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In publishing the Consultative Committee's Report on Higher Elementary Schools the Board of Education have omitted, with the Committee's consent, the names of the witnesses whose opinions are quoted, as well as the names of places where individual schools referred to in the evidence are situated. The official position of many witnesses, in the service of Local Education Authorities and of the Board, has rendered it undesirable to publish their names. The Board are convinced, however, that the usefulness of the Committee's investigations would be seriously diminished if publicity were not given to the result of this detailed inquiry into difficult and pressing questions carried out in the interests of national education. They believe that the discussion of the questions dealt with will be of great value and great interest to Local Education Authorities, and to other bodies and persons concerned, in varying ways, with these and similar problems; and they have, therefore, decided to issue the Report with the minor alterations mentioned.

ROBERT L. MORANT,
Secretary,
Board of Education.

20th July 1906.

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Evidence taken

In dealing with the questions that form the matter of the following report the Committee have found it desirable to hear evidence from persons whose experience has brought them into touch, either as administrative officers or as teachers, with various aspects of the problems raised. They have taken evidence also from employers of labour with a view to determining what, in the employer's opinion, is the kind of product most to be desired.

These witnesses (25 in number) include a representative of the Scotch Education Department, two administrative officials and five inspectors of the Board of Education, two officials and one woman inspector of Local Education Authorities, five employers of labour, six teachers - the two last categories including members of Education Committees - and one member of an Education Committee not a teacher.

The evidence given by officials of Local Education Authorities has been supplemented by the examination of two of our members with special and intimate knowledge of the education question as it presents itself in parts of the country outside the large towns and in the rural districts.

The reference

The Board's letter of reference was as follows:

Board of Education,
Whitehall, London, S.W.,
6th July 1905.

SIR

I AM desired by the Board of Education to lay before the Consultative Committee certain questions affecting Higher Elementary Schools, on which the Board would be glad to have the Committee's advice. The Committee are already aware that regulations for this type of school are included in the Code for 1905, Chapter VI., and that some of the principles underlying the regulations are discussed in the Prefatory Memorandum.

The special problem of difficulty, as stated in the Prefatory Memorandum, in the Course of the Higher Elementary School, is the determination of the nature and amount of that special instruction which marks it off from the upper part of an ordinary Public Elementary School. Under the Code of 1904, as under the former regulations for Higher Elementary Schools, the curriculum of a Higher Elementary School was required to be of a specially and indeed predominantly scientific type. The reason why this special character was imposed on these schools must be sought in the circumstances of the time in which they were established. These circumstances no longer exist, and it has now become possible, as well as desirable, to develop a system of Higher Elementary Schools of various types.

The determination of the curricula for schools established under the new regulations will be left to local consideration in the first instance, but in each case the curriculum must be approved by the Board as a condition or the recognition of the school as a Higher Elementary School. The needs of different localities, of boys and girls in the same school, of different parts of the area of the same Local Education Authority, or of the different industrial and commercial activities of the same town, may thus obtain that due consideration for which the old regulations for Higher Elementary Schools left little room.

As therefore the Board will be called upon from time to time to recognise schools in very varied circumstances as Higher Elementary Schools, they would be glad to have the Committee's views as to the

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principles which, to the Committee, seem of most importance in determining the character of the curriculum which would be best adapted to meet the needs of the various possible kinds of Higher Elementary School. More particularly the Board desire to be informed of the Committee's conception of the part (if any) which instruction in technical subjects should play in the curriculum of a Higher Elementary School; whether, for example, the curriculum of such a school in Coventry should include actual instruction in the methods of making a bicycle, or again, only in the principles of mechanics which are implied, and whether either kind of instruction should be introduced into the curriculum from the beginning, or if not, at what stage, and in what proportion.

Similarly they will be happy to be informed of the Committee's views upon the type of teacher for the special instruction which appears to be most suitable in such cases.

They are desirous that rural conditions should he considered as well as urban conditions; and they would, in fact, welcome such general comments on the educational questions involved in the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools under the Regulations of the new Code as may seem to them to be relevant.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
ROBERT L. MORANT.

It will be seen that the reference asked the Committee's advice upon a number of questions connected with the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools of a type suggested in the Code for 1905, and that it refers to the Prefatory Memorandum of the Code for a discussion of the principles of the subject. The letter itself touches upon certain specially difficult and important points which the general conception of such schools involves. To these points the Committee have paid great attention. In view, however, of the fact that a real answer can only be given in the light of a clear general conception of the character and function of a Higher Elementary School, the Committee propose in this report to refrain from dealing seriatim [one after another in order] with the specific questions put by the Board in the order in which they occur in the letter of reference, and to treat the general question first.

The children for whom a "Higher Elementary School" provides: what, they need

A "Higher Elementary School"*, as contemplated by the Code, would provide education, between the ages of 12 and 15 years, for the brighter children who have attended previously an ordinary Public Elementary School, and who will, as a class, complete their day school education at the age of 16, and thereupon go out into the world to earn a living in the lower ranks of commerce and industry. For such children there must naturally be a kind of education that is likely to make them efficient members of the class to which they will belong. The first step towards a conclusion as to its character is to discover what are the qualities wherein, in the eyes of employers and of other persons qualified to express an opinion, children of this class seem to be deficient? Or, stated positively, what are the qualities they consider it most worth while to aim at developing? To arrive at any answer is, of course, to realise to some extent the object of a "Higher Elementary School", and when this object has been broadly defined, the ground is clear for a consideration of the type of school most likely to effect it.

The importance of character

It would appear, therefore, that one of the first and most important questions to determine is, what are the particular qualities of character and

*The term "Higher Elementary School", though, we think, open to serious objection, has been used throughout this report for the sake of convenience. A discussion of the term and some suggestions with regard to an appropriate name occur on pp. 51 and 52.

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mind that the school education of such children should be directed to develop?

In a general sense, moral qualities come first. Character is the primary aim of all education, and studies themselves lead up to it. Upon this ethical aspect the evidence of employers of labour has laid stress; they have been unanimous in the opinion that boys or girls entering their service should possess habits of discipline, ready obedience, self-help, and of pride in good work for its own sake whatever it may be. While this development of character is the general aim of all schools for all classes, and to that extent needs little more than a passing reference in a report dealing with a particular kind of education, its importance in connection with schools of the kind we have been considering has been brought prominently before us. The belief was expressed by one witness whose long experience entitles his opinion to weight, that these moral qualities are to-day far less commonly found among the working classes than they used to be thirty years ago, in spite of a larger number of schools and an increasing demand for the qualities themselves. He allowed that the change was due in part to social causes, but he thought that the schools had done less than they might have done to resist it. With such evidence before us, we desire to express our opinion, that if the education given to such children fails to encourage these moral qualities, the schools that supply it must be regarded as performing only a part of their function.

We pass all the more readily to consider the question of mental qualities, because we are convinced that the mental qualities which we desire to see encouraged must react favourably upon the habits of the children to the building up of character.

Other qualities needed; the evidence of witnesses on this point.

(i) Employers

The evidence as to the mental qualities* which are most needed has been contributed by two classes of witness: on the one hand the employers of labour - almost, without exception, men who interest themselves actually and keenly in the education of their employees - and the teachers and inspectors on the other. In one case evidence on this head was given by a witness who was not only an employer but a teacher also, whose knowledge of boys of this class has been further enlarged by many years' experience in the organisation of a lads' club. The evidence was all of the same tenor, and the Committee are unable to resist the conclusion which has been pressed upon them from each direction that for boys and girls of this class habits of mind are far more important than any particular knowledge or degree of attainment. The employers generally are not satisfied with the present training of the elementary schools. "It is it remarkable and suggestive fact", said one witness, "verified by my own observation when I acted as manager of our works in my early days, that the apprentices - lads of 14 years of age, having only had inefficient elementary education beyond the three 'Rs' of that time, showed more self-activity and resource and greater use of the bodily senses than the boys do who come to us to-day." This degeneration the witness attributed to a decay in pride of class and pride in work. The characteristics that employers most value and most deplore the lack of would appear to be general handiness (which is really to a large extent a mental quality), adaptability and alertness, habits of observation - and the power to express the thing observed - accuracy, resourcefulness, the ability to grapple with new and unfamiliar conditions, the habit of applying one's mind and one's knowledge to what one has to do. The employers, like the Navy, want "handy men". "Whereas", said one witness, "the precise form of employment that will have to be entered upon cannot be foreseen from the beginning, and 90 per cent of the lads will have to accommodate themselves to the most suitable opening available, general handiness would be an advantage everywhere." This was confirmed by a witness who said, "It is very rarely that a particular class of work can be decided upon. A boy's career is fixed not by choice but by the accident of employment that offers itself." Another employer referred with approval to teaching that he had seen abroad, where "the system is to draw out more and more the thinking and reasoning faculties of the child, so that afterwards, whatever the mind is

*"Mental" qualities should be understood to include the exercise of the mind through and in conjunction with the hand.

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brought to bear upon, it is a mind equally prepared to receive or impart impressions." The same witness particularly desired to see the mental faculties of the children rendered more capable of appreciating what they see and what they do when they come into the workshop. Another witness, also an employer, desired that a boy coming into his workshop "should not be surprised to see all the things that are going on so much as wish to learn more about them." "Anything", said another witness, "that teaches exactness, absolute fidelity to a truthful standard, is of extreme value." It was also remarked by an employer that the boys showed a lack of interest which told heavily against them: whereas "an employer wants to see a lad taking pride in his work, to show a love for it for its own sake, with a capacity to feel its dignity and value." A headmaster examined by the Committee briefly suggested the emphasis which the employers put upon qualities as opposed to knowledge by quoting an employer who had said to him, "Send me a boy who is accurate and intelligent; I do not care whether he knows how to keep books by this or that method; I do not want this at all."

Witnesses other than employers, on the question of qualities to be developed

It is, of course, conceivable that what an employer is most anxious to secure in his workman or clerk would not be identical with what an unbiased person would most desire for the individual.* But the evidence of those interested in education and in the boys and girls themselves, apart from their market value as employees, supports the evidence of the employers. One of the Board's Inspectors of Elementary Schools maintained that the qualities to be encouraged are self-help, self-education; the children should learn to prepare work for themselves, that they should be expected to "get up" lessons. Another inspector held that some of the qualities to be developed should be a "really intelligent interest in and liking for the vocations in which they will be occupied for the rest of their lives." They should be helped to form the habit of consulting books of reference, books for pleasure and profit; to speak and write with facility, and to recognise the practical value of accuracy and conciseness of expression. He would like to see self-help and initiative cultivated. The head-mistress of a Higher Grade School laid stress upon the importance of arousing interest and, closely connected with this, of developing the power of observation. She illustrated her meaning by a reference to the teaching of botany, lately introduced into her school and now the most popular part of the school work. Her aim in introducing it was to make the girls self-reliant and observant. She claimed that her pupils have been very successful in after life. The stimulation of interest was also the key-note of the evidence given by a witness who deplored the fact that a boy leaving school at the age of 14 is "frequently not in the least fitted to do the work he is asked to do." What knowledge he has he cannot apply; and what knowledge he lacks he shrinks from acquiring. "When I take one of these lads into a night school and try to teach him I find that he shrinks from learning anything about his work ... Arithmetic ... is absolutely repulsive to him." But when a boy is told how his arithmetic applies to his work, and that by applying it he may make himself more useful in his trade, "gradually yon may get him to see this, and then he will take it up cheerfully, but usually he has got it so driven into him to work without any interest that you cannot teach him in this way at all. ... What is needed is to interest the boys ... as soon as they are interested they will begin to work ... they do not get interested in what they are doing ... the fault is the lack of interest. Ask them to look at the mantelpiece and draw it to scale ... they would take immense interest in drawing the mantelpiece to a size smaller."

The inference to be drawn

Apart, then, from the moral qualities - how essential they are is presupposed - it would seem clear to the Committee that the thing needed is not only knowledge but a right attitude of mind, a mind confident in its own power to observe and think and in the habit of observing and thinking - a mind in which interest makes for intelligence and intelligence for interest. This is a high aim that cannot be compassed in every case; yet it, might, at any rate,

*Indeed, one employer frankly said that in his view, and for his ends, it was better that a boy should come to him as soon as he left the ordinary elementary school. This was an isolated opinion.

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be approached, if anywhere, in schools which will contain the brighter children. Its successful attainment will be due, of course, far more to the teacher and the character of the teaching than to the subjects taught; and this fundamental question of the teachers as the means of attaining it is discussed at a later stage in our report. It is sufficient for the present to have stated in general terms the qualities most to be desired, and to refer in passing to what we believe to be the most effective instrument in developing them. And we would suggest that such qualities are not merely the qualities needed in a worker for the earning of livelihood; they are qualities as valuable to the individual as they are useful in the economic structure of society. They are essential as part of the individual's equipment for his work in the world, and are of intrinsic value for his own life and for his life in the home.

Necessity of general education. Its paramount importance.

The Committee are in agreement as to the main features of a school intended to produce a result of this kind. Such a school should continue the general education that a child has already received in the ordinary elementary school: the course in the Higher Elementary School should develop in an unbroken progress the work already done. It should strengthen the foundations of primary education already laid, and upon those foundations attempt to build as good a "general education" as the conditions of the case allow. Whatever else the Higher Elementary School may do for the children who attend it, it must attempt to do this first. The first necessity is to secure for each child as much "humanity", as much accurate knowledge of general elementary fact, and as much mental power and manual aptitude as can he expected from a short course of instruction extending over three years at a comparatively early age, always recollecting that the course is the immediate preliminary to livelihood, and must accordingly receive a bent towards the special needs of the life which the child will at once enter. The course should consist of three threads or strands, roughly to be termed humanistic, scientific, and manual, and, in the case of girls, domestic, and all Higher Elementary Schools should give this three-fold instruction. It is obvious, of course, in the circumstances, that the range of subjects must be strictly limited; a few subjects taught as well and suggestively as possible rather than a larger number treated superficially, and all as far as possible taught in relation to each other. The subjects that might be included under the three headings are dealt with in the part of this report entitled Curriculum.

At this stage it is important to make clear in general terms that the aim of a Higher Elementary School is to educate for life as well as for livelihood, for life in the home as well as for life in the outside world, for individual as well as for social life, and to indicate that its aim in this respect is identical with that of all schools which are not purely technical in scope. It is an additional reason for emphasising this need of general education that children of the class who will attend Higher Elementary Schools must depend for almost all of it upon their school education. In this respect they differ from those children of higher social standing whose general education is effected as much by the unconscious influences of home life as by conscious teaching in school. Not that we think the higher social status of parents means necessarily a keener interest in the education of their children or a home atmosphere necessarily more favourable to the development of the child in the direction towards which the best aims of school education tend. There is reason to suppose that as the conception of the purpose and value of education gradually penetrates more deeply into the structure of society as a whole so at the same time the conditions of home life in every class may come more and more into harmony with the ideals of school training. We cannot, however, ignore the fact that at present the effects of the educational system in this country upon the ordinary life

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and thought of those classes for whom Higher Elementary School more especially provide are of a limited kind, and that in consequence the co-operation of parents cannot yet be counted upon to go very far.

Our view is well supported by the evidence of the various types of witnesses. The evidence of the need and value of general education must be read in connection with that given more especially in regard to the desirability of introducing technical subjects of instruction, for, as a matter of fact, the evidence on these two correlative points has been elicited as a rule by almost the same questions. In the paragraphs immediately following the evidence is presented as far as possible in a positive form.

Evidence in support of the necessity of general education

(i) Employers

To illustrate the necessity of securing that the foundations laid in the Public Elementary School are strong enough to build upon, it may be well to refer first to the evidence of a Manchester witness who draws his experience from service in a railway company, and from the lads' club with which he is connected. It must be remembered that he is speaking not of the brighter boys necessarily, and therefore it may be assumed that the deficiency which he has found to exist may in many individual cases be less glaring than it appears to be. He said, speaking of the usual run of boys in the employment of the Company:

"When I take him on to arithmetic and put some simple problems in fractions before him he knows nothing about it at all, and everything has to be explained to him from the beginning. I say, 'Write down a short letter'; often the boys are quite incapable of doing this: their writing is impossible. I say, 'Read that report'; he cannot read it decently. It is not that he does not know the words, but he cannot put sentences quickly together."

To the question, "Your experience is that the most important thing is a general education, and that you would not at that age venture on a more technical education", the witness assented. "What I feel most of all", he said, "is the necessity for general education".

This necessity for general education was confirmed by a London engineering employer. He was asked, "And you advocate very strongly a general system of training of a practical character, general knowledge, and general culture, which you think of great moment?" 'I think", he said, "especially with the class of boy we have in West Ham, that that is of very much more importance than anything else. We do certainly find that a boy who has had a better (general) education is likely to make better use of his opportunities and to make a better workman - a more intelligent workman." And again, "I think what we want is to make the training as broad and general and as thorough as possible."

Another witness, who held that the scientific and manual instruction given in a Higher Elementary School was the more important feature, said, "but at the same time I should continue the higher branches of what we call general education".

One employer alone did not emphasise this point.

(ii) The necessity of general education emphasised by other witnesses

Among the witnesses other than employers the need of general education came out very clearly and was practically unanimous. The following extracts will be sufficient to show this:

The headmaster of a Municipal Secondary School, asked "You think that a good general education is best?" replied "Yes, certainly; as a headmaster I feel that very strongly. I believe the same opinion is held generally by business men."

Similarly: "I would not allow any specialisation except as subsidiary to a good general education. At least half the time should be devoted to a good general education."

The headmaster of a Secondary School in a country district was asked, "You attach more importance to the general than the technical side of the schools, do you not? You think that the general side os the more valuable?" He said, "Yes, I think that there is a very great danger in specialising too much ... I would give them an extended course, a continued course, of what they have been doing."

The Director of Education for a large town in the north of England, when questioned as to whether he thought the curriculum should be adapted

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to occupations, said, "No, I think a good general education stands the best chance". He added, "What I should like to see is an improvement in the general education of the children." And further, "I think the technical school would rather have a boy with a good general education than with any special knowledge."

