated that this is the lowest possible cost, salaries so low as £80 being given to some of the mistresses. The masters estimate the average salary of assistants necessary in the smallest school at £150, in the largest at £200. The mistresses suggest the corresponding figures very modestly at £112 and £117, but allow a rather larger staff for the same number of pupils. It should be noticed that in these estimates, as well as in the actual facts, it appears that there are two causes which tend to make the salaries of the women less than those of the men. The sum allowed per girl is less, and the number of teachers among whom it is divided is more. The desirability, where women are concerned, of a staff large enough to do the work efficiently without overwork and over-strain is so great, as to suggest the warning that, if cost is forced down so low as to make salaries less than will permanently attract well-qualified women, it may become necessary to force them up again by diminishing the staff to the detriment, doubtless, of the education given. A. very cheap school means either a very small staff or a very badly paid one, and in neither case can the efficiency of the worker be maintained.

128. The statistics collected by the assistant masters show that while in 10 of the best schools the average salary is £242.77, the average in 190 others is only £105.19, the average of all being no more than £135.22. These figures can, of course, only be treated as affording true averages with the reservation that the schools to which they refer have not actually been shown to be typical of the whole. As far as they go, they indicate clearly the existence of a large number of very small salaries, and correspond, without doubt, to the existence in the schoolmaster's profession of many who are mere birds of

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passage picking up a small income on their way to other careers, of some, moreover, who are permanently worth for any career no more than they get, and of better men who are forced to eke out a living by doing other work in time saved by the perfunctory performance of their scholastic duties. One or other of these evils is sure to ensue where salaries are insufficient to induce able men to enter a profession permanently and with intent to give themselves to its work.

The assistant mistresses' statistics show the average salaries given in four types of schools. For 11 of the best schools the average reaches £147, as compared with the masters' £242, which latter figure does not of course include the salaries of the great public schools. The other averages are £113 for the Girls' Public Day Schools, £112 for a group of seven second grade, and £84 for a group of eight third grade schools. The mistresses' minimum, as here indicated, sinks much below the masters', and the depression as regards the maximum is still more marked. The pressure is, no doubt, most felt in the difficulty of securing a rising salary for the more experienced teachers, and points to a condition of affairs in which the young and inexperienced, though poor, are happy in hope as compared with their seniors. The juniors in a school with average salary of £84, however, can certainly not maintain themselves in a state of efficiency, nor are young women with such professional prospects likely to take much pains and spend much money on qualifying themselves as really skilled labourers in education.

In neither case are these salaries supplemented by any provision for old age. If there is to be such provision, it must be saved out of them, a consideration which, taken with the longer normal period of a woman's old age, makes the smallness of the women's salaries more glaring.

The headmasters were quite in agreement with the assistants as regards the inadequacy of the salary fund in many schools. Salaries as low as £60 or £70 were reported, and stress laid on the still more dispiriting circumstance that men go on from year to year with salaries never rising above £100 or £120. These low salaries occur when the cost of education per boy is £10, and the witnesses held that the proper estimate of cost is £12 per head in a second grade school of 300 boys, whereas the school finance in many cases allows no more than £7. In consequence of the low salaries many masters in these schools are not university graduates, and many give as little time as they can to their school work, being obliged to take other work to make up an income. Thus, there are clear indications from the evidence that the best work of efficient men is prevented by inadequate salaries from flowing into the schools. It should be noted that the low salaries at Bedford, of which Dr. Poole spoke, go with very low fees, and the low fees with the well-known extraordinary flow to Bedford of parents with children requiring education.

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Respecting assistant mistresses' salaries the headmistresses told a similar tale, but without details. A joint committee of heads and assistants had been appointed to enquire into the subject, and the results of enquiry so far were given by the assistant mistresses, it being understood that the heads were entirely in agreement. As examples of low salaries £60, £40, £35 were stated from personal experience. It is believed, too, that the tendency of salaries is to fall. In many schools the finance is so strait that the school is kept going by a succession of junior teachers at low salaries. As soon as these teachers want more, and are fairly entitled to it, they have to go. The injurious effects of such a condition of finance is obvious. "The efficient schools in educational results are those where the staff is a fairly permanent one and a fairly well paid one." It may be added that better salaries would make it better worth the teacher's while to enter the profession fully equipped, i.e. by a university and training course extending over four or five years. There are gradations of efficiency in teaching - more than in most other professions, and this lays it open to a special danger of falling easily into the hands of the less efficient, if salaries are not good enough to secure a better article.

129. With a view to remedying the lowness of salaries, the witnesses relied mainly on the suggestion of a more thoughtful administration of finance, so that in the determination, as well as the distribution, of the school fund the amount required for assistants' salaries should receive due consideration. "We consider that it is necessary in establishing any school, to consider what is the minimum cost of efficient education per head, and to assign a certain proportion of that minimum to salaries for assistant masters." Five pounds per boy was suggested as an "irreducible minimum" for assistants in a second grade school, and, in the tables supplied, from £6 to £7 was set down as necessary. The mistresses relied on the simple proposal that it should be the business of the educational authority to satisfy itself as to the soundness of finance in the schools which it supervises. Particulars of salaries ought to be, but generally are not, set down in the accounts submitted by endowed schools to the Charity Commissioners. It was felt that the worst abuses would not occur if salaries were supervised by public opinion.

130. But behind all defects of cognisance lies, no doubt, the fact that low salaries cannot be raised without increase of school income. The obvious means of increase is to raise the fees in existing schools, but this was thought impossible in many cases, if not in general. The teachers refrained from any inference, but the inference certainly would seem to be that where the expenditure per head is too low, and the condition of the neighbourhood such that the authority judges it unwise to raise the fee, a grant must be made to secure increased efficiency. With regard to the finance of new schools that may be established,

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there can be no doubt that local authorities will do well to consider the importance of making adequate provision to secure the services of efficient teachers, and the proposal deserves consideration that out of the general income of the school there should be set apart for the salaries of assistants a definite sum in respect of every scholar on the books. Adequate salaries will not, indeed, create the educational zeal and self-devotion which must characterise the whole body of teachers if national education is to be the great force which it may become. Zeal and self devotion grow from other seeds than those of self-regard, but the absence of conditions necessary to a reasonable degree of well-being must nevertheless, in the long run, quench their vitality. Salaries below the level necessary for the fulfilment of these conditions tend to unsettle the young, to dispirit altogether the old, to discourage the skilled, and make inevitable the unskilled worker, to lower the scholastic tone by privation of the means of culture in many ways, and to depress, by the constant vexation of poverty, spirits that should be always ready to respond to the elasticity of youth.

The instinct of the teachers is no doubt correct in leading them to trust that remedies will be found more readily if the attention of local authorities is given to the subject, when questions of fees are under discussion. The willingness of parents to pay may easily be under-estimated, if it is not borne in mind that deterioration lurks in the cheapness of the over-cheap school. The establishment of county scholarship schemes on a large scale, with benefits limited in application to the poorer children, will make it more possible to maintain, at an adequate level, the fees of those who pay.

131. With regard to the appointment of the head and assistant teachers, our witnesses have shown themselves in general agreement with the recommendation of the Schools Enquiry Commission, viz., that, subject to certain conditions as to the intellectual attainments and practical experience of the candidates, the governing body should appoint the head, and the head the assistant teachers. Except in the case of third grade schools, where they place the appointment in the hands of the governors, this plan has been adopted by the Charity Commissioners, and seems to have worked well. In girls' schools, however, they have, until recently, followed a slightly different practice. In the King Edward's School at Birmingham, for example, while the headmasters appoint their assistants without any check or control, the headmistresses make their appointments subject to the approval of the governors. This distinction appears to date from a time when women were comparatively unaccustomed to positions of administrative responsibility, and, in practice, the proviso has already become little more than nominal. Thus we

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were informed that, in the case of the Girls' Public Day School Company, though the assistant mistresses are appointed by the council, the latter rarely initiates a nomination, but acts on the advice of the headmistress, whose recommendation seems to be virtually an appointment. No one, indeed, has more to lose by the unwise choice of an assistant, or by the loss of an able and experienced colleague, than the head himself. The tone, the efficiency, and the success of the school largely depend on the loyalty and ability of his staff. It is wisest, therefore, to rely upon his judgment in the choice of assistants. A man ploughs best with his own heifer.

132. As to the regulations which should be laid clown with regard to the dismissal of teachers, there has been a long controversy and is still much conflict of opinion. The Schools Enquiry Commission recommended that the governors should have power to dismiss the headmaster at discretion and without appeal, and that to the headmaster should be assigned the dismissal of his assistants, the governors not being allowed to interfere in the matter at all. On this recommendation the Charity Commissioners have based their policy, which is thus defended in their report for 1894: "Without assuming to decide authoritatively the vexed questions as to an appeal against dismissal, either by a governing body of a headmaster or by a headmaster of an assistant master, we desire to lay stress on the importance of keeping in view, above all, the interests of the scholars; and next, of securing the headmaster from too great weakening of his position, such as would follow if he were himself dismissible at pleasure without assignment of cause, and had not an equivalent power over his assistants, upon whose co-operation his own success must in large measure depend. When difficulties have arisen in either of these respects in the working of schools, it will generally be found that the system which has been followed in our schemes, of making the governing body fully responsible for the appointment and retention of the headmaster, and the headmaster in turn solely responsible for the selection and retention of his assistants, has not been to blame, but that, owing to the existence of vested interests, or from other causes, that system has not had full scope from the beginning of the difficulty."

133. There are obvious and weighty arguments in favour of the Schools Enquiry Commissioners' plan. It is simple, effective, final. It makes responsibility individual, direct, clear, and, if the conditions of engagement are set forth in a legal agreement, well-defined. It has behind it all the force of the analogy which may be drawn from the organisation of the workshop. There, as in the school, it may be argued, the authority of the chief ultimately depends on his power to dismiss his subordinates. One of our witnesses went so far as to urge the maintenance of the present system on the ground that "a school is a monarchical institution", nor would he give to the head the right of appeal

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which he refused to the assistant teacher. Admitting that there might have been cases in which the dismissed headmaster was in the right and the governing body in the wrong, he still maintained that in the long run it was better not to limit the latter's authority, as "hard cases make bad law".

Nevertheless, it is clear, that the present system may lead to occasional hardship, and is regarded by many persons with disfavour. The objections, however, are more strongly urged against the absolute power of the headmaster than against the absolute power of the governing body. Indeed, one of our witnesses held that there was no need to give a headmaster the right of appeal against unjust dismissal, and that, even if necessary, it would be impracticable. Suppose, he argued, that such an appeal were successful and the headmaster were reinstated, in what position would he be placed towards his governing body? They could retaliate by cutting off part of his salary. "If a headmaster cannot get on with his governing body, it is better for the school that he should go. If you are to take your choice of two evils, between being unjust to the headmaster or unjust to the school, it is better to be unjust to the headmaster."

134. It is chiefly, therefore, in regard to the dismissal of assistant teachers, that we have received evidence which points to the existence of some dissatisfaction with the present system. Thus, the representatives of the Association of Assistant Masters stated that, "The system of dismissal at pleasure is felt by the assistant masters as the keenest disability under which they suffer. Their salaries are low, but they feel much more keenly this system of dismissal at pleasure". Asked whether they "could point to any case of an assistant master in which there had been real hardship, i.e., where, through the action of a headmaster, a man had been discharged who, if there had been an appeal to the governing body, would not have been discharged", they replied that "Such cases are very difficult to speak about, because the men affected are very reluctant to make any public statement of their case. ... Fortunately the majority of headmasters are able and upright men, and it is very much to the interest of a headmaster that he should not act unjustly; but there is a considerable step between knowing your interest and acting up to it. ... An assistant master never knows when he may not be under a headmaster of a different class (from that described above), and it is that uncertainty which makes the regulation so objectionable." Similarly, the representatives of the Assistant Mistresses informed us that their Association "thinks that in any

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scheme for the government of a school, there should be a right of appeal to the governing body in the case of dismissal by the headmistresses; in fact, that the headmistresses should have to apply to the governing body before giving notice of dismissal". Asked whether this is not already the practice in most proprietary or endowed schools for girls, the witnesses informed us that there were a few exceptions, and that they thought the rule, which is now usual, should be made general in its application.

Nor is this feeling against the absolute power of the head confined to the assistant teachers. Some headmasters are opposed to the system, partly because they believe that the sense of greater security which the right of appeal would give would bring to the school advantages more than counterbalancing the disadvantage to the headmaster. The latter might lose somewhat in personal authority, but the school would gain by the greater contentment of the staff. And, it may be added, a strong headmaster derives his moral authority over his colleagues from other sources than legal powers of dismissal at pleasure. Others, again, believe that a headmaster would often feel more at liberty to dismiss an inefficient assistant if the latter had a right of appeal to the governing body. For in such a case the governing body would have an opportunity of acquainting itself with the rights and wrongs of the case if it felt any suspicion of the justice of the dismissal. Some headmasters, again, may desire to be relieved from the responsibility of discharging what must always be a painful duty. Further evidence of a feeling against the present system is found in the fact that some of the Joint Education Committees in Wales have preferred not to give the headmaster the right of dismissing his assistants, but have stipulated that the consent of the governing body should be first obtained. Nor is the feeling of recent origin. So long ago as 1872, between 300 and 400 assistant masters in secondary schools addressed a memorial to the Endowed Schools Commissioners, in which they submitted that "in all cases of dismissal of assistant masters by the headmaster, there should be an appeal, either to the governors or to some other court of appeal to be here after constituted." The reply of the Endowed Schools Commissioners was that they proposed "henceforth, in all schemes which gave the headmaster the right of dismissing assistant masters to make such dismissal subject to an appeal to the governors." The subsequent action of the Commissioners shows that they adhered to this undertaking in the great majority of cases, but found it necessary to make occasional exceptions. For example, the right of appeal was withdrawn from the draft scheme for Uppingham School, though the same privilege was retained in the scheme made at the same time for the sister school at Oakham. Objecting to this withdrawal, the memorialists again addressed the Commissioners in 1873, and received the reply that nothing which had previously been said must be taken as fettering the Commissioners in the free exercise of their

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judgment, when considering the particular circumstances of each case, as it came before them. But since 1874, when the Endowed Schools Commission was merged in the Charity Commission, the policy of the latter has reverted to the form recommended by the Schools Enquiry Commissioners.

135. It should, however, be noticed that, in the schemes of the Charity Commissioners, the headmaster's right to dismiss his assistants is usually subject to certain practical limitations. The governing body generally fix the number of assistants to be employed, and yearly determine the amount which they think proper for the maintenance of the staff. The headmaster's proposals for the division of this sum among the individual assistants have, usually, to receive the approval of the governors. And, as he is required to make each year a report to the governors on the work of the school, any action of his in regard to the dismissal of the assistant masters is brought under the notice of the governing body, who, by their control of the purse, may influence his procedure in future cases, and, if they disapprove of his policy, may dismiss him from his office. The headmaster's power over his assistants may thus be practically less absolute than the governing body's power over him.

There is much to be said for the contention that objections to the present system are not equally felt in all grades of secondary schools. In the great public schools, the assistant masters have every opportunity of making an effective appeal to public opinion in the event of injustice being done to them. Thus, the Bishop of London had "no doubt that in the schools which are commonly called the public schools, it is quite right that the headmaster should have the absolute power of appointment and dismissal. But to say the same thing of all headmasters of secondary schools is, he thought, going too far, and he would be inclined to give an appeal." It is chiefly in the small second grade schools, and especially in those so situated as to be remote from public opinion, that safeguards seem to be required in order to protect the assistant masters against capricious dismissal.

But it is easier to recognise the evils which may arise from the working of the present system, than to devise a remedy for them. No regulations indeed can make all hardships impossible. It may become necessary to reduce the staff through fluctuations in the attendance at the school. Changes in educational requirement may compel a headmaster to seek an assistant with qualifications not possessed by some older member of the staff, with whose services it may thus be found necessary to dispense. Teaching power, again, is subject to rapid decline. These are all unavoidable causes of painful dismissal, the hardship of which can at best be lessened in some cases by a scheme of pensions or superannuation. But what can be checked is inconsiderateness and caprice. And it is to lessen the liability of evil from these causes, that suggestions have been made to us for a change in the present conditions of employment.

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136. Some have advocated a right of appeal to the central or local authority. Thus, the Bishop of London would give assistants in second-grade schools an appeal to the county council. Dr. Scott would give assistants an appeal to a professional body, which might be constituted out of the registration council, forming a particular branch or committee of it. But to give an appeal, over the head of the governors, to the local or central authority would embarrass the latter with a mass of difficult and contentious business, almost necessarily inviting frequent and costly litigation.

The only alternative to this, apart, from continuing the present practice, is to transfer the power of the dismissal of assistant masters from the head to the governing body. In that case a suspensory power should be given to the headmaster, the latter being required to bring the matter at once before the governing body. In most cases no doubt the governing body would support him in his decision. But the fact that the matter had to be brought before the governors would be sufficient to stay the hand of a hasty and capricious headmaster, and to give the assistant teacher all the protection which he might need, beyond that which he would always receive from the pressure of professional opinion. To prevent the suspension from remaining unsettled for an inconvenient length of time, the matter should be treated as urgent by the governing body; and, if the latter should fail to meet within a prescribed limit of time, authority might be given to the headmaster to act on their behalf. During the period of his suspension, the assistant might be entitled to his salary, subject to a deduction for the payment of a substitute.

In the case of the Girls' Public Day Schools Company the dismissal of assistant mistresses rests with the council, the headmistress concerned being consulted on this as on all other points of internal discipline and administration. In other high schools, also, the headmistress has no power to dismiss, but has the right to report to the council on a question which might lead to dismissal. A system which apparently works well in these schools would presumably succeed in others of a similar character. On the other hand, there are cases in which an appeal to the governors would actually produce a new kind of evil. Thus, a case was cited to us in which an assistant master, who happened to be a relative of one of the governors, was actually protected by the governing body against the just indignation of the headmaster. And in order to secure the smooth and effective working of a scheme which placed the dismissal of the assistants in the hands of the governing body, it would be necessary for the latter to keep themselves more continuously acquainted with the actual working of the school than appears in some instances to be at present the case. The best hope, indeed, for improvement will lie in the increase of public interest in the secondary schools of each district, through the creation of local authorities.

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It is said that the present arrangement, which makes the assistant masters the servants of the headmaster and not of the governors, has one curious result which was brought under our notice by two witnesses. They stated that, when a headmaster resigns, all his staff theoretically cease to hold office, and, unless they are reappointed by the succeeding headmaster, lose their positions. It does not appear, however, that wholesale clearances of this kind take place in practice. At the same time, it deserves to be considered whether there would not be utility in a provision requiring a headmaster, for a certain time after his appointment, to refer to the governors any proposal which he thought well to recommend for a change in the staff. Large changes in the staff, coming at the same time as a change of headmaster, may be a source of injury to the school by breaking the continuity of its educational tradition.

137. It is clear from the evidence, that the efforts which have been made by the universities for the improvement of Secondary Education have met with much success. Thus, we have received abundant testimony to the generally beneficial influence of the examinations which they conduct for scholars in secondary schools. It appears, again, that an increasing number of the teachers, both men and women, receive their education at a university. The courses of university extension lectures have, in many places, stimulated the desire for improvements in secondary and advanced education. Moreover, the changes of the last 30 years have done more than is perhaps generally realised towards opening a passage, up which promising pupils are able to work their way to the universities from the elementary schools. It is doubtful, indeed, whether at any former time the connexion between the masses of the people and the centres of the highest teaching has been so close. And the general recognition of the fact that the relations between the universities and secondary education are necessarily intimate, seems to have led to a no less general desire that, alike in the central and local authorities, representatives of academic experience should find a place.

138. So rapidly, indeed, have new avenues to the university been opened out, that some of those whom we have consulted express alarm at the danger of an "academical proletariat". Care, they think, is needed to prevent an increase in the class of men whom a university education "disqualifies for the rougher tasks of life, without enabling for the more subtle". Several college tutors, referring to the difficulties experienced by many young graduates in finding employment, urge that, in the overcrowded state of the professions, "it is a cruelty to tempt poor men without ability, without connexions, and without any personal recommendations, to spend three or four years at a

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university. The usual result is bitter disappointment, and often a blasted life."

In so far, indeed, as a university training is regarded as the door to the professions, it would clearly be a mistake to lead poor students of average, or less than average, ability, to look to it as a means of certain or even probable advancement to some profitable occupation. As competition grows keener, it inevitably becomes more difficult for men with no special gifts of intellect or character to attain professional success. The foundation of new universities, and the fact that Oxford and Cambridge are now largely recruited from sections of society which have had no long-standing hereditary connexion with them, have doubtless made the struggle harder even for those who, under former conditions, would have readily found a career. With still less hope of success, therefore, must poorer men, endowed with no exceptional capacity or attainment, enter a competition which year by year becomes more intense. Only in the case of students of special aptitude or promise can a university education be looked upon as a safe investment likely to be repaid by profitable employment in later years.

139. But it is not solely for advancement in life, or only by the exceptionally able or the ambitious, that education of the university type is rightly desired. To a large and probably increasing number of men and women it is attractive for its own sake, not as a means of getting on in the world but because of the opportunities of intellectual training and stimulus which it affords. They crave for it because they seek an entrance into the intellectual world, for which it provides the almost necessary preparation. They know that by means of it they can enlarge and strengthen interests which will be a delight and a solace to them in whatever position they may spend their life. Such students, who are often late learners and marked rather by strength of character than by brilliant ability, deserve consideration and encouragement. It is true that their needs are not best met by the university course in its ordinary form. They cannot afford, nor would it be right to encourage them, to break away from their employment for three or four years' residence in a university town under conditions which, if not provoking actual dislike for their former occupation, might at least impair their fitness to return to it. But it is possible to satisfy their needs without detaching them from their old conditions of life and from their natural opportunities of livelihood. All that they want would, in most cases, be supplied by courses of higher instruction given in the evening within easy reach of their own homes, care being taken that any students of exceptional promise, whose abilities were discovered through these local courses, should be drafted by scholarships to the university itself.

Such an arrangement as this, while securing further advantages for those students who were specially qualified to profit by them, would at the same time satisfy desires which are naturally and rightly becoming more common, without giving higher education

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in such a way as to injure the happiness of many of those receiving it. The universities would in some measure be relieved from the danger of congestion by students of average ability, while the latter, so far from being shut out from the advantages to which they have a just claim, would actually enjoy them in a form at once more accessible and more adapted to their special needs. And the diffusion of such opportunities would remedy some of the evils to which higher education may at present give rise. It is partly because such education is exceptional that it separates those who receive it from the commoner occupations of life. The pursuit of higher studies is not necessarily incompatible with the forms of employment to which it is sometimes alleged to give invincible dislike. On the contrary, lines of life, which are in themselves monotonous and uninteresting, may furnish special opportunities for study and reflection. An educated man's distaste for them often springs rather from the lack of congenial companionship than from any objection to the work itself. And the increase of educational opportunities, by enlarging the number of persons with cultivated interests and sympathies, would tend to lessen the intellectual isolation from which there must always be a longing to escape.

A remedy, therefore, for the dangers to which our attention has been called by those well acquainted with the present state of the universities, is to multiply the opportunities by which all adult students who desire higher education may obtain a fitting measure of it without leaving their homes or cutting themselves off from their natural means of livelihood, while at the same time giving free passage to the universities to all those who, however poor, are endowed with abilities likely to command success in the professions to which the honours course at a university is the best preparation. "Lay the foundations of Secondary Education wide and deep ... Give every man, rich or poor, his chance - put sound educational opportunity in his way, use endowments wisely so that those who are worth helping and need it are helped by them ... and then, as men well prepared and trained pass into the university, the standard of matriculation at the colleges will rise, and a university career, instead of being so much a luxury for the rich, will be within the reach of all who ought to come."

140. But though the advantages of university education have already been made attainable by large numbers of promising students who under former conditions would have been practically debarred from them, our attention has been called to certain gaps in the upward ladder which still remain unfilled. Several witnesses expressed the opinion that an increase of scholarships is needed to give clever girls the opportunity of university training. Another witness, who spoke from special knowledge of the industrial classes, pleaded for more liberal scholarships to enable exceptionally promising children of artisans to prepare themselves for places of higher education, without undergoing the double strain of manual and mental labour which is

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often imposed on them to the permanent injury of their health. By one writer it was urged that the formerly intimate connexion between the universities and the smaller grammar schools has, in such cases as Lincolnshire, been actually impaired by "the extinction of the close scholarships which at one time maintained a healthy competition among the principal schools of the district to which they were confined". Another pointed out that technological institutes often stand out of all relation to the universities, and that consequently there is some danger of the latter failing to provide the education needed by the future teachers of technical subjects. The Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University informed us that there is a want of organic connexion between the constituent colleges of that university and the secondary schools of the district - the schools not generally shaping their curriculum so that the pupil may take up the college education at the point at which the school education ceases. And, finally, allusion was made to the fact that the present system of competition for scholarships "discerns, advances and rewards, not capacity as such but, attainment; and that, as attainment in the earlier years of life largely depends on opportunities and advantages which cost money, students of real promise may be excluded by early poverty from the benefit of endowments upon which they have a just claim".

The remedy for these defects, however, obviously does not lie with the universities alone. Changes in the distribution of population, and the rapid growth of great cities, are affecting the usefulness of many of the older endowments. In education, as in many other things, the country districts are being placed at a disadvantage as compared with the towns, and one of the most interesting and difficult duties of the local authorities will be to redress the balance so far as the nature of things will allow. Again, any lack of scholarships for girls desiring to study at the university will doubtless be supplied in part by the action of the local authorities, but possibly to an even greater extent by the liberality of those who are interested in the education of women. Some of the other points, however, at which there is alleged to be defective connexion between the universities and secondary education, have a more direct bearing on academic policy. Upon these matters we have received, almost exclusively from resident members of the universities, a number of interesting suggestions, which we here proceed to summarise.

141. On this subject a very strong opinion was expressed by the Bishop of Durham. He urged that "no foundation scholarships should be offered for competition to students who have not completed a year's residence in the university". Believing "the present system to have grown up under external pressure, and

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against the judgment of educational authorities at Cambridge", he condemned it as "injurious to education, both at school and at university, and injurious also morally; as encouraging the premature acquisition of results, available for purposes of examination, without the patient investigation and study which gives to them their intellectual value; as tending to deprive university work of its peculiar character and interest; and as practically destroying the class who in former times represented plain living and high thinking".

Dr. Jackson, of Trinity College, Cambridge, though he would retain, or where necessary establish, entrance exhibitions for poor students, was no less emphatic against scholarships open to competition among schoolboys without restriction. Such scholarships, he believed to have done, and to be doing, serious harm to schools. Sir George Young, again, maintained that the numerous entrance scholarships offered for open competition at Oxford and Cambridge are having "an injurious effect on the Secondary Education of the middle classes". In his judgment such competitions, because they involve examinations imposed by authorities outside the schools, fetter the best teaching; they drag many schools into a curriculum little suited to the needs of their scholars, they excite objectionable rivalries, and render far more difficult than need be the work of adapting the schools to the requirements of the class for which they were intended. But, while drawing attention to what he regarded as the great evils of the system, Sir G. Young was not prepared to suggest any particular remedy, though he proposed an increase in leaving exhibitions to be awarded in schools which would doubtless satisfy in another form some of the needs now met by the open scholarships offered at Oxford and Cambridge.

142. On the other hand, several of those whom we consulted bore equally strong testimony to the valuable effects of the system of open competition for entrance scholarships. There is no doubt, wrote the Rector of Exeter College, "that secondary schools, as well as the older universities, have been greatly benefited by the removal of restriction on scholarships and exhibitions. The Commissioners of 1852 rightly remarked that 'what the State and the Church require is not poor men, but good and able men whether poor or rich'. They also expressed a hope, that, if a large number of open endowments were established very few poor men of merit would be kept back from obtaining an academical education. This hope has been to a great extent fulfilled. Any young man of ability and industry who has been trained (in classics or mathematics) can make sure of obtaining a scholarship or exhibition." Mr. Wells remarks that "nothing tends more to encourage width of interest and reading than the conviction, which all sixth-form boys now have, that any form of knowledge will help them in a scholarship examination. At the same time, the tradition that scholarships are given for excellence in one subject and not for a smattering of many, tends very much to discourage

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cram. And the honours paid to a scholar-elect at his school (he ranks even with successful athletes) is a great stimulus to the studious boy."