The headmaster of a London Higher Elementary School said, "We have nothing in view at present further than a good general education."

An important official witness argued that "The more complete their general training the better it will be for them in the long run."

One of His Majesty's Inspectors of Elementary Schools held that "the Higher Elementary School should give the children a thorough elementary education. It should carry on the work of the elementary school, but it should do it more liberally and generally, on broader and freer lines." He agreed that in many Higher Elementary Schools it is necessary to supplement the elementary work and begin it again. Again, to the question "A great deal that is taught in the elementary school would be taught in the Higher Elementary School?" he said, "Yes; only with a higher development and a more liberal conception of it."

Whatever additions may be suggested by individuals, the evidence on the whole is unanimous that English subjects, elementary mathematics, elementary science, manual instruction, and, in the case of girls, housecraft, should be included in the curriculum. Physical exercises and drill are taken for granted, and it has been suggested that, where possible, rifle shooting should be encouraged.

Necessity for a practical bearing

At the same time, this "good general education" must, in our opinion, take the bent, on which its immediate usefulness depends, from the consideration that after leaving the Higher Elementary School the boy or girl will not proceed, except in a few individual cases, to a further course of organised school training; but will be obliged at once to take up some occupation. A considerable number, it is hoped, may after they leave school go voluntarily to evening classes*; but the great majority will have completed at the age of 15 their regular schooling. We think it a principle of education that the nearer the pupil is to his entrance into life, the more steadily must the actual and practical needs of his occupation be kept in view, and the more decided therefore must be the bent of his education to that end. How far will the Higher Elementary School be affected by this principle, which bears on it very closely? This question is a difficult one, and we believe that the answer can only be suggested by considering it at length.

The nature of this practical bearing or bent: how effected

The Committee are agreed as to the nature of this practical bearing up to a certain point. Throughout the school the teaching of the different subjects should be illustrated by practical examples that are familiar to the children, so that they may be habituated to recognise the application of what is done in school to what is done outside and beyond the school. Further, examples might be drawn from the simpler aspects of the occupations that the children are likely to take up, so that they may see the possible bearing of their knowledge upon practical problems. In a district, for instance, where the bulk of the population are engaged in engineering industries a great many of the children will be to some extent acquainted with the sort of work that their fathers are doing. Even if the sons do not enter their fathers' occupations, they will nevertheless as children take some interest in the facts which at home they are constantly reminded of. Even supposing that at no stage in the course it should be desirable to introduce technical subjects as a matter of instruction, yet it is an advantage to encourage the practical way of looking at things, to encourage the attitude of mind which looks to practice for the illustration of theory and to theory for the explanation of practice; and this attitude may most easily and effectively be encouraged by the use as example and illustration of familiar practical or technical questions. "I understand you to mean that really the important thing is not so much what the child learns at school, in view of its direct bearing upon his work afterwards, as the development of the kind of mind - the practical direction given to the education?"

*An inspector who gave evidence mentioned a town known to him where 60 to 70 per cent of the boys leaving Public Elementary Schools go to evening schools.

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"Entirely". It seems to the Committee that in this way something may be done to stimulate interest and intelligence, for by this means the child will be enabled to answer the question, "What is the good of it?" What is learnt in school will become less meaningless. The child will be provided with an instrument that he can himself apply to the understanding of everyday things, and whatever faculty of intelligence he may have will be developed by the added interest that he will be able to take. He will get an inkling of the connection between principles and practice, and each will give life to the other. If the habit of orderly observation can be fostered in his school time, it will continue to grow after his schooling is over. In a Secondary School, where a boy stays until a later age, he has more time to realise for himself that what he is learning is not simply an end in itself, but also a means and an instrument. A conscious effort to engender this habit of mind is less necessary than it is in a case where school time is shorter and the pupils younger and their entry into the realities of life much closer at hand. Almost equally important - this practical reference, while it tends to answer the child's question, "What is the good of it?" will also help to answer the same question put by the parent. It should be obvious that a school which illustrates the principles that it teaches by reference whenever possible to familiar everyday things is a "practical" school. And if a Higher Elementary School of the new type is at all successful in producing an intelligent interest in what is recognised as practical by the parents - if in any way it can show that it has made him even "more useful about the house" - it may be supposed that they in their turn will begin to demand the kind of education for their children which is really needed. The demand on the part of the parents will then correspond to the need recognised by the organising authority. "If", as a witness said, "you tell a parent that the boy is working in manual work and really gaining a certain dexterity of hand, and that he is getting to know something about the science which underlies the industry he may have to follow, he says: 'Those are practical results, I can understand those things; I myself regret that I did not know something of scientific methods before I came to work; I should like my boy to know something about those things, certainly.' He feels that there is some tangible result in that for the time given to school life."

Such a character given to the teaching by the frequent employment of simple illustration, drawn, at any rate in part, from occupations that are familiar or will one day be so, may perhaps be called "specialisation of aim". It is, of course, difficult to describe precisely the way in which the practical bent is to be given to the teaching of various subjects, and it is, after all, a matter which lies with the teacher, whose concern it should be to realise in each case the general principle enunciated. "It is the way you teach rather than what you teach that matters." A further discussion of this subject will come best in dealing with the curriculum and with the teachers.

Evidence as to necessity of practical bearing and the means of effecting it

A great deal of evidence has been pointed in the direction of giving a practical bent of this kind to the Higher Elementary School, and has confirmed our view that the children should be encouraged to apply their knowledge. The use of familiar and practical illustration has been advocated by a number of witnesses. An employer who complained of the lack of interest that he observed in boys employed in his works was asked: "You think that interest could be developed by some practical kind of instruction?" "Some stimulation, yes; that is to say, a clearly view really of the connection between what they are taught in school and what they are likely to do afterwards." Manual instruction he thought desirable, "provided that all along it is used as an illustration of theoretical studies." He considered it less desirable if used as "a preliminary to subsequent handicraft skill, which has to be acquired." The illustrations, he thought, "should be drawn from the factory or the industries with which the child is familiar." Occupation should not be used as matter of instruction. "I should use it for illustration." "The practical application of what he is learning should be apparent to the boy the whole time, even in the most elementary things." The same opinion was expressed by a representative of the Scotch Education Department with regard to the aim of supplementary courses in Scotland. In answer to the question, "I take it that we

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are right in thinking that the object of the supplementary course is to provide instruction with some direct relation to the future life of the boy or girl?" he said, "It is to give a chance for the pupil to consider how his knowledge may be made to bear on his future life." Illustration was instanced by one witness as a good means to encourage the realisation of what is learnt. "You get at them more easily" by illustration. It would lie with the teacher, he held, to choose suitable illustrations in accordance with local conditions. "Anything yon can do", said another witness, "to impress upon a child the bearing of education upon the facts of life, or even upon the facts of labour and employment, I think most desirable. You cannot make the teaching too interesting, and mere abstract teaching is rarely interesting to children." "I do not see how a child is to be taught the principles of the lever, for instance, unless you can explain them to him. A child would not be likely to evolve out of his own consciousness that a ladder being erected involved the principles of leverage, that a wheelbarrow being wheeled would involve the principles of leverage, and a teacher may make these things plain to a child by simple experiments. So far as that goes a teacher cannot be too profuse in his simple illustrations, but the illustrations should all be of an extremely simple nature and such as a child could absolutely understand."

Such methods, we hope, will stimulate interest and intelligence in every direction. It is peculiarly desirable, in view of their past training and their future life, that the children should become interested. "When", said one head-mistress, "I have been able to discover a point of interest, it has helped not only that particular subject, but other subjects as well," It is important "to find the point of interest, to help a girl to find her life's work afterwards in an educational way." A witness assented readily to the question, "The whole of your education is based upon awakening interest?" Later in life it is difficult to do this.

And while the desired result may be aimed at in part by this method, a corollary method consists in encouraging the children to work by themselves. The children would have", said an Elementary School Inspector, "to get up lessons and to do things for themselves much more than they have done in the elementary school." They must teach themselves "how to learn". "It is thought good", said a witness, "that the children [in supplementary courses] should study on their own account under the direction of a teacher." Children from the elementary schools, where the conditions of teaching, and more especially the too large size of the classes, tend to produce a system of drill, of "chalk and talk", are not accustomed, as a witness said, "to think much about facts." In the freer atmosphere of the Higher Elementary School at an age when the children are more capable of thinking we believe that this method would be of the greatest educational value.

A Higher Elementary School must then, in the first place, afford a general education, and must also have regard to actual needs. Its practical purpose will be effected by a system of teaching which aims at showing how theory may be employed and is employed in practice. But the further question arises: Can the practical usefulness of the school be still more increased by introducing technical subjects into the curriculum? Is it desirable or possible to teach shorthand, or machine drawing, or bookkeeping, or industrial chemistry, or typewriting, or a modern language?

The answer to this question we believe to be No. Such instruction is trade instruction, and it should be given in sone professional school, and not in a Higher Elementary School.

General objections to technical instruction in Higher Elementary Schools

Stated in general terms, the question immediately suggests a number of general objections. The course in the Higher Elementary School is a short one of three years, and these three years are the only opportunity that a pupil may have for acquiring some broad and humanising training. There is reason to think that the children who enter such a school from the Public Elementary School are often unprepared to advance at once beyond the stage which they are supposed to have reached. The diversity of occupation

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that pupils of a Higher Elementary School enter after leaving school is so great that it is in most cases difficult to say what special subjects would be useful; and it is undesirable to sacrifice any part of their general education for the sake of a subject that may be of little real use to them. Again, a subject like bookkeeping appears to take so many forms to meet the particular needs of particular business houses that it is impossible to teach one form with profit. Some of the evidence heard goes to show that special subject instruction given in a school is actually misleading, and has to be unlearnt afterwards. The evidence would also suggest that special knowledge is more quickly and more profitably acquired in the occupation itself, and that elementary technical theory may be better acquired at evening classes.

On this very important point it will be well to refer to the evidence at once.

Evidence as to technical instruction in Higher Elementary Schools

The evidence on the whole is decidedly against imparting in a Higher Elementary School any particular knowledge or dexterity that might be learnt, and would naturally be learnt, in a period of apprenticeship, i.e., any knowledge or dexterity of which the chief value lies, not in its educative effect, but in the use to which it is put in a particular calling.* As it was clearly expressed by an engineering witness, "I do not advocate including any of the things in the school curriculum ... which the boy would afterwards have a better opportunity of learning in his handicraft or in his employment." "I would not in any way", said another witness, "specialise, but always have in view the development of the faculties of the boy in the best possible way to enable him to perform his work and to learn his trade on entering upon an occupation to gain a living." Again, "I would not go in for teaching them trades, because you cannot do that ... but you can train them so that they would adapt themselves to the wants and wishes of the workshop." No special application to a particular trade was possible, he held, and it is clear that to reproduce in a school other than an apprenticeship or trade school proper the conditions prevailing in the workshop, so that the pupil may accustom himself to the conditions in which afterwards he will, as a matter of fact, have to work is practically impossible, and that in consequence any attempt to substitute the workshop in the Higher Elementary School for the real workshop is a waste of labour. On this point the employers who gave evidence have been unanimous. They, of course, are looking not only to the educational aspect of the question, but to their own needs. In the case of women the same view was strongly expressed. "I would", said a woman inspector, "disapprove entirely of preparation for a particular trade." The witnesses representing more especially the educational side of the question were of a similar opinion. They did not believe it desirable or possible to introduce technical instruction, except in a very limited amount, and upon the clear understanding that it had a general educative value and purpose; they preferred to consider the Higher Elementary School as a school preparing for industries or branches of commerce - as a "pre-apprenticeship school". A Director of Education who gave evidence did not believe in specialisation at all. The representative of the Scotch Department was asked, " Would you introduce a technical element?" He said, "I should say that to attempt to introduce anything definitely technical into a day school is somewhat hazardous. Technical instruction comes better after a pupil has taken up some line of life and knows what he wants." He thought that technical instruction should not be part of the course, even in the last year, at a Higher Elementary School. "The children are to be prepared to enter a machine drawing or building construction class." An Elementary School Inspector was of the same opinion: "I do not think one ought to do very much that is technical in these schools; that would come later on, I think. It is the preparing of pupils to do the technical work rather than the actual doing of it that one ought to look forward to, I think." Similarly, an Inspector of the Technological Branch of the Board: "I wish to point out that I do not

*Such instruction if given in a school should be given in a Trade School, or possibly in Evening Classes. We would refer to the discussion on pp. 21 and 22 of the relation which in our view the Trade School bears to the Higher Elementary School.

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think it possible or desirable that any technological subjects should be taught." Regarding Higher Elementary Schools with a decidedly industrial curriculum -"artisan schools", as the same witness called them, a type of school that he advocated strongly - "they cannot," he maintained, "provide instruction in technical subjects". They must make a beginning and prepare the way. "The children are not old enough at 13 or 14 to derive much benefit from technical instruction. They must go on to evening schools if their work is to be of much value." In this respect "Higher Elementary Schools should be regarded as intermediate in character between the ordinary Public Elementary School and the evening school." He had no great objection to the rudiments of machine drawing being taught, "but I cannot think", he said, "the full subject can be of much use to the boy of 15. It cannot be of use till he has had experience in the shops". An engineer who gave evidence confirmed this opinion from his own experience.

Granted that the claims of general education must not in any case be ignored, it becomes doubly undesirable that time should be devoted to technical instruction if the knowledge and capacity of the children are considered to be such that they are unable to assimilate it. "When you get a boy", said one witness, "of 11 or 12 years of age, such boys as we have in West Ham, he is usually only able to read and write with difficulty". "I am not at all sure", said another witness, that it would be wise to specialise with a lad of 13, and to say, 'You must learn woodwork and machine drawing', at the risk of not making him understand the simpler things, such as writing and so on."

Such evidence applies no doubt more particularly to the average child and not to the brighter ones, but nevertheless it cannot be altogether disregarded. The risk is there. We were told that a Local Education Authority, conducting what would appear to be a very efficient Higher Elementary School in the north of London, believe that "specialisation under 15 is distinctly undesirable". The headmaster of the school held that "it is not possible at that age to specialise with any advantage to the child, and the child is thereby losing his opportunity of receiving a good general education - an opportunity which he will never have again".

Our general impression, then, subject to such modifications as we shall mention later, is that on the whole, and on general principles, technical instruction of a definite character should not be given in a Higher Elementary School.

Commercial instruction in these schools

It is to be observed that so far the evidence quoted has had reference to industrial rather than to commercial occupations, and it would appear to be well to deal at this point with the very considerable amount of evidence which we have heard bearing upon special subject instruction in view of commercial rather than of industrial occupation. This evidence touches on the question whether it is desirable to teach such subjects as shorthand, bookkeeping, typewriting, or "office routine".

Bookkeeping

It is against any particular system of bookkeeping that the evidence is most unanimous. The reason assigned in all cases is the same, namely, that as a rule each firm uses its own system; while each system implies nothing more than the intelligent application of the common principles of arithmetic to a particular kind of commercial transaction. To give instruction in bookkeeping in the sense of anything beyond the practice in arithmetic required for keeping simple accounts appears, therefore, to be waste of time. A witness summed up the point in saying, "What we ought to be teaching these boys is 'accounts' and not 'bookkeeping'; and I think it would be a very good thing if we could make that distinction in name very much clearer. Any teacher can teach accounts quite well to any boy, because accounts deal with money transactions, with which the boy is quite familiar if he has ever had any money at all. It is quite absurd, I think, to try to teach from a text-book - perhaps by the agency of a person who has never been inside an office - the details of the procedure of a large office with which the boy is quite unacquainted, which are absolutely unreal to him, and which will lead to the most mechanical form of work; and probably when yon have finished you will have taught him a system of bookkeeping

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which he will have to unlearn in the first office he goes into. I think that distinction between 'accounts' and 'bookkeeping' would be a useful distinction of name to define the aim of the work." While eight of our witnesses declared against bookkeeping, one only thought it "most important". One thought that a beginning might be made in this subject at the Higher Elementary School; this, however, is not inconsistent with the rest of the evidence referred to. We agree with the opinion of a witness who said "If you can give the pupils a knowledge of arithmetic and of keeping simple accounts, that is all that can be hoped for"; and with another who said, "I think very little value attaches to specialised instruction in commercial subjects up to the age of about 15. What I do feel very strongly indeed is that in the attempt to introduce these subjects into the curriculum we are sacrificing the development of a more important thing - the habits of mind which will be important in commerce."

Shorthand

Nor do we attach much importance to shorthand as a subject of instruction in a Higher Elementary School. Our witnesses, with one exception, either disapproved of it in a Higher Elementary School, or were prepared to admit it with certain qualifications. The schoolmasters were definitely against it; one, however, who thought it possessed little, if any, educational value, was yet inclined to teach the rudiments. Another witness would admit it, provided that teachers and parents wished it, but he deprecated it as an essential subject of the course. Two inspectors thought that a beginning might be made in it at the Higher Elementary School. We believe that it is of "no great value as part of a school course"; and that, compared with other subjects, its importance is not sufficient to justify its inclusion. There is not time for teaching it far enough. As an employer said, "I should say that the most useless work done at present is the teaching of shorthand to hundreds of lads, when not one of them makes any further use of it ... they never learn enough. Not more than one in ten would ever require to use it."

Typewriting

To teach typewriting we believe to be entirely undesirable. Even in the case of women we should be opposed to it, not only on general grounds, but because we understand that employers require in typists a much higher standard of general education than can be expected from girls who will leave a Higher Elementary School at the age of 15; nor should we desire to see encouraged a tendency to increase the number of poorly paid women clerks when preferable careers are open to women in other occupations. " To teach typewriting", said a witness, "is to teach the trade itself, and is a direct stimulus to go into clerical work, which is to be deplored. ... If typewriting and shorthand were taught in Higher Elementary Schools, I think that 99 per cent would take it up. ... Typewriting and shorthand are definite trade training which should not be attempted."