143. The truth probably is that the system has brought with it both loss and gain. It "gives point, direction, stimulus, and reward to school studies: it supplies the schools and the public with some standard and measure of efficiency. Small or new or schools become known and reputed through winning scholarships; clever boys are discovered and encouraged, and other parents are induced to make efforts to give them university opportunities". It is from a sense of these advantages that the authorities of the Owens College, Manchester, have recently reorganised their entrance scholarships, consolidating small exhibitions for that purpose. They hope that these scholarships will have a considerable effect on the curriculum of schools, encouraging special lines of study (e.g., the study of physical science in schools where it has till now held a subordinate place), and inducing schoolmasters to fill up gaps which have hitherto been conspicuous in their system (e.g., the provision of a sufficient instruction in English language and history). On the other hand, the system is undoubtedly apt to stimulate an undesirable kind of competition between schools; the destruction of special ties with groups of schools has, while helping some of the newer boarding schools, injured many of the old foundations in remoter districts; the scramble for endowments has engendered in some cases a commercial spirit far removed from the love of learning for its own sake, which collegiate endowments ought specially to foster and reward; the examinations themselves, either by their too early date or their distracting number and variety (evils which are, however, considerably lessened by the grouping of different colleges), harass the schools and disturb the regularity of their work, and may sometimes keep boys waiting at school when they had better be at the university; and, moreover, the nature of the examinations is alleged to be causing in some cases undue specialisation in studies.

The last charge is in many ways the most important, and calls for more detailed investigation. That the evil is felt in the schools appears from the evidence of Mr. Eve and Mr. Storr. The former would "be very glad to see colleges giving their scholarships for a rather wider range of studies, and not necessarily for great excellence in one particular subject. ... Specialisation begins in the school, and my experience is that it begins in the school much earlier than it did when I was at school myself." Mr. Storr, regretting the absence of "all-round scholarships", informed us that "boys who are likely to win scholarships are allowed to drop in part, or in some cases entirely, all other subjects of work except that subject in which they are going to compete".

Nor is this tendency to premature specialisation denied by our university witnesses. "In the case of scholarships for mathematics or natural science, and in a less degree for those

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in history, the early specialisation encouraged by scholarships results in some cases in an illiberal education". Another writer explains the actual working of the system. "Schoolmasters have found that scholarships in modern history and science are attainable by dull boys, while, owing to the conditions of competition in history, and the fact that advanced science must (economically) lie outside the average school curriculum the competitors are fewer than in classics or mathematics. Hence they specialise dull boys in these subjects from an early age." The Rector of Exeter College thinks that "the proportion of scholarships given for proficiency in classics is, at the present time, excessive". The President of Magdalen on the other hand, believes that specialisation is probably worst in mathematics, and not unusual in history and natural science, but that it is less observable in the case of classical scholarships, as the examinations for the latter include a greater variety of subjects.

144. A remedy for this evil is indicated by several writers, and notably by the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who suggests that "the more equable intellectual development of boys would be promoted by encouraging in our scholarship examinations some competent knowledge or other subjects taught in schools in addition to the main subjects for which the scholarship is awarded. ... Possibly the result might be that a lower standard than at present would be attained in the special subject of eacb scholarship examination, but in the long run this defect would be far more than compensated by the wider interests and increased intellectual aptitude of our students". It is certainly desirable that, as far as may be, youths should be elected to scholarships propter spem rather than propter rem, for promise of general ability rather than for precocity of special attainment.

145. A question closely connected with that discussed above is the propriety of confining the award of the entrance scholarships to poor students. Upon this subject there is evidently a great variety of opinion. Only two indeed of those whom we have consulted appear to regard the present system of open competition as beyond the reach of criticism. Professor Holland is "strongly of opinion that there should be no restrictions on the ground of poverty", and Mr. Raleigh, while thinking it right that a college should give special assistance to those who cannot come to the university without it, holds that scholarships and exhibitions are prizes and should be open to general competition. Several writers, on the other hand, draw attention to certain evils produced by the present arrangements. Mr. Huddleston points out that "in competing for college scholarships and exhibitions, not only has the son of well-to-do parents the advantage of first-class school training, but he can command, if thought

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expedient, special private tuition in view of the college examination. Proceeding to the university, these well-to-do a scholars and exhibitioners are able to push up the standard of living, and make it difficult for poorer students to live economically". Mr. Arthur Sidgwick says, "there is no doubt at all that many college scholarships are held by men whose parents could easily afford to pay the full expenses of their education", and that this is "plain waste of endowments", and similar evidence is given by the President of Corpus Christi College, Mr. Oscar Browning, and Mr. Wells.

On the other hand, it is clear that the extent of the grievance may easily be exaggerated. The Rector of Exeter College informs us, that in his own college "about three-fourths of those who have held scholarships for some years past, could not have come to the university without substantial aid. In every college there are far more men than formerly whose friends make a great struggle to send them to Oxford, and who are obliged to practise the most rigid economy. The advantages of Oxford are now by no means confined to the well-to-do classes. College scholarships, as a matter of fact, largely benefit poor men, though not limited to them". Mr. Matheson believes that "a very large proportion of the existing holders of scholarships and exhibitions (he is speaking of those which are open and given purely by examination) would find it impossible, and many more would find it difficult, to come to Oxford without such help". Mr. Strachan-Davidson has made inquiries as to the circumstance of the open scholars and exhibitioners now in residence at his college. The result is that he finds in nearly every case that the holders are in need of assistance. At the present moment he knows of only one notable instance to the contrary, and in this case the holder contents himself with using the right to wear the scholar's gown, and declines to receive the emoluments to which he is entitled. In most cases the recipients could not have come to the university at all without assistance; in others, they could have come only at the cost of much privation. In a few cases he received the answer that one brother might have been sent without emolument, but that it depended on the success of the first whether the parents could afford a university education for the second.

And there are obvious advantages in the present system, in spite of its occasional anomalies. Open competition has conferred dignity on the college scholarships. The scholar's gown is a distinction, and no longer, as in former clays, carries with it the stigma of poverty. This advantage is strongly urged by Mr. Sidgwick, who points out that "the honour and position of a scholar are highly valued, and act as a stimulus to industry. The stigma of poverty is severely felt by the young, and it is on all grounds undesirable that, in a society of young students, it should be publicly known which are poor". The President of Magdalen thinks that "the danger of a revival of

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the despised servitors and sizars of days happily bygone" should not be forgotten. Professor Prothero and Mr. Matheson point out that any lowering of the status of the scholars would have a bad effect both on the schools and on college life.

146. Nor is it easy to find a remedy for such evils as are inherent in the present system without being inquisitorial, arbitrary, or unfair. Were regard to be had for the pecuniary circumstances of all candidates, only poor students being allowed to compete, it would often be difficult to assess the claims of relative poverty. "A poverty clause," says Mr. Matheson, "would be difficult to work. If liberally drawn it would effect comparatively little saving, while if too rigidly drawn (i.e., with a definite limit of parents' income without regard to family necessities), it must exclude many members of a class, not of the absolutely poor, but of the comparatively poor, the sons of the poorer clergy, teachers, and other professional and business men, who give their children the educational atmosphere a which fits them for university life, but are often not rich enough to send them to a university."

147. These difficulties have led some to look to the action of local authorities as affording the best means of remedy. Mr. Gerrans thinks that "it would be better that local authorities, as knowing the circumstances of each case, should award bursaries tenable at the university, and that colleges should add the distinction 'scholar' or 'exhibitioner', as the case may be, after due examination". Similarly, Mr. Grose suggests that it "would be well if there were funds attached to schools or districts, appropriated to the assistance of poor students from the school or district, who have proved their merit by winning scholarships or exhibitions and who require further assistance. The circumstances of a poor man are best judged in his own neighbourhood, and help of this kind is perhaps rather a local duty". The Dean of Christ Church points out that "in many places endowments might well be administered by local authorities, who might send poor students from their own town or district to Oxford or Cambridge, providing them with sufficient means and recommending them for admission to a college with the status of honorary scholar, honorary exhibitioner or commoner as the college authorities, after inquiry, might decide." In the good administration of such endowments, he points out that the local committees for university extension teaching might often render valuable service.

148. Another remedy, however, not inconsistent with this, commends itself to the large majority of those who have favoured us with suggestions on this difficult subject. In their judgment it would be possible, without altering the conditions of open examination or the status of the scholars, to reduce the annual value of the scholarship to an amount variously estimated at £50, £40, £30, or even £20 a year, the balance thus saved being spent in increasing the value of supplementary exhibitions to be awarded

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only to scholars who could privately show their need for further pecuniary aid. At some colleges exhibitions are now awarded to undergraduates who satisfy the Head that they require such assistance in order to complete their university course. And the arrangement seems to have worked so well that the way may now be open for a cautious extension of the same principle. Care, however, would be necessary to avoid the danger of inducing a number of students of merely average ability to embark on an academic career for which they were imperfectly qualified.

149. But much may also be done by the pressure of public opinion. If the enjoyment of large scholarships by the children of well-to-do families becomes generally recognised as an improper use of educational endowments, there can be little doubt that the wealthier parents will more commonly avail themselves of the right to retain the status of scholar for their sons, while resigning the emoluments which legally accrue to it. The opportunity of doing this is already afforded by the statutes of some colleges, and, in the opinion of some of our witnesses, might well be more widely extended. It should be pointed out, however, that if the emoluments resigned by honorary scholars were expended in providing additional scholarships for competition, or if honorary scholarships were bestowed in addition to those already offered, a large proportion of clever youths might be drawn to two or three favourite colleges, with the result that the scholarships offered by other foundations might be filled by candidates whose abilities would not at present command success.

150. Closely connected with the foregoing question is that of the desirability of confining the competition for college scholarships to schools or scholars in certain districts. Some of the old close foundations have got a bad name, and we are informed that "they bring in a class of men who would not gain scholarships open to general competition, and then these men seldom rise to the level of the other scholars among whom they find themselves". How this may come about is shown by another writer. "The best boys are sent in for open scholarships, and the weaklings are entered for the close competition. This depresses the standard and frequently leads to friction between the nominating and awarding bodies." It is generally agreed that the revival of local restrictions, in cases where they have been abolished, would be undesirable and that any general return to the system of close foundations would be a mistake. At the same time, a large body of opinion favours the retention and even the establishment of certain kinds of close scholarships, as an element in a general system of open competition.

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151. (a) For example, several witnesses have spoken with approval of the close attachment of some great school to a particular college. "The historical connexion between New College and Winchester, St. John's and Merchant Taylors', Christchurch and Westminster, will bear very close scrutiny. No doubt it is open to criticism, and has its weak points. It will, however, favourably compare with the system which has grown up under the influence of unlimited competition." "A long standing connexion between a college and a great public school is to the advantage of both." The President of Magdalen calls our attention to the fact that the scholars on these close foundations have for some time past reached a high standard of attainment, "the Ireland scholarship, which is still the most distinguished prize in the university, has, for many years, with only a single exception, been won either by an 'open' scholar at one single college, or by a 'close' scholar at one of the colleges named." It should be noted, however, that the schools in question draw their scholars from all parts of England.

It will be remembered that the Oxford University Commissioners of 1852, while holding that "to the efficiency of the colleges, open scholarships to supply good learners are as essential as open fellowships to supply-good teachers", stated their opinion that "some exceptions to the general principle of setting aside all restrictions might with advantage be made in favour of schools connected with colleges". Similarly, the Cambridge University Commissioners "recognised in such foundations an interest sufficiently definite and distinct", to be treated as an exception to what they called "the one good rule of unfettered and open competition". But there are still some who regard with disfavour a special connexion of this kind between a school and a particular college. It may be argued that schoolfellows are likely to derive more advantage from their university life if they are scattered over several colleges than if they are drawn together into one, and that the whole university gains by the wide diffusion of the influence and traditions of a great school. Many, again, would take a middle view, and, though conscious of the objections to the system, by which the intimacies of school life may sometimes be too closely reproduced at college, and an undergraduate may live so entirely among his old schoolfellows as to be isolated from the rest of his college and the university, would, nevertheless, with the late Master of Balliol, be unwilling "to give up the associations of William of Wykeham or the glories of King's College, Cambridge". The removal of restrictions on fellowships and other changes in academic life have, it should be added, done much to remove many of the objections which were felt to the close connexion between particular colleges and schools. The value of the connexion has in consequence become more widely felt and the

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drawbacks to it, though they may occasionally re-appear, have been greatly mitigated. As things stand at present, whether the close relation is advantageous or harmful depends on the good sense and loyalty of those concerned.

(b) Several writers regard with approval restrictions in favour of special districts, the remoteness of which places them at some disadvantage. Thus, the connexion of Wales with Jesus College (Oxford), and of the West of England with Exeter College, are commended as satisfactory. "The feeling of attachment between a favoured locality and a college, tends at the present time to become stronger rather than weaker. There is a general sentiment in favour of maintaining existing preferences. Where there are endowments at any college on which natives of certain localities have the first claim, persons are not unfrequently drawn from those localities to the university, even when they do not attain a scholarship or exhibition, who would not otherwise come thither." But the same writer adds that "a college ought always to have the power, which it generally has, of throwing open any close endowment for which there is no sufficiently qualified candidate." This would act as a safeguard against the obvious dangers of such restriction.

(c) Experience seems, moreover, to approve the connexion between local groups of schools and the university. In this case the scholarships may either be tenable at a particular university or at a particular college. Each plan has something to recommend it. Certain north country schools have a special connexion with Queen's College, Oxford, and we are informed that the restriction works advantageously and has produced admirable results. Dr. Percival, on the other hand, while endorsing this view, is of opinion that the system would be improved by confining the scholarships to a group of schools, but leaving the winners free to choose their own college. The chief advantage claimed for these close foundations is that they stimulate higher education in country districts which, without them, would slip back into a lower standard of instruction. "It is most important that the first grade element in grammar schools and other schools of that type in thinly peopled areas should not be allowed to disappear. ... The question must not be settled on merely numerical grounds; the number of boys passing to the university may be small, but it is a great matter for the school and for the neighbourhood to maintain the contact with the university unimpaired, and the loss to the higher education of any severance of this connexion would be great." Another writer believes that a duly guarded system of restriction would be in the interests of poor students and of the local schools, and would provide the universities "with a more varied field of candidates, often possessing more originality and more force of character than that from which they now

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draw". It is interesting also to note that, in the case of the scholarships established as a memorial to Mr. George Moore, the promoters began with an entirely open system of competition for the diocese of Carlisle. The diocese, however, includes Barrow-in-Furness, and nearly all the exhibitions were carried off by children connected with the higher grade board school in that town. This was found so discouraging to the more remote and country districts that the system was changed in such a way as to encourage and protect the scattered country schools. In the judgment of Dr. Percival, a similar restriction might also be necessary in the case of other scholarships, and his view seems to be confirmed by another witness, who would exclude the large public schools from the competition for the purely local scholarships.

152. It is well known that in the course of generations the normal age of matriculation at the universities has steadily risen, and the effect of this on the secondary schools and the educational life of the country has engaged the attention of several of our witnesses. Whether the tendency for the limit of age to advance has continued during the last few years is uncertain, but the usual age at which youths now go up to Oxford and Cambridge may be roughly stated at 19. In the Victoria University residence begins at a somewhat lower age, though the standard may vary a little in the constituent colleges. Thus, the Yorkshire College has 5 students, under 16 years of age, and 24 between 16 and 17; all the rest are over 17. At University College, Liverpool, there are 26 students between 16 and 17; 39 between 17 and 18; 47 between 18 and 19, and 37 between 19 and 20. At the Owens College there are 41 students between 16 and 17, and 923 above that age, there being in the arts department alone 304 students over 20 years.

According to one view, while the danger of an early age for matriculation is that the university may overlap the school, the objection to a more advanced age is that the school may be encouraged to do work which properly belongs to the university, and that some students may be lost to the latter through inability to wait so long before beginning their professional studies or commercial career. With regard to the danger of the university competing with the school, our witnesses from the Victoria University believed that there is no serious overlapping in the case of the colleges at Manchester, Liverpool, and Leeds.

153. As, however, this view does not seem to be universally accepted, we may take this occasion to point out that a

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certain amount of overlapping between school and university is unavoidable and need not be disadvantageous. Boys do not all leave school at the same time or with the same attainments. A hard and fast line drawn between school and academic studies would limit the proper freedom of both institutions, and prejudice the interests of many pupils. The undesirable form of overlapping is when the university or university college draws boys away too soon from the discipline of school, or when the school keeps back youths who would gain more from the freedom and keener competition of the university than from the prolongation of their school life. In these matters no absolute rule can be laid down. Much depends in each case on the character of the pupil and on the nature of the school, but the danger of objectionable overlapping, as Mr. Kitchener points out, is "not more than can be easily guarded against by a good understanding between the university and school authorities", and, in so far as complaints of overlapping have arisen with regard to the university colleges, it should be remembered that most of them are still "young and pioneer institutions, engaged in a missionary work, in trying to raise the standard of education in the manufacturing districts, ... and compelled to struggle against temporary difficulties".

154. The principals of the constituent colleges gave interesting evidence as to the age at which matriculation may be expected to take place in the Victoria University. Dr. Ward thinks that "We cannot expect university education to be largely taken part in, in the great northern centres, unless we generally regard 17 or 18 as a suitable age for beginning university work". Mr. Rendall is of opinion that students of natural science rightly begin at about 17 years of age, and students of arts at 18; and that women students are wise in beginning their course at a rather later period than men. As for the age at which a lad should leave school for the university, much depends on whether, if he remains at school, he will have the necessary conditions of intellectual competition surrounding him. Thus, youths will tend to leave the smaller secondary schools for the university at an earlier age than they would be encouraged to leave the larger ones.

155. As to the proper age of entrance at Oxford and Cambridge, there is some difference of opinion. Among our witnesses, there were some who thought that the older custom under which boys went to the universities at an earlier age was better than the present practice. They urged that, if boys could go sooner, more fathers would be able to send their sons to the university, and that the rise in the age, by lengthening the period of education and deferring entrance to life, bears hardly on the poorer parents, and especially on those who desire their sons to enter professions for which a long and expensive training is

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necessary at the close of their academic career. Nor, it was alleged, is the present practice good for the schools. As the discipline which is suited for younger boys is not adapted to the older ones, the order of the school is apt to become relaxed, or its rules to appear inappropriate. The advance in the age at which boys leave school was ascribed partly to the increased pleasantness of school life, partly to the desire to retain good athletes in the school, partly to the fact that the competition for college scholarships is open up to 19 years of age.

156. On the other hand, some headmasters of great experience upheld the view that 18 or 19 was the best age for entering the university. Those who maintain this opinion, argue that the school would be injured by the loss of its best monitors at an early age; that the standard of attainment, both at school and the universities, has been raised by the prolongation of school life; and that the increased provision of scholarships fully compensates poorer parents for the lengthening of the period of education.

157. A middle view, which may be taken to harmonise the more extreme opinions, is that urged by Dr. Percival, who pointed out that there are two classes of boys at a public school, "those who rise to the top of the school, and who are better occupied at school up to the age of 18 or 19 than they would be anywhere else"; and those who, from their circumstances, have to complete their liberal education at 19, and whose parents at present as a rule leave them at school till that age. For the former class, he believed the present arrangements to be well suited. For the latter, he thought that some of the colleges should open hostels, in which youths, going up to the university at 16 or 17, might reside under certain restraints of discipline until perhaps the last year of their academic life. By this arrangement, the class who at present go straight on from school into business or to prepare for professions, would enjoy the intellectual stimulus of a university education under conditions modified to fit their age, while the advantages of the present system would be retained for those who are able or qualified to benefit by them.

158. Several of those whom we have consulted laid stress on the imperfect connexion between the universities and the secondary schools for girls, and various aspects of the question are dis-

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cussed at length in the interesting memorandum of Mr. Arthur Sidgwick. Another writer, it is true, declared that he would not place the universities in "correlation" with any arrangement made for the benefit of girls, holding that "the higher education of women ought to be worked out by women and on independent lines". But this view was exceptional. Professor Henry Sidgwick, after noting the imperfect correlation between the universities and modern schools, wrote that "the relation of Oxford and Cambridge to the school education of girls is in a far more satisfactory condition, since both universities have refrained in the case of women from requiring a knowledge of Latin and Greek as a condition of entering the examinations that test academic work". In connection with this matter, however, it should be noticed that the students at Girton College are, by the rules of the college, obliged to take the Previous Examination, which require both Latin and Greek, the view of the College Council being, as we understand, that the course for its students should be throughout identical with that of the undergraduates.

Miss M. G. Kennedy points out as a cause affecting the correlation of the schools with the universities the interesting fact that, with two exceptions, all the public schools for girls have grown up side by side with the colleges for women; an increasing proportion of the women students have been drawn from them, and in turn the students have gone to them as teachers. This leads to an interchange of communication as to common aims and mental needs, which should gradually bring about a satisfactory correlation or arrangement, and she proceeds to show that, for example, out of 667 students of Newnham College no less than 374 adopted teaching as a profession. Thus the schools and the colleges, acting and reacting one on the other during the last 20 years, have together felt their way towards the settlement of the type now taken by the higher education of girls. She also thought that the opening of the universities' honour examinations is giving definiteness to girls' education. Miss Rogers, while not desiring to see girls' schools "classicized", thought that definite preparation for the university should begin in the last two years of a girl's school course; that the more advanced teaching in girls' schools should be under the care of a competent classical scholar; and that there should be more communication between the mistresses of schools and women university teachers. The difficulties felt by Miss Rogers may, however, be due not so much to insufficiency of opportunity in schools where the classical scholars are so abundant, but to the fact that a university course is often determined upon for a girl quite late in her school career, which career itself begins later than does a boy's. In some girls' schools the necessary provision is simply made by substituting Latin for German at an

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early stage, and Greek for French in the last year or two for girls with any prospect of a university career.

Several writers also dwelt on the disadvantage under which girls now suffer from the want of sufficient endowments; especially for scholarships. Mr. A. Sidgwick informed us that, "apart from school exhibitions and close college exhibitions confined to boys from particular schools, there are annually awarded in Oxford about 150 open scholarships and exhibitions to boys, of the total value of about £10,000, and to girls about six scholarships, of the total value of £250."

A somewhat larger question, but closely connected with the same subject, was broached by two writers who drew attention to the fact that, at some of the universities, "while a man who has resided the required time and has passed the required examination is allowed a degree, to a woman who has done exactly the same it is refused".

159. Several witnesses laid stress on the imperfect connexion between the universities and many secondary schools of the modern type. "University recognition of such schools is essential, and would benefit both school and university." It appears, indeed, that there is very little contact between the higher and lower grade of Secondary Education in this country. Thus, the headmaster of the higher grade elementary school at Leeds, at which boys and girls are prepared for the universities, stated that he "cannot get boys to go to Cambridge, and has had no boys express a desire to go to Oxford". It is alleged that, to some extent (opinion would differ as to the degree), this separation between the older universities and a branch of Secondary Education which is daily growing in importance, is caused by the retention of Greek as a necessary subject in the curriculum of Oxford and Cambridge. Upon this matter several of our witnesses. expressed themselves in the strongest terms. It does not, however, fall within our province to enter upon this difficult and much-debated question, further than to call attention to the testimony which has been offered to us on the subject.

160. Different opinions are held as to the degree in which a university should connect itself with technological studies, and the present may be regarded as a time of experiment, during which

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the various universities in England are approaching the question from somewhat different points of view. The urgent importance of maintaining a high standard in the education of those who propose to undertake the duties of instructors in technical institutions is, of course, admitted on all hands. For, were the training of this class of teachers to become narrow or mechanical, the technical school might eventually prove an actual obstacle to industrial progress. But there is far from being general agreement as to the place in which the training of these technical teacher's may best be carried on.

161. In France and Germany, the work is almost entirely carried on, not at the universities, but in separate institutions. In England, there Is a tendency to attach certain parts of these professional studies to the universities. Thus, Cambridge, by establishing an honour course in mechanism and applied mechanics, has definitely accepted technology as an academic subject. The Victoria University has brought itself into close relation with the technological needs of the surrounding districts, though, in respect of the Owens College, Principal Ward and Dr. Wilkins regard the correlation as being less satisfactory than, if some better tests were prescribed for the award of local scholarships, it might easily become. The University of Durham has encouraged technological instruction at the Newcastle College of Science, with which its statutory connexion has recently become more intimate. The recognition and furtherance of applied science form an important part of the scheme recommended by the Gresham Commissioners for the new University of London. Both by Oxford and Cambridge special encouragement has recently been given to the study of the science and practice of agriculture by the award of diplomas for proficiency in that subject.

One of our informants, however, speaking with special reference to Oxford, expressed a "fear that technological instruction and scientific teaching may become separated. At present", he remarked, "technological institutes appear to stand out of all relation to the universities. It is important that the latter should not cease to perform, their proper function, viz., to provide a thorough scientific education for those who are likely to be called upon to teach technical subjects; and it is equally necessary that technical schools should aim at educating as well as training. More frequent consultation between the teaching authorities at the universities and the various technical schools would be beneficial to both and to scientific education generally."

162. The last point was emphasised by the representatives of the Victoria University, who drew our attention to the evils likely to result from a confusion of the functions of an apprenticeship or trade school with those of a higher technical institute or

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polytechnicum. A university college situated in a large manufacturing or industrial centre will, whether a constituent member of a university or not, naturally and effectively undertake the duty of providing those higher branches of technological instruction in which theoretical knowledge or scientific training are of pre-eminent importance. Besides such a higher school of technical studies, however, a great town will need an institution in which may be given less advanced forms of teaching. But it would be a great error so to equip the last-named institution as to enable or encourage its staff to compete with the professors of the university college. Between the technical side of the university college and the ordinary technical school there should be close relations, but no competition. The one is the supplement of the other, not its rival.

In the development of technical instruction in England close attention has rightly been given to foreign, and especially to German, experience. But in the matter to which we have alluded in the preceding paragraph, a too hasty imitation of German models may lead to wasteful expenditure and duplication of effort. When provision for the higher technical instruction began to be made in Germany, the universities stood aloof from the movement. They were unwilling "to admit within their walls a class of men who would be likely to devote themselves to industrial pursuits; nor would they lower or alter the standard required of university students, on entrance as ascertained by the leaving examination of the classical schools. Moreover, at that time the practical teaching even of the pure physical sciences was only in its infancy in the university." The result was that technical instruction, even in its highest grades, had to be provided by new and independent establishments. Hence followed the foundation of the great polytechnic schools.

But in England the position is different. Here the development of technical instruction has been less rapid than in Germany; the need for it having been less acutely felt. In the meantime a great change has come over our universities, which have shown much interest in scientific education and sympathy with its various developments and their bearing on national needs. It naturally followed, therefore, that when the demand for higher technical education began to show itself in our great centres of industry, the university colleges, which were already established in those towns, set themselves to meet this new educational need, their efforts being so successful that within recent years they have received large grants from the State to enable them to make more extensive and elaborate provision for the new class of students thus brought within their walls.

Thus in England, the university college has combined with its other functions some of those of the Polytechnicum. Care should therefore be taken, in establishing municipal institutions

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for technical teaching, to avoid inconsiderate imitation of the German Polytechnic school, which, as we have explained, took its present form because the help of the universities was not available. To set up a copy of a polytechnicum alongside of a well equipped university college would be waste of educational effort, and would almost necessarily lead to hurtful competition.

163. The relation of the university colleges to technical instruction has, moreover, led to further results in the educational system of this country. Since their foundation, three of the chief university colleges have been recognised as the constituent members of a new university, and another has been drawn into a special relation to the University of Durham. Thus, our English academic organisation has been naturally brought into new relations to applied science, and, as the experience of one university has great influence upon the policy of the rest, there is reason to expect that technological studies will in the future receive an even larger measure of academic recognition.

That this is likely to be the effect of what has been already accomplished may be gathered from the remarks of the Gresham University Commissioners on this subject: "The question was raised", they say, "whether the group of subjects, comprised a under the head of applied science, should be included as such within the scope of a university, or, according to the method pursued for the most part in France and Germany, should form a group outside the university system. This latter view is not in accordance with the practice of this country, is not supported by a uniform opinion or practice abroad, and appears to us to rest on no sufficient grounds of reason. Its acceptance, moreover, would be in singular conflict with the state of facts with which the university will have to deal. For it appears from the evidence that in the case of two colleges (University and King's) the department of applied science is, if not the strongest, at least one of the strongest departments in each college."

Thus it is probable that Secondary Education, even on its more technical side, will gradually be drawn into closer connexion with the universities, and that the latter will, in this, as in other branches of study, be the training ground of a large proportion of its teachers. But the actual relation in which each university will elect to stand towards technological studies must to a great extent depend on its environment. Thus, as might have been expected from its position in an industrial and manufacturing district, the Victoria University has led the way, though its representatives lay emphatic stress on the fact that it regards itself as not less concerned with literæ humaniores than with technology.

There might, indeed, be in this matter a division of labour between the various universities. For the furtherance of certain

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branches of technological study, the new University of London would have unrivalled opportunity, And the connexion between the University of Durham and the College of Science at Newcastle and between the University of Oxford and the University Extension College at Reading, indicates the possibility of another means by which universities may encourage and develop the higher forms of technical education.