Modern languages

Since in a Higher Elementary School time is limited and the aim general, though practical, a modern foreign language is only justified where its acquisition will obviously be of special utility. In Scotland a modern language is prohibited in all supplementary courses. In Higher Elementary Schools the risk of overloading the necessarily simple curriculum is a grave one, and we think that only in exceptional cases should the inclusion of a modern language be sanctioned. That it is taught in some Higher Elementary Schools at the present time and in Higher Grade Schools and in lower Secondary Schools is no good argument for it in a Higher Elementary School of the new type; indeed, it is the approximation towards a "secondary" education in many higher primary schools that we shall have occasion to deprecate. To teach a modern language at all effectively upon the prevalent oral method is a very slow process, and wherever, in exceptional cases, it is included an adequate amount of time (probably a daily lesson of at least an hour) must be devoted to the subject, continuously throughout the three years' course. It is of no value, as a witness pointed out, unless taught by a really skilled teacher; and such a teacher is expensive. From an educational standpoint it would no doubt be valuable, if it were possible, to teach French or German. For educational reasons an inspector advocated the teaching of one

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language besides English, but he required that it should be thoroughly taught; it should be considered "as a spoken language as far as possible". Another inspector agreed. "I think one foreign language is a very important part of education for one thing; and then again in many urban districts a language might be very useful from both points of view - the educational and the utilitarian." Another inspector confirmed this. He had at first thought that modern languages should be ruled out, but he had found that a knowledge of the elements of German had in a case known to him "proved an enormous incentive to boys going on to evening schools". In dealing with modern languages, he "would give great latitude to inspectors. Hartlepool boys, for instance, should learn German, many of them, and some, French. Bradford boys should certainly learn German". A Manchester witness was for giving all children instruction in a modern language in view of the needs of his city. And in such a district as the East End of London, where a school is largely attended by foreign Jews and nearly all the boys in the school speak Yiddish: "this is a case where we should allow German to be taught", since it will be easily acquired and the educational advantage will not be bought at the expense of too much time spent. We are also alive to the practical difficulty that in many schools "you cannot tell what particular language will be useful for any particular child", though in some seaport and commercial towns it is conceivable that the Local Education Authority may feel a need for modern language instruction and be able to make out a strong case for it. Therefore, while on the whole deprecating such teaching, we think that we cannot go so far as definitely to declare against it in exceptional cases. A modern language would only be required in Higher Elementary Schools, where the majority of children are destined in all probability for commercial life; it would hardly ever be desirable in a country school.

Technical instruction in schools for girls

At this point it would seem to be convenient to make some special reference to the case of girls' schools. We have heard the evidence of a head-mistress of a Higher Grade School in London, the evidence of a head-mistress from the north of England, and the evidence of a woman inspector with experience of technical education for girls generally and of trade schools at home and abroad. It would appear that girls from the London Higher Grade Schools enter very various callings, but that in many cases their school education has been of material service to them in these various callings. The witness said, "Some become dressmakers. There is one now with a very large business, with 20 girls under her. Then a very large number go out as teachers. And there is a girl in the art department at Doulton's who has been very successful. Some go into offices; there are a very large number doing this. One or two have taken reports of Parliamentary proceedings, and a few are writing for the papers, and there is one girl in 'The Times' office. The employments are so varied. There are teachers at some of the important centres as well as at Elementary Schools, and there are girls in shops, largely drapers' shops. Some are milliners; some are waitresses in the Aerated Bread shops; one or two are manageresses in Lyons' shops." The school gives training in needlework and dressmaking and pays attention to art work, and though this instruction is all of a general character it has proved to be a fit preparation for work immediately afterwards. The art instruction especially has been very productive. "In women's industries", said another witness, "the fundamental preparation that is required is considerable artistic training in drawing and design and geometric drawing". The skilled trades for girls are very few compared with the number that boys can enter; they are chiefly the "needle-trades", and for all of these artistic capacity and training are of the greatest value. Employers complain of a lack of artistic power and feeling, which we have reason to think could be developed by skilful art teaching in Higher Elementary Schools. The witness believed that there was latent talent or genius that might be elicited provided that good and stimulating teachers undertook the work. Such training which forms a part of general education combined with instruction in needlework, which is also a part of a girl's general education, happens to be also the most useful training for the majority of skilled industries open to women, The witness in question laid emphasis

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upon the desirability of art teaching in conjunction with needlework as at once educative in the best sense and as of direct utility in women's occupations, and in the home as well - "for the whole of home life". It would therefore appear that the problem of "specialisation" is in girls' schools a much easier one than with boys.

We have already expressed our belief that housecraft should form a part of the curriculum of all Higher Elementary Schools for girls, and that it is undesirable to give special commercial instruction in such schools. Any further consideration of the curriculum of Higher Elementary Schools for girls may he left to a later stage.

We have heard a good deal of evidence with regard to the adaptation of the course of instruction in a Higher Elementary School to local needs, and, so long as the educative value of the course in the most general sense is not impaired by a too close consideration for the needs of a particular locality, we are in agreement with the suggestions made in the Prefatory Memorandum to the Code for 1905. Before considering this aspect of the Higher Elementary School in detail in relation to the needs of different districts, we would lay stress on the necessity of not losing sight of the truer utility of the course effected by a general stimulation and training of the faculties as opposed to the more immediate and specious utility that may be the aim of any adaptation to local circumstances. Even a witness who hoped that much might be done towards differentiation of curriculum by locality - as a preparation for the prevailing industry of the place - admitted also that there are special cases (and we are inclined to believe that they are many) where the special preparation for life may be in effect a continuation of general education. Similarly an engineering witness thought that "the training which is adapted for one class of employment in the humbler ranks is, as it were, adapted for all. The more I think about it the more strongly I feel it to be so". We are inclined to agree with a witness who thought that a curriculum specially adapted to local needs would rarely be required.

It will be convenient to treat this division of our subject in relation to three kinds of area - the rural districts, the smaller towns, and the large centres of industry and population. It will be understood that we think the Local Education Authorities themselves should in all cases be encouraged to suggest a solution of the problem in each case, and we have no intention of claiming any finality for our views, which, in the nature of the circumstances, can only be general indications of the lines upon which it will be found practicable to advance. The differences in individual cases are so marked that the question can only be solved ambulando.

(a) In the country districts

In the rural districts, where agriculture and the occupations connected with it are the prevailing industry, the evidence goes to show that very little "specialisation" is possible. "You cannot do much with regard to agricultural education even in these schools. You cannot teach the actual manual portions of farm work in school: it must be done on a farm." The field of employment is also very varied. On the other hand, it is not only possible but very desirable, both educationally and with regard to the need for making country life more attractive, and if possible checking even to a slight extent the emigration from the country into the towns, "to give the instruction with an agricultural tone"; to encourage nature-study; and, as we have already suggested, to illustrate the teaching generally from examples familiar to country children; to illustrate the principles of elementary science, for instance, from botany; and to familiarise the children with the conditions of country life as something intelligible and interesting. "You can teach something of gardening, grafting, and pruning. The children are so mixed that you want to teach something useful to them all, and I think such subjects will be useful to all, fitting them for country life in any capacity." In any case it is most desirable that schools of a higher primary type in the country should not fail to devote attention to the manual side of the work, and should develop no special leaning towards "commercial instruction".

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(b) In the smaller towns

In the smaller towns there would seem to be little need in the majority of cases for any marked local adaptation. Where the small town is the centre of an agricultural district, and the children are likely to go back to the farms, the same considerations will apply here as in the rural districts, of which many small towns share the character. There are also a number of small towns, for instance, in the south of England "where there is no particular concentration needed for particular industries, and where the matter of chief importance is to supply the needs of a number of people engaged in no particular industry. There are a great many people, for instance, small shopkeepers, who do not require a special form of education." A headmistress from the north of England expressed a similar opinion, touching the great difficulty of effective specialisation, even if desirable, owing to the diversity of the girls' future occupations. "I think it better", she said, "to have some specialisation, but not too much, and it is very difficult to say how much, because it works out in particular schools differently ... It seems to me that specialisation comes best in domestic science work." The same witness admitted the possibility of "specialisation" for dressmaking and clerical work, and we have had another witness from a country town in the west of England who was strongly in favour of actual commercial instruction. The question of local adaptation in the smaller towns does not, however, seem a very real one or to need much consideration. There is nothing particular to specialise in.

(c) In the larger towns

It is not until we get to the case of the larger towns, the productive and distributive foci, that this question becomes at all a real and practical one. Here we have large numbers of people engaged in each calling, and a variety of handicrafts and businesses each employing hundreds or even thousands of men and women. It would seem reasonable to suppose that some decided differentiation of the school course or even the institution of two or more courses in the same school, would be advantageous, and the desirability of this has been pointed out to us. The evidence, however, in favour of this differentiation is not so strong as might be expected, and the evidence of the employers is on the whole decidedly against it.

It may be well to deal first with "industrial" courses or types of school. Normally, the Higher Elementary School is intended to complete the school education (ignoring evening continuation schools and classes) of children who leave at the age of 15 to take up the less important positions in trades and offices. To say definitely before then what line of life the child will take up is, as we have suggested, very difficult, if not impossible. But if it were possible, we still have to regard the principle of the fluidity of labour, and to avoid any "specialisation" that will check this flow by lessening the general adaptability of the individual. "Everything should be done," said one witness, "to make the conditions of employment among the lower grades as readily interchangeable as possible." At the present time it by no means follows that a boy will enter his father's calling or will necessarily seek employment in the neighbouring works, and the ready means of communication in the large towns tends to counterbalance the divisions of class and occupation.

A witness, speaking of women's industries, was of this opinion: she thought preparation for a particular industry unnecessary, because "the industries in different parts of London are reached with such ease ... the girls travel such distances to their work. It is true that the most highly skilled [industries] are settled round Westminster, but a girl from every part of London can reach that district." There is therefore less need to identify a school with any particular local industry. It is interesting to note that the cabinet-making Trade School at Shoreditch, though established in a cabinet-making district, draws boys from all parts of London and sends them out to all parts of London and beyond. It would, in fact, find difficulty in obtaining enough pupils if it were confined for its pupils to the neighbourhood.

In any case, the conditions to be considered are so many and various that, apart from the principles we have already suggested, it is hardly useful to dwell at great length on the point. If it is proved that the great majority of pupils in a school will enter industrial callings, then it will be desirable to give the teaching an industrial colour. It is possible that the manual work

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might be affected in a certain direction should it be seen that the majority of the children enter a particular calling. It does not, however, much matter, as a witness said, "what particular form of handwork is practised; it is certainly an advantage that the knowledge gained would prove useful later, but that is not essential". Nor should it be "a dominant feature in the arrangement of the curriculum". In Scotland there appears to be little differentiation of manual instruction. A witness was asked, "In the case of the industrial course, would you have in a town where woodwork was the chief industry a course different from that in a town where engineering was the chief industry?" He said, "I do not think we should go to that length, but it is open to them to do so; it is a matter for local initiative." In the case of London, we may suppose from the evidence of a London witness, that some differentiation of manual instruction might be desirable. He said, "I would specialise in Southwark and Lambeth, and I would specialise in mechanical trades generally. The training of boys to use their hands and to use one set of tools is a training which is of very great value, though perhaps not of the greatest value, for any other mechanical trade they may enter. Training in woodwork is of value to metal-workers, and training in metal-work is of value to wood-workers; and so, if I were training Bethnal Green boys and Southwark boys, I would give them woodwork and metal-work respectively, and these boys so taught would have a valuable training for any kind of industry." Such evidence, however, does not go very far to advocate much local differentiation. There is, however, reason to suppose that in engineering centres more attention should be devoted to geometry and accurate scale drawing than in building trade centres. But such questions are too technical and local for general treatment; and, after all, it would seem that specialisation for groups of industries, if desirable, can hardly mean more in the Higher Elementary School course than the choice of appropriate illustration. This is the teacher's function. "So long as the teacher keeps in view the cultivation and training of the mental power, I do not care", said a witness, "what subjects he puts the boy to for the purpose of attaining that end."

A "commercial" school or course has perhaps not very much reality qua "commercial," for we have stated our opinion that definite commercial subject instruction cannot with advantage be given in a Higher Elementary School. The commercial course can hardly be more than "a course which is not so much commercial as a course which suits those who are not going into definite artisan work". As such it might "illustrate" differently, and might devote rather less time to manual work. If a boy knew that he was going to enter an office it might be more to his advantage, other things being equal, for him to be able to write a letter than to be able to make a box. At the same time, the evidence has suggested the view that it is educationally more important to secure that the future clerk shall be able to use his hands as well as his pen. A representative of the Scotch Education Department was decidedly of this opinion. "You produce a better clerk", he said, "if the boy takes an industrial rather than a commercial course."

All the engineering witnesses supported the view. "I think", said one, "it is very much more important to teach a man who goes into commercial life something mechanical than to teach him things he will necessarily learn afterwards." They believed that a practical education implied all that was necessary for the lower grades of clerical work. And although in the main true that it is the demand which makes the clerks and not the schools which make them, we do not consider that anything should he done that will encourage lads to compete in an already overstocked market. The "black coat" tendency has been more than once referred to by witnesses, and it is possible that the Higher Elementary School of the new type may counteract it. Employers are said to be dissatisfied with much of the elementary education given, because "the instruction, in so far as it is carried beyond the simplest elements, tends, if anything, to make a boy a little above his job". He is more inclined to be a clerk than a mechanic. "Too often he wants to work in a black coat". That feeling might "be avoided by altering the kind of instruction and by teaching the lads that there is room for brain work in all sorts of factory employment." For it is "the result of confining the teaching in the schools to

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things which are associated with a pen and paper rather than the subjects which would be associated with other forms of employment. Hence the boy who succeeds best in his classes has rather a leaning in the first instance to an employment in which he knows he can continue to use pen and paper with success." It was probably with such considerations in mind that a witness said: "I don't want two distinct types of education, because I think the one course I am describing [i.e., an 'industrial' course] is the best for all." The ordinary course of a Higher Elementary School including manual instruction is of this kind. "Manual training, drawing, and knowledge of science in the elementary stages are a fundamental necessity", he held, "for all boys; not because it [i.e., such training and instruction] has any reference to their employment afterwards, but because it is the best known process by which the mental faculties of the boy may be trained. My idea", he said, "is that boys at this stage do not know what they are going into." An inspector was asked: "In the case of children being prepared for industrial work would you not give a good deal of manual instruction?" "I should do that in all cases." Such instruction he believed to be no specialisation at all.

The question of technical instruction in Higher Elementary Schools, and the fact that they are intended to prepare children for industrial life, lead naturally to some consideration of the relation of Higher Elementary Schools to what are now known as "Trade Schools".

Relation of the Higher Elementary Schools to Trade Schools

The Trade School, of which there are very few in existence at present, is a type of school that has arisen to fill the gap caused by the decay of the apprenticeship system. The term is not a term of art, that is, no Trade School is recognised in that name by the Board of Education, though such schools may obtain grant under 42 of the Regulations for Evening Schools, Technical Institutions, etc., in respect of organised instruction in related subjects adapted to the technical requirements of students. A Trade School corresponds in its origin and character to the French école professionelle, or école manuelle d'apprentissage and as such stands rather outside the ordinary educational system. Normally its function would be performed in the trade, and it is only through a dereliction of duty on the part of a trade that any organising educational authority steps in and, in the interest of the community, takes up the work that one section of the community has deserted. The Trade School is therefore an intrusion for, as we hope, temporary economic reasons into the educational sphere.

There is no doubt that special trade instruction should be begun in the trade itself; but with the decay of the apprenticeship system, and, also, with the increasingly specialised character of trades, which are split up into small and rigid sections confined to particular parts of a trade, some sort of instruction in the principles of certain industries has been called for. Where, as in London, apprenticeship in the sense of formal indentures is practically dead (though service for a number of years is still required by public opinion and in the interest or the worker, who is supported in this demand by the influence of the trade unions), there is more need for Trade Schools than in the provinces where not only is apprenticeship less moribund but trades are also less sub-divided. They are needed when "the lad obtains his experience solely in one section of the work and, therefore, has no opportunity of getting a knowledge of the relation of the separate sections of the trade to one another." This is the case in the cabinet-making industry, and the Shoreditch School is the natural result. They are not, however, likely to be common, and their function does not clash with that of a Higher Elementary School. To Trade Schools the Higher Elementary Schools might send particularly well prepared pupils, just as the Higher Elementary School may be expected to send into the industrial occupations generally pupils well fitted to learn their trades. In relation to Higher Elementary Schools the Trade School is not a school so much as a trade; and, as we understand it, it is the purpose of the Higher

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Elementary School to prepare for trades but not to teach them. It is true that in some cases, as in Leeds for example, Higher Elementary Schools and Trade Schools are being conducted by the Local Education Authority as parallel schools for children of corresponding age. This is, no doubt, to meet a special local need, and is being done with a clear conception of the real difference of the two types of school; the trade school being an economic makeshift necessitated by the particular circumstances of the place. Ideally, the one school would be a preparation for the other. As a matter of fact, the Trade School usually keeps its pupils to a later age than the Higher Elementary School, so that pupils leaving the one might proceed to the other. This would only be the case of course with pupils of special aptitude who could also afford the further education. Such might be expected to enter an occupation not as apprentices but as assistants.

We do not think that in any case risk of overlapping is to be feared between the two types. At present it is unlikely that Local Education Authorities will be anxious to establish expensive Trade Schools and to maintain them upon Part II funds, with the aid of grant less in amount than might be obtained by a Higher Elementary School recognised under the Code. We understand further that the Board of Education take steps to secure that no Trade School shall be established in any area if it is clear that a Higher Elementary School is - as it will generally be - the more needed school. A Higher Elementary School is less expensive to maintain, and, moreover, the expense is charged to Part III funds; while, as we have said, a Higher Elementary School recognised as such can obtain a larger grant than a Trade School earning grant under section 42 of the Regulations mentioned. We may add that, in the opinion of an engineering witness, Higher Elementary Schools of the kind proposed would obviate the necessity of such general and preliminary instruction as some engineering firms have been compelled to give in their own works.