164. It is clear, from the evidence which we have received, that an increasing proportion of the teachers in secondary schools, both men and women, are drawn from the universities. In the great first grade schools for boys practically all the masters are university graduates. There is also a marked increase in the number of university women who receive appointments us teachers in high schools for girls. Thus, out of the 720 students who have left Newnham College between October 1871 and June 1893, 374 are engaged as teachers, 49 being headmistresses, and 105 assistant mistresses in endowed, proprietary, or other high schools. Of the 170 students permanently registered on the books of the Association for the Education of Women in Oxford, 89 are teachers, or preparing to teach, in secondary schools, of the 29 women students of Owens College who have attained a Victoria University degree, 21 are engaged as teachers, six being in endowed or other secondary schools of the high school type. Reference is also made to the fact that athletic skill is regarded as an important qualification for many assistant masterships. It is stated by one writer, that many secondary schools are showing a preference for having modern languages taught by Englishmen who have been at the university first and then have completed their studies abroad. The special requirements, insisted upon by the headmasters of various types of secondary school in seeking assistant masters from the university are analysed in detail by a writer who has had special experience in this matter. There appears to be a largely increased demand for graduates as teachers in the smaller secondary, and in preparatory, schools. The returns from our selected areas show that in the private schools for boys and girls respectively the percentage of graduate teachers is 27.86 and 30.90. One writer believes that the increase in the number of university men now seeking work in schools has lowered the scale of salaries.

165. In the second grade schools, however, the proportion of university men is much smaller. We are informed that "in endowed second grade schools the principal is generally a graduate and in most cases he has under him one or two men who are also graduates, but the whole staff seldom consists of university men exclusively. In private second grade schools

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there is every variety of qualification, and a large number of men are engaged in schools of this type after leaving the university." Thus, in respect of the teaching staff as well as the curriculum, the connexion between the older universities and the second grade schools is still defective. This, however, is much less true of the University of London, a large number of the teachers in such schools in and near the metropolis being graduates of that university.

In the third grade schools there are among the graduate teachers few members of the older universities, the staff being largely recruited from the London University and the university colleges.

Many of our witnesses had formed a strong opinion that graduates are often deficient in skill as teachers, having had no training in the methods of education. This subject, however, is discussed at length in another part of this Report (see p. 205).

166. To the great value of the services rendered by the universities by the conduct of their various schemes for the examination and inspection of secondary schools and for the examination of individual scholars, testimony has been borne by many of our witnesses. The Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board, for example, is said to have worked exceedingly well. Schools which had no test at all have been brought under a test, and it has generally awakened schools to a sense of their duty. Other witnesses, speaking from experience in girls' schools, stated that the certificate examination of the board is "very good". Reference should also be made to the inspection and examination of schools conducted by the University of London, and to the benefit which some of the secondary schools in Yorkshire are receiving from the schools examination and inspection scheme of the Victoria University. The effects, again, of the local examinations conducted by the universities have been highly commended, one witness stating that "nothing has so much improved the schools attended by boys and girls from rural districts as, the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations. The result is to be seen in the much greater appreciation by young farmers (from 35 downwards) of the advantage of education". Another witness, speaking from experience of town schools, expressed "a very high opinion of the local examinations both of Oxford and Cambridge".

All these examinations have undoubtedly done much to raise the standard of teaching in the lower and higher grades of secondary schools. They have provided an impartial test of attainment. They have the advantage of being self-supporting. They have established a closer connexion between the universities and secondary schools, and have facilitated

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constant communication between the teachers and the examining authorities. In the case of the joint board, great advantage has been derived from the common action of the universities in administration, while the diversity of management in the case of the local examinations, almost necessitated by the greater volume of work and the multiplicity of detail, has led to many developments which, while specially desirable in view of the great variety of schools under examination, would probably have been less easily undertaken by a combined authority enjoying less freedom of independent initiative.

The great majority of those who have communicated with us from the universities, concur in expressing a favourable opinion as to the results of these examinations. Two, however, make adverse comments, the one on the work of the joint board, the other on that of the local examinations, the former on educational, the latter on administrative grounds.

167. It will, therefore, be convenient to summarise the criticisms which have been made upon these university examinations during the course of our inquiry.

Two witnesses complained that the university examiners were occasionally deficient in special experience of the schools under examination, and one of them urged that the staff of examiners should be recruited from public schoolmasters and ex-public schoolmasters. The representatives of the headmistresses, on the other hand, referring to the joint board examination, expressed themselves as "well satisfied with the papers on the whole", and Mr. Eve pointed out that the general organisation of the joint board examination has been materially altered by the criticisms of the Headmasters Conference. To how great an extent the university authorities welcome the suggestions, and are guided by the experience, of the teachers, is shown by the memoranda with which they have favoured us. Thus, the Oxford Delegates of Local Examinations state that "they have always given careful consideration to any representations made to them by persons of experience in education". The delegates add, that "in the appointment of examiners the delegates have always deemed it a matter of vital importance to secure the services of graduates who have had experience of school teaching, and not merely of the training of undergraduates, On the staff of examiners are retired schoolmasters and country clergymen acquainted with the needs and capabilities of secondary schools". The Cambridge Syndics for Local Examinations similarly endeavour to secure in their body of examiners "a combination of those who are engaged in university teaching and those who are immediately conversant with the actual state of education in secondary schools. Hence it will be be found that a considerable number of the examiners appointed by the syndicate have been actual teachers in schools, or are in direct and continuous contact with school work by means of the examination and personal inspection of individual

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schools, which they undertake on behalf of the syndicate. All the papers of questions are discussed at meetings of examiners, and are thus brought under the consideration of critics who are directly acquainted with the actualities of Secondary Education." Professor Sidgwick considers that "the want of experience of school teaching has been a serious drawback - as it is only by accident, so to say, that the syndicate includes among its members any persons who have actually taught in schools". But, the effects of the drawback, which is to some extent inherent in the system, have "diminished as time has gone on, partly through the experience acquired by examiners who have frequently inspected and examined individual schools for the syndicate, partly through the experience gained by the managing secretaries who are in continual communication with schoolmasters".

On the same subject the members of the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board report that "from the first they have invited and received criticism from individual headmasters and headmistresses"; and that they have had several conferences with representatives of the Headmasters' Conference, the council of the Girls' Public Day Schools Company, and the educational committee of the London Chamber of Commerce. And they attribute much of the success achieved by their labours "to the maintenance of free communication between the board (and, through it, the universities) and the schools, and to the fact that the board has been able to secure the services of some of the ablest members of the universities, many of them men of experience in school teaching".

168. Stress has also been laid on the danger that some teachers are led to concentrate their attention on the pupils sent in for the local examinations to the comparative neglect of others. One witness said, that "in many schools girls are interrupted in their regular work, and for a year do nothing but the particular subjects that they mean to pass in at the local examinations". The Cambridge Syndicate have no doubt that "this is a real danger", but "believe that in the case of schools which regularly send in candidates, the danger is counteracted by the consideration that, although the special preparation for the local examinations is confined to certain classes, there will be no constant supply of suitable material for that preparation to take effect upon, unless the teaching is thoroughly sound throughout the school". And Professor Henry Sidgwick points out in his memorandum that the evil "might be adequately guarded against by systematic inspection and examination of each school as a whole". He adds that "it is obviously expedient that such inspection and examination should be managed by the body that manage the external examination for which the school in question prepares".

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169. Another drawback which has been mentioned, is the distraction of the schools by the multiplicity of different examinations conducted under independent authorities. This evil attaches to many other examinations besides those under the direction of the universities. Indeed, the only complete remedy would be the unification of examinations in the hands of the State. But against this alternative the majority of our witnesses entertain far graver objections. The educational council would, however, be in a position to lessen the present confusion by making arrangements with the various examining authorities to recognise one another's certificates.

170. Exception was taken by some witnesses to part of the work of the university authorities for local examinations, on the ground that the system of simultaneous written examination injures the teaching given in schools by discouraging variety in method and curriculum. Those who held this view pointed out that the method of the simultaneous written examination was introduced as "a cheap and convenient device, which could be readily employed to cure idleness or inefficiency on the part of the teachers, but that it fails to discern or to encourage the best way of teaching". It should be remarked, however, that in 1851 and 1858 the Oxford and Cambridge examining authorities availed themselves of the only method which it was really practicable for them to propose in view of the circumstances of the time. Many of the schools were poor, some were unwilling to welcome examination. Had the universities insisted on the more expensive system of inspection, their useful labours would have been confined within far narrower limits than has happily been the case. Much that they have done in stimulating secondary schools to higher standards of efficiency and excellence would have remained undone. There can be no doubt, therefore, that they were well advised to adopt the system of simultaneous examination papers at the outset and throughout the earlier stages of their work. Nor, indeed, is it likely that so convenient and economical a system, which, has special advantages of its own, will fall into disuse. For it is a real merit of the system that, within certain limits, it secures "an independent test and attestation of efficiency" applicable at the same time to a large number of different schools, and therefore available for purposes of comparison. "The wide competition thus introduced, and the publicity and the identity of the standard, serve to determine the position of each school relatively to others. Deficiencies, moreover, are brought to light which may escape notice when the schools are considered singly, and an additional stimulus is applied."

On the other hand, it is to be generally admitted that the method of simultaneous written examination, conducted by an external authority over a wide area is open to grave objections. Thus, Professor Henry Sidgwick writes that "a drawback, inherent in any system of external examination, lies in its

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tendency to hamper a good teacher in his choice of educational methods and instruments, and to encourage the use of methods which, though well adapted to secure success in examination, are not so well adapted for the communication of solid knowledge and the development of intellectual faculty." The force of this objection has clearly been recognised by the Cambridge Syndicate and the Oxford Delegacy from an early stage of their work, for, from 1862 and 1877 respectively, they have maintained, in addition to the examination of individual boys and girls by means of the local examinations, an alternative system of inspection dealing with each school as a whole. The method of the Cambridge Syndicate is to appoint an examiner or examiners to conduct an inspection or examination according to a schedule, drawn up by the school authorities, showing the work prepared by the school. "The syndicate are anxious not to interfere unduly with the freedom of each school to develop its work according to its own ideal, and, therefore, the utmost freedom is allowed in the preparation of the schedules." The examiner in his report deals, not merely with the actual attainments of the pupils in the subjects presented for examination, but also with any points affecting the efficiency of the school, such as curriculum, the staff of teachers, and the school buildings. The same examiner is generally appointed for two or three years in succession, this arrangement giving continuity to the estimate of progress while preventing the examination from falling into a groove, as might happen if the same examiner took the work for an indefinite period. The oral examination of classes forms part of the inspection.

Similar arrangements, though differing in details, are made by the Oxford Delegacy for Local Examinations. In most of the schools inspected by them, the upper forms are examined on the papers of the local examinations proper, with or without a few other papers specially set. Lower forms may be examined either (1) by means of easier papers specially set and looked over by the examiner appointed by the delegacy; or (2) by means of papers marked by the teachers and submitted to the examiner of the delegacy, who inspects and reports on them; or (3) viva voce. The delegates allow any combination of these methods which the circumstances of each school may require. They report that "they usually find that the authorities of the schools desire to have some viva voce examination at least, and they are of opinion that this is a valuable test of the general condition of schools, especially of the lowest forms, but of little use for discriminating between individual pupils."

The methods above described form a valuable alternative or supplement to the system of applying a simultaneous test to the individual scholars in a large number of schools. According to their needs and circumstances, schools are able to select one or the other method of examination, each of which has its own drawbacks and advantages. The system of inspection allows more regard to be given to the special conditions of each school,

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but at the same time it is necessarily more expensive, and it provides a different, if not a less searching, test of comparative efficiency. But, by means of it, viva voce can be made to play a more or less important part in the examination, and the syllabus of examination can follow the curriculum of the individual school, instead of, in large measure, prescribing the curriculum for a number of schools by appointing set books.

It was on the ground that the local examining authorities set prescribed books that Mr. Craik preferred the system of the Scottish leaving certificate examination. To prescribe books for examination is apt, he argued, to narrow the education given in the schools. It should be remarked, however, that the system of set books is not necessarily inherent in the method of the local examinations.

171. Another objection to the system of school examinations conducted by an external authority was of a more general character. It was stated in detail by Lord Reay, who urged that "we need great elasticity in secondary schools, and should not stereotype education by any kind of examinations which are held by bodies of outsiders. I do not wish", he said, "to make the leaving examination by an extraneous body the be-all and end-all of the teaching of a school. The responsibility for the education given at a school must not be transferred from the teachers, or from those who appoint and control the teachers, to those who, unconnected with the school, set examination papers." Sets of examination papers, he went on to say, are not a substitute for sound methods of examination and systematic grading of schools. "I attach much greater importance to the organised inspection of the schools and to the certificates attained by the teachers themselves, to the character of the staff of the school, to its discipline, its method, its spirit, than to the number of passes which its pupils obtain or the honours they may obtain at leaving examinations. I do not think that you can judge of education by examinational results."

This view throws the chief stress on inspection, on which it relies for a continuous audit of the efficiency of schools in place of the periodical audit which is at present furnished by means of external examination. The examination would thus, in so far as it is regarded as supplying a test of comparative efficiency, fall into a subordinate position. No longer needed as a standard by means of which the work of one school can be measured with that of others, it could be left more to the teacher himself, and, therefore, allowed to adjust itself more freely to varieties of curriculum.

But it should be remarked that the university examinations for secondary schools have grown up in the absence of any system of organised inspection. They, therefore, seek to combine two functions, viz., to provide a test of the work in each individual school and an external standard by which the merits of different schools may be compared. The methods of

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these examinations must, therefore, necessarily be somewhat of the nature of a compromise, seeking to unite, as far as possible, freedom of examination with the strictness of a comparative test, and the difficulty of combining these two objects becomes the greater, in proportion to the variety in the curriculum and methods of the schools examined. As might be expected, therefore, the methods of those of the university examinations which concern the higher secondary schools have been criticised on the one hand as not necessarily maintaining a uniformly level Standard, and, on the other hand, as not having sufficient regard to the kind of school examined.

The regulations of the various authorities show what care is taken to secure elasticity together with a sufficiently uniform standard. Thus, the London University examinations for schools "follow, as nearly as possible, the course of the ordinary school work", and schools desiring to be examined are invited to specify "the extent to which the teachers of the school will be willing, if desired, to assist in conducting the examination". The examiner visits the school and reports "on the work of each class, on the proficiency attained in respect to each subject of instruction, and on the method, discipline, and general condition of the school". Some secondary schools in Yorkshire have availed themselves of the Victoria University schools' examination scheme, to the great benefit, we are informed, of their educational work. "The headmaster of the grammar school in a small town or country place, no matter how able he may be, must tend in course of time to get out of touch with new educational developments, and must find the criticism and suggestions of someone who is a thorough master of his subject and comes to inspect his school of great value." Similarly, the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board provides for elasticity in the case of the certificate examinations by the variety of subjects offered to the candidate's choice and the option of selecting a book or period alternative to those prescribed in the regulations, and, in the case of school examinations, by holding examination by means of papers, or orally, in any subject forming part of the course of a school of the highest grade. In all cases of school examinations, the board require at least one examiner to visit the school, and at a fair number of schools a viva voce examination is conducted in some or all of the subjects of instruction. The board has also provided for the inspection, by examiners appointed by the board, of answers to papers set by them and of marks assigned to these answers by masters at the schools on a scale fixed by the examiners. This method of inspection, however, is never applied to work done for the purpose of obtaining certificates.

Uniformity of standard is sought from year to year, and doubtless obtained, by means of a system of revision by a practically permanent staff of central examiners, and by certain general regulations as to the range of knowledge to be required from candidates in the highest form of a first grade

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school. It is clear, however, that this system of central revision, combined with visits by the examiners to the individual schools, is necessarily somewhat elaborate, and might not be easy of application to the whole of England. The difficulty of maintaining equality of standard does not present itself in the same degree in the case of the London and Victoria University Schools' examinations, as both are at present conducted on a much smaller scale. So long as the examining duties of a university body are comparatively limited in extent, it is doubtless easier to find examiners able to report on the general arrangements of the schools. At the same time, it does not follow that the schools' examinations of the joint board, though generally limited to the upper forms, have failed to affect the whole of the schools examined. On the contrary, "the work of the lower forms is really and efficiently tested by the examination of the upper forms, where the results of the grounding in all subjects is put to the test". The "inspection", however, of the joint board has not meant complete inspection of the general arrangements and curriculum of the school, though, under exceptional circumstances, an examiner has been requested to report on the general arrangements for teaching a particular subject.

172. Two of our witnesses, therefore, have expressed a preference for a change of system. Mr. Storr advocates an examination, on German lines, "the masters in schools conducting the examination with some outside assessor to see that everything is fairly done, and that a tolerably uniform standard of attainment is preserved". Desiring to secure "uniformity of standard, with the greatest diversity of subjects consistent with that uniformity", he suggested that the general lines of the examination should be laid down, the authorities of each school conducting it with an assessor. Mr. Craik drew our attention to the Scottish leaving certificate examination, which allows each candidate to take as many or as few subjects as he likes, the examiners reporting how high a standard the candidate has reached in each subject offered by him. The other examining authorities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, the Scottish Universities, the Civil Service Commissioners, the Medical Council, the Law Societies, and so forth, are left to decide which and how many certificates they will require their applicants to produce. The work of paper-setting and looking over answers is to a large extent done by professors of the universities, and special arrangements are made with the joint boards of Oxford and Cambridge and of the Scottish Universities for conferences as to the standard of the examination.

Both these systems, however, involve a general system of inspection of secondary schools, distinct from the system of examination. But in judging the work of the university examining authorities, regard should be had to the fact that

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considerations of expense would in any case have made it impossible for them to require inspection of all schools examined by them. The Oxford and Cambridge Board also pointed out" the difficulty of providing inspectors whose opinions would be recognised as authoritative as against that of a headmaster of a public school of the first rank. It must be remembered that for a comprehensive inspection of this sort, much more special and much rarer qualifications are demanded than for an examination in specific subjects." "The number of men", writes Mr. Matheson, "qualified to speak with authority on the general arrangements and conduct of, e.g., Eton or Harrow, or Clifton or Rugby, is very small indeed, and it is next to impossible to secure their services. Such men, to speak with any weight, must be men of the very first rank in the teaching profession". On the other hand, the headmaster of Clifton points out in his memorandum, that as inspection, unlike examination, can be held at any time in a term, one inspector could take charge of 30 or 40 schools. We are assured, moreover, that "there is nothing in the constitution of the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board to prevent its extending its work in this direction, if requested to do so by the authorities of schools". And its close communication with both the above universities and with the schools which mainly feed them, and its knowledge of the personnel of examiners and inspectors, would certainly, as has been remarked, give it great advantages in the discharge of such additional duties.

173. A further objection to the system of the university local examinations was urged by the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who argued that, "however excellent their results might be, they do not appear to be work which properly falls within the functions of a university. A university has a perfectly defined sphere, namely, the promotion of knowledge and the advancement and organisation of the higher education, and it cannot step out of this sphere by neglecting its own proper duties." In his opinion, "Oxford has suffered much within the last 10 or 15 years from the undue development of these activities. ... Many of our most active and promising men have been diverted from study and their proper educational work to popular, and possibly more fascinating, labours, but such as might be equally well, if not-better, performed by many whom the republic of letters could better spare for the task."

On the other hand, Principal Rendall thought that these external duties and responsibilities did not distract the attention of the universities from their more academic work. "These things right themselves; examination work falls into the hands of those best fitted to discharge it, and those who are not fitted abstain naturally from the work of examination. The universities are strong enough in men to have men whom they can valuably use in all the work of examination that comes into their hands."

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Moreover, the assignment of precisely defined provinces to different educational institutions is foreign to the conditions of our national life. The limits of influence and responsibility are hard to draw, and could be effectually maintained only under a more rigid system of State control than public opinion in this country is likely to tolerate.

174. It is clear, at any rate, that the universities are necessarily concerned in the improvement of secondary schools, from which, directly or indirectly, they draw the great majority of their undergraduates. The better the secondary schools, the higher may become the standard of academic work. "Intermediate education must necessarily be closely allied to the universities, and, therefore, the universities are more or less responsible for its efficiency, because they can close their doors to those who are ill prepared", and because they can exert, by means of the examinations under their direction, a beneficial influence on the curriculum of the schools from which the undergraduates come.

Moreover, by means of these examinations, the universities have become more familiar with the educational difficulties oil the schools, and the schools with the requirements of the universities. The need of such a connexion is emphasised by many of our witnesses. "The closer the relationship between the universities and secondary schools in knowledge of each other's wants the better." Principal Rendall would "regret the creation of a body of official examiners acting for a Department of State rather than a body of examiners who take school examinations in conjunction with their work in the university, because the latter are teachers as well as examiners; they are learning as well as imparting, for they are learning school standards, school methods, the subjects of study at schools, and they enable the university itself to form a far better judgment of what standard should be required for the whole series of examinations." The same witness also regarded the administrative experience gained by a university body in conducting a system of examination, as in itself valuable to the university, and distinct in kind from the examination experience which might be gained by individual graduates acting in their personal capacity.

175. It is not, indeed, the duty of the universities to organise or control Secondary Education. Such a task is obviously beyond their resources, alike of men and of money, and one in which the State and the representatives of public opinion in each locality must properly bear a still more important part. But, on the other hand, they cannot stand aside from the problems of Secondary Education as if its condition and difficulties had no bearing on academic work. The schools and the universities are bound together by ties which cannot be weakened or neglected without injury to both. And the efforts which have been made by the universities to fulfil these responsibilities, during a critical

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period of educational change, have met with the success and public recognition which they fully deserve.

176. Though university extension lectures are intended primarily for adults, it not unfrequently happens that a limited number of the elder scholars in secondary schools attend the courses and several writers have referred to the advantages derived by secondary schools from this addition to their ordinary curriculum. The returns obtained by the Cambridge Syndicate for Local Lectures, and the Oxford University Extension Delegacy show that, in ordinary centres, elder scholars from secondary schools form from 11 to 15 per cent of the audiences. In London, however, the proportion is less than three per cent. The various authorities for university extension teaching do not encourage the attendance of the younger scholars, and two of them refuse to admit to their final examinations any candidate under 15 years of age.

177. The courses are however attended by large numbers of persons who, though not at school, are still within the limits of school age. Several witnesses have urged upon us the importance of providing, by means of evening classes, for the needs of poorer students who are willing to avail themselves of facilities for continuing their education after the early end of their school life. Principal Symes, believing that this class of students is much more numerous than is generally supposed, points out that the university extension system has been "most helpful" in meeting their case. He thinks, however, that the universities should give more recognition to a high standard of knowledge acquired by means of private study and evening classes, "the degrees of the University of London having been most helpful to vast bodies of students who never would otherwise have obtained a university education at all". Such encouragement appears, however, to be already given by the affiliation scheme of the University of Cambridge, and by the higher certificates awarded by the Oxford, Cambridge, and London authorities for university extension. It seems, therefore, to be the general wish that while, as now, "the universities should, by means of the university extension movement, bring themselves into connexion with education of very various kinds, and grant certificates of official recognition for various branches of study, including technical proficiency of various kinds, residence in the universities with the degrees attained by a course of study during residence, should, as heretofore, be connected with learning in the higher sense."

Stress is laid on the service which the University Extension Colleges at Reading and Exeter have rendered to the class of younger students who can only attend courses of instruction in the evening. With regard to Exeter, Miss Montgomery writes: "By far the larger proportion of children leave the elementary

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and secondary schools at an early age, with no idea of going on to the higher schools, where they do not find precisely such teaching in Latin, modern languages, English geography, history, and mathematics, as would fit them for commercial life, clerkships, appointments in the civil service, &c.; there was, in fact, great want of such teaching as is given in the German Realschulen. This want [among others] the Technical and University Extension College supplies." Similarly, the curriculum of the Reading University Extension College provides for the needs of those who come from the elementary or evening school, or from the second grade school at 16, as well as those who leave the first grade school at 18.

178. Several of our witnesses thought that the university extension authorities might provide some of the travelling teachers whose services will probably be required to give supplementary instruction in schools (e.g., in history, literature, and geography), and more especially in schools situated in country districts. In order to meet this need, Mr. Raleigh suggests that the work of the university extension might be "supplemented by arrangements for giving instruction of a more elementary and systematic nature, than can be given in a short course of lectures". This has recently been done by the new regulations for class teaching in languages and mathematics adopted by the Oxford, Cambridge, and London authorities. While, however, the services of travelling teachers might usefully be employed in many schools, it is clear that these visits can only be regarded as supplementary to the work of a resident staff. It is on the daily intercourse between pupil and teacher that the more permanent influences of secondary education depend. Occasional visits from teachers, who must necessarily have far less knowledge of the needs and character of the individual scholars, can form no substitute for the work of the resident masters or mistresses. Class work, for example, must always be chiefly entrusted to the resident staff of teachers, and it is "in the class-room, not in the lecture room, that the more solid part of secondary education must always be carried on. The lecturer deals with his audience as a whole, the teacher with the separate individuals who compose it. While the lecturer may not know whether his hearers work for themselves or not, it is an essential part of the teacher's function to direct the efforts of his individual pupils, to address himself to their different difficulties, to set them working on, their own account, and to satisfy himself that they understand what he teaches them. Lecturing may be occasional, teaching is necessarily continuous; and, while the first may be effectually done by a stranger at comparatively distant intervals, the other must be entrusted to some one in daily intercourse with his pupils, and in a disciplinary relation to them." But it does not follow that the lecture plays no useful part in school education. It is not a substitute for class work, but it may be made a valuable supplement to it. It may stimulate thought, give new

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points of view, and add interest and variety to the instruction given in the class.

179. A. similar educational difficulty has to be met when the lecture is used, not as a part of school work, but as a means of imparting instruction to elder pupils who have left school. It should be pointed out, however, that in the university extension system the lecture does not stand alone, but is followed by a class for further instruction, in which the student has an opportunity of asking questions and clearing up his difficulties. Only by attending these classes, by writing weekly papers for the lecturer, and by entering for the final examination on the course, can any person be regarded as obtaining the full educational advantage which university extension teaching is designed to supply. Steps have also been taken by the various university extension authorities to provide special forms of class teaching as a supplement to the ordinary courses, or as a substitute for them, in subjects for which the lecture is an unsuitable method of instruction.

180. As, however, the lectures are generally suspended through the summer, the interval between the courses must be bridged over by some form of tutorial or class work. Mr. Headlam, who discusses this difficulty in some detail, recommends "the establishment of strong and vigorous unions of students of the kind which have often grown up round university extension centres". Well organised associations of students are now found at all the best centres of university extension teaching, and facilities are also provided by the various university authorities for continuing the instruction, begun in the winter, through the summer months. Arrangements of this kind, however, entail much labour and continuous attention on the part of residents, and can only be made where there is a strong local interest in the work of the travelling teachers. It has, accordingly, been found by experience that the value of university extension teaching largely depends on the voluntary efforts of the local organising committees. It is, indeed, one of the great advantages of the system that it calls forth and makes use of local interest in higher education. Where the labours of a local committee have not prepared the way; the lectures have generally failed to attract large audiences or to draw together a body of real students. The formation of a strong local committee might, therefore, well be made a condition of financial aid. It seems better to work through the local university extension committees, where they already exist, and by means of small grants to enable them to put their work on to a more permanent and systematic basis, than to attempt, by means of larger subsidies, to create suddenly a local interest and form of organisation which must necessarily be of slow growth. "When courses of lectures are pressed on a town or village by an external authority ... the responsibility of local organisation is sometimes lightly accepted by persons who first underrate the difficulty of their task and then

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neglect it. As a consequence of this, the lectures have often failed in places where efficient local organisation would have ensured their complete success." But experience has made it equally clear that grants from a public authority may be of the greatest value in enabling the local university extension committees to make their work more continuous, more systematic, and more available for students with narrow means. The provision of courses of higher instruction, arranged in educational sequence and in sufficient variety to meet the needs of different classes of students, is frequently beyond the means of the local committees, especially in small towns and poor districts, where the need is often greatest. By the help of comparatively small grants from public funds, given in such a way as to call forth local subscriptions instead of superseding them, increased service could be rendered by the university extension system to public education. "If continuous systematic courses of study can be regularly arranged, extending over a period of years, and especially if they can be made to lead up eventually to a university degree, many will be encouraged, after leaving school, to carry on higher education side by side with the learning of a trade or profession ... In any adequate system of secondary or higher education there should be some means by which the pupils on leaving school might have immediate opportunities opened up to them of carrying on special studies into higher stages. By means of the university extension system, this might be done in a most effective and thorough way." "The major function of the local lectures in relation to secondary education will consist in carrying to a higher stage the education begun in schools, and, in particular, in keeping alive or reviving intellectual interests which are fostered by intelligent school teaching and are only too often allowed to disappear in after years, owing to want of suitable opportunity for their development."