Difference between a Higher Elementary School and a Secondary School

To round off and complete the general conception of a Higher Elementary School as it presents itself to the Committee, it will be useful to distinguish its character and function from those of a Secondary School.

The Higher Elementary School is continuous with that of the Public Elementary School. The Higher Elementary School is "end on", if the expression may be allowed, to the ordinary elementary school. As was well said by an Elementary School Inspector the lines of education in both schools are of the same gauge; they form "a series". The Secondary School is not continuous in the same way with the elementary school; its course is, normally, preceded by a course of primary education in a preparatory school or department; but this primary education differs in character and method from the elementary instruction which the Public Elementary School affords. The difference between the Higher Elementary School and the Secondary School extends downwards beyond the age of 12, at which both schools admit pupils, and the difference is the same throughout the course. Though, for the purposes of grant, it may be convenient to consider that portion of the Secondary School course only which begins at the age of 12, it must not be supposed that the Secondary School course begins only at that age and not before. The difference is due, in the first place, to the age at which the pupil in the Higher Elementary School and the Secondary School is assumed in each case to end his regular schooling. The maximum age limit in the Higher Elementary School is 15 years: in the Secondary School the course extends from 12 to 16, but this leaving age is not, as in the other case, a maximum, but a minimum. It is expected that the scholars in a Secondary School will continue at school beyond beyond the age of 16, and that they will stay four years at least. The four years make only the core of the period of school life. It follows that the plan of instruction may be laid out on different lines in the Secondary School from those which the course in a Higher Elementary School of a maximum length of three years necessitates. Similarly, the boy who leaves a Higher Elementary School at 15 is supposed to begin wage-earning at once; a boy who leaves a Secondary School may often be supposed to pursue his education further. The Higher Elementary School completes the regular course of organised education; the Secondary School not necessarily. The two types

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of school prepare for different walks of life - the one for the lower ranks of industry and commerce, the other for the higher ranks and for the liberal professions. Consequently, the Higher Elementary School can only afford to teach a limited number of subjects, and with a practical bias; the Secondary School has time for more subjects and a more theoretical and academic method of teaching. Finally, but not least important, the home conditions of the pupils attending the two kinds or school are different, and while, in the case of the Secondary School, the home life may be expected to supplement and strengthen the school instruction, or, at least, not to hamper it, in the case of the Higher Elementary School the home conditions, at best, do little to favour the ends of school education, and at worst are antagonistic.

Introductory statement

Leaving out of account the Trade School, we believe that there is a social and educational need for schools of the kind suggested in the foregoing section of our report. Throughout the country there are a large number of children leaving the Public Elementary Schools who are able to profit by a continued schooling, and whose parents are ready to keep them at school until about the age of 15. At the present time these children are actually provided for (ignoring the private-venture schools) by three types of school - the Higher Elementary Schools, created by the Higher Elementary School Minute of April 6th 1900, the "Higher Grade" Schools (not actually a type of school recognised as such by the Board of Education, but a modification of the ordinary Public Elementary School), and a very considerable number of lower "Secondary" Schools. These schools, together, cover the field that Higher Elementary Schools of the new type would cover. In the following paragraphs it is proposed to consider the three kinds of school in question, and to suggest the reasons leading the Committee to think that the present provision of schools for children who have completed the Public Elementary School course and can remain at school till they are 15 is to a large extent unsuitable in character and actually deficient in amount. Further, it is proposed to show what steps might be taken, at any rate in the larger towns, towards the organisation of this particular part of the educational field with a view to greater educational efficiency and greater economy, and to the advantage also of "secondary" education more properly so called. Any such process of organisation must, of course , give full consideration to the schools that already exist, and must take the form of a policy realising itself, step by step, as favourable opportunities offer, slowly evolving an actual system by adapting, transforming, and selecting from the present material, as well as by encouraging the establishment of new schools where they are needed.

(a) Higher Elementary Schools of the old type. Their origin.

Higher Elementary Schools as a class recognised by the Board or Education came into existence after the Higher Elementary School Minute of April 6th, 1900. The circumstances that suggested the Minute are well known, but they seem to the Committee to be worth recalling for the sake of the light they throw on the character of the schools themselves. In 1900 the Code declared for the first time that Treasury grant would not be paid for any scholar who had been for one year in the VIIth Standard and was 14 years of age. In the same year the Education Act made it impossible for managers to claim fee grant for such scholars up to the age of 15. Further, the institution of block grant told in favour of the rural schools, and reduced the amount payable to town schools, in that attendance and not attainment in specific subjects now became the basis of the allocation of State aid. With a view to satisfying the demand for some compensation as a set-off to the loss which the town schools of high efficiency experienced, the Higher Elementary School Minute was introduced.

Their character

By this Minute was recognised a class of elementary schools to receive a higher rate of grant than the ordinary Public Elementary Schools, organised to give a four years' course of instruction to children between the ages of

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10 and 15, certified by the Inspector as qualified to profit by it. The curriculum was required to show a sufficiency of science instruction, both theoretical and practical, in each year. A certain comparatively small number of schools of this type were recognised; but there were several strong reasons preventing at this time the wide and useful development that seemed to be suggested in the field of higher primary education. The Minute had been introduced as a measure of compensation, and, it would appear, as results showed, without sufficient regard for the education needs of the country -needs that were soon to be considered seriously by a radical change in the administration of national education. The great defect of the schools arose from the requirement of the Minute that they must be, to a large extent, science schools, and that this dominantly scientific curriculum must characterise them, irrespective of local conditions, wherever they might be established.

Their number

At the present time 30 of these schools only are in existence in England and Wales; 39 have actually been recognised since the date of the Minute, but nine have, subsequent to recognition as Higher Elementary Schools, altered their status, eight becoming Secondary Schools and one reverting to its previous condition as a Public Elementary School. Of the total number of Higher Elementary Schools recognised (39), 33 were conversions from Public Elementary Schools, or Public Elementary Schools and Schools of Science,* or Secondary Schools, and six only were new schools.

Their deficiencies

Though some of these schools where they exist - they are confined to the larger towns - are no doubt admirably conducted, and go far to meet the needs of the locality and of the class of children for which they provide, their predominantly scientific character overweighs them, and as a class their lack of adaptability to special circumstances tends to render them less efficient than they might otherwise be made.

(b) Higher Elementary Schools. Their origin and character.

Whereas it might be said that the Higher Elementary School Minute of 1900 was an attempt on the part of the State to meet a growing need for higher primary education, similar attempts had been made by School Boards before 1900 and a number of schools had grown up which aimed at continuing the instruction given in Public Elementary Schools to children who are able to assimilate more advanced instruction. Those schools, usually called Higher Grade Schools, and often taking the form of "Organised Science Schools" or "classes" had had been encouraged by grant from the Science and Art Department. The Department provided an additional source for obtaining State aid and, further, was able to make grants at a higher rate than the Education Department. As a natural consequence higher primary education in so far as it was provided by Higher Grade Schools assumed a scientific character. The Cockerton judgment, by upholding the auditor's decision and declaring the use of rates for education beyond the standards illegal and ruling that Science and Art Department grant could not be employed for the purposes of elementary education, necessarily checked further attempts by local authorities to satisfy an existing and growing need; and as a result the two factors that had contributed to make up what was a hybrid approximation towards a Higher Elementary School - the upper standards of a Public Elementary School and an Organised Science School or classes - fell asunder. Something was done, as we have seen, to save the situation by converting such Higher Grade Schools into Higher Elementary Schools (14 schools of this kind have been converted at one time or another); and it has been, we think, on the whole an advantage to the organisation of higher primary education that this this development in the direction of a scientific curriculum should have been accidentally, as it were, cut short.

Their disadvantages

At the same time it remains true that the Higher Grade Schools stand in the anomalous position of schools recognised as Public Elementary Schools and receiving grant at the same rate as Public Elementary Schools,† while at the top they are doing the work in some cases of a Higher Elementary School, the necessary additional expense, so far as it is not met by fees, being

*All the Manchester Higher Elementary Schools were originally Organised Science Schools.

†It is true that a Higher Grade School may obtain a slightly higher grant in respect of instruction given in specific subjects of an advanced character. This added amount is very slight.

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borne by the Local Education Authority. In addition to this administrative confusion a Higher Grade School is liable to follow too closely the stereotyped tradition of the Public Elementary School and to fail to show the practical tendency which we believe a Higher Elementary School ought in every case to exhibit. It is inevitable that a Public Elementary School which attempts to do the work of a Higher Elementary School without a clear conception of a definite aim and carries out that work in conditions which are necessarily other than the most favourable should be unable to perform with full efficiency a peculiarly difficult function. In stating these disadvantages it must not be supposed that the Committee fail to realise the excellent work which has been done and is being done in spite of inherent difficulties by many Higher Grade Schools. Under the influence of a capable head teacher a Higher Grade School may approach as a matter of fact very closely to the type of Higher Elementary School that we have in view. But while under a capable head teacher a Higher Grade School may in a particular case go far to satisfy the need, we consider that the conditions in which it works are not such as to procure the maximum degree of effectiveness in the right direction.

(c) Lower Secondary Schools. Their origin and history.

Thirdly, there remains to be considered a large number of schools that may roughly be termed "lower secondary". It is a far more numerous class than the other two, and the schools comprising it are not confined to the larger towns; in fact, most of the lower secondary schools are in the smaller towns and in the county districts. The class is made up of schools which now exhibit a very similar character, though in origin they may be traced back to several sources. They correspond practically to the Third Grade secondary schools of the Taunton Commission, and are differentiated from other secondary schools chiefly by the leaving age of the majority of their pupils and by social status. Some of them were originally grammar schools or endowed schools; some of them have been "Higher Grade" Schools, converted after the Cockerton judgment into Secondary Schools; some of them Higher Elementary Schools, and some or them, again, Public Elementary Schools. A comparatively small number are fresh creations by the Local Education Authorities. In many cases existing Secondary Schools, more particularly those until recently called Division A Schools, have developed out of Organised Science Schools, a type already referred to in the paragraphs dealing with "Higher Grade" schools of which they often made a part, or to which they were at any rate attached. Such Organised Science Schools were first created by the Science and Art Department in 1872 in response to encouragement held out by the Department to such schools as would supply a continuous and systematic three-year course of scientific training to follow the ordinary Public Elementary School course. In 1895 compulsory literary subjects were introduced into their curriculum and the minimum of scientific instruction was reduced; the school was to provide a course of instruction in science combined with literary or commercial instruction adapted to those whose education was equivalent to that of children in Standard VI of a Public Elementary School. Manual training was afterwards added. It is interesting to note how in course of time the Science School came to be regarded as needing a literary patch; how, in effect, the system of subsidising the subjects of special character proved itself undesirable, and the school as a whole became the unit of State aid. The precedent is not without its bearing on the future of any schools that might tend to develop in a technical direction. In 1901 came the system by which secondary day schools as such became eligible to receive grants from the Board; and in 1902 Schools of Science and Day Secondary Schools were re-named Division A and B Schools - Division A, the more scientific, including the descendants of the Organised Science Schools. It is significant that difficulty was found in getting pupils to stay at these schools long enough. In 1901 out of 9,902 pupils on the registers of Schools of Science not connected with a Public Elementary School only 16.6 per cent were in their third and 4.5 per cent in their fourth year; of 43 schools attached to Public Elementary Schools, only 9.6 per cent were in their third and 2.8 per cent in their fourth year.

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The present confusion of schools: the weakness of the "lower secondary schools"

It will be obvious from the facts related in the preceding paragraphs of this report that there has been constant change of nomenclature, for administrative reasons, over the whole field of higher primary and lower secondary education, and that while Higher Elementary Schools of the old Minute, "Higher Grade" Schools and lower secondary schools, may all be distinguished by name, the same school has often been called first by one name and then by another in successive periods, and sometimes by each name in turn, without any real change in the character of the school, and with slight, if any, alteration in curriculum. With all regard for the principle of freedom of development we cannot think that this confusion is in itself desirable, or that anything but good would result from attempting to frame a policy having for its direct object the organisation of a system of higher primary education. There has been no national policy, and the schools have naturally developed along the path of the largest grant; while the largest grant has not been paid with any constant or well-defined relation to particular educational needs. We propose to deal further with this question below.* Something has of course been done already to organise the field, but rather, perhaps indirectly and with a view to systematising secondary education of a higher type. At the present time many Secondary Schools of this grade and in receipt of grant at the Secondary School rate differ little in character and function from the suggested Higher Elementary School. Though the minimum period for which grant can be paid is four years, from the age of 12 to the age of 16, many, if not most of the children as a matter of fact, leave school at 15 or earlier, and do not complete the course. Much of the work done in these Secondary Schools is very similar to that which would be done in a Higher Elementary School; a large proportion, sometimes the majority, of the pupils in rural Secondary Schools come from Public Elementary Schools. For instance, in Somerset Secondary Schools from 44 per cent to 77 per cent of the pupils are drawn from Public Elementary Schools. In a well-known Municipal Secondary School, out of 341 pupils 10 are ex-elementary children. Out of 190 boys at the W------- Grammar School, 100 are said to come from Public Elementary Schools.

The early leaving age of the majority of pupils who remain in some school or other beyond the age of 12 is shown with considerable force and clearness in Professor M. E. Sadler's reports on Secondary and Higher Education in Hampshire, Derbyshire, and Newcastle-on-Tyne, and to the diagrams which state the facts in these districts graphically we would in this connection refer.†

The evidence brought before us has been uniformly in the same strain. "One of the chief difficulties", said the headmaster of a lower secondary school in the west, "is the tendency to leave early." In a Municipal Secondary School in the north, into which pass one-third of the number of children leaving Standard V of the Public Elementary Schools annually, 50 per cent of the pupils stay for two years only. At a Girls' High School, where one-sixth of the number of pupils are said to come from Public Elementary Schools, 50 per cent of this sixth have left after the same period. "A very large majority of boys", an official witness said, "leave at the age of 13 or 14, and it is quite impossible for some of the boys to do the work up to the standard of the Board as prescribed for Secondary Schools." In B------- there are three "Secondary" Schools. In one of these 60 boys are in their first year, 38 in their second, 2 in their third, and one in his fourth year. In S------- in a Secondary school that aims at a four years' course and can only achieve one of three years, not more than 15 boys are over the age of 15, more than half of these 15 holding scholarships. At a lower secondary school in E------- most boys leave at 15. We were told by one witness of a Secondary School (in G-------) attended by 400 children, boys and girls, filled to the extent of 95 per cent (certainly 90 per cent) by means of scholarships from the Public Elementary Schools where the average school life of a child has hitherto been about 15 months.

*See Part V.

†Hampshire Report, pp. 18 and 100; Derbyshire Report, p. 10; Newcastle Report, pp. 8 and 10.

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"Obviously that is a waste of time. Before the children have got accustomed to their new surroundings they have to go."

And in many industrial neighbourhoods this tendency to leave school not later than 15 is likely to prevail for some time to come owing to the fact that many employers in the engineering and other industrial trades require boys at that age, and only in exceptional cases are willing to take older lads. Several of our witnesses pointed this out.

Schools of this type, although they afford in many cases excellent material for modification, do not as a rule appear to offer to the children who attend them a form of education of the most suitable kind. So far as they satisfy the need they would seem to meet it on the whole unconsciously and accidentally. In the case of the lower secondary schools, the educational aim may be termed too broad and too ambitious. At any rate the tendency is in that direction; the lower secondary school is inclined to combine inconsistent or inharmonious purposes. The distinction, as it appears to us, between the Higher Elementary School and the true Secondary School has already been stated in a previous section of this report, and it is obvious if the distinction be accepted that the more nearly a lower secondary school approximates to a secondary school of the real type the less it can be said to meet the needs of the class of children whose education is in question. A Secondary School that tries to be what it is called and yet cannot induce the majority of its scholars to remain beyond the age of 15 is prevented from concentrating its energies to the best effect and from realising its name because its energies are distracted and dissipated in the attempt to provide at the same time for pupils who will only go it part of the way and get a less than proportionate part of the benefit to be derived from the complete course. The course of instruction, however good in itself, cannot possess its full value because the pupils do not stay long enough. Thus, such a school is apt to give only a fragment of a higher type of education and to devote time to the study of subjects that cannot in three years be studied properly, bearing in mind the plan upon which the Secondary School draws up its curriculum and develops its methods of teaching. Further, many of these schools, as a result of the administrative influences referred to above, exhibit a leaning towards advanced science instruction when, as we believe, a Higher Elementary School of the type proposed should not attempt to take the children beyond the elements of scientific knowledge and their everyday application. Finally, we believe that such schools, not only by reason of the comparatively small attention which many pay to manual work but also because their purpose is not and cannot fairly be to encourage boys to enter industrial callings, however decided the local need, fail in a very important respect to satisfy one of the capital wants of modern education.

The demand: its relation to need

There would seem then to be good reasons for thinking that the present school provision for children leaving school at the age of 15 is inadequate. The existing schools are unsuitable in character. It may therefore be said that there is a need for a new type of school giving a new type of training, though how far it will be possible in the circumstances actually to establish new schools in particular districts is a question that remains to be dealt with. Before proceeding to discuss this it may be well to touch on a factor theoretically of subsidiary importance but of moment practically - the demand for education of the suggested character. This demand is to be distinguished from the need. It is the pressure at the doors of the schools immediately above the Public Elementary Schools , and its existence is shown by the fact that Higher Elementary Schools, Higher Grade Schools, and lower Secondary Schools have been established and are being carried on. It is the demand of the parent for the child's instruction beyond the stage reached in the Public Elementary School. The need, on the other hand, can seldom be determined (though it might sometimes, and in the future will no doubt more frequently, be affected) by the views of the parents*: it is determined by the large and obscure and changing influences, social and economic, that affect the national life; and it is apprehended and defined, if at all, by the existing educational authorities (the central authority and the local authority) and by educational opinion generally. Yet the demand, or its absence, cannot of

*It is clear that the scientific bias deprecated in the case of so many higher primary schools is not due to a demand on the part of parents.

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course be ignored. It is true that in education demand and supply have not the same interrelation as in the world of commerce, for in education the supply must aim as far as possible at stimulating and characterising the demand. If, for example, in the case of higher primary education, sufficient schools of a practical character were in existence it might be hoped that parents would be encouraged to keep their children at school for a rather longer period, and that in this way the children might be prevented from becoming incapable of learning, when, after a short spell of work begun upon leaving the Public Elementary School, they might wish to pursue some further course of education. Our evidence would suggest that on leaving the Public Elementary School and entering an unskilled occupation many boys lose and never recover their capacity for learning anything further. As one witness expressed it, "their brains get out of gear". We would quote at this point an illustrative passage from the evidence. An inspector of the Technological Branch of the Board said, "Now the age at which apprenticeship begins is 15 or 16, and it therefore happens that a boy who leaves school at 12 or 13 has to find some preliminary occupation for two or three years. Inquiries which I have made show that a boy who has to fill up this gap frequently becomes either a loafer or an errand boy, or an office boy, or in some cases a junior clerk, or a textile operative. Then he goes to the works, becomes an engineering apprentice, and is told by his foreman to go to a Technical School to learn machine drawing. My experience is that when such a boy arrives at an evening Technical School to learn a subject bearing on engineering, he is in a very bad case. He has forgotten almost everything during the time that he has been occupied as an errand boy, an office boy, or a junior clerk, and his experience gained in these occupations is of not the slightest avail to him when he has to take up manual work in an engineering shop. I should like also to point out in this connection that, owing to the operation of the labour certificate, this evil is frequently intensified. Only the sharper boys get the labour certificate, or rather, perhaps, I should say that the less sharp boys find it harder to get the certificate, and so the smartest boys leave the elementary school earlier than those who are not so capable. I wish to state emphatically that there is a very urgent need for the provision of special schools for lads such as these." The evidence of another witness in the same connection has already been quoted (p. 12). He went on to say, "I think we should find in the course of a few years quite a change of feeling among the working men of the country; they would make very great efforts to keep their children at school up to 15 or 16 years of age rather than take them away at the ordinary time."

The growing demand

But apart from the consideration that a supply of the right character may encourage the demand, we have reason to think that as a matter of fact the demand itself is growing, more especially, no doubt, in the large centres or population. A Manchester witness said, "We want more schools of the Higher Elementary School type ... such success has attended those already in existence." We understand that the Local Education Authority for London are considering the establishment of nearly 100 new schools of this type. An inspector stated his belief that there was room for 50 to 100 Higher Elementary Schools in the London area. At a Higher Elementary School in a northern suburb of London 300 applicants competed at the last entrance examination for less than 100 places. The local education authority establishing the school believed that "many more of the parents who have not the means to enable them to send their children to Secondary Schools, even if there were any suitable schools of the kind available, would be eager if there were any sufficient inducement for them to do so to keep their children at an elementary school until they attained the age of 15." In South London a head-mistress of a Higher Grade School told us that the interest among parents has been growing to such an extent that "on the last occasion when children came from contributory schools, I occupied nearly the whole of one morning interviewing parents, who expressed the greatest interest in their children's work and volunteered to make sacrifices so that their children might do the necessary homework and stay until they had completed the course of work." "I have interviewed parents", she said, "again and again, and when I have pointed out the value of the work a good deal of sacrifice is often made. A year and a half extra time is often

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" given to the children." "I think", said a Somersetshire headmaster, "that the parents have for some years appreciated the advantages of higher education." The facts given in the reports by Mr. Sadler, to which reference has already been made, bear out our view.

The question

Even if it be clear what kind of education as a matter of fact is needed for children who have attended a Public Elementary School and can afford to continue their schooling up to the age of 15, and even when it is recognised in what respects the existing school provision for such children is defective, there still remain the difficult questions: How and where is it possible to set up schools of the required kind without danger of unfair competition with other schools or of overlapping and waste, and how can the existing schools be best adapted and supplemented to meet the recognised need? These two questions constitute the problem of educational organisation that the country, we believe, must now face with regard to higher primary schools.

Policy rather than system

We have said already that for the present the essential thing is to formulate a policy and then in the light of that policy gradually to realise a system. Owing to the very great diversity of local circumstances, local needs and local provision, it is, of course, impossible to lay down any rigid rules as to the way in which the problem is everywhere to be solved; for the problem will present itself differently in a different place and will require in consequence a different solution. It is therefore only possible to deal in a general way with the principles that may well be observed in organising higher primary education in areas of a character roughly distinguishable, in the country districts, in the smaller towns, or in the large centres of population. It is obvious that constant co-operation will be called for between the Local Education Authorities amI the Board of Education, the Local Education Authority standing for the expression of local need and local resources and the Board representing national policy. In this matter the inspectors will hold an important intermediate position as advisers of the Local Education Authority and the Board.

It will be most convenient to deal with the question of organisation under three heads, considering it as it exists (1) in towns containing a population of from 20,000 to 50,000; (2) in the rural districts, including the smaller towns of a semi-rural character; and (3) in the large towns.

(1) Organisation in towns with a population of 20,000 to 50,000

The organisation of higher primary education presents far more, and far more serious, difficulties in the country districts and the smaller towns than it does in the larger towns and the great centres of population. The main points of difference are that in the towns the question is often one of co-ordination only; in the country it is often one of supply; in the larger towns the distinction between Part II rate and Part III rate is less important, whereas in the country it is of very great importance; in the large towns, again, the greater differentiation of class and occupation would permit a differentiation in the type of school or even in the courses of instruction given in the school, while in the country a number of causes combine to preclude this differentiation, and, in fact, may even make it necessary "to put into one institution the work of two".

The danger of overlapping

Witnesses who spoke with knowledge of the rural areas and of the smaller towns agreed in deprecating the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools, except after the most careful scrutiny of the existing school provision. In country districts any scheme for the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools must be very tentative. Heads of schools in towns of an intermediate and semi-rural character were of opinion that no Higher Elementary School could safely be established in their towns without risk to existing schools. To establish a Higher Elementary School, said one witness, "would be very dangerous to my own school (a Municipal Secondary School) and

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disadvantageous to the educational system of the town ... the Higher Elementary School would simply be a reduplication of the Secondary School." The headmaster of a Secondary School in a rural area held that in his county Higher Elementary Schools would interfere very seriously with the existing provision. Their establishment would "tend to take away boys from the present Secondary Schools, many of which are working under great difficulties, and are not full". He thought that if the number of children going to Secondary Schools were reduced much more, the Secondary Schools would have to be closed. Evidence was also adduced to show that in Wales there would be no room for the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools. A similar opinion was expressed with regard to the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Schools of higher primary type often more needed than Secondary Schools

It may of course be said that the danger of competition apprehended in regard to existing Secondary Schools of the lower type suggests their higher primary character; this is, no doubt, theoretically true, but the actual existence of such schools must not be overlooked.

There is a greater difference between some of the Secondary Schools at the top of the list, as it has been expressed to us, and some of them at the bottom of the list, than there will perhaps ever be under the present regulations in the Code between Higher Elementary Schools and some of the existing Secondary Schools. Where there is a complete system of secondary education there is a distinct need for Higher Elementary Schools. "The Secondary School in C--------", a witness said, "will be a real Secondary School, and that makes quite a definite place for the Higher Elementary School." The risk of serious competition is of course a conclusive argument against the attempt to establish a new Higher Elementary School, but it is not necessarily an argument to show that a school of the Higher Elementary School type is not needed. In many cases where "Secondary" Schools exist it may be supposed that a Higher Elementary School would have satisfied the real need better had it been possible to establish one; and in cases where time has shown that the pseudo-Secondary School is performing the function of a higher primary school, it will be desirable to recognise this frankly. As an Inspector for Elementary Schools said, "I think the Higher Elementary School might kill some of the Secondary Schools, but if so they would, I think, deserve to die, either because they are already dying, or because they have been artificially kept alive, and because they do not meet any natural demand, or any probable natural demand."

It is true that the function of a Secondary School is not yet very strictly determined, and it will lie with the Board of Education to determine it much more clearly. But at the same time it is well known that a number of Secondary Schools are at present unable, or only just able, to qualify for grant under the Secondary School Regulations, and it is incumbent upon the central and local authorities to see that grant paid for secondary education is not misapplied to education which is really of the higher primary grade. "I think the great work before us", said one of our most important witnesses, "in connection with the Secondary Schools at present is to create a more just conception of what the Secondary School is and ought to be, and that it will be quite impossible for the Secondary School authorities to do that if we have to be specially charged with the provision, or administration, or control of this intermediate type of education, which is meant mainly for children who come from the ordinary elementary schools." We understand that the Board are at the present time taking steps to ensure that only schools that can fairly claim to be doing secondary work shall continue in receipt of grant at the Secondary School rate. They hold that if the Secondary School's course terminates directly the "four years" of the regulations end, and if a due proportion of scholars do not remain at school for the minimum period of those four years, then it is time for a warning to be issued to the schools so defaulting that unless special reasons for the default can be assigned, and it can be shown that the defects are not likely to be permanent, the schools can no longer be recognised as Secondary Schools. The presumption, we suppose, is that they should become Higher Elementary Schools. In a number of

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cases this would be but a reversion to a previous state. Wo were told of a Local Education Authority that had already, in its scheme for Secondary Schools, substituted, upon the appearance of the new regulations of the Code for 1905, Higher Elementary Schools in certain places where Secondary Schools had been contemplated originally. Similarly, another Local Education Authority has recently preferred to establish a Higher Elementary School in a rural district rather than a Secondary School, because the presence of an agricultural implement works appears to render the Higher Elementary School a more suitable school. Each case, of course, can only be judged on its merits. It depends on the character of the population whether there are enough children for a Higher Elementary School. "They would get a more efficient education if they were to go to a school specially arranged for their requirements." All that can be done is to watch each school carefully, and to apply scientific analysis to the school registers and the registers of the neighbouring Elementary Schools, and "see what happens to the children". The Secondary School regulations must not, in the Board's view, be relaxed; other provision must be made by such regulations as those in the Code for the lower, or different, kind of school; and the Local Education Authorities must be discouraged from trying too long to raise the school into secondary rank if it can be shown that the conditions of the locality are not such as to justify its continuance, but rather appear to indicate the need for a higher primary school into which the Secondary School might profitably be converted with very little actual change of curriculum. It is important to observe that the difference in the amount of grant payable to a Higher Elementary School really performing its function, as compared with that payable to a Secondary School of the same size, where a considerable proportion of the children do not complete the four years' course, will tell in favour of the Higher Elementary School, owing to the fact that a lower rate of grant paid in respect of all, or nearly all, the scholars in the Higher Elementary School will reach a higher total than is obtained from the payment of grant at a higher rate to a Secondary School, which is able to claim the grant only in respect of a smaller proportion of scholars.

Causes unduly favouring Higher Elementary Schools

In some places, however, the educational danger may not be that Secondary Schools will be preferred to Higher Elementary Schools, but, on the contrary, that a Higher Elementary School may be established and encouraged where a Secondary School is needed. "If it were desired", said a witness, "to establish a Higher Elementary School with a general curriculum in any place the best course would be to lay down a rule that no such school should be recognised until the Secondary School in the district had been firmly established and developed. If, in the absence of a Secondary School in a district, a Higher Elementary School were to be set up, there would be considerable chance of the people in the district mistaking the Higher Elementary School for Secondary School, and it would be very difficult subsequently to set up a Secondary School on proper lines." In cases where it is impossible to maintain two schools, higher primary and secondary, and a Secondary School is already in existence, it would be better "to let the Secondary School do the work so as to give it a fair chance to create a public opinion in its favour". The Board's first business then would be to discover in each case why a Secondary School is not required. "If you start by getting a good Secondary School known to be doing good work, and after that found schools below for boys not wanting to go to Secondary Schools, this would be the right course." It is necessary to guard against the danger of keeping down the standard of education for children by allowing the Higher Elementary School instead of the Secondary School, and, with this danger in mind, a witness, speaking of a small country market town, expressed the opinion that "where you are driven to make one school serve such a rural town, it should probably be a Secondary School and not a Higher Elementary School". Against this policy of "developing downwards" must be set the policy obtaining in Scotland, where a Secondary School is never established in the first instance; there the policy is that of developing upwards. There is always grave danger that a too ambitious beginning may prevent or make difficult a simpler and better solution; that, in fact, the establishment of a

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Secondary School may constitute a pledge which, though it may never in the circumstances be really fulfilled, cannot at all easily be repudiated. In this reference we would mention that an Inspector for Elementary Schools brought forward several reasons which go to show how difficult it is in many cases to work a lower secondary school effectively. There is very little provision for training secondary school teachers, the salaries paid to them are very poor, and the untrained university man with a pass degree cannot be considered an adequately qualified teacher.

But, apart altogether from educational considerations, there appear to us to be several forces which will be likely to exert undue influence upon local authorities in favour of Higher Elementary Schools. In smaller towns, where the Town Council is the authority for elementary education and the County Council for higher education, the inducement to start Higher Elementary Schools rather than Secondary Schools will gain strength from the desire of the Town Council to control a more advanced school of its own, free from all interference by the authority for higher education. In the non-county boroughs "the Higher Elementary School would be under the borough authority and the Secondary School under the county authority, and there is a great tendency in many boroughs to start a Higher Elementary School not purely because it is wanted but because it would be under their own control and not under the control of the county authority." The Local Education Authority will be largely swayed by the answers to three questions - (1) How much will the buildings cost? (2) What will be the net cost of maintenance falling on the rates? and (3) Out of what rate will this be paid? The answers to these questions will all tell in favour of the Higher Elementary School as against the Secondary School. (1) The cost of building the former may be taken (outside the London area) at £15 to £20 a head, rather less than half the cost of building a Secondary School in the same locality.* (2) The gross cost of maintenance, apart from buildings, is usually estimated at about £6 to £9 a head, as compared with £12 to £15 in an ordinary Secondary School." The Government grants for the former average £3 a head, leaving a cost of, say, £3 to £6 to be met from local funds and fees. Fees will reduce this sum by about 30s. [£1.50] or rather less, and the sum remaining, £1 10s. to £4 10s. [£1.50 to £4.50], will be the net cost to the rates. In the case of Secondary Schools the corresponding net sum, supposing the fee to be £6, will work out at about £4 to £7.

The fact that the cost of the Higher Elementary School will fall on the elementary rate (Part III) instead of on the limited higher education rate (Part II) will also in county areas and non-county boroughs tell in favour of the establishment of such schools.† If we add to this that the mass of parents will prefer the school with lower fees, especially if it has a utilitarian character, we see that the local forces in favour of the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools where higher types of instruction are required will in future be very powerful.

In these districts the question whether both a Higher Elementary School and a Secondary School, or which of these two is desirable, will often be a difficult one. The Board of Education should secure that in no case is a Secondary School established where a Higher Elementary School only is required, and that a Higher Elementary School is not set up where there is obvious need for a Secondary School. We believe that in the national interest the Board of Education should reserve all absolute power of veto in these two cases, and should be in a position to confirm their policy by allocating substantially larger grants to Secondary Schools than to Higher Elementary Schools.‡

Where it is convenient that a Higher Elementary School in one area should be attended by children from an adjoining area, an arrangement should be entered into by the two authorities concerned in order that the authority

*See Appendix A. In the case of small schools the cost is naturally heavier than in the case of large schools.

†The provision in clause 29 of the 1906 Education Bill, while removing the limit on the amount which may be raised by the council of a county for the purposes of education other than elementary, is not likely in practice to affect the argument.

‡The substance of some very valuable evidence bearing especially on the financial question as it affects Secondary Schools and incidentally higher primary schools has been incorporated by Mr Ll. S. Lloyd, H.M.I., in an educational pamphlet published by the Board of Education.

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providing the school may receive due and proportionate assistance in the expense which the school entails.

(2) The rural problems more especially

Tho preceding considerations apply more especially to the organisation of higher primary education in towns of moderate size and a non-rural character. It will, however, be obvious that in the country it must often be very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain more than one school other than a Public Elementary School, because there are fewer children to provide for, the population is more scattered, class distinctions are less in number, and there is less money to spare. The Public Elementary Schools in the country are attended by children of more varied social classes than in the towns, and this diversity of need has to be met by a smaller number of schools. The consequent necessary diversity of function will extend to schools of a type immediately superior. It will, therefore, in many cases be desirable, even at the risk of some educational confusion, to combine the functions of a secondary school and a Higher Elementary School; not because the plan is ideal, but because it is the only practicable course. "In smaller places in Wales", a headmaster said, "the Intermediate School is to be preferred to the Higher Elementary School, because it can lead right up to the University as well as take children who are only working for two years."

The rural districts will not object to moderately high fees if there are plenty of free places, nor to the inclusion of foreign languages or even Latin, if English subjects, account-keeping, and manual work are properly taught. Such schools, we think, should not be forced by the offer of higher grants into taking really advanced science or mathematics, but a block grant based on their general efficiency should be allotted, and in consideration of the necessarily greater expense of these schools in proportion to their small numbers this grant might fairly be larger per head than that given to the lower types of Secondary School in a more populous district.