181. It has been pointed out to us, however, that the limitations of the present law prevent the necessary help being given to the systematic courses on historical and literary subjects which are much needed. The committee of the educational committee of the Co-operative Society at Todmorden write that "instruction defined as technical is not the only instruction needed and we think that the scope of the Act ought to be extended so as to take in historical, literary and economic subjects. The tendency of the Act is to develop a one-sided educational system. If we could have had a reasonable grant in aid, Todmorden would have looked forward as regularly to a course of lectures year by year as it looks to its dividend day. We have an exceptionally good school board in Todmorden and they are doing far more in the direction of technical education than we possibly could. Yet three years ago our committee had a course of lectures and a technical subject was selected. We got £30 from the West Riding County Council and how was it expended? By covering the same ground that was being

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covered in the same district by the school board. We made no application afterward, for we regarded the money as almost wasted; whereas, if we could have had a grant for a literary or historical subject, we should have broken up new ground." We were also fissured that the same view is taken by other working men in Oldham, in the neighbourhood of Bristol and in Cornwall. And in a memorial from 80 University extension committees, 71 "express themselves decidedly in favour of such an extension by the powers of the county councils".

182. Several witnesses refer to the help which teachers receive from courses of university extension lectures. Thus in Huddersfield the system "has been a very valuable stimulus to Secondary and Elementary Education. It has been of very great value to our ex-pupil teachers especially". At Reading and Exeter, the classes are attended by large numbers of teachers. Special courses for teachers are arranged by the Victoria University in Manchester and Liverpool. The importance of this service is emphasised by the Cambridge Syndicate who point out that "the lectures afford an opportunity for teachers to pursue their studies in their own special subjects, or in others, and thus contribute towards keeping up the freshness of their teaching." A special memorandum from the same body describes the university extension courses which have been arranged under the Norfolk County Council with a view to giving further qualifications to teachers, engaged in continuation schools and village classes. Large numbers of teachers in secondary as well as in elementary schools have also attended the vacation classes held at the different universities and at the Exeter Technical and University Extension College.

183. The establishment of university extension lectures has led in many towns to further educational developments. Thus "the desire for advanced education in Sheffield has been greatly stimulated by such movements as the university extension, the Gilchrist lectures &c. We had large audiences attending these lectures and classes, and the public mind was being educated." In Somersetshire, again, the increasing interest in educational matters is partly traced to the work of the university extension lecturers. In Sheffield, the Firth College was "the natural outcome of the Cambridge University Extension Classes". And the same movement led up to the establishment of University College, Nottingham. Within the last few years, the election of a university extension lecturer to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford "with a view to giving system and completeness to the educational work of the extension centre at Reading" has led to the foundation of the University Extension College in that town, and the action of the Cambridge Syndicate for local lectures has similarly brought about the establishment of the Technical and University Extension College at Exeter. These colleges appear to have been instrumental in co-ordinating the educational agencies in

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the towns in which they are placed, to have greatly stimulated public interest in higher education, and to have provided facilities for continuing the studies as well of adult persons as of pupils fresh from the secondary schools. Speaking of the Reading College, Captain Abney informed us that its work has led to the most satisfactory results. Uniting the university extension system with the science and art classes, "it combines the advantage of both and the disadvantages of neither." He held it out "as a model on which the same combination might be made. to work under the same system" in other places.

184. The important services which may be rendered by the university colleges to a system of Secondary Education have been urged by many of our witnesses. One of them thought that "Technical or Secondary Education cannot be satisfactorily carried out in any part of England unless there is in the district some institution (of the nature of a university college), to which the more promising students can be sent for their higher education." Three of the greatest of the university colleges are already federated in the Victoria University, and thus have a national as well as a local function. Nearly all the smaller university colleges, not being constituents of a university, are more exclusively local in their character, and one of them (Nottingham) is a municipal institution. Centres for higher education are, however, needed in many towns which cannot maintain a fully-equipped university college, and it is to meet this need that the university extension authorities have taken part in the establishment of the colleges at Reading and Exeter. On their technical side, these colleges can obtain adequate support from public grants, but their efforts to provide historical and literary teaching have been cramped by want of funds. The importance, however, of maintaining in each large centre of population a college which shall encourage humanistic as well as technical studies has been strongly urged. And the efforts of those who desire to maintain a well-balanced curriculum of studies will naturally be helped by direct connexion with the university on the one hand, and with the local authority for secondary and technical instruction on the other.

The value of this double connexion was further explained by Canon Moore Ede, who, in his memorandum, pointed out that the work which has been done at Reading and Exeter might, with due adaptation to local circumstances, be reproduced elsewhere. "Given an educational board as the sole authority, and controlling all moneys to be expended on the education of those who have left school, ... their first step should be to appoint a capable man to organise the education other than ordinary school work throughout the district. Such appointment might be permanent, or arrangements might be made with the university extension authorities for some one of their staff of lecturers to undertake the work for three or five years. In some places it would be desirable to have a change

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of man, and a change in the subjects of lectures given by the principal, every few years." In order to inspect and systematise the university extension classes in certain districts, and to draw their work into closer connexion with other branches of education, the Oxford Delegacy and Cambridge Syndicate have recently appointed three superintendent lecturers or directors of studies, whose labours may do something towards bringing about the co-ordination which is generally desired.

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Having now described the present state of schools and other educational agencies in England, and examined the various proposals that have been laid before us, and the arguments by which they are respectively supported, we may proceed to state the measures which we humbly recommend to Your Majesty as calculated, in our opinion, to bring about that correlation of existing agencies and economical application of existing funds, which are required for the proper organisation of Secondary Education. Here, as elsewhere in this Report, we include Technical Education in the term Secondary, and we desire our suggestions to be taken as bearing upon both alike.

These measures appear to fall into five classes, viz.:

I. Those which relate to the constitution and powers of It Central Authority calculated to bring the state into a fitting relation to Secondary Education.

II. Those which relate to the constitution and powers of Local Authorities, rural and urban.

III. Arrangements for the better organisation of schools, including -

The kinds of schools needed, and their classification and co-ordination.
Special provisions for rural districts.
Local governing bodies of schools.
Scholarships and exhibitions.
Examination and inspection.

IV. Financial arrangements.

V. Questions specially affecting teachers, including the registration of teachers and their professional education.

1. We have already (see p. 64) stated the reasons which lead us to believe that some central authority is required, with power to discharge certain functions which are of common concern to all parts of the country. Nearly all the witnesses who have appeared before us have argued in favour of the creation of such an organ of the State; and the need for it is indeed shown by the fact that two organs exist which practically discharge some of the functions proposed to be allotted to the new authority, viz., the Charity Commission and the Science and Art Department. We are

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however, anxious to disclaim at the outset any wish to set up a new branch of the Executive Government with the duty of effecting reforms and compelling obedience to its commands. So far from desiring that Secondary Education should be a matter for a Department of State to control, we propose to leave the initiative in public action to local authorities, and to prevent even those authorities from superseding the action of individuals. So far from attempting to induce uniformity, we trust that a free and spontaneous variety, and an open field for experiment and enterprise of all kinds, will be scrupulously preserved. We conceive, in short, that some central authority is required, not in order to control, but rather to supervise the Secondary Education of the country; not to override or supersede local action, but to endeavour to bring about among the various agencies which provide that education a harmony and co-operation which are now wanting.

The functions we propose to entrust to this authority will be presently specified in detail. They will include a general oversight of the action of such local authorities as may deal with Secondary Education, the supplying of information and advice to those authorities, the power of framing or approving schemes for the reorganisation of endowments, and rules for the application of public funds, the deciding of appeals from local authorities, together with some measure of jurisdiction over those important educational foundations which, being used by the country generally, cannot properly be subjected to local jurisdiction. And with these will go the management of a Register of Teachers.

2. The central authority ought to consist of a Department of the Executive Government, presided over by a Minister responsible to Parliament, who would obviously be the same Minister as the one to whom the charge of elementary education is entrusted. In order to secure harmony and economy in the working of the various branches of the Education Office as thus enlarged it seems desirable that there should be under the Minister a permanent Secretary with a general oversight of those several branches. Whether there should further be created a staff of officials for Secondary Education, distinct from those who administer the work of the present Education Department, or whether that Department should merely be expanded and strengthened to undertake the new functions which we propose to have devolved upon it, is a question which may be left to be settled by those who will have to organise the office. The new work, however, will be in some respects so unlike the work now being done, as to require different methods, and at least some officials specially devoted to it. Several of these would naturally come to the new department from the bodies which we propose to merge therein. See paragraphs 6 and 7 post.)

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3. Most of the work to be assigned to the new Central Office would, naturally, be despatched by the Minister and his departmental staff in the usual way. There will be some matters, however, in which the counsel of persons specially conversant with education and holding an independent position, may be so helpful, and there will be some duties in their nature so distinctly judicial rather than executive, as to make it desirable to secure for the Minister the advice of persons not under his official direction. There will, moreover, be some work to be done in a Central Educational Department, so purely professional, as to belong rather to an independent body than to a Department of State. For these purposes we propose that there be created an Educational Council, which may advise the Minister in the first-mentioned class of matters and in appeals, while such a professional function as the registration of teachers might be entirely committed to it. We do not advocate such a council on the ground that it will relieve a Minister of responsibility, for we conceive that the responsibility both for general policy and for the control of administrative details ought to be his and his alone; but we believe that the unwillingness which doubtless exists in some quarters to entrust to the Executive any powers at all in this branch of education would be sensibly diminished were his position at once strengthened and guarded by the addition of a number of independent advisers.

4. Such an Educational Council ought to be small, not exceeding 12 members. Of these, one-third might be appointed by the Crown; one-third by the four universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Victoria (one member by each); and one-third might be selected by the rest of the council from among experienced members of the teaching profession. The term of office might be six years, and arrangements ought to be made which would prevent all the members from going out of office at the same time, so as to secure the continuance and transmission of experience, and a certain permanence of policy. Once the council had been formed, all the members ought to take part in the co-optation of such members as will from time to time have to be co-opted.

It is not easy to suggest a satisfactory means of obtaining members whose mode of appointment will tend to secure their independence; but on the whole we think that this object may best be attained by allowing the universities to choose a number of the members equal to the number chosen by the Crown; and this plan would be in accord with the policy which has conferred on the universities the right of appointing persons to sit on the governing bodies of some of the greatest schools, as well as with the right similarly enjoyed by them of nominating some of the members of the General Medical Council.*

*The General Medical Council meets only twice a year, but it is much larger (25 persons) than we think the Educational need be, and some of its members have to travel from Scotland and Ireland. Each receives besides his travelling expenses a fee of £5 5s. for every day during which the council sits.

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We were at one time disposed to recommend also the election of some members of the council by the teaching profession as a whole, a scheme supported by not a few witnesses, but the practical difficulties in the way of arranging for such an election, by a vast number of persons scattered over the country and divided into several sections with interests not altogether the same, appear to us to be at present insuperable; and we therefore think it better to attempt to ensure by the method of co-optation the presence of a professional element.*

It will nevertheless deserve to be considered, after the register herein-after recommended has been formed, whether regulations may not usefully be framed, under which those who are to constitute this professional element may be chosen on the recommendation of the teaching profession itself instead of at the discretion of the co-opting members of the council.

5. The Educational Council should meet at least four times a year, and at such other times as it may be called together by the Minister. Its members should be paid their travelling expenses and a fee (to be fixed by the Treasury) for each day of attendance. The Council should have power to appoint a standing committee, or other committees, and to entrust to these committees such of its functions as it may think fit, and it might be allowed to appoint, with the sanction of the Minister, assessors to aid it for special purposes.

6. On a balance of the considerations which suggest and dissuade the merging of the Charity Commission in the Central Office, a difficult question fully discussed in an earlier part of the Report (see ante, pp. 88-98), we conceive that the gain of bringing the whole management of educational endowments under the direction of a Minister responsible to Parliament and a Department equipped for the supervision of Secondary Education is evident under such a system. The policy of a Department is likely to possess more definiteness, and the power of carrying that policy out to be greater, than can be secured under the present arrangements. Whether the present Charity Commission should be left in existence for the purpose of dealing with non-educational endowments, or whether it ought to be placed under the proposed Minister for that part of its work also, is a question which may seem to be beyond the scope of the Reference with which Your Majesty has honoured us. We, therefore, confine ourselves to recommending

*Upon this subject reference may be made to a Memorandum by two of our members which will be found in the Appendix, Vol. V., p. 20.

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that the work now done by the Charity Commissioners, so far as regards educational endowments, be transferred to, or placed under the direction of, the proposed Central Office, but without prejudice to any existing right of appeal to the courts of law from decisions of the Charity Commissioners. (See pp. 22, 26, ante.)

7. For the reasons already stated (see p. 101, ante) we think that the Science and Art Department ought to be absorbed into the reconstructed and enlarged Education Office, those of its functions which relate to Secondary Education being transferred to the new Department for Secondary Education, while those which touch elementary schools would go to those officials of the Education Office who already deal with such schools.

8. One of the first duties to be discharged by the Central authority will be to aid in the establishment of those local authorities for Secondary Education with which the next following section of this Report deals. It will be there noted that we have thought it desirable to provide for a certain amount of elasticity or variation in the constitution of those authorities, and for the appointment by the Minister of Education of a certain small number of their members. To see these bodies duly constituted, and to give them all such help as they need in setting to work, seem to be functions in which the intervention of the Central Office is necessary, and may be exerted without any restriction of the free scope which we desire to secure to local action.

9. We have already intimated our opinion that there are many districts where the existing supply of Secondary Education is very deficient, and not likely to be supplied by the growth of proprietary or private schools; and we further think that, although the local authorities which it is proposed to establish, will, in most instances, show themselves active in endeavouring to supply these deficiencies, still it cannot be assumed they will always have the knowledge, perhaps not always even the will, required to enable them effectually to do so. We accordingly think it is desirable that some central authority should have the right and duty of requiring local authorities to fulfil the trust to be committed to them, and of aiding them in such fulfilment; and we conceive that a precedent for imposing such a duty upon a Central Office may be found in the duty cast upon the Education Department under the Act of 1870, to secure the performance of the obligation devolved upon localities by that Act, although the method prescribed by that Act would be inappropriate to the present case.

We, therefore, think that it should be the duty of the Central Office, as soon as constituted, to require from the

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various Local Authorities for Secondary Education (herein-after mentioned), a statement of the provision existing, or proposed to be by them created, for Secondary Education in their respective areas, and to consider these statements for the purpose of ascertaining whether that provision is, or will be when the proposals have been carried out, sufficient in quantity and quality, due regard being had to the character and wants of the population of each area, whether urban or rural.

10. The difficulty of determining what in any given case is a sufficient supply of Secondary Education is greater than in the case of elementary education; because the population of any given area is only one of several elements affecting the amount of the demand for such education, and indicating the type to which it ought to conform. The wealth or poverty of the inhabitants, the nature of their occupations, the degree of culture they have reached, the possibility of exciting their desire for a higher degree, must all be considered. In proposing to entrust to a central authority the function of stimulating and advising local authorities in this matter, we do so in the confidence that an administrative department would proceed with caution and tact, judging each case by its own conditions rather than by any rigid rule, and endeavouring to lead and guide rather than to apply legal pressure to a dilatory local authority. The exercise of such pressure would, in our opinion, be very rarely needed; but in view of extreme cases we doubt whether it would be safe to omit altogether to provide for it. We, therefore, recommend that -

The Central Office may, when it considers that a statement shows the provision of Secondary Education in any area to be defective, require the Local Authority for that area to take steps for making a due provision, and obtain from time to time from the Local Authority an account of the action it has taken for that purpose, and may, if it deems that action insufficient, continue to require further action, until the provision made appears to it to be satisfactory.

11. In the improbable contingency of a Local Authority refusing to fulfil its obligation, it should be in the power of the Central Office to withhold the grant which we propose should be given to Local Authorities in lieu of the present Science and Art grants (see para. 145), and even to forbid the application of the grant under the Act of 1890, in other parts of the area of the recalcitrant Local Authority, until the part held to be insufficiently supplied had been provided for. If it be suggested that even this pressure might fail, it would become necessary for the Central Office to consider the propriety of instituting such proceedings as the general law provides for the case of Local Authorities neglecting a duty cast on them by statute. But we do not at all apprehend that any recourse to such extreme measures will ever become necessary.

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12. Though we shall presently have to propose that Local Authorities shall receive the power of framing schemes for educational endowments within their respective areas, a power now enjoyed by the Charity Commission only, it is obviously necessary to subject those schemes to the judgment of a central authority before they can be laid before Parliament or approved by Your Majesty in Council. We, therefore, recommend that -

Where a Local Authority has (in manner herein-after mentioned) framed a scheme relating to all endowment within its area, whether for the altering the place or mode of application or administration of an endowment, or for the consolidation of several endowments into one, such a scheme shall be submitted to the Central Office, and that Department shall have the power of sanctioning it, or of suggesting amendments to it, and refusing its sanction except upon the acceptance of those amendments.

In many cases the Local Authority may feel itself scarcely qualified to prepare a scheme, and then the work will virtually be done by the Central and Local Authority together, the former supplying the general principles which govern these matters, the latter the special knowledge of the needs and wishes of the inhabitants of the given area.

13. The Central Office in considering schemes submitted to it should take means for ascertaining the wishes of the people of the place, should give objectors to the scheme an opportunity of being heard, and should, in proper cases direct a local enquiry to be held (as is now done by the Charity Commissioners), more particularly if it is proposed to divert non-educational endowments to an educational purpose.

14. Any statute that may be passed for the merging of the Charity Commissioners (wholly or partially) in the proposed new Central Office, ought to provide that all the powers which those Commissioners now enjoy, so far as they relate to, or can be used for the purposes of, educational endowments, should be transferred to and vested in the Central Office, but without prejudice to the right of Local Authorities to initiate schemes (as herein-after mentioned) for endowments within their respective areas and jurisdiction.

15. We have already stated our view that endowed foundations which are non-local in their character, that is to say, which are mainly boarding schools, and are largely resorted to by scholars from far beyond the area of the Local Authority in which they are situate, ought to be exempt from the jurisdiction of that Local Authority. To declare what schools ought to be deemed to fall within this category is no doubt a matter of much difficulty, and not the less so because there are some foundations which have grown from being local grammar schools into what are popularly called "public schools," i.e., large boarding schools

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of the so-called "first grade" type, while there are others which show a tendency, after having for a time drawn the bulk of their scholars from a distance, to become again local in their character. The determination of the particular schools which are to be treated as "non-local" must, we think, be left to the proposed Educational Council, whose experience, judgment, and non-political character appear to fit it for this delicate task. The list once formed, it seems to follow that such schools should be placed under the supervision of the Central Office. (See paragraphs 82, 85, post.) We think, therefore, that that Office ought to have the exclusive right and duty of framing as well as sanctioning schemes for schools which may be declared to be non-local, and thereby exempt from the jurisdiction of the Local Authority within whose area they are situate.

16. Where any question requiring adjustment or determination arises between two or more Local Authorities for Secondary Education the Central Office should have power to settle it.

Questions (such as those relating to the establishment of scholarships for several areas, or the use of schools in one area by pupils from another) are likely to arise in which the action or jurisdiction of one Local Authority will touch or overlap that of another, or in which combination is desirable, and from this contact disputes may occasionally grow. It is desirable that the Central Office should have the function of arbitrating on and settling any such dispute.

17. Where an urban Local Authority requests that the area of its jurisdiction may be enlarged, or where any Local Authority requests that it may be united with some other Local Authority or Authorities, the Central Office ought to have power, after due inquiry, and after communication with any other Local Authority affected, to effect such enlargement or union if satisfied that it is for the public benefit, and if the other Local Authority or Authorities consent thereto.

18. For reasons already stated (see p. 150) it will sometimes be the wish of a Local Authority, instead of setting up a new school, to acquire and use some existing proprietary or private school. Such a method, however desirable in proper cases, is evidently open to abuse; and its application ought therefore to require the approval of an impartial authority, which can ascertain that public interests are not likely to suffer. We recommend, therefore, that -

When a Local Authority, in providing a due supply of Secondary Education, proposes to acquire by agreement a proprietary or private school, any arrangements it may make for that purpose ought to be submitted to the Central Office for its sanction, and be valid only upon receiving such sanction.

19. The Central Office should have power to appoint such officers as it may find to be needed, to aid it locally in the per-

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formance of the work now done by the Assistant Commissioners of the Charity Commission, and also such work as may have to be done in the way of supervising the application of grants made by the Central Office to Local Authorities or otherwise.

20. The Central Office should have power to appoint persons to conduct such inspection as is herein-after mentioned, and to prepare and publish a list of persons duly qualified for employment as inspectors by Local Authorities, and to sanction, on the application of a Local Authority, the employment of some other qualified person not included in such a list.

21. The Central Office may advantageously compile and publish such educational information as it may think useful, and should be prepared to advise Local Authorities and governing bodies of schools on educational matters, when requested so to do.

It should also have power to publish, and from time to time to revise and republish, general regulations adapted to the circumstances of urban and rural districts respectively, regarding the sanitary arrangements of school buildings and classrooms, sending copies of all such regulations to local educational authorities, such regulations to be enforced by the Local Authorities as hereinafter mentioned. It deserves to be considered whether, in order to mark the importance of the subject, the minimum of requirements relating to health should not be prescribed by statute without prejudice to the right of the Department to raise that minimum subsequently, if experience shall show the need for doing so and public opinion seems likely to support such a policy.

We now come to certain functions of the Central Authority in which, as we conceive, a Minister will be aided, and public confidence in his decision increased, by the advice of an Educational Council such as we have proposed. In each of these functions we think the responsibility of the decision ought to rest with him, i.e., that he ought to be able, if he thinks fit, to overrule his Council.

22. Where any appeal from a decision of a Local Authority is given to the governing body of a school, or to the inhabitants of a locality, or to the owners or owner of a proprietary or private school, such appeal ought to be entertained and determined by the Minister at the head of the Central Office, the Educational Council having first examined into the matter and tendered to him their advice upon it.

23. Any appointments of persons to be members of Local Authorities for Secondary Education, which may be directed to be made by the Minister at the head of the enlarged Education Department, ought to be made by him after haying received the advice of the Educational Council.

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24. General regulations for the inspection or schools by Local Authorities (as herein-after mentioned), and for the holding of examinations under the direction of Local Authorities or otherwise, in manner herein-after mentioned (see paragraph 127, post) ought to be made by the Minister with the advice of the Educational Council.

25. Any jurisdiction, (other than the function of framing schemes) which may be conferred on the Central Office to be exercised over endowed schools, or other educational endowments declared to be non-local in their character, ought to be exercised by the Minister with the advice of the Educational Council.

26. The only function, other than that of determining whether or not an endowed school ought to be deemed non-local, in which we think that the Educational Council ought to act independently of the Minister and his Department, is that of instituting and keeping a register of teachers. This subject will be dealt with later, so we need here say no more than this - that while holding on the one hand that such a register must, if it is to be useful, be placed under the care of some central body, we hold also that such a body ought to be independent of the Executive Government. The duty of purging the register by striking off any person who had been improperly placed on it, or who had forfeited by misconduct his or her right to be on it, would, of course, also fall to the Council.

27. While assigning the above duties to the Educational Council as those for which it seems needed and qualified, we do not exclude the possibility that the Minister for Education might find himself able to use it for other purposes also, such as for instance, in settling those questions of curriculum and internal school arrangements, which may arise in approving schemes submitted by a Local Authority, as well as in framing those for "non-local" schools, which are to be framed by the Central Office. Nor, again, do we exclude the further possibility that the Council may be made available for various purposes connected with elementary education.* Such a course would have obvious advantages. The council would constitute, if judiciously chosen, a standing body of skilled advisers, who might sometimes be able to aid him by acting as a sort of departmental committee to whom the Minister could refer, for enquiry and report, questions on which he desired to have facts collected and sifted, or practical suggestions formulated. In this way his hands would be strengthened by it. We repeat, however, that, except in those few matters which we propose to leave to the Council

*Upon the wider issues which this remarks suggests for consideration reference may be made to a Memorandum by one of our members (Mr. J. H. Yoxall), which will be found in Vol. V, p. 33.

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alone, it should have no power to fetter the Minister's discretion, and he ought not to be required to record any reasons for differing from the advice given by the majority.

28. No one, we think, who has carefully followed the recommendations which we have made on the subject of the Central Authority, will suppose that they practically amount to an extension to Secondary Education of the functions of the present Vice-President of the Committee of Council (with an altered title). Nothing, certainly, would be further from what we propose or desire. Though holding that whatever the State does for Secondary Education, it had better do through the Minister who is already responsible for elementary education, we should deprecate the extension to schools of a more advanced type of the methods and principles hitherto generally applied to primary schools. The law may, indeed, empower the Executive to require from Local Authorities evidence that they have provided such a supply of secondary instruction as their district needs, for if such a duty is imposed there must be some means of enforcing it. But when this has once been secured, a wider discretion ought, in our opinion, to be left to the Local Authorities than the local authorities concerned with elementary education now enjoy. The interference of the State should be confined within narrow limits, and virtually restricted to the aiding and advising of the Local Authorities, the prevention of needless competition or conflict between them, and the protection of private or proprietary schools from any disposition on the part of those Authorities, should such a disposition appear, to force competitors out of the field. Such a code of regulations and such a system of examination and inspection as the Education Department has applied to elementary schools, would, in our view, be not only unfitted but positively harmful to Secondary Education.

We have found the constitution of Local Authorities one of the most difficult, as it is certainly one of the most important, portions of our task. Both in town and in country, existing public bodies are, to some extent, in possession of the field; and we have had to consider, not merely what plans were best in principle, but which could be introduced with the least friction and the least disturbance of existing arrangements.

29. Assuming - what may be taken to have been proved by the fact that circumstances have forced certain bodies to take up and deal with the subject - that some local authority is needed, both in the country and in towns, to deal with the problems of Secondary Education - two questions presented themselves. First, what should be the areas of local management; secondly, how the authorities for those areas should be formed. Recent

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legislation seemed to indicate clearly that the proper rural area is the county, and the proper urban area the county borough. Some considerations pointed to a union of several of the smaller contiguous counties into one administrative area, and others pointed even more strongly to the inclusion of the smaller county boroughs in the administrative area of the county which contains them. But the hostility likely to be evinced to such proposals dissuaded us from them, though we do not abandon the hope that a sense of the advantages of combination may induce some of the smallest counties to unite, and many of the smaller county boroughs to join their county. Although we are aware that a desire exists among some of the boroughs, with a population under 50,000 (and not county boroughs under the Act of 1888), to be treated as distinct areas for the purposes of Secondary Education, we hold that such communities are not sufficiently large to need a separate authority and will gain more by being united for educational purposes with the county in which they are situate.

30. The second question suggested at once the enquiry whether any of the existing authorities was fitted for the work to be done, or whether a new body must be created. When we had been led by the reasons already set forth (see pp. 116-19) to embrace the latter alternative, the question followed whether this new body should be formed by direct popular election. Having rejected that idea in the belief that there were already elections enough in England, the only course that practically remained was to create the new authority by indirect election; that is to say, to allow its members, or the majority of them, to be nominated by existing authorities.

31. We therefore recommend that there shall be created a Local Authority for Secondary Education in every county and in every county borough; that is to say, speaking generally, in boroughs with a population exceeding 50,000.*

32. We think that adjoining counties and adjoining county boroughs should have power to unite, on such terms as they may arrange and as the Central Office may approve. There are several instances, such as those of Manchester and Salford, and of Liverpool and Bootle, in which a union is evidently desirable in the interests both of economy and of efficiency. Similarly, any county borough should have power to unite with the county in which it is situate, on terms to be arranged between its Local (educational) Authority and that of the county, such terms to be approved by the Central Office.

*There are a very few boroughs above this population which are not county boroughs, and, similarly, one or two county boroughs with a smaller population.

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33. We think also that, as it may be found that the area of a borough authority might sometimes be advantageously, for the purposes of Secondary Education, extended beyond the area of the county borough, so as to take in adjacent districts whence scholars resort to the schools of the borough, the Local Authority of that borough ought to be able to apply to the Central Office for an extension of its area, and the Office, after hearing all parties interested, ought to have power to extend the area if satisfied that the educational interests of the population require this to be done, and if the other Local Authority or Authorities affected consent.

34. The county authority for Secondary Education ought, in our opinion, to have the majority of its members appointed by the county council, as being the general representative authority for the county, such members being chosen by the council either from within or from without its own number. Of the remaining members, about one-third (about one-sixth of the whole) ought to be nominated by the Education Minister (see paragraph 23, ante), after consultation with the authorities of whatever university or university college or colleges is or are situate within or near the county, or are otherwise so connected with it as to give them an interest in and knowledge of its concerns.* The remaining members, constituting from one-third to one-fourth of the whole (according to the number allotted to the county council), should be co-opted by the members already chosen. In this way a majority of the whole would owe their appointment, directly or indirectly, to the choice of a popularly elected body, and would therefore themselves possess a measure of representative authority, while at the same time the element of special knowledge and experience would have every chance of being duly recognised.