Supplementary courses

We believe, however, that the difficulty inherent in the rural problem may be solved in many instances, where the conversion of a lower secondary into a Higher Elementary School is undesirable, by a more satisfactory method. This method allows a differentiation between secondary and higher primary education without requiring the establishment of a separate Higher Elementary School. We refer to the system of Supplementary Courses which has been developed so successfully in Scotland. In Scotland the idea of a Supplementary Course is simple - "the pupil, having a pretty good knowledge of elementary subjects at the age or 12 or 13, if he or she is to stay another year or year and a half we think it best to let them sit down and consider what use they can make of this extra time." There is no real reason, however, why a Supplementary Course should not extend to three years and correspond in that respect exactly with the Higher Elementary School. In a purely rural district "one need not be very particular about the limits of age". Considerable elasticity might be allowed. "The problem is a fairly easy one because you know the individual circumstances of the child." The small scale upon which a Supplementary Course is conducted allows the individual treatment of each case, whereas in large schools this is impossible. We are inclined to think that in the country the Higher Elementary School type is rather too rigid. "You would not get sufficient numbers for a well thought out course on the lines suggested for the Higher Elementary School"; and, further, "the children, if they stop at school will stop for all sorts of reasons, and you must be able to adapt yourself to these conditions rather more freely". The opinion was expressed clearly by an Elementary School Inspector. "What are needed are Higher Elementary 'tops' to existing schools. You must find a really good school in a central place and put a good Higher Elementary 'top' to it. Take a central school in the country with, say, eight or nine villages within easy reach of it, you could not hope to draw more than 40 children from those villages. These numbers would not warrant the establishment of an independent school, though they might very well be grafted on to an existing school."

There were several of our witnesses who agreed that Supplementary Courses were possible and desirable where there was no room, in their opinion, for a Higher Elementary School. The grouping of the higher

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standards "would be a very good thing in the case of a very large number of rural elementary schools. The staff is not in a position to give sufficient attention to the upper standards ... the staff of the central school might be improved and strengthened." Girls and boys might be taught together in most subjects, but manual instruction should be provided for boys and housecraft for girls.

Such Supplementary Courses we recognise to possess disadvantages; though they seem to us to constitute a practical compromise of which the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The jealousy likely to arise between the schools with "tops" and those without might we believe be overcome, and the evidence went to show that it would not be serious in the rural areas. The difficulty also arises as to the precise relation of the Public Elementary School to the Supplementary Course; would the head teacher, for instance, of the Public Elementary School control the Supplementary Courses, or would the head teacher of the Supplementary Courses be also head teacher of the Public Elementary School? The effectiveness of the Supplementary Course, with its necessarily limited resources in staff and equipment, would not be equivalent to that of a separate Higher Elementary School. Those disadvantages, however, must, we believe, be discounted, in view of the general advantage to be gained. Particularly, it may be observed that the establishment of Supplementary Courses, offering higher salaries to good teachers, would encourage teachers of the better kind to take up work in the country, and thus help towards a state of things similar to that which to-day prevails in Scotland.

From the point of view of finance, Supplementary Courses are likely to be viewed with favour. The cost of building and maintaining a separate school will be avoided. A not inconsiderable sum paid for the travelling expenses of pupils attending Secondary Schools at a distance will be saved if the needs of these pupils are met by a Supplementary Course in their own neighbourhood. A reduction may also be effected in the amount expended on scholarships to Secondary Schools, when, as often, the Secondary School is less suited to the child than a school or course of the Higher Elementary type. Further, the Supplementary Course will naturally be supported out of Part III funds, and not out of the limited Part II rate. We recognise that the Scotch courses are at a great advantage in comparison with any that might be established in England in present conditions, since we have in this country no 50s. [£2.50] grant, payable, as in Scotland, in respect of each child attending a course of this kind. A Supplementary Course would at present receive no State aid beyond that payable upon children in Public Elementary Schools, and, failing a special grant for Supplementary Courses, we think that grant at the Higher Elementary School rate might well be paid in respect of children attending Supplementary Courses.

Endowments

In this connection we attach great importance to the suggestion that endowments, the funds from which are at the present time practically wasted (so far as education in the rural districts is concerned), might be utilised for the establishment and maintenance of Higher Elementary Schools and Supplementary Courses in such districts. In some parts of the country, we understand, more especially in the North, the farmers complain that they get nothing from the rates in respect of the higher education of their children, although it is upon them that the burden of the rates falls. They are often obliged, against their will, to send the children away to Secondary Schools in the towns, because in the district there is no school provision other than that afforded by the Public Elementary School. Many endowments are now applied to Public Elementary Schools which do not give instruction of a character advanced enough to profit children older that 12 or 13 years of age. With respect to the children desiring education beyond this age the endowments are wasted, nor in fact are they really needed for the Public Elementary Schools. This ground for dissatisfaction would to a great extent be removed if endowments were applied to Higher Elementary Schools and Supplementary Courses; and, further, something might thereby be done to check the exodus into the towns. The whole case was well put by an Elementary School Inspector. He said: "The farmers (with whom I may associate the

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village shopkeepers, station masters, etc.) complain that their sons have not the facilities for education that they and their fathers had. Forty or fifty years ago there were many free grammar schools in the country villages, at which boys were educated up to the age of 16 or 17, receiving a fair grounding in Latin, mathematics, and other branches of a liberal education (as the phrase was understood then). Nearly all these have been converted into Public Elementary Schools, and their endowments have, as a rule, been used for the support of elementary education. Again, the farmers complain that, though the burden of the rates (under the new* Act) falls chiefly upon them, they get little benefit from it; for the Public Elementary Schools, to which most of them must perforce send their children when young, cannot educate them beyond the age of 12 or 13, and yet they cannot afford to send them as boarders to the few towns in which there are efficient Secondary Schools (unless, indeed, the children are able to win scholarships, and even then the farmers object to sending them away to towns of any size, for they know that after spending three or four years in such towns the children will be unwilling to return to farm life). The consequence is that in too many cases the older children are sent to inefficient private schools in the nearest market town. Farmers have often told Mr. H------- that they do not want their children to work on the farm till they are 16 or 17, but they are at a loss to know what to do with them up to that age, their dilemma being that if they are to be properly educated they must go to distant towns, and that (apart from the question of expense) residence in such towns will probably breed in them a distaste for farm life."

The difficulties in the way of the application of small endowments are, we believe, less serious now than they have been in the past, and, whatever the difficulties, they are likely to be less grave if it is proposed to apply the funds to the improvement of elementary education in a particular locality rather than to Secondary Schools at some distance away. We understand that the Board of Education are prepared to sanction the use of endowments for this purpose, and that the endowments can be so utilised without danger of appropriation under section 13(1) of the Act of 1902. The organisation of education made possible by the Act, and the merging of the Charity Commission in the Board of Education, have also contributed to remove the causes of failure which have operated to the prejudice of Supplementary Courses and upper departments established in the past. As stated in the report of the Bryce Commission, the failure of Supplementary Courses was due to the fact that they were established in a particular place simply because there happened to be an endowment in that place, and not because there was need; such courses were established also, not by a Local Education Authority, organising all education within the area, but by a body which possessed no adequate means of following their working by educational or even by regular administrative inspection; in addition, the greatest difficulty was experienced in obtaining teachers capable of conducting elementary and higher elementary work. The last difficulty still remains, but the other, the most serious difficulties, have been removed. We believe that the good sense of trustees, and the growing influence of the Local Education Authorities upon the organisation of education in their areas, will in time resolve the difficulties that no doubt exist at present in the way of "pooling" endowments. The path of Higher Elementary Schools and Supplementary Courses will probably constitute the path of least resistance to this end.

(3) Problem more particularly in the larger towns

In the county boroughs and the large towns generally the problems, both administrative and educational, connected with Higher Elementary Schools are far simpler than they appear to be in the rural districts and smaller towns. The existence of one authority responsible for all education in its area changes the whole position. Witnesses with special knowledge of the great centres of population have been all of the same opinion, that the danger of competition is slight and easily guarded against, and that in these towns there is an actual demand for new Higher Elementary Schools at the present moment. We have already referred to the fact that the London authority have in view the establishment of a number of Higher Elementary

*Meaning the Act of 1902.

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Schools. There is the same need for more of these schools in Manchester. In some of the larger towns in Devonshire we were told that there was room for new Higher Elementary Schools. The greater number of children, the denser population, the facilities of communication, and the more clearly marked differences in society and in educational needs, permit a greater number of schools with different and distinct functions to work side by side. It is in the larger towns that attempts have already been made with clearer intention than elsewhere to supply higher primary schools, because the need has been felt in the towns more acutely and pressingly than in the country. At the same time the existing provision is very inadequate in character and amount, and a proper organisation of higher primary education will entail the conversion of certain lower "Secondary" Schools into Higher Elementary Schools, in the way that has already been discussed in dealing with the problem elsewhere. It is also most desirable that the better Higher Grade Schools should be converted. It would often not only be of advantage educationally to effect this conversion, but it would relieve the Local Education Authority of considerable expenditure incurred in the maintenance of a kind of school which, while more expensive than a Public Elementary School, can only claim grant as such.

Separate schools: not Supplementary Courses

The conditions in the large towns appear to us to be such that as it is desirable so it will be possible to set up Higher Elementary Schools, and not to admit a compromise by establishing Supplementary Courses, or "tops". Officials representing London and Manchester have agreed that in large towns such "tops" are undesirable. "My impression is", said the London witness, "that it would be unwise to encourage a number of Supplementary Courses in ordinary graded schools in London. The effect would certainly be that the teachers would want to show that their children could do at least as well as, if not better than, those in a Higher Elementary School. There would be jealousy, and it would be best not to encourage rivalry of that kind." An Elementary School Inspector agreed: "We have too many attempts at those 'tops' now. Many of the classes in which children have been prepared for the Oxford and Cambridge Locals have made very unsatisfactory higher elementary 'tops', and it is much better to send the children to separate Higher Elementary Schools, where the work can be properly organised". On general grounds there can be no question that separate schools are likely to produce the best results; though we conceive that even in the towns there may be cases where a Supplementary Course is the better solution of the question. A Supplementary Course in the same building as a Public Elementary School has certainly the advantage that it encourages a child to stay at school; because no break in the school course is suggested to the parents, as it might be if the child had to be transferred from the Public Elementary School to a Higher Elementary School in another building. A mechanical obstacle would in this way be avoided. On the whole, however, we think that Supplementary Courses should be confined to the country districts and small towns.

Types of schools and courses

The greater differentiation of school function in the towns, combined with the larger size of the Higher Elementary School, will permit as we have already suggested in a previous section of this report, "commercial" and "industrial" courses in the same school, or even Higher Elementary Schools of "commercial" and "industrial" type. Probably only with a Higher Elementary School of "commercial" type would the lower secondary school - a Secondary School able to maintain at least, and probably more than, the four years' course required by the Board's regulations - come into conflict. The two kinds of "clerks", those that enter an office at 15 and those who enter an office at a rather later age, are provided for in the one case by the Higher Elementary School and in the other by the lower Secondary School, and care would have to be exercised by the organising authority to see that the Higher Elementary School did not harm the other type of school. This danger would also arise in the smaller towns, but it is in the larger towns that it would probably be more obvious. It will there be particularly necessary to prevent Higher Elementary Schools from developing, as Higher Grade Schools have tended to develop, into pseudo-Secondary Schools.

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Incidental benefit to Secondary Schools, Elementary Schools and Technical Schools

From the preceding paragraphs it will be clear that the organisation of the higher primary field and the determination of its recognised limits must re-act favourably upon the Secondary Schools. The total number of children in Secondary Schools which receive grant under the Secondary School Regulations is larger than the number of children in respect of whom this grant is paid, and by removing those children who do not complete the full four years' course from the Secondary Schools, local funds will be released and the amount remaining will then be all available for aiding secondary education proper. At the same time the aim of the Secondary School will emerge into greater clearness. It will be, also, an educational advantage to reduce the size of many Secondary Schools, so far as the reduction of size does not prejudice their efficient and economical working. Classes will be smaller and more homogeneous. Similarly, as regards the Higher Grade Schools, their conversion into Higher Elementary Schools would give greater distinctness to the limits of primary education, and would relieve the Local Education Authorities of a burden more strictly chargeable the State. While the presence of a number of Higher Elementary Schools will help to fill the gap existing between the Public Elementary Schools and the Technical Institutes and Evening Schools and classes, the work of which is retarded by the insufficient preparation of the lads who attend them.

Summary of conclusions

We may summarise our conclusions briefly as follows, though they must of course be read in connection with the considerations set out in this section of our report:

(1) In the villages and in small towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants it is in our view undesirable that Higher Elementary Schools should be established. The need for higher primary instruction must in such areas be met as in Scotland by Supplementary Courses in elementary schools. The need for intermediate or secondary instruction must be met by one general higher school, called, for the lack of a more precise term, the secondary school. The regulations for this type of rural secondary school, which must be of an inclusive kind, should be different from those affecting a secondary school in a large town.

(2) It is in the large towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants that we recognise the need for the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools. In the large towns of this size schools of many types can exist side by side without overlapping or waste.

(3) The towns of between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants present, however, many difficult problems as to whether Higher Elementary Schools or secondary schools or both should be maintained, and it will lie with the Board of Education and the local education authority to deal carefully with each particular case arising in areas of this kind and to decide it on its merits, taking into consideration not only the educational need but also the present school provision and the history of the development and organisation of education in the place. The Supplementary Course in elementary schools may in some cases be found desirable in towns of this character.

In this following section of our report we propose to deal with the means by which a Higher Elementary School performs the function that we have tried to indicate. We propose also to suggest some methods for securing that a Higher Elementary School in any given case shall not deviate from its proper aim, and that as far as possible it shall perform its function effectively.

Importance of the question of teachers

We have already in preceding sections of this report referred to the important part which must in every case be played by the teachers in a Higher Elementary School of the kind that we have been at pains to describe. Our conception is based upon the character of the teaching; the

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teachers are the essence of the school. Not only will it fall to them to work out and realise what is practically a new school, but they will he charged with a difficult kind of teaching. It is, in fact, the difference of aim governing the curriculum and methods of teaching in a higher primary school that differentiates it from a secondary school. The subjects of instruction in a higher primary school and a secondary school might even be the same, and yet in the higher primary school the difference in the length of the school training, and the difference in the kind of life and livelihood that the pupil is prepared for, must so influence the school course that the teaching in higher primary schools cannot but differ from the teaching in a secondary school. And this difference the teachers must keep in mind.

Function of the teachers in preserving the aim of the school

There is always the danger to be faced that a higher primary school, under the influence of an ambitious headmaster and staff may gradually tend to develop into a pseudo-secondary school. If it is not clear to the teachers what the function of a Higher Elementary School essentially is, energy and ambition are too likely to result in an attempt both conscious and unconscious to give the school a secondary character, and thus to miss the real point, the maximum efficiency of the school within definite limits. On the other hand, a headmaster and staff imbued with the traditions of a Public Elementary School may tend to perpetuate in the Higher Elementary School the tradition of formal routine, and of "chalk and talk" that the Higher Elementary School should make every effort to escape. Between the two dangers lies the undeveloped province which the higher primary schools of the future may be hoped to fill.

The whole of the two preceding sections of our report have gone to show what is the theoretical difference between the three kinds of school - primary, higher primary, and secondary - that are in question, but it may be well to recall how confused at present is the distinction between the two last, and to consider how much will depend on the teachers in securing that any new Higher Elementary Schools remain true to type. With new schools, which must remain true to type if their establishment (or conversion) is not to cause further confusion, and to postpone the ultimate possibility of an educational system, it is necessary that from the first the teachers should be capable of grasping the purpose that the school is to fulfil, and be able to stamp its true character upon any particular school of the kind. The conception of the difference of aim between a secondary school and a Higher Elementary School is fundamental. Yet, however clearly it may be recognised by the organising authorities, the teachers themselves have to make it actual.

The kind of teachers wanted

The teacher that is wanted is one who can teach his subject or subjects with his eyes always upon the immediate relation to practical life of the knowledge which he is trying to impart, and yet without losing sight of the purely educative value of his teaching. He must strive first of all to make the children observe and think, to develop the right habits and attitudes of mind, letting the acquisition of knowledge take care of itself. He must try to get them to see that theory and practice are bound up together, and that school work has a direct relation to life work. He must try to teach them that their knowledge may be applied and how to apply it. He must attempt, in fact, to inculcate by every method at his disposal those qualities of the character and and the mind that we have stated to be, in our belief, the most important and most desiderated [desired] in the case of children who are provided for by Higher Elementary Schools. All the subjects of instruction will take a colour from the aim of the school. What the subjects are matters far less than the way in which they are taught. If Higher Elementary Schools are to be successful, the teachers employed must be good enough to give this type of school a fair practical start, and to prove that higher primary education of the kind suggested has a reality of its own. In any case, our conception of the function of a Higher Elementary School is based upon the capacity of the teacher. He alone can preserve the salutary mean between an education purely academic and an education tending more and more to technology and trade instruction to be patched, no doubt, from time to time, as we have observed in the case of the Organised Science Schools, by the insertion of "English" subjects. The Higher Elementary School, as we understand it,

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is not, and never should be - indeed, cannot be - a balance of "subjects"; it is a school affording a general education in continuation of the Public Elementary School course marked by a practical character. This practical character or bent must be given in the teaching. We should have to look, as a witness said, "to the intelligence of the individual teacher to affect the course". "So long as the teacher keeps in view the cultivation and training of the mental powers I do not care what occupation he puts the boy to for the purpose of attaining that end." "How do you propose", another witness was asked, "to cultivate those habits [of thought]?" "That is purely a question of the teacher. It is the way you teach rather than what you teach." With this opinion we are entirely at one.

"However good the men are", said a witness, "they cannot be too good for the sort of work I have been trying to suggest."

The question of supply: the class of teacher

It remains, of course, to be seen whether the right kind of teacher can be found. In any case, the question of the supply of teachers for Higher Elementary Schools is an urgent and pressing one. "To supply the schools before providing the teachers would be to kill the schools. The two things must go together, and it is quite useless to establish the schools until you have a prospect of getting teachers for them." How, then, are the bulk of the teachers to be obtained? Are they to be drawn from the ranks of elementary school teachers, either teaching or in training, or from the teachers in secondary schools? The evidence on this point is definite and contradictory. On the one hand, a number of witnesses have declared their opinion that the teachers for these schools should be found, and could be found, among teachers in the elementary schools. On the other hand, we had the view strongly expressed that suitable teachers must be looked for outside the elementary schools. Probably it is true to say that the character and ability of the individual teacher is the important thing, and not the class or profession of teachers, elementary or secondary, to which he is supposed to belong. The close connection of the Higher Elementary School with the Public Elementary School does indeed suggest that a man who has had experience in an ordinary Public Elementary School is likely to make a good teacher in a Higher Elementary School, in so far as he had opportunity of understanding the ways of the elementary school boy; provided that this experience has not, as a witness feared, crystallised his opinions, and rendered him incapable of adapting his mind and teaching methods to another and different kind of school.

The individual more important than the class

Our view, that in all cases the individual must be considered before taking into account the class of teachers of which he is a member, was admirably suggested by the headmistress of a higher grade school, who said: "First of all I look for a teacher who is thoroughly sympathetic with child-life and who has continued her studies since leaving college. I prefer someone who has made a hobby of some part of her work. I find such a teacher is enthusiastic, and the chances are that she will deal with the children sympathetically, and a sympathy with and knowledge of child-nature is so necessary. She must get interested in the children or she can do nothing. I am so catholic in my desire to get teachers of this kind that I have had teachers from training colleges who had been pupil teachers in elementary schools, teachers not trained at all, and teachers from secondary schools. I have, therefore, had a wide experience of varied types of teachers, and have found that, no matter what the teacher knew, if she had but little sympathy with children and no knowledge of the conditions in which they lived, she failed. Lack of knowledge of the children's surroundings is quite fatal." Such teachers are obviously not common anywhere. The fact that a man is a competent teacher in a Public Elementary School does not necessarily mean that he would make a good teacher in a Higher Elementary School. For a Higher Elementary School is needed "educated men who can approach the question with sufficient freshness of mind to learn how this teaching should be done." The rank and file of teachers, elementary or secondary, would include many who altogether lack this freshness. The teacher who is quite out of place is the sort of man picturesquely described to us by a witness: "We engaged a very excellent man to teach writing and composition. I told him to set them a test in composition, to teach

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them to write a decent letter applying for a post, or to report on the business supposing they were left in charge while their chief was away. I actually found the man doing this: I found him telling them to apply for an advance, and saying that the best way to do this would be to ask for 'an increment in remuneration'." "I think he is a very good man", said the witness; "I have not a word to say against him in other ways; but this was his idea. The idea of another man I had was this: I wanted him to teach writing and composition, and he proceeded to do so by putting sentences on the board and making the boys copy them, e.g., Distance lends enchantment to the view. So it does - to people who have seen a good many views, but things of this sort do not interest these lads." The pre-eminent importance of awakening interest, of counteracting the formality and routine of the Public Elementary School, can only be reiterated here; we have already referred to it. "Text-book methods" and "verbal realism" must be avoided. The need is for more life in the teaching, for a more lively and adaptable spirit in the teachers.

Arguments against elementary teachers in Higher Elementary Schools

It was, perhaps, with too strong an emphasis, if the whole country be taken into account, that a witness declared the difficulty of staffing Higher Elementary Schools from the ranks of the elementary teachers. He said: "I have only to say that the greatest hindrance to the development of Higher Elementary Schools will be the difficulty of finding suitably equipped persons as teachers, and I not think we shall find such persons among the teachers of our elementary school system. If I look for headmasters, the headmasters of 20 years' experience are so impregnated with the conditions of ordinary elementary schools that it is very difficult for them to think about being freed from the trammels they have been accustomed to all their lives. In some cases their minds are divided into compartments labelled 'Standard so and so', and in each compartment there is a certain course of instruction. I think we shall have at first to pick out our staff for these schools largely from those trained in day training colleges who have had a superior education, and in future we shall have to create our own supply of teachers by training them from an early age. In this respect schools like the Battersea Polytechnic Day School may prove very valuable by affording boys an insight into industrial occupations, while they can give them a sound education as far as a knowledge of one modern language is concerned, but boys who have been through a school like Battersea Polytechnic, have attended laboratory courses for several years, and are afterwards trained in the day training college, - these are the boys I would like as assistant and head masters in the industrial departments of Higher Elementary Schools" Not that he did not recognise a number of instances where elementary teachers had proved themselves exactly the right men for schools other than elementary, and he cited several schools in London of the lower secondary type which have been largely and successfully staffed with such teachers. At the same time the difficulty exists of finding teachers "with a mind open enough to adapt themselves to any curriculum different from that to which they have been accustomed. At present the teachers acquire a certain stock-in-trade and they think this can be used anywhere." "My difficulty is to find teachers of sufficient breadth of view to act as headmasters or as class teachers, who can draw illustrations in subjects with which the boys are to be made familiar in their later technical course."

Advantages of staffing Higher Elementary Schools with elementary teachers

Nevertheless, the close connection between the Higher Elementary School and the Public Elementary School will, in our opinion, make it desirable, so far as is consistent with the aims we have outlined, to draw teachers from the elementary school system. "The Higher Elementary School", said an Elementary School Inspector, "ought to be staffed by elementary teachers of the best grade in order to maintain continuity with the Public Elementary School." As another witness said: "I think the teachers in Higher Elementary Schools should be certificated teachers under the Board of Education. These are the teachers best qualified to do the work of schools of this type." The teachers in these schools should be well acquainted with the sort of boys entering the school and with the conditions of their previous education. This experience by itself would not be enough; it would need supplementing

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by special capacity and very possibly by special training of some kind. But the Higher Elementary School is a part of the elementary school system and would naturally draw its teachers from the system to which it belongs. We have reason also to think that elementary teachers are becoming more capable of grappling with such new problems as the Higher Elementary School presents. As the Inspector just mentioned told us, "I think there is a very remarkable change coming over the elementary teachers now. They are gradually beginning to realise that the Board has given them freedom, and a class is growing up which is trying to make use of that freedom. I have been struck very much with this in the North. Many of the teachers are working in trammels there, owing to their having antiquated head teachers, I suppose. In the old days we did our best to keep them in grooves. But nowadays many of the teachers are trying to get themselves out of these grooves. There is much more thought given to the subject now than ever there was before. The teachers are working on lines that mean making the children study. They are gradually abandoning the old regime of chalk and talk which has gone on for so long and making the children get up work for themselves and do the work for themselves. However good the teachers are they really can no more do the work of education for a child than they can do the work of digestion for the child. Gradually, I think, teachers are coming to realise the truth of this and are no longer bound by the old standards and trammels." This is encouraging testimony.

Instances of school staffing

That a very great number of the teaching posts in existing higher primary schools, whether "Higher Elementary School" or "Secondary School" or "Higher Grade School" are held by teachers trained for the work of elementary education is well known. As instances, we may cite the case of a Municipal Secondary School, where nearly half the teachers, two out of every five, are certificated; or of a Higher Elementary School, the headmaster of which informed us that all the regular staff, amounting to eleven, held the Board's certificate. None of these men have taken a degree, though all have passed some examination leading to a degree. Of the four mistresses in the girls' school, forming a part of this Higher Elementary School, one is a graduate of Dublin, one obtained First-Class Honours in History at Oxford, one is L.L.A. of St. Andrews, and the fourth has had three years' training. As a rule, the teachers in this school have had experience in a Public Elementary School previously. Such facts point to our conclusion that the bulk of the teachers should come, and will come, from among persons certificated by the Board, that they should be the best of their profession, but that the staff of a Higher Elementary School need not necessarily be confined to one class, any more than is the present staff of lower Secondary Schools and existing Higher Elementary Schools. They should not, as a witness said, be "a separate caste". Indeed, a certain mixture of elements in the staff, controlled by a competent and imaginative headmaster, may be in itself desirable as likely, through the interplay of varying ideals, to produce a more vigorous and flexible unity.

Benefit to elementary school profession generally

And there is another strong though indirect reason for appointing elementary school teachers. As an Elementary School Inspector pointed out, these posts "would be the plums of the public elementary scholastic profession, and I think they would help to give a general lift to the profession, give them something to aim at, something to hope for, and something to work for. Of late we have been taking away from the elementary teachers all their higher and more interesting work: we have taken away from them virtually the specific subjects, and we have taken away from them the instruction of pupil teachers. We are keeping them down now to an entirely lower level of work - whether rightly or wrongly I will not say - but still, we are doing it; and I am inclined to think it is a mistake that it should be universally done. I think there ought to be something for them to look up to and to look forward to and to aim at. I think the establishment of Higher Elementary Schools would give them a renewed interest in life, and I think the elementary teachers who had got university degrees would probably be the men who would be the more suitable for this kind of work."

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If we want good teachers we must give them interesting work; if they are to interest their pupils the work must first interest them.

Possible steps towards securing a supply

It is clear then that the best elementary teachers will furnish the greater part of the personnel. Can any steps he taken to train them specially for the work?

However desirable in theory, an elaborate system of training will for the present, at any rate, be unnecessary since the demand for Higher Elementary School teachers is likely to be small at first, and gradually, but only gradually, to grow larger. It is not probable that many entirely new schools will he established in the near future, though we believe that when new schools, other than elementary, are required, a Higher Elementary School will in a very great number of cases be more useful than a secondary school. "I do not anticipate a very large demand ... I think the need could be met without much difficulty", an Inspector said, and he was speaking of schools of a rather more definitely "commercial" or "industrial" type than we should as a general rule be inclined to encourage, except possibly in the larger towns. Another Inspector held a similar opinion - the supply would equal the demand. "It would be", he said, "a case of supply and demand. The greater the demand and the more the posts are worth holding the more teachers are likely to look forward to them, and aim at them themselves." The system of Higher Elementary Schools, however, "would take a long time to establish: It "will only arise little by little". Thus, at present, we may hope that among the teachers actually serving there would be a sufficient number capable of effective work in a Higher Elementary School. Certain of them, no doubt, would find it necessary to acquire additional qualifications in knowledge. For instance, "if they were not good enough to start with, they would have to educate themselves to teach more advanced mathematics than in the ordinary elementary school, and so forth." But such qualification would be acquired individually and automatically if the end were worth the trouble. "If they once had these prizes to look forward to the teachers would take more pains to qualify themselves." The realisation of the teaching problem presented in a Higher Elementary School, which is in itself of paramount importance, need not, we think, mean more than a moderate intellectual effort in the case of teachers who have preserved some mental suppleness. " Yes, we can get people of sufficient breadth of mind to learn the work, certainly," an Inspector assured us. "I have seen teachers learning this work in evening schools, and once they have grasped the problem they can do it." For the teaching of scientific subjects good material would probably be found among men trained as elementary teachers, who have yet been able to take science degrees at some of the newer universities, and may now be occupying posts in so-called secondary and Higher Grade schools.

Some practical suggestions

At the same time it may be useful to indicate some possible methods of adding to, or modifying, the training of teachers in view of the needs of Higher Elementary Schools that are likely in the future to be set up in larger numbers:

(i) The training colleges might, with advantage, institute lectures in the aim and problems of Higher Elementary Schools, and arrange to supplement and illustrate this course by practice, where possible, in schools which already approximate to the type of Higher Elementary School that it is proposed to establish. Even if they do no more, at any rate the training college authorities should keep in mind the possibility of such posts and the qualities fitting teachers to hold them.

(ii) In the case of teachers with a definite bent towards science and technology, the third year of training contemplated in section 4, page vii, of the Training College Regulations (1905), could well be devoted to the purpose of a special course in connection with suitable technical institutions or polytechnics. In some cases this third year might, with advantage, be allowed, not, as normally, immediately after the two years' course, but as in the case of a third year abroad, after a period of teaching experience. At the

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present juncture it would be more important to allow it for teachers already engaged in schools who are willing to give the necessary time. Similarly the policy suggested in section 21 (a) and (b) of the same Regulations could also be utilised and the principle extended. Those students who are exempted would he enabled to specialise in part with a view to technical studies. In every case one definite form of skill should be combined with a varied acquaintance with the problems and prospects of industrial life. The main object to secure is the development of a habit of mind and intelligent interest in such problems as they arise.

(iii) It is also suggested that an additional year spent in the study of industrial and commercial problems in the actual workshops and places of business concerned would also supply a valuable means of supplementary training, for which facilities might be secured. The evidence on this point is, however, conflicting. While one witness declared "you will have to have teachers who are trained as teachers all round, but they must have some knowledge as to the occupations in which those boys (and also girls in certain kindred subjects) are to be trained", and expressed the belief that "employers of labour, whether in offices or in manufactories in the textile trades or in the iron trades, would welcome a request from young persons who desired to enter their establishments for the sake of observing things on a large scale, or for the purpose of making inquiries"; practical workshop experience was not thought essential by another witness; though the teacher need not be a man with practical experience "he should be a man possessing or capable of an intelligent knowledge of what goes on in workshops". An inspector, again, stated that he did "not think the ordinary certificated teacher, unless he has had some practical experience of the work in which artisans are engaged, or has had some practical experience on commercial lines, would really be a satisfactory teacher in this type of school". But it must not be forgotten that our conception of such a school is of a school less technical and less specialised in the subjects of its curriculum (though not in its aim) than the sort of school that we believe some of our witnesses had in mind, and that the manner and method of teaching are, in our view, of far greater importance than any practical experience on the teacher's part of the actual conditions in the factory or business office; provided that the teacher is a person of some imagination, and is not hidebound by a purely academic tradition. We believe that in this country, as in Scotland, much might be trusted to "the intelligent teacher who has got his eyes open". The higher the standard of general intelligence produced by the training' colleges, and what comes before the training college, the easier it will be to staff Higher Elementary Schools.

An attempt at classification

Classified, then, with regard to educational antecedents, the teachers in Higher Elementary Schools would fall into classes somewhat of the following kinds:

*(i) Persons who have been trained as elementary school teachers and whose special ability and capacity for adaptation, as shown by their actual service in elementary schools, fits them for appointment in Higher Elementary Schools. Some of them may possibly be graduates.

(ii) Persons who very possibly have not passed through a training college but have had experience in lower secondary schools (Division A or B schools or municipal secondary schools), possibly in some cases graduates, probably of the newer universities. These teachers

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may be expected to have picked up from their experience a knowledge of the difficulties and problems to be met in such schools.

(iii) Persons who have gone through the regular training college course and have availed themselves of the suggested facilities for a special study of the problems presented by Higher Elementary Schools and have taken part of their practice in schools of this kind. Some of those teachers might be appointed direct into Higher Elementary Schools upon obtaining their certificate. For the rest of their training as teachers they would depend on the help and direction that the headmaster might be able to give them.

(iv) Persons who have been trained in a training college, with a view to possible appointment in a Higher Elementary School, and have for this purpose spent a year in a polytechnic or in a workshop or house of business.

(v) Persons who may be appointed to teach "special" subjects such as advanced carpentry or some kind of metal work, or the more advanced branches of housecraft. Some of these will be men and women who have taken up teaching comparatively late after experience in practical life. They may, nevertheless, make good members of the staff, acting in co-operation with the regular teachers.

Before concluding this section of our report we would draw attention to two points remaining - the desirability of teachers as far as possible confining themselves to one subject or group of related subjects, and, secondly, the need of expending more money on the adequate training of teachers and in the payment of higher salaries. There ought to be, as an Elementary School Inspector said, in reference to the teacher's function, "more specialisation", less expectation that the teacher should teach everything, more opportunity for a teacher to take the children in what he may most affect. As to the second point it must be clear that the better education of teachers will mean increased expenditure. "I think a large expenditure will have to be incurred in England yet", said a witness, "in cultivating and training teachers properly." We do not think that any expenditure incurred for this purpose, can, if it be rightly administered, constitute anything but a most productive national investment.

The question of curriculum, though less important than the question of teachers, is, of course, an important one and we have already indicated in a broad and general way the lines that we believe the curriculum of a Higher Elementary School should take.* It is conditioned chiefly by its close connection with the Public Elementary School curriculum which it develops and from which it evolves, by the shortness of the school course, and by the need of giving a practical bearing to the school instruction as a whole. In the "Suggestions for Teachers" the Board have already discussed the teaching of the subjects referred to below and their educative value. The suggestions appear to us to be as applicable to Higher Elementary Schools as to other elementary schools, and consequently no attempt is made in this report to traverse the ground which the suggestions have already so admirably covered.

The curriculum to include -
(1) Humanistic subjects

The curriculum must, as we have already said in Section III, be simple and well-defined in range. It should in all cases give a prominent place to the study of English, to the language as a means of expression, both oral and written, and as an aid to precision of thought. Exercises in practical forms of composition, letter and précis writing, and frequent practice in oral composition, to which we attach great weight, should be included. It is of

*The remarks here made are to be read in connection with our observations in Section III of this report. We take the term "curriculum" to mean, for our present purpose, the subjects taught and the proportion of school time given to each.

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the first importance to cultivate the power of expression; and not only the "English" part of the curriculum, but the "science" part also, may be made a means to this end. The study of the language will imply some introduction to English literature, to which the school course must look for the greatest part of its humanising influence. Probably there will be little time to devote to literature as such, but its value as a means of widening interests and sympathies and as indicating a field for further reading, cannot be over-estimated. As subsidiary subjects will be included some study of history and geography, though the amount of time given to these subjects will necessarily be limited. Both are closely correlated, and may often be taught as one subject. The history teaching should aim at giving the children some notion of the past as a background to the present, illustrated more particularly from the history of this country and of their own district. The geography teaching should indicate the way in which physical conditions affect political and social relations in given places. In commercial centres these subjects might be so handled as to throw light upon the commercial activities of the place.