Although we conceive that, as a general rule, the county council should appoint only a bare majority of the whole body, we do not think it necessary to lay this clown as an inflexible rule conceiving that it will be better to leave some little margin for such variations as the special conditions of particular counties may require. We have already suggested (paragraph 8) that these variations might be left to be settled by the Central Office.

35. Several witnesses urged upon us the desirability of giving to the teaching profession the right of directly choosing some persons to represent them on the Local AuthorIty: and supported this view by arguments which are summarised in a memorandum prepared by two or our members.† We are fully sensible of the

*We include any college in Oxford or Cambridge which has a special connection with any particular county.

†Memorandum by Mr. Sadler and Mrs. Bryant, Vol. V, p. 20.

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great value to a Local Authority of that special knowledge and familiarity with the details of educational work which professional men can supply, and we accordingly recommend that the presence on these bodies of persons possessing such educational experience as teachers should be required. The Central Office in making its appointments, and those who co-opt the members left to be co-opted will no doubt have due regard to this requirement, and the latter ought, for the purpose of securing the persons best qualified, to take counsel with the teachers within their area. It will be within the province of the Central Office to see that in one way or another due effect is given to this requirement, to which we attach much importance. It need hardly be added that, in referring to the educational profession, we include women teachers.

36. It is evidently desirable that there should be among the members of the Local Authority persons who are or have been engaged in the management of public elementary schools within the county. If such persons are not to be found among those chosen by the county council or the Central Office, regard might be had in exercising the power of co-optation to the propriety of adequately securing their presence.*

37. The size of a county authority for Secondary Education must depend on the population of the county, but ought in our opinion to be not less than 14 nor more than 42. Taking 28 as the number for one of the larger counties, the composition of the body would be somewhat as follows:

and of the 12 not chosen by the county council, several ought to be taken from persons actually or recently engaged in teaching.

38. Members appointed by a county council ought to hold office for the term of office of the council; other members for a term of five years.

39. County boroughs (with the exceptions of Preston, Bury, Chester, Lincoln, St. Helens, and Stockport) possess two authorities already concerned with education; the borough council, which (except in one borough) distributes grants, but for technical instruction only, and the school board, which, though legally responsible for elementary schools only, has in many places become an important factor in the provision of

*On the further question of as to whether both elementary and secondary education can be placed under the control of the same local authority, reference may be made to the memorandum by Mr. J. H. Yoxall, which will be found in Vol. V., p. 33.

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secondary instruction. Each of these bodies has a prima facie claim, but neither of them a claim exclusive of the other, to have a voice in matters of Secondary Education, and the reasonable course appears to be to recognise in each an equal right to representation upon the proposed new Local Authority. We suggest, therefore, that the borough council and the school board should each appoint one-third of the members of the new borough authority for Secondary Education, being free to select those persons either from within or from without its own body. Of the remaining one-third of the members, one-half, or one-sixth of the whole, ought to be nominated by the Central Office after communication with any university or university college or colleges which may be situate sufficiently near the borough, or may be otherwise so connected with it us to be capable of influencing its education. Should the borough however contain a university college, this one-sixth of the whole might be left to be appointed directly by that college. The other one-sixth of the whole ought to be co-opted by those previously chosen. Here, as in the case of the county authority, we think that the power of co-optation and that of appointment by the Central Office may fitly be required to be used so as to secure for the Local Authority the benefit of that special experience which teachers possess.

40. The numbers of a borough authority for Secondary Education ought to vary from 12 to 24, according to the population of the borough, the comparative smallness of the area making so large a number as may be required in the largest counties unnecessary. Members appointed by the borough council ought to hold office for three years, those appointed by the school board for the term of the board that appointed them; other members for five years.

41. The circumstances of London appear to require special treatment. After some hesitation, we have concluded that for educational purposes it is best to adopt the area of the present administrative county of London, under the Local Government Act of 1888, and we have therefore included neither the borough of Croydon nor any part of the administrative county of Middlesex. As the county borough of West Ham is practically part of London, and ought to be so dealt with for educational purposes, we think that if it desires to come into London, so far as Secondary Education is concerned, it may properly be allowed to do so, and in that event may receive a member for its borough council and another for its

*These cases may be best dealt with on a plan similar to that we have recommended for the constitution of a county authority for Secondary Education, the details being settled by the Central Office. [Note: no asterisk appears in the text on this page.]

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school board. The great variety and complexity, as well as the quantity of the work to be done, seem to make necessary, for London, an unusually large Local Authority, which can divide itself into committees, and we accordingly recommend one of 42 members.

In London, the Technical Education Board of the county council affords an excellent example of a board which represents the chief educational bodies of its area. Its constitution, though formed with a special view to technical education, bears some resemblance to that which we have proposed for Local Educational Authorities in counties; and including as it does many of the elements we desire to see represented, it has been able already to exercise a salutary influence on secondary schools within its area. There are, besides the school board, two other public bodies, the City and Guilds Institute and the Trustees of the City Parochial Charities, which, in respect of the large funds they administer, ought to be connected with those responsible for the supervision of Secondary Education. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have, moreover, through the university extension lectures and otherwise, become so much associated with the educational life and movements of London that they, no less than London University, ought to be represented. These considerations lead us to recommend that the London Secondary Education Authority be composed as follows:

Of the two members we have suggested to be chosen by the University of London, one ought to be allotted to that university only after it has become (as we trust it soon may become) a teaching university.

Among the co-opted members there ought to be, as recommended for the county and county borough Local Authorities, some who belong or have recently belonged to the teaching profession, unless the presence of this professional element has been already duly secured among the appointed members; and we conceive that a certain number might well be selected from among persons possessing special knowledge of London industries, whether as employers or as workmen.

42. We think that both county and borough authorities for Secondary Education ought to have power to choose their chairman either from within or from without their body.

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43. We think that women ought to be eligible for appointment (whether by a public authority or by co-optation) upon both sets of authorities, and that it is indeed desirable to provide that a certain number shall be women, as experience seems to have shown that the interests of girls often receive insufficient attention, and that there is also a risk that women may not be chosen unless some special provision for their presence is made.

44. We think that if the Central Office is empowered to appoint inspectors for the purposes herein-after mentioned, or assessors to assist local authorities, such inspectors or assessors should be entitled to sit, but not to vote, at meetings of Local Authorities for the districts for which they are respectively appointed.

45. Although we have sketched out the above plans for constituting educational authorities for rural and urban areas, as being on the whole, generally applicable, we are aware that in some counties or boroughs there may exist circumstances such as the size of special needs of the area, or the presence of some important educational institution, which may render a variation from them desirable. We therefore conceive that it will be proper to permit the council of a county or the council of a county borough, in consultation with the school board of that borough, to submit to the Central Office, before the authority for Secondary Education within its area has been constituted, proposals for varying the constitution from that of the type we have indicated; and we think that Department should have power to frame the constitution of the authority in question with such a variation, so long as the principle that the majority of the members of the Local Authority are chosen by popular bodies (the county or borough council, or the school board) is adhered to. We conceive, moreover, that such a power to propose variations (subject to the above condition) might be given to the Local Authority for Secondary Education itself when constituted, should supervening circumstances suggest a variation and be deemed by the Office to be a sufficient reason for sanctioning it.

46. We have already so fully described the need which exists for a local authority to deal with Secondary Education, and the functions which such an authority may properly discharge, that it is enough to say here that we conceive these functions to fall under the following four heads -

1. The securing a due provision of secondary instruction.

2. The re-modelling, where necessary, and supervision of the working of endowed (other than non-local) schools and other educational endowments.

3. A watchful survey of the field of Secondary Education, with the object of bringing proprietary and private schools

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into the general educational system, and of endeavouring to encourage and facilitate, so far as this can be done by stimulus, by persuasion, and by the offer of privileges and advice, any improvements they may be inclined to introduce.

4. The administration of such sums, either arising from rates levied within its area, or paid over from the National Exchequer, as may be at its disposal for the promotion of education.

To define this obligation, and to say what is to be deemed an adequate supply is a more difficult task. In the Report of the Schools Enquiry Commission there appears (Vol. 1, p. 98) a calculation going to show that the number of boys between the ages of eight and sixteen who may be expected to require instruction higher than elementary is, in towns, 12.28 per thousand. This percentage, however, could hardly, in many places, have been expected to be attained, and it is now even less likely to be attained than it was in 1867, because an increasing proportion of children belonging to what is called the middle class resort to elementary schools. Further difficulties arise in determining how far existing schools are to be deemed to be supplying adequate secondary instruction. Many of the smaller private schools, nominally secondary, are really elementary, and not very efficient as elementary. Some of the public elementary schools are (as has been already pointed out, see pp. 53-54 ante) virtually secondary in their highest classes. We have therefore found it impossible to lay down any precise rules or definitions. It is, in our judgment, safe to leave the working out of the general principle above enunciated to the action of an enlightened public opinion working both within and from without upon the Local Authorities, and reinforced, in extreme cases, by the action of the Central Executive. We believe that the occasions for this reinforcement are likely to be few; and the Executive, when it has occasion

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to use its ultimate right of insisting on the fulfilment of the statute, will be well advised in using (as we believe it will) this right very cautiously, with a large regard to the differences between one locality and another, and a perception of the truth that more can generally be effected by leading Local Authorities than by attempting to drive them.

48. We conceive that the Local Authority, when constituted, should proceed to enquire how far the schools existing within its area provide secondary instruction adequate in quantity and quality to the needs of each part of that area. It ought, of course, to have regard to proprietary and private, as well as to endowed or other public schools, and as it will be to the interest of the former classes of schools that they should be recognised as contributing to the provision made, they may be expected to furnish willingly such information as the Local Authority requires. We are far from desiring to see Secondary Education pass wholly under public control, and into the hands of those who are practically public servants, as elementary education, has done, and we believe that where proprietary or private schools are found to be doing good work, it would be foolish as well as unfair to attempt to drive them out of the field. We accordingly recommend in a later paragraph (see para. 95 post) that it shall be the duty of the Local Authority to make, with the proprietary or private schools, arrangements, by virtue whereof they will be recognised as supplying efficient education so long as they comply with certain prescribed conditions calculated to secure efficiency. These conditions, or the chief among them, ought to be approved by the Central Office, and ought, as far as possible, to be uniform. It may sometimes happen that a proprietary or private school, while used by a certain number of scholars, and enjoying some local reputation, will be found to be below the level of full efficiency, while sometimes such a school, though rendered efficient by a particular master or mistress, may have no certainty of remaining so. In such cases, and in others that can be imagined, it may be good policy for the Local Authority to take over the school, but before doing so, it ought, in order to prevent any abuse of the power, to be required to submit the facts to, and obtain the sanction of, the Central Office. (See para. 101 post.)

49. Where a Local Authority, after due enquiry, finds that a supply of efficient secondary instruction is wanting in any part of its area, it ought to take steps to supply that deficiency, and should have power for that purpose to establish, when needful, a new school or schools, and to appropriate thereto such capital or annual sum as seems necessary.

50. Should it be brought to the knowledge of the Central Office that in any place a supply of efficient secondary instruction is wanting, and that the Local Authority is not taking steps to provide such supply, the Office ought to address the Local Authority

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pointing out the statutory obligation incumbent on it, and enquiring what steps are proposed to be taken for the fulfilment of that obligation. Should the Local Authority neglect, without sufficient excuse, for one year after the receipt of such a communication from the Office, to proceed to fulfil the obligation, the Department should have power to proceed in the manner mentioned in paragraph 11 ante, and, in the last resort, to report the case to the Attorney-General.

51. When any proprietary or private school thinks itself aggrieved by any action of a Local Authority in omitting to inquire how far it is supplying efficient instruction, or in unfairly excluding it from the list of schools deemed to be supplying efficient instruction, such school ought to be permitted to appeal to the Central Office (as herein-before mentioned), and that Office ought to have power to deal with the case as justice may require, and to require the Local Authority to remedy or desist from any action unfair to the school appealing. Nor do we exclude the possibility that if a Local Authority should ever be found proceeding wantonly to establish, by the aid of the rates, a public school whose competition will evidently injure an existing school (whether public or "recognised" in manner herein-after mentioned) (see para. 96 post) that school shall, after representing its case to the Local Authority, be permitted to appeal to the Central Office.

52. The Local Authority ought, in our opinion, to have a general oversight and jurisdiction over all educational endowments (other than the non-local schools herein-before mentioned) within its area. In particular it ought to have the right of framing schemes for the better management of educational endowments, whether or not now applicable to Secondary Education, including their transfer from one place to another; their consolidation or division; their diversion to purposes, or their application in modes, of greater utility; the removal of any restrictions confining them to particular classes of persons, or to the teaching of particular subjects. Such schemes, when framed, ought to be submitted to the Central Office, which should consider them, taking due steps to ascertain local feeling, and, when, necessary, holding a local enquiry, and should confer with the Local Authority, and suggest to it any amendments that may seem necessary. The Central Office should not have power to compel the acceptance of amendments, but might make its sanction conditional upon their acceptance. After being sanctioned by the Central Office, the scheme would proceed in manner prescribed by the Endowed Schools Acts. This power of framing schemes ought to be exerciseable from time to time, and should include cases in which proposals are made (see Endowed Schools Act, 1869, s. 30) for the application to education of non-educational endowments, of course with due regard, to the interests of the class now receiving their benefits.

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53. The Local Authority should also have the duty to supervise, and the right to enquire into, the administration and working of all endowed schools within its area, and to call the attention of the governing body of any such school (whether on the representation of any person interested or on their own initiative) to any breach of, or omission to fulfil, the provisions of the scheme regulating the same, and if necessary to direct the governing body to correct such breach or omission. Should the governing body refuse or neglect to comply with such direction, the Local Authority ought to be empowered to appeal to the Central Office, as invested with the powers for dealing with such matters which are now enjoyed by the Charity Commissioners.

54. There are many unendowed schools which, in respect of their public character, will properly fall under the jurisdiction of the Local Authority. It ought, in our opinion, to have the power of making schemes for these schools, not, of course, under the Endowed Schools Acts, which have no application to such schools, but of its own right, subject, however, to the power of the Central Office to determine any question which may arise over such scheme between the Local Authority and the persons or body which had previously managed the school in question. (See paragraph 94 post.)

55. It is a matter of some difficulty to determine the degree of permanence which should be given to the disposition by a Local Authority of funds other than endowments. On the one hand, there are serious objections to the plan followed in Wales, by which money applied to Secondary Education out of the rates or under the Local Taxation Act is treated as endowment. Checks and restrictions which may be desirable in dealing with ancient endowments are often inapplicable and unnecessary in the case of money derived from rates and taxes. The public would, not, unreasonably, complain of the time required to authorise them to dispose of money raised yearly by themselves, and which they are at present accustomed to see applied under a more elastic system; while the Central Office would, to avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of business thrown upon it at the outset, seek to impose upon the various schemes a degree of uniformity which would go far to counteract the decentralising policy on which this Report is founded. On the other hand much embarrassment is found to arise under the present system, out of the attempt to provide secondary schools partly by permanent endowment, partly by grants of uncertain duration. For example, there is obvious inconvenience and risk in allowing the capital funds of a charity to be sunk in buildings the utility of which will mainly depend on the continuance of a grant made from year to year. Again, it will be difficult for a Local Authority to appeal to the inhabitants of any locality for voluntary contributions towards the expense of establishing a school, as it may sometimes with advantage do, if there

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is no security that the school will be properly maintained by the successors of those who make the appeal. Nor can we overlook the value of some degree of permanence in giving dignity and authority to the local managers of public schools which may not, in a strict sense, be endowed. On a consideration of all the circumstances we have come to the conclusion that, whenever a Local Authority proposes to establish or reconstitute a school or institution on a permanent basis, it should propose a scheme for its government and constitution and report that scheme to the Central Office; that every such report should be duly published in the area of the Local Authority, and that a fixed time (say one month), which might if necessary be extended, from the date of the publication, should be allowed, during which an appeal might be made to the Central Office by any institution conceiving itself likely to be injuriously affected, and during which suggestions and objections might be made to the Local Authority itself by other persons. The Local Authority should have power, if it thought fit, to include in the scheme proposals for devoting part of the sums coming to it under the Local Taxation Act, or of other local funds, to the maintenance of the school in such a manner as to bind its successors. If the report contained no such proposals, we think that, subject to the determination of any statutory appeals and to any modifications of detail which the Local Authority might itself see fit to introduce, the Local Authority should be at liberty to give effect to its scheme without the sanction of the Central Office. Nor should further reports be required in the case of mere modifications in detail. Where, however, there were proposals intended to bind the successors of the Local Authority, the sanction of the Central Office should be required in respect of such proposals; and a scheme so sanctioned should be binding either for a term of years to be named, or until the sanction of the Central Office to its modification or repeal had been obtained. Procedure upon the lines indicated would be simple and rapid as compared with that now required in the case of endowments. It need not be made obligatory, but the importance of the element of permanence to be so secured will, in our opinion, be sufficiently present to the minds of a Local Authority invested with purely educational functions, and be so obviously advantageous to the localities severally interested as to lead to its frequent adoption.

Another safeguard against a capricious withdrawal of variation of grants might be found in some statutory provision that the Local Authority shall be bound to maintain in an efficient condition the schools established or taken over by it, unless it is able to show that sufficient provision has been otherwise made.

56. The right of a Local Authority to supervise the working of educational endowments and, indeed, of all schools that can be called public, is much clearer than are the functions it may

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properly be allowed to exercise over schools generally, including proprietary and private schools. We conceive, however, that two propositions will now be pretty widely accepted. One is that all schools ought to be required to conform to the primary conditions of health, and ought for that purpose to be open to the inspection of a public authority. The other is, that schools which obtain recognition as supplying efficient instruction, and which, in respect of that recognition, are permitted to have the benefit of public examinations, and to share in scholarships and exhibitions supplied from public funds, may be expected to submit to a certain amount of public supervision. Thus regarding the matter, schools will full into three classes. Endowed and other public (except non-local) schools will be, as a matter of course, subject to the jurisdiction of the Local Authority, though that jurisdiction will be limited by the rights of the governing bodies of the schools secured by their respective schemes. Private and proprietary schools placed on the list of recognised schools will be, for certain restricted purposes, within the range of its supervision, receiving certain benefits in return. Other proprietary and private schools, which have not sought, or have sought but failed to obtain a place on the "recognised" list, will nevertheless be subject to have their buildings inspected in the interest of the health of the scholars, but, otherwise will remain entirely outside the purview and action of the Local Authority. Thus, while there will be no encroachment on individual freedom, securities will be taken that public funds and privileges shall be properly used, and their use duly tested.

57. We accordingly recommend that the Local Authority be empowered to cause all schools, whether endowed (or in any other sense public), proprietary, or private, within its area to be inspected as respects the sanitary condition of their buildings and class-rooms, and to require them to conform to such general regulations for securing health as may be issued by the Central Office, who, in case of refusal so to conform, should have power to direct any insanitary school buildings to be no longer used for school purposes, subject, however, to an appeal on the part of the owner or occupier of such buildings to the Central Office. (See paragraphs 21, 22 ante.)

58. We recommend further that the Local Authority should prepare a list of proprietary and private schools within its area supplying efficient Secondary Education, having ascertained that they satisfy certain requirements and are willing to comply with certain conditions herein-after set forth. (See para, 96, 97 post.) All schools while they remain on this list, which should be revised from time to time, should be entitled to the benefit of whatever inspection and examination may be provided, and to a share in such scholarships and exhibitions as the Local Authority may establish.

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59. The Local Authority, in order to enable it to be satisfied of the efficiency of all the schools, as well endowed as proprietary or private, recognised by it as supplying efficient secondary Instruction, ought to have power to select and pay fit persons to act as inspectors. Since many counties and boroughs would not have continuous employment for a highly skilled person acting in that capacity - not to add that specialists will in some branches be needed - we conceive that it will be desirable that the Central Office should issue a list of persons qualified by professional experience, or otherwise specially competent, to act as inspectors, and that Local Authorities, who may often with advantage combine for this purpose, should either select from this list those whose services they need, or from time to time may submit to the Central Office for its approval the name of some other person whom they wish to be permitted to employ. As in our view it is better that the power of inspection should rest with the Local rather than with any Central Authority, we conceive that it is by the Local Authority the inspector should be chosen, though the difficulty such an authority may experience in finding fit men points to the formation of such a list as we have suggested.

60. The inspection we contemplate is something quite different from the work hitherto done by Your Majesty's Inspectors in the elementary schools. All that it seems necessary for the Local Authority to secure is a report from a competent hand upon the general condition and equipment of each school, including particularly the number and qualifications of the teaching staff. There ought also to be power to require that each school, or a certain portion of the scholars, should be annually examined by some independent and competent person, but this may, under proper regulations (to be framed by the Central Office), be allowed to be done at the instance of the schools themselves. To these topics, however, we shall return in a later paragraph. (See para. 127 post.)

61. Where a Local Authority sees reason to think that a school is inefficient, it will have several means at its disposal for dealing with the peccant institution. One is to publish the reports it may receive from its inspectors. Another is to withdraw any grants of money it may have been allotting. A third, available in the case of proprietary or private schools, would be to strike the school off the list of those recognised as efficient. And in the case of endowed schools, it will be able not only to act under para. 53 (ante), but to direct the person or persons whom it has appointed to sit on the governing body (see para. 65 post), to bring to the notice of that body the defects which it finds to exist in order that they may be duly remedied.

62. We think that a Local Authority ought to establish scholarships and exhibitions to aid deserving scholars within its area, and ought to lay down regulations as to the schools whose

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pupils shall be allowed to compete, and at which such scholarships may be held. To this subject, also, we return in a later paragraph. (See para. 116 post.)

63. The functions which the Local Authority has to discharge, as respects endowed schools ought to extend also to other schools, which, though not strictly speaking endowed, are in receipt of any grant of public money or under public management, such as technical schools and institutes (unless when these are to be deemed to be rather colleges than schools), higher grade elementary schools, and the so-called "Organised science schools", as well as those evening schools and continuation schools which do so much for the education of adults. Whenever public money is received, public control must be recognised, and it will primarily be by the Local Authority that such control ought to be exercised.

64. The Local Authority ought to have power, not only to establish schools of its own where necessary, but to aid schools and institutions not under its direct management in such ways as it may find expedient. It might, for instance, send visiting teachers or lecturers to give instruction in subjects for which it may be difficult to procure or to pay an efficient teacher as part of the regular school staff. It might establish classes, especially in technical subjects, to be used by the pupils attending different schools. It might give assistance to university extension lectures, which have been in time past made available in some places for the more advanced scholars in secondary schools.

65. Another relation which, in our opinion, ought to exist between the Local Authority for Secondary Education and public schools of all kinds within its area, will be created by giving the former the right of appointing one or more persons to sit upon the governing bodies of these schools. The right which the county councils have exercised of making such appointments in the case of schools to which they grant money will naturally pass to the new Local Authorities. And it deserves to be considered whether even the non-local schools, or at any rate those among them in which the proportion of local scholars is such as to justify a provision of this kind, might not while otherwise exempt (save as respects sanitary matters) from jurisdiction of Local Authorities, be usefully connected with them by such a limited right of nomination.

66. Our view of the financial duties and functions of the Local Authority cannot be fully stated until we have explained the general financial policy we recommend. Here, however, it may be concisely said that we conceive it should be the rating authority for the purposes of secondary instruction, not itself levying the rate, but determining the amount and issuing a precept to the county or borough council (as the case may be) requiring the

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same to be raised. It should also be the channel through which whatever sums Parliament may grant in aid of Secondary Education should flow to the schools or institutions assisted. And, finally, it should supersede the county councils and borough councils as the distributor of the money available for technical instruction under the Customs and Excise Act of 1890. In administering the money at its disposal arising from these three sources, as well as whatever funds may come to it from private gifts or by the provisions of schemes regulating endowments within its area, it should have a large discretion as respects that which arises from the Customs and Excise Act and that which it raises from its own area by its rating power, but should, as respects all strictly national funds, be controlled by regulations to be issued by the Department of State responsible to Parliament for the proper employment of the sums granted.

67. The Local Authority ought to have the right of addressing the Central Office on all matters within the scope of the latter's functions, including the power of suggesting amendments of regulations issued by the latter, and of asking advice on any educational question arising within its own area. It should also have the function of collecting and issuing such information on educational, subjects as it may deem useful to schools and teachers within its area.

68. The accounts of the Local Authority ought to be annually audited by some person appointed by a Department of Government.

69. The Local Authority ought to issue an annual report of its proceedings (including a statement of its accounts, showing how the funds raised by it or paid to it have been expended) and to send a copy thereof to the Central Office.

70. Every Local Authority for a county, or for a large county borough, ought to be empowered by statute to appoint district or local committees to act as respects any parts of the county or borough for certain specified purposes affecting those parts, such as (for instance) the management of a technical institute or evening and other schools and classes not governed by a scheme; but every such committee should act under regulations issued by the Local Authority, and periodically report its proceedings and submit its accounts to the Local Authority.

71. Local Authorities ought to be empowered to co-operate by means of joint committees with one or more other neighbouring Local Authorities in matters of common interest and concern, such as the maintenance of any school, or the creation of any scholarship, capable of being used or competed for by scholars from adjoining areas. We have already observed (para. 16) that

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the action of the Central Office may often be useful in promoting such a combination or in adjusting any difficulties that may arise where two or more Local Authorities are concerned.

72. There are two sides from which the question of providing schools of various types may be approached. We may, on the one hand, enquire what sorts of schools are needed in order to secure for every class in the community the kind of education it desires and will profit by. We may, on the other hand, survey the schools which actually exist, and determine how and with what changes they can best be fitted into a comprehensive system, and made to provide the several kinds of instruction, more or less advanced, and more and less general or special, which experience shows to be required.

73. The various types of schools needed, and in particular the types of instruction they ought to give, are broadly conditioned and determined by the length of time during which various sets of scholars may be expected to remain at school. The Schools Enquiry Commissioners of 1864-67 distinguished three such sets of scholars; first, the scholars who were to remain at school till the age of 18 or thereabouts, and a respectable proportion of whom were to enter the universities; secondly, the scholars who left school about 16, and were intended for some of the professions or for the higher walks of commercial life; thirdly, the scholars who left school about 14, belonging as a rule to a humbler social stratum and designed to begin forthwith to earn their living in shops or warehouses, or in some industrial occupation. Corresponding to these three sets of scholars the Commissioners recommended three sets of schools, to be distinguished, not by their social rank, but merely by the length of time during which they were to retain their pupils, and for these they proposed the names of First grade, Second grade, and Third grade schools respectively. This classification has been followed by subsequent writers, and indeed, has largely passed into common speech, although circumstances have so far changed since 1867 that the boundaries of the three so-called "grades" are much less easily definable now than they were then, while elementary schools have largely encroached on the province which the Commissioners allotted to their third grade schools. We resort to these terms with some reluctance. But no better nomenclature has been yet suggested; and we have had, and shall have, frequent occasion to use it as a convenient, if somewhat rough, loose, and conventional way of classifying schools.

Taking this familiar classification as a provisional basis, we found ourselves confronted by two problems.

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First: In what places should the Local Authority be required to secure a due provision of schools for scholars of the first, second, and third grade types respectively.

Secondly: What should be, speaking broadly, the proper curriculum of instruction for schools of these three types respectively.

74. We were at first disposed to recommend that in, all towns with a population exceeding 40,000 there should be a first grade school, in towns with a population exceeding 8,000 a second grade school, in towns exceeding 2,000 a third grade school. But further investigation of the problem convinced us that mere population was no sufficient guide to the educational needs of each locality, and that it will be safer to leave to the Local Authority, moved by public opinion - which is always growing more enlightened - and stimulated, if necessary, by the Central Office, the duty of providing for each area schools of the type which seems to be locally required. Much will depend on the character of the population in each area; something also upon the resources which exist in the way of endowments, and upon the position which the leading endowed foundation of a particular town or district holds. It seems impossible to formulate with any approach to accuracy a general rule for determining the percentage to the population of children in an area of given size who may be expected to attend a secondary school of any one the so-called grades. Figures will be found in the Appendix showing the number who actually attend secondary schools in several towns where the provision of schools appears to be sufficient; and we have there also placed an interesting return compiled by the London County Council, which contains similar figures showing the boys who attend secondary schools in London. But these tables, though useful, do not furnish data for general conclusions. The circumstances of different towns vary greatly, as does also the extent to which pupils from outside any particular town may be looked for, and we have concluded, after much consideration, that it is better not to attempt to lay down any positive and definite rule on the subject, conceiving that such a rule might, in the long run, be found as likely to retard as to further the efforts of those who seek to raise the general level of secondary instruction, and relying on the upward tendency which has marked the educational history of the last 30 years.

75. Similar reasons dissuade any attempt to prescribe in what cases schools of second and first grade should be distinct, or should be formed as separate departments of the same school. In many places it will be found convenient to combine and to provide a "first grade" top, intended for those who mean to remain till 18, in a school which will lose the bulk of its pupils at 16. But in very large centres of population it may often be more convenient, having regard to the construction of a

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suitable curriculum, to organise a distinct school for scholars of the former class.

76. Neither do we deem it desirable to lay down definite model curricula for schools of the various types referred to.* It is now pretty generally agreed that besides that literary and humanistic course of instruction, based upon the languages of classical antiquity, which tradition has established among us, and whose incomparable value no thoughtful man denies, ample provision must be made in schools for scientific teaching, beginning, if possible, with natural history and the other sciences of observation, and working up into chemistry and physics. It is further agreed that mathematics, while more closely allied to scientific subjects, ought to enter also into a literary course; that the chief tongues of modern Europe ought to be studied not only as instruments of linguistic training, but as the keys to noble literatures; and that full opportunities to boys and girls to prepare themselves for the particular occupations which they intend to follow in after-life, whether industrial or commercial, ought to be supplied by the teaching of the practical arts, such as the elements of applied mechanics and the subjects connected with agriculture, as well as of modern languages and of the kinds of knowledge most useful to the merchant or trader. These three elements, however, which we may call the literary, the scientific, and the technical, may be combined in a great variety of forms and proportions. Experience alone can show which forms and which proportions are most likely to be absolutely best, we will not say as a scheme of intellectual training, but even as fitted to the needs of particular classes of persons inhabiting particular areas and engaged in particular kinds of industry. Having recommended to Your Majesty the constitution of Local and Central Authorities likely, as we venture to believe, to be sensitive to public opinion and willing to obtain light from every source, competent, as we venture to believe, to try experiments and to profit by their results, we hold it unadvisable to attempt to fetter their discretion by any rigid rules; and we should deplore, as certain to be hurtful to educational progress, the uniformity of system which such rules would tend to produce. Each of the three elements above named has vigorous forces behind it. Not merely tradition, but the influences of imagination and philosophy commend the first. The second is strong in the pride of its recent triumphs and still swift advance. The sense of its practical utility in days when industrial and commercial competition grows constantly more severe is enough, perhaps more than enough, to secure its rightful place for the third. All have, in our view, a claim to be considered in the course of studies of every secondary

*Upon the subject of curricula much interesting matter will be found in the report of the Committee on Secondary School Studies, issued by the United States Bureau of Education (1893), where the respective claims of various subjects, the mode of adjusting those claims, and the best methods of teaching each subject will be found acutely and judiciously discussed.

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school, and the last of the three will thrive all the better if the two former receive their fitting meed of recognition. Technical instruction must be considered not as the rival of a liberal education but as a specialisation of it, which, whether it comes earlier or later in the scholar's life, ought to be, as far as possible, made a means of mental stimulus and cultivation, and will be most successfully used by those whose intellectual capacity has been already disciplined by the best methods of literary or scientific training.

77. For the reasons above stated we think that the Local Authority may be left to make due provision for technical instruction, either by adding a technical department to a secondary school (of whatever "grade"), or by supplying visiting teachers for special subjects, or by a separate technical institution, technical classes, or by all these several methods. Under the term "technical" we include all such special preparation for mercantile business, or for particular branches of the public service, as it may be found possible to make.

In many places special provision ought to be made for giving technical instruction to girls in such industries and occupations as are chiefly followed by women, including some of the matters most needful to be known for the purposes of domestic life.

78. Many difficulties of organisation may be obviated, especially where the number of pupils in a school or a department of a school is comparatively small, and some educational advantages secured, by establishing schools in which boys and girls are educated together. This system has been tried with so much success in other countries, and to some extent in Great Britain itself, that we feel sure its use may be extended without fear of any undesirable consequences, and probably with some special advantages for the formation of character and general stimulus to intellectual activity. Such a school may be organised either as a mixed school, the boys and girls being taught in the same classes throughout, or as a so-called "dual" school, having two distinct departments, but with a common staff and arrangements under which some subjects are taught to both sexes together. We have in an earlier part of this Report stated the considerations which have led us to this conclusion (pp. 159-60).

79. The subject of preparatory schools for boys and girls intended to continue at school till 16 or later, and especially for those intended to proceed to the universities, requires a brief notice. It has been stated to us that parents residing in rural districts or small towns often find it difficult to secure efficient school teaching for children before the age of 12. The elementary day schools are, in most of such places, unsuited to the requirements of children whose Secondary Education is to be of an advanced type; and while the private preparatory boarding schools of recognised excellence are often so high in their charges as to be practically unavailable, there are few or no

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endowed boarding schools which make for the younger pupils the kind of separate provision which parents generally, and, perhaps, rightly, desire. We conceive, therefore, that cases may arise in which Local Authorities may think it desirable to set up a preparatory boarding school; and we conceive that they should not be debarred from doing so. Any such school, however, since designed for the children of persons comparatively well-off ought to have fees calculated to cover the cost of board and education, but might have a certain number of free places for children of exceptional promise, whose parents could not afford the regular fees. As regards the larger towns, no such boarding schools would be needed, because preparatory instruction can be sufficiently given either in separate day schools or in junior departments of endowed or other public day schools. In which of these modes the Local Authority should provide for the education of the younger scholars, or of such of them as may not find all they need in the elementary schools, is a question which may be left to those authorities themselves. In many cases preparatory private schools will be likely to supply all that the place requires.

80. We now come to consider in what manner certain classes of existing secondary schools ought to be dealt with, so as to make them fit most helpfully into a well-constructed scheme of Secondary Education. These schools fall into three groups: the first whereof includes endowed schools; the second, three kinds of schools which, though not endowed, are in so far public that they have received, or are now receiving, public money, or are under the management of a public authority; the third, proprietary and private schools, hitherto entirely unaffected by interference on the part of the State.

81. Endowed schools have already been the subject of general legislation, and are governed, either by their own charters, statutes, ordinances, or by schemes framed by the Court of Chancery or the Charity Commissioners. We reserve for a later part of this Report our recommendations as to the constitution of the governing bodies of such schools, and here confine ourselves to recommending certain changes in the law which regulates the framing and passing of schemes for their government.

82. An organisation of Secondary Education which shut out the seven great public schools named in the Public Schools Act, 1868, would be obviously incomplete, and would not, we have reason to believe, be satisfactory to the schools themselves. In

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principle there appears to be no good reason why the colleges of Eton and Winchester should be excluded from such supervision as the Central Office would, according to the plan we propose, exercise over non-local schools, nor why the endowed foundations of Charterhouse, or Shrewsbury should not stand on the same footing as that at Uppingham. We are sensible that various circumstances might have to be taken into account in the application of the principle we recommend, but educational considerations evidently point to the conclusion that such supervision as non-local schools are to receive from the Central Office, should not be withheld from the colleges of Eton and Winchester, and the schools of Westminster, Charterhouse, Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury.

83. We have already stated our view that the Local Authority should have power to initiate schemes for educational endowments within their jurisdiction, whether or not now applicable to Secondary Education. Among these would be the considerable class of endowments mentioned on p. 39 of this Report, which may be described generally as elementary school endowments with a yearly income not exceeding £100. Since the practical abolition of school fees in elementary schools, many of these endowments have ceased to be of any real benefit, either to parents or scholars. They are, at present, excluded from the jurisdiction of the Endowed Schools Acts in England, but not in Wales, and we recommend that this exclusion should cease.

84. Educational endowments originally founded less than 50 years before the passing of the Act of 1869, cannot, unless the trustees consent, be dealt with by scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts. The method of calculating the period of exemption from the date of the Act is not a satisfactory one. Endowments founded in 1820, and exempted from the jurisdiction because they were given less than 50 years before the Act, are still exempt, although another quarter of a century has elapsed. The readjustment of the limit of exemption, which this circumstance alone would make necessary, should, we think, be made on the lines adopted by Parliament in the case of the appointment of trustees of parochial charities under the Local Government Act, 1894 s. 14 (8); and we accordingly recommend that no scheme shall be made for any endowment until the expiration of 40 years from the date of its original foundation, unless the governing body assent to the scheme. We have the less hesitation in making this recommendation because the remarkable facts as to the continued growth of educational foundations during the last 20 years, contained in the 42nd Report of the Charity Commission, show how little ground there is for any fear that the action of the Legislature might check the stream of educational benefactions.

85. There are, no doubt, many cases where educational endowments are applied for the benefit of districts lying within the area

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of more than one Local Authority, besides those cases in which an endowed school can properly be classified as non-local. It appears, therefore, necessary to further define for this purpose the limits of the jurisdiction of a Local Authority. We recommend that no endowment, of which the benefits are, by foundation or scheme, expressly extended to the area of more than one Local Authority, shall be under the jurisdiction of any Local Authority, except in pursuance of directions given by the Central Office. In such cases we think the Central Office should have power to provide a scheme of its own for the administration of the whole endowment, or to invite from the Local Authorities concerned proposals for a scheme for their joint administration of the endowment, or simply to apportion the endowment among the Local Authorities concerned, in which case the amount apportioned to each would constitute an educational endowment within its jurisdiction.

86. The power of diverting certain classes of non-educational charities to educational purposes, under the Endowed Schools Acts, though sparingly exercised of late years, has been one cause of the hostility with which the Charity Commission has been, in some quarters, regarded; and it is important to note that the consent of the trustees, required by the statute, is apparently considered as an inadequate security that the diversion shall not do violence to the wishes of the locality concerned. We recommend that the Local Authority should have the initiatory power of framing schemes for charities of this kind as well as for educational endowments but that the Central Office, before giving its sanction to any such scheme should direct a public enquiry to be held in the parish or locality for the benefit of which the endowment is applicable.

87. We have already (p. 23) drawn attention to the complicated process involved in the establishment of a scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts, and to the circumstances which make this process inevitably tedious. In the recommendations we have already made, this inconvenience has been kept steadily in view, and some important steps have been taken to reduce it to the narrowest limits consistent with a due regard for the interests affected. In the first place, we are of opinion that the machinery of the Endowed Schools Acts should be prescribed in the case of charitable endowments only, and not, as under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, for the application of other public funds, that is to say, the Local Authority may make arrangements for the distribution of funds at its disposal, and report these to the Central Office (see para. 55 ante) without being required to do so by way of scheme under the Endowed Schools Acts, or otherwise coming under the provisions of those Acts.

88. As regards educational endowments, the proposed transfer of the functions of the Charity Commission to the Central Office

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will effect the saving of the time involved under the present system in the submission of a scheme by the Charity Commission to the Education Department, the re-publication of the scheme by that Department, and the subsequent negotiations between the two Departments which are of common occurrence. It may also be anticipated that in these earlier stages the initiation of schemes by the Local Authority will tend substantially to shorten the time now consumed in negotiations between the Charity Commission and the trustees of endowments or the inhabitants of localities.

89. We further recommend that every scheme for an educational endowment, with a yearly income exceeding £100, may be required to be laid before Parliament, as provided by the Endowed Schools Act, 1873, s. 15; but that the rejection of any such scheme, or any part thereof, shall require the consent of both Houses. And if it had been within our province to consider how far the methods which Parliament applies to these questions are susceptible of improvement, we should have ventured to express the hope that Parliament will, at some future time, consider whether a scheme laid before it might not with advantage be, by a vote of each House, referred for consideration and amendment to a Committee of each House or to a Joint Committee of both Houses.

90. The double aspect which these schools wear has already been described. They are, in one sense, elementary schools, as being under the management, either of school boards or of managers of elementary schools, and there is always (except in that part of some of them which forms a separate department and is called an "organised science school") more or less of elementary instruction given in them. But in another sense they are either wholly or largely secondary schools, teaching subjects which cannot be deemed elementary, and not receiving, in respect of those of their pupils who are beyond the so-called "standards", any grant from the Education Department. And, in point of fact, they do supply, in those populous places where they exist, much the kind of Secondary Education which the Schools Enquiry Commissioners proposed to have supplied by what they called secondary schools of the third grade.

In considering how to deal with these schools we have deemed these latter facts to be decisive, and accordingly recommend that the "higher grade elementary schools" be treated as secondary schools, and placed under the jurisdiction of the Local Authority for Secondary Education, subject to the pro-

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visions, regarding the bodies which manage them, to be presently mentioned (see para. 94, post).

91. How far these schools (so far as secondary) should be dissociated from the elementary schools, of which they now frequently form a part, so as to become separate institutions, is a problem which does not seem to need, if indeed it admits of, any general solution. We are disposed to think that it may be left to be solved by the Local Authority in each particular instance, according to the particular circumstances of the place. We conceive, however, that it will be everywhere desirable to bring these schools into a definite and organic relation with the other secondary (including technical) schools and institutions of the districts, so that they shall rather co-operate than compete with the latter (where they exist), and shall be made more available as places of preparation for advanced education. This may be largely done by imposing, as a rule (though a rule which may well be subject to exceptions), stricter limits of age, and by establishing graduated scholarships, both from the elementary schools to these schools, and from these schools to other secondary schools and technical institutes.

92. The term "organised science school" does not, as has been already explained (see ante, p. 54), describe any distinct class or schools, but is a purely artificial one, employed to denote such schools, to whatever other class they may belong, as the Science and Art Department has recognised to have complied with certain conditions which it imposes, and to be, under those conditions, the recipients of Science and Art grants. All such schools, to whatever other class they may be referred, fall, in respect of the instruction which they supply, within the description of secondary schools, and ought, therefore, to be placed under the jurisdiction of the Local Authority for Secondary Education, subject to the provisions contained in a later paragraph (see para, 94, post). The method of awarding grants to them needs to be altered; but to this subject we shall return hereafter (see para. 145, post).

93. We have already (see p. 54, ante) dwelt upon the important place now occupied by these schools and institutions, as supplying secondary instruction - usually, but not always, of a scientific type - to those who have passed through elementary schools and desire to carry their general education further, or to superadd technical education to it. They are largely used by adults, and,

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therefore, require to be dealt with on lines somewhat different from those applied to places of instruction for the young. But whatever particular type they belong to, whether they are "organised science schools", or are connected with elementary schools, or belong to what are called mechanics' institutes, or are maintained by town councils, or are technical schools pure and simple, they seem properly to fall within the scope of the action of the Local Authority for Secondary Education, which can best correlate them with the other agencies under its control and help them by such pecuniary resources as it may possess. We therefore recommend that they - and in speaking of them we include evening classes and technical classes as well as schools - be declared to be within the jurisdiction of that authority, subject to the provisions mentioned in the next following paragraph.

94. The several classes of schools and institutions referred to in the three preceding paragraphs have this feature in common, that they are most of them more or less connected with the elementary schools and school authorities of the places where they exist, while many are associated with public institutions in whose buildings they are held, and whose managers influence their administration. The work which has been, and is now being, done by these authorities and managers, is work which ought not to be lightly interfered with; and it would be unfortunate if the creation of a new Local Authority' with supervising and helping powers, however generally useful such powers might be, should needlessly disturb or cramp the policy which these authorities and managers have (usually with good results) pursued. We therefore suggest that the governing or managing body of any school or institution of the foregoing classes, and which is of a permanent character and not now governed by a scheme of the Charity Commission, shall either be left to continue to manage that school, subject to the supervision of the Local Authority, or else shall be reconstituted in such manner as may be agreed upon by the governing or managing body and the Local Authority and approved by the Central Office. Any difference which may arise between the Local Authority and such governing or managing body, as to the need for a reconstitution or the particular form thereof, ought to be referred for determination to the Central Office. We conceive that in the first instance it will often be desirable that the present managers should continue to act as now, but in course of time other arrangements may become necessary, and it is with a view thereto that this power of reconstitution will be found serviceable. The schools and institutes are now largely managed either by school boards or by borough councils, or by their committees; and we trust

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that the adjustment of their future relations to the Local Authority for Secondary Education may present the fewer difficulties because that Authority will, in the county boroughs, consist mainly of persons chosen by those two sets of authorities.

95. We have already (para. 48, ante) indicated an opinion that any school which is the property of, and managed by, a group of private persons, whether corporate or unincorporate, or is owned by one person and managed for his own profit, may properly be recognised by the Local Authority as contributing to the local supply of Secondary Education, whenever such a school can show that the instruction it gives is efficient of its kind. So far from desiring to displace, or even to weaken such schools as these, we trust that some of the measures we recommend may tend to stimulate and improve them. They must be allowed to subsist, and the only State interference to which, as we think, they ought to be liable, is that which needs to be enforced in the interests of health by way of inspecting their buildings and schoolrooms. If such a school, therefore, does not ask for the recognition mentioned above, but prefers to go on its way unaffected by, and in no relation (save that of sanitary inspection) to public educational authorities, we conceive that it may be allowed to do so in the future as in the past. When, however, recognition is asked for, certain requirements may properly be made as the conditions for granting that privilege and the advantages which are to flow therefrom. We recommend, therefore, that every proprietary or private school desiring to be recognised as supplying efficient Secondary Education, be called upon to show that it satisfies certain requirements, and also to promise compliance in the future with certain conditions.

96. The requirements would be substantially the following; their precise form being left to be defined hereafter by the Central Office:

(1) The possession of buildings conforming to the sanitary regulations prescribed by the Central Office.

(2) The possession of apparatus and other educational appliances, suited to the kind of teaching which the school professes to give.

(3) The sufficiency in number and qualifications of the teaching staff of the school, having regard to the number of the pupils, and the kind of instruction afforded.

(4) The suitability of the curriculum to the needs and demands of the pupils for whom the school claims to be providing.

(5) A scale of tuition fees not too high to be paid by those pupils.

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97. The conditions which the school ought to undertake to comply with, so long as it retained its recognition, would be the following:

(1) It should be open to such inspection as the Central Office may, by regulations to be made by it for that purpose, prescribe (see para. 132, post).

(2) It should be prepared to submit its pupils, or such part of them as might be required, to be examined under regulations made by the Central Office, assisted by the Educational Council (see para. 127, post).

(3) It should present to the Local Authority an annual statement of the salaries paid to its teachers, or, in the case or a private school, to its assistant teachers.

(4) Its headmaster, and such number of its assistant masters as the Local Authority might require, should be entered on the register of teachers herein-after mentioned.

(1) It should enjoy the benefit of any such inspection as the Local Authority may provide.

(2) Its pupils should be admissible to any examinations (whether they be examinations of schools or of scholars) which may be provided under regulations framed by the Central Office.

(3) Its pupils should be admitted to compete for any scholarships or exhibitions established or administered by the Local Authority within whose area it may be situate for schools generally within that area, subject, of course, to any regulations prescribed by that authority.

(4) It should be deemed to be, equally with an endowed or other public school of the same class, a place of instruction at which a Local Authority may declare any scholarships or exhibitions under its control to be tenable, provided always that the course of instruction conforms to the conditions on which the particular scholarship or exhibition may be tenable.

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and halting, too slow in their probable effect, and too tolerant of the least worthy members of the educational profession. "Nothing", such reformers may say, "nothing short of the imposition of public inspection and examination upon all schools, and the requirement of certificates of knowledge and capacity from all teachers, will meet the needs of a case which has long been admitted to be urgent; nor will any persons be more forward to welcome the universal imposition of inspection and the universal requirement of certificates than the best teachers in proprietary and private schools."

Admitting some force in such criticisms, we must nevertheless observe that, in such a country as England, it is unsafe to advance much faster than public opinion - still comparatively sluggish on this subject - is likely to follow, and that even under the very cautious and guarded scheme we advocate, a substantial improvement may before long be expected. Already there are many efficient private and proprietary schools which satisfy the requirements, and will gladly comply with the conditions herein-before set forth, perceiving them to be in fact helpful to their work. The adhesion of such schools will tend to raise the general level of instruction: incompetent teachers will by degrees vanish away, and the legitimate rivalry of the most efficient private schools will lessen any risk there may be of stagnation or monotony in schools under public management. It is, in our opinion, an argument for the plan here proposed that while the limited public supervision we suggest will, if wisely used, stimulate and guide private effort, and secure for parents a certain guarantee of efficiency, it will not trench upon any man's freedom, nor secure to public schools a monopoly which might be prejudicial to ultimate progress.

100. The function of the Local Authority in determining, whether a school is entitled to be "recognised" for the above purposes is a somewhat delicate one, and questions may arise as to whether the discretion we propose to give has been wisely exercised. We think, therefore, that any school complaining that it ought to have, and has not, been recognised, or is debarred from any of the privileges attached to recognition, should be permitted to appeal from the Local Authority to the Central Office, which should enquire into the matter, and whose decision should be final.

101. We have already (see para. 48, ante) observed that cases may present themselves in which a Local Authority may find it well to acquire an existing proprietary or private school. The school may, for instance, have a good site and suitable buildings, and the educational interests of the place may be served by permanently securing it, with, perhaps, a part or even the whole of its staff instead of leaving it to those chances with which private enterprises are surrounded. Nor do we see any reason for forbidding even a temporary

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arrangement by which a proprietary school might for a certain period, and for specified purposes, be taken over by a Local Authority. In all such cases, however, the terms of the purchase or lease (whichever be preferred) ought, in order to avert any suspicion of sinister bargains, to be submitted to and approved, after due consideration, by the Central Office.

102. We have hitherto had occasion to advert only incidentally to the special problems which the rural districts of England present. These districts are comparatively thinly peopled, and have therefore been left somewhat behind in the general movement of educational progress which has marked the last quarter of a century, They possess practically none of those new "higher grade elementary" or "organised science" schools which have become so important in the towns.* The endowed grammar schools which are scattered here and there over them have in some places sunk almost to the level of elementary schools, and in some others have become sluggish and feeble, slow to adopt new methods and introduce new subjects, and less able than they were, before the development of railway communication, to sustain the competition of boarding schools at a distance, Moreover, nearly all of such proprietary and private schools as have arisen in these districts have relied upon boarders, and have therefore done little to stimulate a local demand for Secondary Education.

There are two classes of scholars for whom in these rural districts some provision appears to be needed. One class consists of the children of farmers, and of the shopkeepers and professional men in the small towns, the other of the most promising among the pupils in the elementary schools, that is to say, those who seem likely to profit by a higher kind of instruction than those schools, which are of course as a rule behind the elementary schools in the towns, can supply.

103. Two methods commend themselves to our judgment as the most likely to meet the needs of these classes of children.

One is the remodelling of the endowed schools in the smaller towns and villages. Much as has been accomplished since 1869 by schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts, and recently in certain counties by the action of County Councils, much still remains to be done to bring these schools into harmony with the requirements of the present day and of their own respective neighbourhoods. Their curricula ought in many instances to be revised, and arrangements made for attaching to them boarding-houses or hostels at moderate charges, so as to enable the children of parents with limited incomes to resort freely to them. Efforts should be made to relieve them from the difficulties which

*See Part II., s, 59.

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they so often experience, owing either to the insufficiency of endowment or to the fluctuations of income derived from agricultural land. In some instances it would no doubt be desirable, with a view to a larger supply of day scholars, to shift such schools from places comparatively difficult of access, owing to the want of railway facilities, to small towns situate at the convergence of lines of railway; and although the local resistance likely to be encountered in such instances may oppose formidable obstacles even to the efforts of a representative Local Authority, those obstacles may be lessened by the judicious employment of the funds which will be at the disposal of that Authority, and by the offer of scholarships or exhibitions to the place wherefrom the endowed school is transferred.

104. The other method is to establish, in a certain number of rural elementary schools, a secondary department or group of classes, in which the higher subjects may be taught to day scholars from the surrounding district. The schools to be selected for this purpose ought, speaking generally, to be in large villages or small towns, and ought, if possible, to be situate on a line of railway, so as to give them the greatest possible chance of a good supply of day scholars from a distance. Wherever a Local Authority for Secondary Education established such a department, it would of course have to make arrangements with the school board, or school managers, controlling the elementary school, for a joint administration of the school so as to secure the proper working both of its elementary and its advanced classes; and in case any difficulty were found in arriving at an adjustment of the wishes of these respective bodies, the Central Office would have the power of settling the points in difference, which it could do all the better because it will be familiar with the needs both of elementary and of secondary schools. The plan we suggest is not altogether new in England, because the Higher Grade Elementary schools in English towns are both elementary and secondary. It is, moreover, recommended by the experience of a large rural area in Scotland, the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray, where a sum of money bequeathed in last century, has for many years past been employed with excellent results in providing Secondary Education in the parish schools,* increasing their efficiency as places of elementary instruction, while enabling them to bring forward to the universities an unusually large proportion of capable scholars.

105. How far in any given district both of the above methods will require to be employed must of course depend upon the character of the district, and upon the number and local distribution of its endowed schools. In some districts these schools may be so few, or so poor, or so ill-placed, as to make it proper for the Local Authority for Secondary Education to set up

See the interesting evidence of Mr. John Kerr (Q. 15,230-42), and Memorandum; Vol. V., p. 506, on the working of the Dick Bequest.

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new schools, in carefully chosen spots, to provide secondary instruction for day scholars and for boarders from the surrounding country. Moreover, Local Authorities will probably find it well to aid both the minor endowed schools and the secondary departments or classes to be attached to elementary schools, not only by money grants but in many cases also by providing visiting teachers, who may give instruction in those special subjects for which the resources of the schools do not enable a resident teacher to be provided.

106. It will be the duty of the Local Authority to make due provision for technical instruction, including subjects connected with practical agriculture, in the schools or departments above mentioned, or in such of them as it may select for the purpose.

But in doing this, care must be taken to preserve, as far as possible, the distinctive characters of different schools, and to guard against the excessive and too early development of special branches of practical instruction, to the injury of the general training of the faculties by literary and scientific studies.

107. In order to enable promising children from the elementary schools of a district to obtain secondary instruction in the schools or departments above mentioned, the Local Authority will of course establish scholarships or exhibitions for the benefit of such children. We shall presently indicate the principles upon which this may be best done. (See para. 116, post.)

108. Some difficulty will no doubt arise in making adequate provision for the secondary instruction of girls in rural districts, owing to the fact that in many places the number of pupils to be looked for, will not be sufficient to justify the creation of a separate girls' department either in an existing endowed school or in a secondary department to he attached to an elementary school. In these cases we think that the same school or department ought to receive both girls and boys, and the evidence we have received leads us to believe that this may safely and properly be done.* We conceive that the duty and the interest of the community require equal provision to be made for both sexes, and although some care may be needed in the conduct of the requisite arrangements, especially at starting, we are persuaded that the objections to a system of co-education are slighter than those which would apply either to feeble separate departments or to a neglect of the needs of girls in cases where their number might be comparatively small.

109. We do not conceal from ourselves that the plan we suggest for meeting existing deficiencies in rural areas is somewhat tentative in its character, and that it may not at once bear all the fruit to be ultimately derived from it. The demand for the higher kinds of instruction is unfortunately not very brisk in many of

*See Part II., s. 90, and Part III., ss. 61-63.

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the agricultural and pastoral regions of the country, while the financial resources available are comparatively scanty. There is, however, some reason to hope - and the example of the Scotch counties above referred to goes to justify this hope - that the provision of a supply will in time quicken the demand, and that the level of elementary education, which has already risen in our rural districts, will rise still further when Secondary Education becomes more accessible, and is perceived to have a more direct bearing upon practical life than the agricultural classes have as yet realised. In the present lamentable depression of our oldest and greatest industry, every means that can be taken to stimulate the intelligence and enlarge the horizon of the cultivators of the soil ought to be resorted to.

110. Governing bodies of endowed schools should continue, as heretofore, to be constituted or modified by scheme. The Local Authority within whose jurisdiction a school lies, and any Local Authority giving aid to a school, should be entitled to appoint one or more persons to be members of the governing body of the school. The right which the county councils have exercised of making such appointments in the case of schools to which they grant money will naturally pass to the new Local Authorities, And it deserves to be considered whether even the non-local schools, otherwise exempt from the general jurisdiction of the Local Authorities, might not usefully be connected with them by such a limited right of nomination.

111. In the case of schools or institutions not endowed but maintained out of public funds, and either established or taken over by a Local Authority, the constitution of the managing body should be included in the scheme or schemes which it will be the duty of the Local Authority to prepare and to report to the Central Office. We have already (para. 55) recognised the advantage of giving a greater element of permanence and stability to these institutions and their managers than some of them now enjoy, and have suggested a special mode of procedure by which that object might be attained without undue delay or loss of elasticity. But, whatever may be the method adopted, schemes for such schools or institutions should, as a rule, provide that at least a majority of the managers should be nominated by Local Authorities, including of course the Local Authority for Secondary Education. Any Local Authority, moreover, which gives aid to the school, and is not already represented on the managing body, should be entitled to nominate one or more of the managers.

112. In every case where a school, whether endowed or not, is designed partly or wholly for the education of girls, due provision should be made by scheme for choosing women to be

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governors or managers. The proportion of women so chosen must vary according to circumstances, but there should be no obstacle placed in the way of the constitution of a body composed mainly, or even exclusively, of women.

113. Governing bodies and managers of endowed and other public schools under the jurisdiction of a Local Authority should be required to submit annually to the Local Authority the accounts of their schools, to be audited and verified in the manner required by the Local Authority, which should further have the power to have them produced at any other time, if required. The accounts should show, amongst other things, the salary paid to each teacher employed in the school.

114. Subject to any general rules that may be made by the Local Authority, we recommend that the governing body or managers should be entrusted with the general administration of the school, and with the exercise of such supervision over the management, teaching, and curriculum, including the fixing of the fees paid by the scholars, as is now usually conferred on governing bodies by schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts. But these powers will, of course, be exercised only within the limits assigned by the scheme.

115. The relation of the governing body of a school to the head teacher on questions of internal management is in many respects more one of co-operation than of employer and employed; and the success of the school depends so much on their harmony of aim and action that it appears to us essential to secure that they should be brought together as closely as their respective duties will permit. Governing bodies are too apt to call in the master or mistress when they are already half-pledged to a conclusion; while the teacher is often at a disadvantage in having to carry out, or even to criticise, decisions of the governing body without knowing the reasons upon which they were based. On the other hand, the head master or mistress is not and cannot be in the position of an ordinary governor, and might often be more embarrassed than helped by being treated as such. We recommend, therefore, that every head teacher of a public secondary school shall be entitled to sit, but not to vote, on the governing body of his or her school, except when the governing body may for special reasons think his or her presence inexpedient.

116. We have next to consider the means whereby the children of the less well-to-do classes of our population may be enabled to obtain such Secondary Education as may be suitable and needful for them. As we have not recommended that Secondary Education shall be provided free of cost to the whole

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community, we deem it all the more needful that ample provision should be made by every Local Authority for enabling selected children of the poorer parents to climb the educational ladder. Thus, for example, the promising child of an artisan or small tradesman should have the opportunity of proceeding at the age of 11 or 12 from the elementary to the secondary school and so prolonging his education, the cost of which prolongation might fairly be borne wholly or to a large extent by endowments or other public funds. Again, boys and girls of exceptional ability, whether belonging to the wage-earning class or to the poorer families of the middle class, might be enabled by public aid to proceed at the age of 16 or 17 from secondary schools to the universities or to other places of higher literary, scientific, or technical education. The assistance we here contemplate should be given by means of a carefully graduated system of scholarships (including in that term exhibitions), varying in value, in the age at which they are awarded, and in the class of school or institution at which they are tenable.

117. Scholarships tenable at a secondary school should be of one or more of the following kinds, the kind to be determined, where the scholarships are founded by the Local Authority, at the discretion of that authority:

(i) Some should be open to children being educated in the ordinary "standards" of public elementary schools within the local area;

(ii) Others should be awarded to children who are receiving their education at a (so-called) higher grade elementary school, or a secondary school (whether public or private) of a less advanced type than the school at which the scholarships are to be tenable;

(iii) Others again might be open to all children attending any schools within the area of the Local Authority, or whose parents reside or are employed within the area;

(iv) In some localities it may also be advisable to have scholarships open to all children free from any restrictions as to school or residence, but subject to suitable conditions as to age and the means of the parents.

119. It will be found desirable in many places, for the purpose of establishing a proper connexion and correlation between schools of different grades, to attach certain of these scholarships to particular schools, as is often done in the case of existing endowments. Where this attachment is made to a public

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elementary school, we think that the scholarship should be awarded either by competitive examinations held at the school, or, where this is considered undesirable on account of the tender age of the children, or for other reasons, upon the joint recommendation of the headmaster, and of the school board or school managers, to the scholars whose record of work is best for a series of school years or quarters, or by a combination of the two methods. Where scholarships are attached to a secondary school, they should, as a rule, be awarded by a competitive examination to be held at that school. Where scholarships are not attached to particular schools, they should, as a rule, be awarded by competitive examinations, to be held at prescribed times and at convenient centres, under the supervision of the Local Authority. We desire, however, to add that, with respect to competitive examinations generally, we consider they should be restricted as far as possible to scholars above the age of 12, and that the examination, if at all applied below that age, should be of a very simple character. Even where the scholarship examination is held for children of a more advanced age, it should, we consider, be restricted to a limited number of subjects, should include a considerable amount of viva voce questioning, and should be directed principally to ascertaining the general intelligence of the candidates, rather than the extent of their acquired knowledge. The importance, however, of insisting on these conditions, especially the two former, will tend to diminish as the ages of the candidates increase, and if any rules can be framed under which weight could be given to the health and physical condition of the candidates sufficient to avert the danger, now sometimes felt, of unduly pressing children forward and developing their brains at the expense of their bodies, the effect of such rules might be very salutary. We do not, however, think that this excellent object could be attained, as has sometimes been suggested, by allowing marks for proficiency in games, for that would induce another and not less mischievous kind of overpressure.

120. As regards value, we think that scholarships may well be of several different kinds, viz.: (a) those which cover the cost only of instruction, with or without travelling expenses; (b) those which cover the necessary cost of board and lodging, as well as of instruction; and (c) those which consist of an annual payment of a fixed amount, either exclusive or inclusive of free boarding. Special judgment and caution will of course be required in awarding those of the two latter classes.

121. In framing regulations for scholarships, provision should, as a rule, be made for augmenting the value of a scholarship, (a) according to the age of the holder, or (b) according to the pecuniary circumstances of the scholar. It will be usually found desirable to reserve power, either to the Local Authority or to the governing body of a school, to take both these elements into

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its consideration, and thus adapt its assistance to the actual requirements of the candidate.

122. In many instances the governing body of a school will, of its own motion and out of its own funds, provide a certain number of free places for scholars, proportionate to the amount of the grant they receive. Where it has not done so, and where the Local Authority for Secondary Education bestows an annual grant upon the school, that Authority may often find it proper to require the governing body to provide such places.

123. In order to avoid any abuse of this scholarship system, we think that no scholarship founded by a Local Authority out of its own funds and intended for the children of poorer parents should be tenable by a scholar, if the administering authority (whether the Local Authority or the governing body of a school) are not satisfied that the circumstances of his or her parents are such as to make him or her a proper object of pecuniary aid. Different tests of pecuniary circumstances should be applied for different classes of scholarships. Thus, e.g., free education in a third grade secondary day school may be somewhat freely given to children of the wage-earning class, or to those belonging to families of equally restricted means; whereas a higher line, such perhaps, as that now drawn for abatements of income tax at incomes of £500 a year, may fairly be drawn, if the Local Authority approve, in the case of candidates seeking aid from public sources to enable them to attend some place of higher education.

124. It will be clear from what we have already said, that in our opinion each Local Authority, at any rate in the first instance, should within its own area be the judge of what is required in the way of scholarships, both as regards number and value and as regards place and conditions of tenure. This principle will apply not only to scholarships recently founded out of endowments or other public funds, but at least to some extent also to those of older foundation attached to endowed schools (other than non-local schools) within the area. These latter may often usefully be modified to suit the varied circumstances of the district, but in their case it will be desirable to consult the governing body of the school, and necessary to obtain the sanction of the Central Office to the modifying scheme.

125. Admitting this general principle of local autonomy, it will nevertheless often be wise or even needful for neighbouring Local Authorities to agree on some uniformity of action in respect of scholarships which affect schools situate, or classes of persons resident, in districts with which both authorities are concerned. Most county boroughs form natural educational centres for the surrounding suburban and rural districts, which are often included for purposes of municipal government in the adjoining administrative counties. Wherever this is the case,

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it will be highly desirable to form a joint committee of members of each Local Authority concerned to make arrangements for enabling the children from the neighbouring districts to hold scholarships at the nearest school of suitable character and grade, in consideration either of a contribution towards the maintenance of the school by the authority of the district benefited or through some other equitable financial adjustment. Where the members of a joint committee cannot agree on the exact terms, they should refer the matter to the decision of the Central Office, and that Office should also have power (as we have recommended above, p. 263) to require a reluctant Local Authority to co-operate with its neighbours for such purposes as we have here indicated.

126. It has been brought to our notice that there are many scholarships of considerable value belonging to existing foundations, especially those of a non-local character, which are legally open to children of all classes. Some complaint has been made that the holders of these scholarships, having ceased to be deemed as they once were, socially inferior to their schoolfellows, are now, to a large extent drawn from the children of well-to-do parents, whose superior means have enabled them, by a special course of training at an expensive preparatory school, to secure the scholarship over the heads of their less fortunately situated competitors.* We consider this practice, which tends to become more and more common, ought to be checked in the interests of public economy. But we do not think it would be either fair or wise to exclude altogether the children of well-to-do, or even of wealthy, parents from the laudable ambition of winning the distinction conferred by a scholarship, or from the right of sharing, together with other classes of the community, in the superior educational advantages often attaching to its possession. There are also, as we have pointed out elsewhere,† grave objections to the present system on the ground of the unhealthy competition it induces, and the disadvantages it imposes on the smaller and poorer schools. We therefore recommend that these scholarships should continue to be legally open to all classes, but should be restricted to a comparatively low value, the governing body of the school being entrusted with a discretion to augment their value in the case of any individual scholar, if they should consider that such augmentation is required by the pecuniary circumstances of his or her parents.‡ We moreover consider that, in view of the difficulties in the way of individual schools carrying out such a reform by themselves, it should be required by a general statutory enactment.

*See p. 173.

†See pp. 173-4.

‡Similar complaints are widely made as to the receipt of scholarship stipends at the colleges in Oxford and Cambridge by the sons of wealthy parents, but this is a matter which, though it indirectly affects secondary schools, seems to be beyond the scope of our recommendations.

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127. Passing to the means for securing the efficiency of secondary schools, we think that an attempt should be made to guard against excessive multiplication and overlapping of examinations, whether of schools or of individual scholars, as tending to undue pressure and the disorganisation of the regular teaching work. But it would be difficult and undesirable, if not impracticable, having regard to the existence of so many efficient and suitable agencies for examination, and of the very various needs of the different classes of schools, for a central authority to conduct or prescribe in detail any uniform system, either of periodical examinations of schools to be conducted from year to year, or of leaving examinations of scholars analogous to the abiturienten examen of Germany. We recommend, therefore, that the Central Office, assisted by the Educational Council, should from time to time frame general regulations as to the times, character, and necessary conditions of the examinations to be held at the schools of different grades, and as to the examining bodies which, in addition to those instituted by the universities, should be recognised as competent or suitable to conduct the examination of such schools.* Subject to these general regulations, which should be of a wide and elastic character, and not necessarily the same for all kinds of schools, the local governing body of each school should have a free hand to choose the particular examining body, and to direct the course of the particular examination.

128. The Local Authority for Secondary Education should have no direct powers of interference with the examination, as distinct from the inspection, of such schools as are governed by scheme and not under its immediate management or control. But, as that Authority will be to some extent responsible for the efficiency of the school, it should be entitled to require the examiners' report to be annually submitted to it, and be further entitled to draw the attention of the Central Office to any cases of breach of any provisions of the scheme (if the school is under a scheme), or of the regulations made by the Central Office, so as to ensure these being complied with, if the school is to continue to receive aid out of Parliamentary grants. It should have a similar right in the case of private schools within the area, recognised or claiming recognition.

129. The Central Office, aided by the Council, should, moreover, both in framing its regulations, and in the exercise of its

*As instances of matters which regulations might deal with, we may observe that they might prescribe that the school should be every year (or every two years) examined as a whole, that the examination should include both oral and paper work, that the school should be reported upon by classes; that the middle and lower (as well as the upper) forms should be tested in some ordinary subjects of the curriculum, and that, without its being necessary to test every subject, fair examples of the whole curriculum should be taken.

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general duty of supervision, endeavour, as far as possible, to bring the examination certificates granted by the University Board and any other examining bodies into correlation with each other, and make them interchangeable. One of the principal objects in thus systematising and grading the various certificates, would be to make them available as leaving certificates for scholars of different ages and standards of attainment. We further consider, that leaving certificates of the grade suitable to the office to be filled should be accepted by the Civil Service Commissioners, as discharging the candidate holding them from such parts of the examinations conducted by the Commissioners as are covered by those certificates. Such certificates might also well be accepted by the various professional examining bodies, as covering the preliminary and general portions of their examinations.

130. Although we do not desire even to appear to prescribe any particular method of conducting examinations, which, as we have already indicated, must vary greatly in different cases, yet we cannot leave the subject without emphasising our view that viva voce questioning should always, as far as circumstances will permit, form part of any examination intended to test the general intelligence and readiness of the pupils, and especially of the younger pupils, who are often unable to do themselves justice on paper, and whom it is not desirable to train for paper examinations.

131. The inspection of secondary schools, as distinct from the examination of their scholars (see pp. 59, 163), should, as we have recommended above, be conducted by competent persons appointed by the Local Authority and approved by the Central Office, which Office should also have power to make general regulations as to inspection. In selecting persons for these posts, great weight ought to be given to previous experience in teaching; and duly qualified women should be chosen where there is likely to be sufficient work for them. The appointment of such inspectors should, we think, be made independent of any limit of age. This rule, which is contrary to the present practice of the Education Department, would often enable the Local Authority to secure a man of greater educational experience than can be done under the present system. The Local Authority should have power to appoint a separate inspector to conduct the sanitary inspection if they prefer so to do.

132. The inspector (or inspectors) so appointed should visit the buildings, schoolrooms, and playgrounds, examine their sanitary appliances and means of ventilation, and see that they conform sufficiently to the ordinary requirements of health and the

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sanitary regulations of the Central Office, with special regard to the locality in which the school is placed, and to the different needs of town and country. This sanitary inspection should extend to non-local schools situate within the area of the Local Authority appointing the inspector as well as to local schools, and to proprietary and private as well as to endowed schools.

133. In the case of public endowed schools subject to the jurisdiction of the Local Authority and of any other schools asking to be recognised, or in fact recognised, by that authority (see para. 95 ante), there should be a further inspection into the administration and educational efficiency of the school. Where there is a scheme, the inspector should see that its various requirements as to the constitution and meetings of the governing body, the keeping of accounts, scholarships, examinations, &c., have been duly complied with. He should also in all cases require the production of the school time table, and see that it sufficiently provides for instruction in the subjects of the curriculum as presented by the scheme. He should satisfy himself that the teaching staff of the school is sufficient both in number and attainments for the work that it claims to do, and that the equipment and apparatus are suitable and sufficient. It would further be desirable that he should also be present at the teaching of, at any rate, the principal classes, so as to form a just appreciation of the practical qualifications of the teachers, without in any way interfering with the course of instruction, given. But in view of the disquiet which a general enforcement of such a rule might at first excite, we are not prepared to say that this should be deemed essential.

134. The inspector will, of course, report the result of his visits to the Local Authority for Secondary Education (see para. 60). His report should always be communicated to the governing or managing body, or to the proprietors or proprietor (as the case may be) of the school, but should otherwise he regarded as confidential, except so far as the Local Authority think it desirable to publish it or any part of it. Where the report discloses any serious deficiencies in the school, the Local Authority will have the duty of requiring these to be remedied, if the school is under its management or control, or if, in the case of an endowed school, the scheme empowers it to do so. And, in the case of default, it will be entitled to refuse aid or recognition to the school, subject to the right of the governors or proprietors of the school to appeal to the Central Office.

135. We do not think that the resources of particular schools, whether public or private, should be burdened by the payment of any fee for the inspection to which they may be required, either by law or for the purpose of obtaining aid or recognition,

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to submit; and we therefore recommend that the expenses of such inspection should be borne by the funds of the authority whose duty it is to appoint the inspector.

136. To estimate the probable cost of the system of secondary education which we have recommended, and the capacity of existing sources of revenue to cover that cost, is one of the most difficult, as it is certainly one of the most important, branches of our task. The extent to which public opinion will encourage the Local Authorities we have recommended to establish new schools, or to develop those which exist, and the amount of popular support they will receive if they show themselves forward in this work, cannot be conjectured beforehand, and will doubtless differ materially in different parts of thy country. So will the scale of expenditure which those Local Authorities may be disposed to adopt. So will the readiness of parents to pay a fair price for the instruction provided, and thereby to increase that part of the school revenue which fees may be expected to supply. The possibility of turning endowments to better account, the prospect of making the various sums which are derived from the national exchequer go further than they do as now administered, the disposition of localities to rate themselves, are all of them matters more or less conjectural in any given district of the country, and still less capable of definite prediction as regards the whole country. We cannot therefore undertake to establish an exact balance between probable income and probable expenditure. The most we can attempt is to present a view of the several funds now available, and to point out in what ways they may best be used so as to enable administration to be both economical and efficient.

Income may be drawn from five different sources, viz.: (1) endowments, (2) the grant under the Customs and Excise Act of 1890, (3) local rates, (4) fees paid by pupils, and (5) parliamentary grants.

137. The total annual value of the endowments now applicable for Secondary Education in England, and known to be subject to the Endowed Schools Acts, is about £735,000 gross, omitting the value of sites and buildings, which of course bring the total to a much higher figure. That of endowments now applied to elementary education, but at least a part of which, might well be applied to secondary, is, roughly speaking, about £100,000. Were these endowments thrown into one fund they would provide between 7d. and 8d. per head for each inhabitant

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of England (Census of 1891). It will be seen from the tables given in the Appendix (see pp. 438-441 post) that in Lancashire, with a population of 3,926,760, the income from endowments applied to education is only £38,158; in the West Riding, with a population of 2,439,895, it is £68,169; in Norfolk, with a population of 454,516, it is £12,780; and in Devon, with a population of 631,808, it is £17,432. The distribution of endowments over the country is very unequal (see Tables, ib.), and the endowments existing in each county and county borough are, in many cases, altogether out of proportion to its population and its educational needs. This is especially the case with regard to the newer populous manufacturing, mining, or commercial towns. Liverpool, for instance, has only £386 per annum of educational endowments (excluding the value of school buildings). Birkenhead, Hanley, South Shields, Middlesbrough, and Barrow have none, while some very large endowments are to be found in small towns or villages. To attempt to redistribute endowments by taking from the well-endowed counties or boroughs what they can spare in order to bestow the surplus upon the poorer areas, however proper it may appear to the eye of theoretical reformers, is, we fear, so repugnant to popular feeling as to be, at present, not within the horizon of practical politics. Whether, within the administrative areas we have recommended, endowments may be better utilised by the removal of some from places where they benefit comparatively few persons to other places where they would benefit many, is a different question. Even to this, objection would doubtless be taken by local feeling, because localities are accustomed to regard charitable foundations as if they were local property. Objections of this kind have since 1869 usually prevailed against such attempts as the Charity Commissioners have made to transfer endowments from one place to another, and have, of course, prevented even an attempt in many instances where the Commissioners would have been disposed to make it. A popular County Authority, however, such as that which we have recommended will, no doubt, be in a stronger position than a Board in London for carrying through any such proposals, and may be able to effect transfers which the general interest of the county demands. Should this happen, the practical value of our vast but very imperfectly utilised endowment fund will be sensibly increased, and the need for the imposition of a local educational rate proportionately diminished.

138. Apart altogether from this question of local redistribution, there are other ways in which endowments may be made more helpful than they now are. Under existing regulations they sometimes merely give an education below cost price to those who can well afford to pay the cost price, while rendering no great assistance to those who cannot. In our view the true service endowments ought to render is two-fold.

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(1) They may give to each class a somewhat better and higher education than parents of that class are as yet disposed to pay for; and (2) they may provide a nearly or wholly gratuitous education to children of promise, whom poverty would, without such aid, have excluded from Secondary Education altogether. For instance, an endowed foundation with an income of £2,000 a year, in a town of ten thousand people, if the whole of its revenue be left to it, should be so regulated as to supply, not gratuitous education to all comers, but rather what is called instruction of the "first grade" type, in addition to that "second-grade" instruction which otherwise could alone have been provided, together with sufficient scholarships or exhibitions to enable children of talent and diligence to profit by the existence of a first grade as well as a second grade school, and to proceed to places of still higher education. In other words, it is a better rather than a cheaper article that endowments ought to be used to supply: it is by the extension of Secondary Education to the poor rather than the cheapening of it to the well-to-do that we should try to attain the charitable founder's aim.

139. By this statute, as we have previously had occasion to note, a sum arising from duties on beer and spirits was placed at the disposal of the county and borough councils, with power for them to expend it either on the reduction of their local rates or on technical education within the meaning of the Technical Instruction Act, 1889. The sum paid by the Treasury to each local authority, which in 1893-94 amounted in all to £748,000, is allotted upon a basis which does not correspond exactly to the rateable value of property within the area of each such authority, but has been fixed with reference to the subventions which were actually given to local authorities in the financial year 1887-88. Thus it is only very roughly proportioned to the population of each area, and still less nearly proportioned to its educational needs, while it stands in no relation at all to its endowments. But as each locality receives the grant as a matter of right, it must be deemed for all practical purposes a local fund, no part of which can be diverted from less needy to more needy areas.

We have already recommended that this grant, much the greater part of which (£556,227 in 1893-94) is already applied by the county and borough councils to technical education, but only at their pleasure from year to year, ought to be all of it paid in future to the Local Authorities for Secondary Education, ought to be declared permanently applicable not to the relief of rates but to education only, and ought to be applied not merely to technical education but to secondary education generally. These changes will not, in our view, prejudicially affect technical

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instruction, in the first place, because a good deal of the money which is now nominally paid in respect of that instruction really serves to support general secondary instruction, secondly, because authorities expressly educational will be able to use the money more economically and profitably than it is now used, and thirdly, because the closer union of technical with general secondary instruction which we desire to see carried out, will tend to benefit the former. We conceive however, that in making the change, the duty of the Local Educational Authority to make adequate provision for technical instruction ought to be expressly declared, and we feel no doubt that public opinion will everywhere secure the due fulfilment of that duty. We feel strongly the importance of securing that the facilities for the continuance of education, which are now offered by evening institutes and classes (conducted under the Technical Instruction Acts) to persons occupied in industries during the day time, should in no way be curtailed, owing to any zeal, however laudable, in developing other branches of secondary education.

140. Already, under the Technical Instruction Act of 1889, every county and borough council, and every urban sanitary authority, has a power to levy a rate not exceeding 1d. in the £ sterling, for the purposes of technical instruction. The power has been sparingly used. Such a rate was, in 1894, levied in forty-eight areas only, (viz., eight county boroughs and forty urban sanitary districts), and its aggregate produce ever the whole country was only £14,902. Were it levied over the whole of England it would produce about £640,000. The limit ought, we think, for the future to be fixed at 2d. in the £, but the purposes of the rate extended to include Secondary Education generally.

It is not to be expected that this power will be for some little time to come very generally used. The agricultural districts, which receive least under the Act of 1890, are the very districts where the pressure of rates is most felt. The urban areas, which are usually more willing to rate themselves, are on the whole better supplied with schools than the rural districts, and receive large sums under the Act of 1890. We nevertheless hope that the result of the reorganisation of secondary schools, under representative Local Authorities, which we propose, may be so to stimulate local interest in education as to increase the willingness of the people to tax themselves for it: and it is obvious that the Local Authorities could not fairly be required, however liberal and elastic the conditions might be, to make due provision for secondary instruction unless they were able, where other sources of revenue proved insufficient, to fall back upon this rating power.

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141. As Local Authorities may often have to raise a sum of money for the building or fitting up of a school beyond what could be raised by one year's rate, they ought to be empowered to borrow money on the security of the Secondary Education rate, with the consent, however, of the Central Office, who would see that proper arrangements were made for paying off the loan by a sinking fund.

142. The fourth source off revenue (irrespective, of course, of those private subscriptions and charitable bequests which may be expected to be made not less freely in the future than in the past*) is to be found in the sums paid by the scholars for their education. The economists of 50 years ago held that this source alone would be sufficient to provide good teaching for all children belonging to what are called the upper and middle classes, and would have thought that it was only in the way of aiding the promising children of the poor that either endowments or grants of public money ought to be expended. However weighty may be the arguments which support this view, it has at this moment so little influence that we feel dispensed from the necessity of discussing it in principle, and propose to confine ourselves to two questions: first, the authority which shall fix the fees to be paid in schools, and, secondly, the scale upon which, in general, fees should be fixed in the three kinds of schools described in paragraph 73.

We think that, in all secondary schools under public management, the fees ought to be fixed by the governors or managers of the school, that is to say, in the case of an endowed school, by the governing body, subject, of course, to the provisions of the scheme regulating the school, and in the case of other schools by the managers, within the limits, if any, which any scheme or other instrument regulating the school may fix, and where there is no such scheme or instrument, then within any limits which the Local Authority may have imposed. As respects endowed schools, this follows what has been hitherto the practice of the Charity Commissioners in framing schemes. Those public schools which are non-local, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of any Local Authority, are all of them governed by schemes, and are, so far as non-local, boarding rather than day schools, so that the fixing of the fee for tuition as distinct from board and lodging becomes a secondary matter.

*Though the fact that a public authority will exist for the purpose of providing Secondary Education may be supposed likely to diminish private gifts, we doubt whether this influence will not be more than counterbalanced by the fact that private persons, donors and testators, will note, and be encouraged by noting, that there exist authorities qualified to use their gifts to the best purpose.

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143. The considerations to be chiefly regarded in fixing a scale of fees are, of course, the kind of education which the school provides, and the class of pupils whom it serves. A school which has no endowments and but little public aid to rely upon will be obliged to supply education at cost price, and be obliged therefore to reduce its fees to what the people of the place can be induced to pay. Schools possessing endowments, or able to count on subsidies from Local Authorities, will be in a position to reduce their fees as much below cost price as these sources of income enable them to go. We think, however, that as a rule, assuming the school to have its buildings found, and the expense of their maintenance not to be included in "cost price", the cost price ought to be taken as the standard, and that endowments or public grants ought to be employed chiefly in aiding the poorer children of promise to obtain what they could not pay for, or (as observed in paragraph 138) in supplying a somewhat higher or better education than the inhabitants generally are as yet prepared to pay for. The tendency which has of late years appeared in places where well-to-do parents send their children to higher grade elementary, or even to ordinary elementary, schools, to supply Secondary Education to all comers at much less than it costs to secure good secondary teachers, and the habit which has grown up in places possessing large endowments of charging very low fees even to persons able to pay good ones, may make it difficult to recur to this principle in those places. The principle that all schools ought, as far as possible, to aim at husbanding their resources for the purposes we have already indicated, rather than expending them upon a general reduction of fees, seems nevertheless to be a sound one, and most likely to further, in the long run, the spread of a high type of education.

144. So far we have spoken of day schools only. Somewhat different considerations apply to evening schools on the one hand, and to boarding schools on the other. The former, though the education they give is, to a great extent, secondary in its character, are primarily intended for persons of the poorer classes, and may on the same grounds as those which suggested the abolition of fees in elementary schools, properly charge fees well below the cost of their teaching staff, making up the difference from public subsidies. The latter, on the other hand, do not as a rule serve any given locality, but the country at large, and the character of the local population does nor, therefore, determine their type nor their charges. In many cases the scheme may leave these boarding charges to be fixed by the headmaster or the masters generally, subject, however, to the provision, usual in the schemes of the Charity Commission, which imposes a maximum limit. Where, however, a county educational authority sets up a boarding school or adds a boarding department to some existing foundation, in order to provide instruction for those children

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within its area who have no good day school near them, it will doubtless fix the fees for board, as well as for tuition, at rates which will make the school available to such children.

The conditions which must determine the fees to be fixed in schools of various types are so numerous that we have thought it undesirable to lay down any positive rules, fearing they might tend towards a uniformity unsuited to the different needs and capacities of different localities. The figures given in some of the tables in the Appendix contain information upon this subject, and show how fees vary according to local circumstances and requirements. (See p. 428 post, and Vol. IX., p. 226.)

145. We now come to the fifth and last source of income presently available for Secondary Education, that which is to be found in the annual grants made by Parliament. These are of two kinds, those made by the Science and Art Department, hitherto given to schools in respect of science (including mathematics) and art, and those made by the Education Department to evening schools and continuation schools in respect of various subjects. These two sets of payments ought, in our opinion, to be consolidated into a grant to be made to the new Local Authorities for Secondary Education, such grant being on a scale not lower than the existing grants, but regulated by new conditions, and applicable to Secondary Education in all its forms and branches. Although the sums to be thus granted ought to pass through the hands of the several Local Authorities, being paid to them by the Central Office and distributed by them to the schools and other institutions under their supervision or control, the national government, from whose coffers these sums will be derived, is evidently entitled to fix the principles and formulate the rules under which they will be applied to education. We conceive therefore that one of the first duties of the Central Office will be to draw up such rules, and that it must constantly watch over their working, and satisfy itself that the hands to which Parliament has entrusted the distribution of the money are spending it prudently and in accordance with the directions prescribed.

146. Among the considerations which the Central Office ought, in our opinion, to bear in mind and give effect to in its rules, three deserve to be specially mentioned. One is suggested by the fact that the Science and Art grants came into existence because the teaching of scientific subjects had appeared to be neglected, and to require the stimulus of pecuniary encouragement. Slight as at this moment seems the danger that this branch of instruction may in future relapse into similar neglect, the Central

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Office may fitly provide by its regulations for the supply of adequate scientific teaching, and may require every Local Authority receiving its grants to show that in every place where such teaching can be required, due provision is made for it. This is all the more needful, because the expense of providing the requisite apparatus is serious, and is a fit employment of a money grant. The second consideration arises from the circumstance that in some populous towns, schools have been established, and have grown to importance, by the aid of the present Science and Art grants, any abrupt discontinuance whereof might seriously prejudice the prosperity and usefulness of these schools. Due regard ought therefore to be had to what may be called, not indeed the vested interests, but the reasonable expectations of such schools, which have organised themselves in accordance with the past requirements of the Science and Art Department; and arrangements accordingly made to avert any injury which a too sudden change of system might possibly cause. And in the third place, the special work done by the evening schools and continuation schools, which are intended for persons engaged in industrial occupations during the day, and are largely used by adults, ought to be safeguarded and encouraged by rules requiring the Local Authority to maintain and develop this type of institution wherever there is a population inclined to profit by it, Although we conceive that for the sake of simplicity, whatever sums are allotted to each Local Authority, should be paid to it in the form of a single grant, we by no means exclude the possibility that the Central Office may find it desirable to attribute a certain portion of this grant to schools of the last-named type, or by some regulations to secure that a fair, if not precisely defined share of it, shall be spent upon them, and the instruction which they so usefully supply.

147. Whether these parliamentary grants should be increased beyond their present amount, and, if so, on what principles and to what extent, are questions which have caused us much anxious thought. It is argued on the one hand that the imposition upon Local Authorities of a statutory duty to provide efficient Secondary Education may, in some places, where perhaps endowments are scanty and the grant under the Act of 1890 of small amount, involve a Local Authority in difficulty, and force it to look to Parliament for more help than under the present arrangements it would receive. This, it is said, is more particularly likely to occur in the rural districts, which receive comparatively little public money under the existing system. They are far from likely to exercise with a bold hand the rating powers they enjoy under the Act of 1889, and they will find it difficult or impossible to set up secondary schools and provide scholarships without further help from the national

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exchequer.* To this it is answered that the economies which may be effected in the better employment and, to some extent, in the local re-arrangement of endowments, as well as in the application of the funds available under the Act of 1890 will make the present grants go much further than they do now. There is - so it is argued - admittedly some waste at present in the expenditure of these grants, and their future distribution by the same hands as those to which the parliamentary grant is to be entrusted may be expected to utilise them better than they can now be utilised. Moreover, the rating power referred to in paragraph 140 may well be expected to be more freely used, when the creation of Local Authorities for Secondary Education has stimulated local interest in education, and given a fuller security than now exists that money so raised will be turned to the best account.

Were we obliged to deliver a positive opinion on this point, further considerations of general financial policy affecting the relations of the national exchequer to local sources of revenue would have to be discussed, and a general view of the national expenditure upon education in all its forms presented. We have, however, come to the conclusion that it is not necessary for us, at this juncture, to enter into these large questions. The creation of new Local Authorities on the one hand, and on the other, the consolidation into one office of the heretofore different branches of the central authority concerned will, if carried out, so completely change the present aspect of the problem as to make any forecast based on existing circumstances necessarily vague and shadowy.

Till some experience has been gained of the working of the system we have recommended, it seems impossible to predict exactly what further expenditure it will involve. The fulfilment of the statutory duty to provide secondary instruction will be effected earlier or later, and in a more or less expensive way, according to the policy adopted by the Central Office, and according to the activity shown by the proposed new Local Authorities in endeavouring to gather in and utilise existing funds. Were we at this moment to recommend an increased Treasury grant, we might, while encouraging the Central Office to press the local authorities more urgently than we think wise, be also found to have encouraged the Local Authorities to set about their work in a spirit less prudently economical than they ought to evince. Were we, on the other hand, to express an opinion that the sums now spent on secondary instruction will be found sufficient in the future, we might damp the hopes of educational reformers, and be found to have under-estimated the needs of a great national object. Experience, and experience alone, can show what those needs will

*On the subject of Parliamentary Grants reference may be made to a Memorandum by one of our members (Mr. H. Hobhouse), Vol. V, p. 11.

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be; and it is by the results of the first few years of the new system that the Executive and Parliament will have to be guided. We may further add that, as the system under which the existing parliamentary grants have been made is an elastic system, under which these grants have grown in proportion to the quantity and excellence of the work done in the schools and institutions receiving the grants, so now we must allow for such a probable and almost automatic, though, as we hope, not sudden or excessive, increase in the future, even though the regulations will, as we trust, be by no means those which have in time past embodied the so-called system of "payment by results". The extent to which that natural increase will meet the changed conditions of the problem, though not yet definable, is a factor which cannot be ignored. Recognising, however, that a need for national subventions, on a more liberal scale than this automatic growth represents, may hereafter arise, at least in certain parts of the country, we conceive that if any large increase in the parliamentary grant is found expedient, it might properly be made conditional on the exercise by the Local Authority of its rating power to an extent which will produce, by a rate of not more than ½d. in the £, a sum equal to that allotted to the locality from the national Exchequer.

148. The improvement which has taken place in the qualifications and status of assistant teachers during the last 20 years has to some extent modified the circumstances in which the Schools Enquiry Commissioners made their recommendations with regard to the appointment and dismissal of the teaching staff, and we have come to the conclusion that, so far as the tenure of office of assistant teachers is concerned, there should be some limit to the power of the head teacher, besides that involved in his general responsibility to the governing body. At the same time, we consider it would be unwise to apply the same rule to every class of school. In schools of the lower grade, where the classification of the scholars is comparatively simple, and where the administration of the school is, as a rule, a matter of purely local concern, the governors assume a more direct control of the internal management, and the powers and responsibilities of the head teacher are correspondingly limited. This distinction is clearly recognised by the schemes of the Charity Commissioners, who, in the case of "third-grade" schools, have generally given the appointment and dismissal of all teachers to the governing body. We recommend, therefore, as a rule, that -

In schools which we have provisionally described as belonging to the first and second grades, assistant teachers should be

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appointed by the head teacher, who should also have power to dismiss them, but subject always to the approval of the governing body. This approval, however, should only be required in the case of assistant teachers whose services had been definitely engaged, and not in the case of those who were serving for a period of probation. The head teacher should also have the power to suspend any assistant teacher until the governors gave their decision. He should forthwith inform them that he has done so, and they should of course consider it their duty to deal with the matter as promptly as possible.

In other schools, both the appointment and dismissal should rest with the governors, who should, however, be required to receive a report from, and to consult with, the head teacher before coming to a decision.

Under either plan we think that, before the governors decide in favour of dismissal, the assistant teacher concerned should be afforded an opportunity of making a statement on his own behalf.

149. In all public secondary schools we recommend the adoption of the provision, usual in schemes under the Endowed Schools Acts, that the salary of the head teacher shall be determined by scheme, and shall consist partly of a fixed yearly sum, and partly of a capitation payment for each scholar in the school, variable by the governors within certain limits.

150. The method of fixing the salaries of assistant teachers should vary slightly, according to the plan adopted for their appointment and dismissal, but the ultimate responsibility in the matter should rest with the governing body. Thus, where the appointment and dismissal are in the hands of the governors, the salaries should be determined by them, though here also they should be required to consult the head teacher. Where the head teacher has the right, however limited, to appoint and dismiss, the governors should fix the aggregate yearly amount or proportion of the income of the school to be applied in payment of the assistants' salaries; while the head teacher might, but always subject to the approval of the governors, determine the amount to be paid to each teacher.

We trust that the supervision of the Local Authority, through its inspectors, the representative character of the governing bodies, the submitting of the school accounts to the Local Authority, and the requirement that those accounts shall include full particulars of salaries, will effectually prevent the fixing of salaries, as sometimes now happens, at figures too low for the maintenance of a proper standard of professional efficiency.

151. Even when mistresses are as well qualified, academically and professionally, as masters, it nevertheless constantly happens

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that their standard of remuneration is fixed too low. This has a depressing effect on the educational profession as well as on the schools themselves; and although the matter is one for which positive recommendations can hardly he made, we may express the hope that the authorities of schools will deal more liberally than has hitherto been often the case with women teachers, and that, in fixing the scale of fees and the proportion of endowments to be attributed to their salaries, regard will be had to the desirability of encouraging, both by good salaries and by prospects of promotion, the entrance of the most capable women into the work of teaching.

152. We have already intimated our opinion (see para. 26, ante) that the Educational Council, which we propose to attach to the Central Authority, should be charged with the duty of instituting and keeping a register of teachers. The formation of such a register has long been desired by a large number of the members of the teaching profession, and the evidence, which we have received during the course of our enquiry, shows that the need for some official test and standard of professional efficiency has now become a matter of general agreement. It is clear that, since the publication of the Report of the Schools Enquiry Commission, there has been a steady and even rapid improvement in the qualifications of the teaching staff in the great majority of schools, whether public, proprietary or private. This advance in efficiency seems to have strengthened the demand for registration, because those who perceive the advantage which Secondary Education has already derived from the improved training and preparation of its teachers desire the establishment of a register in order to stimulate others, who still linger in the doubtful borderland between competence and inefficiency, to obtain higher qualifications for the practice of their profession.

To define the basis and scope of registration is, however, a difficult task because, though there is general accord as to the necessity for a register, there has been much disagreement as to the classes of teachers which it should include.* While we are far from denying the weight of the arguments urged by those who would confine the right of admission to the register to qualified teachers actually engaged in secondary schools, we are nevertheless of opinion that the course of events has materially altered the conditions under which such a limitation was originally proposed. So long as the establishment of a register was regarded as the initial step in the organisation of Secondary Education, and as the means by which information as to the state of secondary schools, could be most easily obtained, there

*Cf Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Teachers' Registration and Organisation Bills, and Part IlI., pp.192-3, ante.

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were obvious reasons for restricting it to those persons who might be actually engaged in the kind of schools about which it was desired to collect statistics with a view to further legislation. But, as we conceive that the advantages, which it was thus sought to obtain indirectly through registration, will be otherwise secured by the labours of the Central and Local Authorities, we think that the way is now clear for the establishment of a register on a more comprehensive basis. We therefore propose that there should be one register for teachers who fulfil the conditions of registration hereafter mentioned.

153. Admission to the register should be offered on the same terms to all teachers, in whatever class or kind of school they may be engaged or seeking engagement, nor should persons teaching in private families be debarred from its advantages. It should be so constituted as to include all that is most worthy of recognition in the whole profession. Our chief ground for this recommendation is that we think it would be inexpedient to set up any barrier likely to hinder the free passage of able teachers from one class of school to another. To secure such fruitful interchange of experience, the register ought to be based, not on occupation, but on qualification and ability. Any criterion but that of merit would shut out many persons who have a just claim to a place on a register of qualified teachers, and whose exclusion would bring the register itself into discredit. And in proposing to entrust to the Educational Council of the Central Authority the duty of fixing the precise rules of admission to the register, we do so in the confidence that such a body, being to some extent professional in its character, will be best able to determine from time to time the standard of qualification, which should be such as may be fitly required from those wishing to give secondary education, and what conditions of registration it may become, in the course of further experience, practicable or expedient to define. But as it is important that admission to the register should be regarded as an enviable distinction from the first, we think that no one should be registered who does not possess -

(1) a degree, or a certificate of general attainments, granted by some university or body recognised for that purpose by the registration authority, and accepted as satisfactory by that authority; and

(2) a certificate or diploma of adequate knowledge of the theory and practice of education, granted by a university or body recognised as above.

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as of vested right, would for a long period impair the authority of the register, and would also give a formal guarantee to much notorious incompetence. But we think that persons who have been engaged in teaching in secondary schools for three years before the passing of the Act should be entitled to registration on producing to the Educational Council satisfactory evidence of intellectual acquirements and competence to teach.

155. It might, also, occasionally happen that a teacher of great and acknowledged ability or experience, might be unable to produce all the qualifications required by the Educational Council. Such exceptions, which will grow rarer as the opportunities for special training and academic study become more widely diffused, might conceivably arise in the case of teachers educated abroad, or of persons taking to teaching somewhat late in life, or after preparing themselves for another career. We think, therefore, that the Educational Council should have discretionary power to admit to the register a teacher who, although not fulfilling the conditions named in the foregoing paragraphs, shall give evidence of his or her exceptional qualifications. Such admission, however, should only be granted in rare cases which might well be made the subject of special report to the Minister.

156. For purposes of ready reference the names of all the teachers on the register should be entered in alphabetical order, each entry showing the date of the teacher's registration, and a brief record of his qualifications and actual experience.

It would also be convenient if, in a second part of the register, the names were arranged according to the kinds of schools in which the teachers were employed. The names of persons qualified to teach in special subjects, e.g., drawing, music, gymnastics, and such purely technical subjects as shorthand, but not possessing the general qualifications described above, should be included in a supplemental register, such qualifications being required as the educational council may from time to time see fit to prescribe.

157. We think that, after the lapse of a reasonable time, - say seven years after the establishment of the register, - no unregistered person should be allowed to be appointed as a teacher of a public secondary school, or of a school recognised by the Local Authority as contributing to the supply of efficient Secondary Education. The operation of such a clause would, in our opinion, furnish sufficient inducement to the younger teachers to qualify themselves for registration without it becoming necessary to add, as has been sometimes proposed, a further provision disabling unregistered persons from recovering fees by process of law. Apart from the objection that a punitive clause of such a character would often prove, as between honourable persons, inoperative, and might in other cases act as an incentive to fraud, we think that it would have in practice

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the further result of constraining the Educational Council to fix the standard of registration so low as to deprive the roll, for many years at any rate, of the prestige which we desire to secure for it from the first.

We think, however, that an exception to this recommendation should be made in favour of probationers (i.e., young teachers beginning their professional life) who should be allowed to teach in recognised schools for such limited period as may be fixed by the Central Authority, on giving evidence of sufficient attainments.*

158. There should be paid for registration such fee as may be fixed by the Central Authority, and in fixing the scale of fees that Authority should bear in mind the desirability of covering the expense of maintaining the register, and all expenses incidental thereto.

159. Educational reformers have long recognised that of all the improvements that can be made in schools none are more important than - none perhaps so important as - those which tend to securing a supply of able and skilful teachers. Three methods present themselves by which this result may be attained. One is to raise the general status and dignity, and thereby to enhance the attractiveness of the teaching profession. To this, we trust, some of the measures we have already recommended will be found to conduce. A second is to improve the prospects of teachers, and the conditions under which so many of them have at present to do their work. This also we hope to see better attained than heretofore under the arrangements we have proposed. The third method is to secure for young men and women intending to enter the profession a better education and more thorough preparation for their work than many of them now obtain. So far as regards general education, they will obtain it, and in our view ought to obtain it, not in special seminaries, but in the same schools and universities as are resorted to by persons desiring to enter the other professions, and therefore no recommendations bearing specially on their case are needed. The more attractive the profession becomes, the larger will be the number of teachers who will feel that they ought to fit themselves for it by a university course. Special preparation, however, or in other words professional education in the theory of teaching as a science and its practice as an art, is of course needed by teachers only. We have already discussed the arguments that are advanced regarding its utility and the modes in which it may be given (see ante, p. 198-208) and may here confine our recommendations to very few points.

*See Memorandum of Head Master's Conference, IV. A. 2, Vol. V, p. 313.

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We are disposed to think it generally desirable that those who intend to adopt teaching as a profession should pass through a course of special preparation for it. There are, no doubt, some persons of such an inborn gift for this kind of work as hardly to need any training for it, just as there are others so naturally deficient in the qualities which make a good teacher that no amount of training will enable them to attain excellence. But between these extremes there are many whose natural capacities, be they greater or smaller, may be substantially improved by the special preparations which is contemplated: and even persons whose natural gift is unmistakable may have something to learn from the accumulated experience of those who have studied the subject and become practical experts in it. The teacher who proceeds to his work equipped with knowledge of the matters to be taught, but without any science of the processes which the learner's mind follows, is likely, however able, to make mistakes at first, mistakes which may be permanently injurious to the weaker intelligences. If he has the gift of intuitive intellectual sympathy in a high degree, he will learn in time how to correct such mistakes; in other words, he will learn the science of learning and with it the art of teaching by much converse with learners as he proceeds. If he be not so specially gifted, he may continue in error all his days, supposing he continues to neglect what may be called the scientific aspect of his work, and trusts to natural tact alone.

Similar considerations apply to the teacher's work so far as it consists in the exercise of moral influence and the development of character in the pupil. It is, indeed, still more fatally easy to misunderstand persistently the conditions of stimulus and guidance to the will, than to overlook those which regulate the processes of intelligence.

160. We hold, in accordance with the opinion of all those who have favoured us with their views, that whatever professional education is provided for teachers ought to have both a theoretical and a practical side. The theoretical side ought to consist in the study of the methods by which instruction may best be given and character trained. It may properly include a treatment not only of the theory of education in general, treated with reference to the branches of philosophy or science which underlie it, but also of the best methods of teaching particular subjects, e.g., languages, mathematics, and the natural sciences. It should also aim at enabling the teacher to be alive to the influence of physical conditions upon the mental processes, and be warned of the dangers which attend over-pressure as applied to the brain in youth.

The practical side ought to consist of two parts. The student would attend classes while instruction was being given by a skilful and experienced teacher; and would also give lessons

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under the oversight of such a teacher, so as to profit by the advice and criticism which he or she would be able to give.

Instruction in the practice of education should either follow or be concurrent with theoretical instruction. The more closely the two are associated, the better will the theory be understood, and the more intelligent will be the skill acquired.

The function of providing this professional instruction does not seem properly attributable to Local Authorities, because their sphere of action is not sufficiently wide. On the other hand, it ought not to be handed over to the Central Office, because that might induce an undesirable uniformity. Freedom and variety would, in our opinion, be best secured if the universities were to take up the task, as has been done in two Scottish universities, and very recently in Durham; and if the science of education is to make good the claims put forward on its behalf, it ought to be studied where other branches of mental and moral philosophy are fully handled by the ablest professors. In speaking of universities we include the leading university colleges.

We do not think it desirable, nor indeed at this moment possible, to prescribe any one system for securing to teachers this professional preparation, and particularly the practical part of it. The whole subject is at present in the experimental stage, and will best advance by the encouragement of variety in experiment. We have already (Part III., pp. 202-8) discussed at some length the various methods proposed and actually attempted, and have analysed the views laid before us as to their respective merits.

It will be for the universities and the Central Office to decide by the light of experience whether any institutions in the nature of residential colleges with "practising schools" attached to them are needed, either at the universities or in connexion with great secondary schools (and in that case what pecuniary aid should be given), or whether it will be sufficient to let the students live where and as they like during their attendance at lectures, making provision only for their obtaining due facilities for practice under competent instructors.

It will further be for such universities or university colleges as may be disposed to make full provision for theoretical and practical instruction to consider whether they can with advantage confer degrees or diplomas, or some certificates attesting proficiency in the science and art of education. Such certificates are already conferred by three universities, and if the study and teaching of this subject make the progress for which there seems reason to hope, it may perhaps be found desirable to add to these a higher certificate attesting the possession or higher attainments.

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In concluding this report and humbly submitting to Your Majesty these recommendations, we desire to repeat once more that our aim has been to draw the outlines of a system which shall combine the maximum of simplicity with the minimum disturbance of existing arrangements. Had these arrangements been less complex, and even confused, than they have in fact been suffered to become, the system we propose might have been even simpler. But we have felt that, valuable as simplicity is, we might retard the accomplishment of the necessary reforms were we to recommend what is called a "clean sweep" of the existing agencies, and the substitution for them of something altogether new. Those who may be disposed to complain that we have not gone far enough in clearing the ground for the erection of a structure more symmetrical and logically complete, will do well to remember the proverb that the Better is often the enemy of the Good, and that Secondary Education will gain more if it obtains promptly the substance of such reforms as are needed, than if it is forced to wait years, perhaps many years, for a more perfect scheme.

Nevertheless, even in retaining some things which more trenchant reformers might have desired to destroy for the sake of their future rebuilding, we have endeavoured to simplify by way of organisation and consolidation; and in modifying existing authorities and agencies, we have sought to increase their usefulness by bringing them into harmonious relations with one another.

We have recommended the constitution of a Central Authority which shall include all the various departments of Government now concerned with Secondary Education and shall concentrate their various powers and duties into one organ. While proposing to entrust this Authority with little direct executive power, we have suggested for it functions which may make it both stimulative and helpful to all minor authorities, and to all kinds of schools, in the way of guiding, of supplying information, and of reconciling contending interests.

We have proposed the creation of Local Authorities entrusted with large powers of supervision, but with comparatively little coercive control, in the belief that it is not so much by superseding, as by aiding and focussing voluntary effort that real progress may be made. Accordingly, while conceiving that upon this Local Authority the duty of providing an adequate supply of secondary instruction within its district must in the last resort devolve, we have sketched out a plan whereby private and proprietary schools may be turned to good account, and have discountenanced any idea of driving them out of the field, and thereby making Secondary Education purely a matter of State concern. And, acting on similar principles, though we hold that the Local Authority must, in order to be strong enough for its functions, be mainly representative, we have preferred rather

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to educe it from existing representative bodies than to introduce a fresh set of elections in a country where there seem to be already as many elections as can well be attended to, and where any addition to the number might tend rather to diminish than to increase the interest of the people in the discharge of their civic duties.

Like motives have guided us in considering financial resources and their application, and we have aimed, not at imposing fresh burdens upon the taxpayer, whether local or general, but rather at measures of reform and consolidation, which may turn existing sources of revenue to the best account. In giving to Local Authorities the right to initiate schemes for the better utilisation of endowments, as respects the place no less than the mode and conditions of application, and in devolving upon these Authorities the administration of all funds arising from taxation, whether Imperial or local, we have been moved by the conviction that waste can be more readily avoided, and the results of expenditure more carefully watched, when the fertilising stream flows through one channel. And as regards the forms which expenditure may take, although we have proposed to leave a large discretion to each of the scheme-framing and administering authorities, we have intimated an opinion that it is not in a general and indiscriminate reduction of charges, but rather in providing generous assistance for the poor and in encouraging the teaching of subjects whose value parents have not yet learned to appreciate, that public money may best be used; for we hold, as the Schools Enquiry Commissioners held 30 years ago, that it is sometimes by first providing a supply that appreciation must be aroused and demand be stimulated.

In no point is the contrast between England and every foreign country more noticeable than in the absence here of any system of grading or classifying schools according to the kind on education they give and the fees they charge. Had we been governed by foreign experience we might have attempted to construct a system of that nature. From such an attempt we have deliberately refrained, not only on account of the friction to be encountered, but also because the action of Local Authorities may be trusted to evolve in the long run some sufficient order. The great diversity of the educational agencies that now exist represents to some extent the diverse needs of different parts of the country and of the curiously mixed elements in our population; and it is better that some free and flexible scheme of classification should in future develop itself naturally, than that a scheme which, because uniform, could not suit the varying requirements of various districts, should be prematurely imposed by Parliamentary legislation. Even where a type of class of school has already acquired a distinct and definite character, we deprecate the policy of fixing by general regulations the subjects it shall teach. The true worth of instruction, that is to say its vitalising influence on the scholar's mind, depends less than is commonly supposed upon the particular subject though which

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the mind is approached, and more upon the stimulative method by which the mind is roused. School curricula, no doubt, need to be in some cases extended as regards the whole range of a school's work, and in others restricted as regards the number of subjects to be taught to the particular scholar at the same time. But it is, after all, not so much in the remodelling of curricula as in the improvement of methods, and above all in the supply of more highly educated and skilful teachers, that educational progress must in future consist. To all reforms, therefore, which can raise the status and tone of the teaching profession, can draw abler men and women into it by the prospects of a better career, can more adequately fit them for their work by the provision of a completer system of general and special preparation, we attach the utmost importance. Nor must we omit to add that, although historical causes have to some extent severed the teachers in secondary schools from the more numerous branch of the profession employed in elementary schools, every measure which can tend to unify the teaching profession, and make each of its sections interested in the welfare and progress of the others, will, in our judgment, be a benefit directly to the profession and indirectly to the community at large.

In dwelling on the need for a systematic organisation of Secondary Education we have more than once had occasion to explain that we mean by "system" neither uniformity nor the control of a Central Department of government. Freedom, variety, elasticity are, and have been, the merits which go far to redeem the defects in English education, and they must at all hazards be preserved. The "system" which we desire to see introduced may rather be described as coherence, an organic relation between different authorities and different kinds of schools which will enable each to work with due regard to the work to be done by the others, and will therewith avoid waste both of effort and of money. Of the loss now incurred through the want of such coherence and correlation, it is impossible to speak too strongly. It is the fault on which all our witnesses and all our Assistant Commissioners unite in dwelling. Unfortunately, so far from tending to cure itself, it is an evil which every day strikes its roots deeper. The existing authorities and agencies whose want of co-operation we lament are each of them getting more accustomed to the exercise of their present powers, and less disposed to surrender them. Vested interests are being created which will stand in the way of the needed reforms. Instances occur in which large sums of money are being expended in buildings, or otherwise upon institutions, which, if not superfluous, are planned upon imperfect lines, and with reference to one area or one purpose only where others should have been equally regarded, while at the same time many plans of admitted excellence cannot be carried out owing to the precarious position in which the money available under the Customs and Excise Act of 1890 now stands. Thus the difficulty of introducing the needful coherence and correlation

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becomes constantly greater, and will be more serious a year or two hence than it is at this moment. We feel bound, therefore to state the opinion which has grown stronger in us since we entered upon this enquiry that the matter is one of urgency, and ought to engage the very early attention of Your Majesty's advisers and of Parliament. Whether or not the suggestions contained in this Report commend themselves to those authorities, we cannot but express an earnest hope that the Legislature will be invited on an early day to address itself to the consideration of questions which become more difficult the longer they stand untouched.

Upon the magnitude of those questions, and their influence on the future of the country we need not enlarge. Elementary education is among the first needs of a people, and especially of a free people, as appears by the fact that all, or nearly all, modern constitutional States have undertaken to provide it. But it is by those who have received a further and superior kind of instruction that the intellectual progress of a nation is maintained. It is they who provide its literature, who advance its science, who direct its government. In England, those classes which have been wont to resort to the universities have, during the last sixty or seventy years, fared well. Those who could afford to pay the very high charges made at some of the great endowed schools have had an education which, if somewhat one-sided, has been highly stimulative to certain types of mind. But the great body of the commercial and professional classes were long forced to content themselves with a teaching which was usually limited in range and often poor in quality, and whose defects had become so familiar that they had ceased to be felt as defects.

Things have improved within the last thirty years, as may be seen by whoever compares the picture drawn by our Assistant Commissioners with that contained in the reports of the Assistant Commissioners of 1865. But the educational opportunities offered in most of our towns, and in nearly all our country districts, to boys or girls who do not proceed to the universities, but leave school at sixteen, are still far behind the requirements of our time, and far less ample than the incomes of the parents and the public funds available might well provide. More than twenty years ago, a very distinguished writer (now unhappily lost to us), who did more than anyone else to call the attention of his countrymen to this topic, and was often disheartened by what seemed their apathy, dwelt forcibly upon this point.

"Our energies and our prosperity will be more fruitful and safer, the more we add intelligence to them; and here, if anywhere, is an occasion of applying the words of the wise man: 'If the iron be blunt, and the man do not whet the edge, then must he put forth more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct'."

More, much more, than is now done might be done, not merely to fit such boys and girls for the practical work of their respective

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future careers, but to make them care for knowledge, to give them habits of application and reflection, to implant in them tastes which may give them delights or solaces outside the range of their work-a-day lives. Not a few censors have dilated upon the disadvantages from which young Englishmen suffer in industry and commerce owing to the superior preparation of their competitors in several countries of continental Europe. These disadvantages are real. But we attach no less importance to the faults of dulness and barrenness to which so many lives are condemned by the absence of those capacities for intellectual enjoyment which ought to be awakened in youth. In an age of increasing leisure and luxury, when men have more time and opportunity for pleasure, and pursue it more eagerly, it becomes all the more desirable that they should be induced to draw it from the best sources. Thus, it is not merely in the interest of the material prosperity and intellectual activity of the nation, but no less in that of its happiness and its moral strength, that the extension and reorganisation of Secondary Education seem entitled to a place among the first subjects with which social legislation ought to deal.

(Signed)

JAMES BRYCE.
JOHN T. HIBBERT.
E. LYTTELTON.
HENRY E. ROSCOE.
EDWARD C. MACLURE.
A. M. FAIRBAIRN.
R. C. JEBB.
RICHARD WORMELL.
HENRY HOBHOUSE.
MICHAEL E. SADLER.
H. LLEWELLYN SMITH.
GEO. J. COCKBURN.
CHARLES FENWICK.
J. H. YOXALL.
LUCY C. F. CAVENDISH.
SOPHIE BRYANT.
ELEANOR MILDRED SIDGWICK.

13th August 1895.