(2) Science subjects

English language and literature, history and geography, will make up the humanistic part of the course. The scientific part will include arithmetic as applied to practical calculations, and taught in conjunction with the elements of algebra and the principles of geometry - both of these branches being correlated with one another, and their application to practice kept constantly in mind. Account-keeping should, as we have said, take the place of any instruction in a particular system of book-keeping. Graphical methods of calculation are likely to be especially useful to children attending Higher Elementary Schools, and in all schools the elements of mensuration should be taught. Besides this instruction in mathematics, the scientific part of the curriculum should include instruction in elementary natural science, not so much as "chemistry", or "physics", or "mechanics" but as some elementary practice in the methods by which we arrive at a knowledge of the commoner chemical and physical properties of bodies. The teaching of this elementary science may well be illustrated where necessary by simple and obvious references to the application of chemical or physical or mechanical theory in industries or occupations with which the children are familiar or with which they are likely to become well acquainted. Simple experiments, performed where possible by the children themselves, should accompany this theoretical instruction. In all cases, however, it is desirable that a beginning should be made with concrete objects, and not with abstract principles, with common substances or things rather than with elements. In the country it may often be well to use nature study as the main channel of this sort of teaching. But whatever the subject, "nature study", or "chemistry", or "physics", or "mechanics", the important feature of the science teaching will consist in showing the children the relation of these sciences to many everyday things and processes.

(3) Manual work

There remains manual instruction. Here again we desire to emphasise our view that manual instruction, whatever form or forms it may take in a particular school, should always be regarded as one subject, intended to train generally the use of the hand, eye, and brain together, and not primarily as several separate subjects, that is, as a means of instructing the children in "carpentry", or "clay-modelling", or "lathe-work", or any other special skill, except in quite a subordinate sense. This is, of course, analogous to what has been said about the teaching of literary subjects or of science in the Higher Elementary School. There should be no rigid line of demarcation separating the subjects of manual instruction. The aim of the teaching of each is identical, namely, to practise the hand and eye together, and it is hardly material from this point of view which branch of manual instruction is taught and which branch is not taught. Other reasons, however, such as the greater degree of manual control needed for working in metal, and questions of expense, will always be present to affect the arrangement of the curriculum in practice. In the third year, for instance, it may be desirable to add metal work (filing, chipping, elementary lathe-work) to the wood-work and clay-modelling of the first two years. This, however, is a matter upon which generalisation is impossible. It is of course

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very important that children who are likely to go into industrial occupations should have learnt to work with their hands, and have acquired some power of using tools. Even in a Higher Elementary School of a "commercial type" some manual instruction should be included in the curriculum. Probably in the majority of schools eight hours a week of manual instruction in the first two years, and rather more in the last year, would be the proper amount; but, discretion in this matter must be left to the teachers and the Local Education Authority. Under manual instruction we include drawing, both freehand, model, and, to a lesser extent, geometrical and mechanical - in fact, all those subjects which train the use of the hand, eye, and brain together. We hold very strongly that, as in the case of the rest of the curriculum, as much correlation as possible between the various subjects and parts of subjects should be encouraged. To drawing we attach great importance as affording excellent training in the use of hand and eye together, and for the opportunities it offers of evoking and developing artistic feeling as well as for its practical usefulness in all branches of constructive work.

Suggestions as to time to be given to each

It is, as we have said, impossible, and would be undesirable, owing to the varying needs of different schools, to suggest actual time tables; but for the first two years at any rate, in a week of 28 to 30 hours, 8 or 10 hours might be devoted to religious instruction, literary subjects, and class singing, 8 or 10 hours to mathematics and science, 8 hours to manual work and drawing, and at least 2 hours to physical training - the last carefully adapted to the age and physical condition of the children, more particularly in the case of girls, in whose case physical exercises should always be conducted, or at any rate supervised, by a woman, possessed, where possible, of special qualification. When a modern language is taken, less time probably should be devoted to mathematics, science, and manual work; no deduction from the time given to literary subjects can be afforded to make room for so special a subject as a modern foreign language.

Domestic courses for girls

The domestic course for girls should he planned with a view to the development of the pupils' interest, intelligence, and skill in the management of a home. Such development implies:

(1) A sense of duties in domestic matters shown in a desire to serve and to take responsibility.

(2) A scientific attitude of mind in dealing with domestic problems as they arise, i.e. a practical consciousness of cause and effect in common things;

(3) Sufficient skill and particular knowledge in the special domestic arts, as cooking, washing, house cleaning, needlework, and house finance.

The second consideration points to courses of study dealing with common domestic problems, and indicating how they may be solved. This course of domestic science, or, as it might he called, "Studies in Domestic Problems", subdivides itself along natural lines of cleavage into:

(i) Hygiene, including problems of ventilation, clothing, food values, etc.

(ii) Domestic Economy, including problems of heating, lighting, different kinds of cooking and cleaning, etc.

(iii) Domestic Finance, including accounts, comparison of prices, etc.

In the country a love of gardening may be encouraged, and a practical course of instruction may with advantage be provided. This should include the cultivation of flowers as well as vegetables. Much liberty should be left to the schools in the proposals of syllabuses for approval, but every scheme of housecraft teaching should provide for the triple educational development suggested above.

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Conditions of admission and leaving

We are disposed to approve the present regulations in section 39 of the Code, limiting the admission to Higher Elementary Schools to children who are not less than 12 years of age at the date of admission, and have been for at least two years previously in a Public Elementary School. But we think that both these limits might "be relaxed" in special cases by H.M. Inspector, who should also have the power to disallow the admission or discontinue the attendance of any pupil who is clearly unfit to proceed with the course. Where a child is admitted by special permission at the age of 11 he should he allowed to stay to the age of 15 plus, which would be the ordinary leaving age for children at these schools.

It may be observed in this connection that the awarding of Junior County Scholarships in some local areas at the age of 11 plus might make it more convenient to admit children from the Public Elementary School to the Higher Elementary School before the age of 12. The scholarships are tenable in Secondary Schools. To admit children to the Higher Elementary Schools at the age at which others pass into Secondary Schools might be of advantage in the organisation of the Public Elementary School and its work. In such cases a preparatory department consisting of children (on whom grant at the Public Elementary School rate and not the Higher Elementary School rate might be paid) between the ages of 11 plus and 12 plus would feed the Higher Elementary School. Children who at 12 plus showed themselves unfit to continue the course would remain in the Public Elementary School.

Entrance examination

It is not intended by the Code that Higher Elementary Schools should be open to all children who have attended a Public Elementary School to the age of 12, but only to those who show that they are capable of profiting by a course of further instruction. Some test is therefore required to make selection possible, and all the evidence that we have heard is in favour of employing one. The headmistress of a Higher Grade School pointed out that originally the arrangement had been to draft all the scholars in Standard VII of contributory schools into the Higher Grade School; the arrangement, however, proved impracticable, and an entrance examination was instituted. In Scotland, admission to an Intermediate School is limited to those who pass a qualifying examination, which cannot be taken before the age of 12, and is "simply a test of a reasonably complete elementary education". Before admission to the Higher Elementary School in Hornsey children must pass a written examination, though some weight attaches to the opinions of the teachers in the Public Elementary Schools from which the children come. Every child within the age limit in neighbouring Public Elementary Schools receives an application form. Admission both to the lower and upper divisions of the Municipal Secondary School in Scarborough is gained by examination. All the children in Scarborough in Standard V between the ages of 12 and 13 are examined by the headmaster of the Municipal Secondary School, in conjunction with the head teachers of the respective schools. Similarly in the Manchester Higher Elementary Schools a qualifying examination is held.

The evidence of H.M. Inspectors has, however, suggested forcibly that the opinion of the teachers in the Public Elementary Schools is a more satisfactory basis of selection than an examination. An inspector was asked whether he thought that the teachers could be trusted to nominate only those who were fitted. He said: "Whatever you do you will get some unsuitable children, but by nomination you will get far fewer than by any other system." He was willing at the same time to combine the system of nomination with that of examination. Another Inspector for Elementary Schools preferred examination.

Other educational experts, on the other hand, thought an examination desirable.

On the whole we think that the best test of capacity is a simple qualifying examination in the ordinary Public Elementary School subjects, conducted by the head teacher of the Higher Elementary School in consultation with the heads of the respective Public Elementary Schools, the results being submitted to H.M. Inspector or some properly qualified officer of the Local

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Education Authority. The examination should be founded entirely upon the curriculum of the Public Elementary School, and in examining the children and deciding upon the results of the examination, importance should be attached to a report by the head teacher of the Public Elementary School on the character and aptitude of each child examined.

Length of course

The length of the course in a Higher Elementary School is very important as a factor closely connected with its aim and function. As a rule, the course in a Higher Elementary School should extend over a period of three years, a fourth year, as suggested in the Code, being permitted only in exceptional localities where the conditions of local employment make an extension of the course desirable. Every precaution must, however, in our opinion, be taken to secure that the sanction of a fourth year in a number of individual cases has no tendency towards altering the character of the school indirectly, except where such extension may be permitted with the express intention of thus taking a preliminary step towards the creation of a Secondary School, if such a school prove to be needed, on the basis of the existing Higher Elementary School. We think that the inspector, in exercising the power mentioned in section 40 (iv) of the Code, should be careful to exercise it only in cases where the circumstances of the locality justify the organisation of a fourth year's course.

Parents' undertaking

In order that the Higher Elementary School shall be able to exert the fullest influence on its pupils, it is desirable that it shall be able to count on each child's continuous attendance during the three years of the course. We have considered whether it would be feasible to require from parents, as a condition of the admission of their child to a Higher Elementary School, some undertaking pledging them to keep the child at school for three years. We have been struck by the fact that in Scotland, in many districts, the children are not admitted to such a school except on the undertaking of the parents that they will not ask to remove the child before the age of 15. And it is reasonable to hold that money expended by the State upon a school giving a definite three years' course is not expended properly if the children do not pursue the course continuously for that period. "I think", said one witness, "that when we offer education to children free, we have the right to ask the parents whether, in return for this privilege, they will express the intention of allowing the children to remain throughout the course, so as to avoid the waste of public money." Yet it would hardly be possible to exclude children whose parents were unable to make such a declaration, and there are reasons for thinking that even a part of the Higher Elementary School course would not be altogether without value for pupils ready to profit by it after a course of instruction in a Public Elementary School. A child who leaves the Public Elementary School and enters a Secondary School for a comparatively short period can turn this additional schooling to very little profit, since so much time is occupied in becoming accustomed to his new surroundings, and almost as soon as the adjustment is made he leaves. The case is different when a child enters the Higher Elementary School. As an Elementary School Inspector said, "Even if they were only able to stay a short time in the Higher Elementary School, it would not matter so much; they would be working on their own lines; they would not have that break of gauge which is involved in transplantation from Elementary to Secondary Schools. ... Every month spent in the Higher Elementary School is of use, for the child has not been transplanted." To insist on a stereotyped undertaking might tend to deprive many children of this advantage, but where possible some such undertaking should be required. A witness, who considered that children remaining only to the middle of the course in a Higher Elementary School nevertheless gained substantial advantage, recommended that parents should be circularised, as in the case of her own school, and should be asked whether "they are prepared to keep the children at school for a certain length of time". This declaration the parents sign before the children are admitted. She agreed that in some cases it is beyond the parents' control to fulfil the promise. If it could be definitely ascertained that a child was not intended to remain at school for the full three years, then it would be desirable that the child should be excluded. To ascertain this, however, is impracticable, and the greatest amount of security that appears to

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be possible would probably result from instituting a form of declaration, possessing of course no legal sanction, stating that it is the parents' intention to keep the child at school for the whole course, and that they will make all reasonable efforts to do so. It is true that some witnesses were generally for excluding all children who could not produce a parents' declaration, though even they admitted some qualification; but we are of opinion that bearing in mind the confessed (though proportionately small) value of even a part of the Higher Elementary School course, and the necessity of establishing Higher Elementary Schools under the most favourable auspices, it would be inadvisable at present to go further than what is suggested.

Size of classes

The object of the Higher Elementary School, fulfilled as it can only be by means of good teaching, requires that the efforts of the teachers should not be neutralised, as we believe is frequently the case in Public Elementary Schools, by the too large size of the classes. There is no educational reason why a class in a Higher Elementary School should be larger than in a Secondary School, and we think that in no case in a Higher Elementary School should the numbers in a class exceed 40. From an educational standpoint this number is in itself too large, but the claims of expense cannot, unfortunately, be ignored. It is to be hoped that this maximum will seldom be reached. In the upper classes it is desirable that the numbers should be less than those in the lowest class. No teacher, we think, should ordinarily be responsible for more than one class, though occasionally it may be found possible or even convenient to instruct two classes together.

Co-operation with employers

"If special schools", said an Inspector of the Board, are to be "really successful, if they are to be of practical use in the towns in which they are to be established, it is essential that great pains should be taken to induce employers to take an interest in them; ... nothing can of course be done unless the hearty co-operation of employers is secured." With this opinion we are thoroughly in agreement. The organising authority on the one side attempts to provide the employer with the right kind of material, and the employer on the other may be fairly expected to co-operate with the authority in his own interest. It will be useless to establish Higher Elementary Schools having a three years' course with the express purpose of fitting boys to enter trades and factories if employers refuse to take them older than fourteen. As another Inspector said, "It is no good developing Higher Elementary Schools to carry boys to the age of 15 if the only job they can find when they leave school is in an office. In Manchester, for example, a number of firms will not take an apprentice if he is past 14. In that case it is no good giving a boy specialised instruction to the age of 15 and then turning him out with an education which fits him for work as an artisan if he is driven by force of circumstance to go into an office." Some co-operation of this kind already exists, and is being extended. It is to be supposed that by consulting the needs of employers as far as practicable some system might be developed with this end in view. We notice with satisfaction that the Government works at Woolwich and Enfield, among others, encourage the education of the lads they employ, and that several of the most important engineering firms - Messrs. Mather and Platt, Messrs. Brunner Mond, and the Great Eastern Railway Company for example - have made practical provision for the industrial training of their younger employees. They encourage them also to attend evening schools. On the other hand a number of the smaller firms are less enlightened, and would appear to be as apathetic as many of the parents. This at any rate was the opinion of a Manchester witness of considerable experience. There is thus every need that, simultaneously with the establishment of a Higher Elementary School, efforts should be made by the Local Education Authority to enlist the sympathy and help of employers, and to create an intelligent public opinion favourable to this type of school and cognisant of its intended function. A close connection between the school itself and a circle of employers is much to be desired - an extension of the custom mentioned by one witness, who told us that the heads of several large business firms in his town invariably sent to him for boys. Nor do we believe that organised co-operation is likely

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to present more than ordinary difficulty if the employers are approached in the right way, and if the Higher Elementary Schools fulfil their function strictly. It is imperative, as one witness pointed out with regard to trade schools, that the confidence of the employer should be secured, and it will be one of the chief duties of the headmaster or head-mistress to use all practical methods to secure it. We would refer to the patronage committee (comité de patronage) which is attached in France to every école primaire supérieure. This committee watches over the practical interests of the pupils and their good conduct in school; it affords its patronage to them, and concerns itself with obtaining posts for the most deserving pupils when they leave.

School record, and leaving examination

Further, in view of the close connection that such schools ought to maintain with employers, it is desirable that, in Higher Elementary Schools or Supplementary Courses, a "School-record" corresponding to the French livret scolaire should be instituted, and a certificate granted to all pupils who satisfactorily complete the full three years' course. For the purposes of this certificate it might possibly be desirable to hold some kind of leaving examination, but this does not appear to us to be essential. There can be no doubt that a satisfactory school record closing with such a certificate would soon come to be accepted by employers as testimony of a good school education. The school record and certificate would constitute an educational passport in districts other than that where the school itself was situated.

We should, however, deprecate the taking of external examinations such as those conducted by the Oxford and Cambridge Delegates for Local Examinations or by the College of Preceptors. This opinion, and the reason for it, were given by an Inspector when he said: "I think we ought to set our faces rather strongly against children in these schools entering for the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations, for I think that these examinations are not suitable for these children. They put a wrong ideal before the quasi-Secondary Schools." "The Oxford and Cambridge Preliminary and Junior Examinations are meant to test boys for an education which is to be prolonged considerably more than the education of boys at these schools, and they are not arranged at all with a view to boys leaving school as soon as they have passed the examination ... many masters and mistresses have told me that they would be glad to be allowed to give them up." The taking of examinations of this kind is apt to influence unduly the character of the curriculum and to act in the direction of producing a pseudo-Secondary school. It tends to encourage the deviation from true type which has been so inimical to the Higher Grade Schools. These reasons are in themselves sufficient to justify our view, which is also supported by the now familiar arguments against external examinations as such.

Name

Several of our witnesses have been interrogated as to whether they approved or disapproved of the term "Higher Elementary" School, and with one exception they have declared against it. The Inspector who favoured it did so on the ground that "it is a good thing to call things what they are. He thought the name would tend to make clear the distinction between Higher Elementary Schools and Secondary Schools. It is a school for which the ordinary Elementary School is a preparation, and is, therefore, not unjustly to be called a Higher Elementary School. The name, however, was opposed for two reasons: in the first place, because it is important that there should be no doubt as to the character of the school, more especially in cases where a Higher Elementary School might possibly be of a very definite type, and where it might consequently be of advantage to call the school an "artisan" or "commercial day school". We believe, however, that these terms are too limiting, and that no school (or very few) should be of so marked a character as to be thus designated without undue emphasis upon a particular aspect of the school. The name was objected to in the second place because, as two witnesses alleged, a prejudice exists in the minds of some parents and some employers against schools called "Elementary". It is said that some employers refuse to employ boys who have not been to a school called "Secondary". Further, schools that have been called "Secondary" may find less objection to necessary removal from that class if the class in

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which they may be re-graded is not designated by a term which contains the word "Elementary".

It is difficult, however, to formulate a satisfactory name. "Intermediate" suggests itself, but is open to the serious objection that the Higher Elementary School is the completion of the Public Elementary School course and not "Intermediate", as the term would seem to imply, between the Public Elementary School and any other organised course of day-school instruction; particularly it is not intermediate between the Public Elementary School and the Secondary School. In view of the fact that it continues the Public Elementary School course, we would suggest that "Day Continuation School" (on the analogy of "Evening Continuation School") would be a preferable term.

The question of fees

The fees to be charged in a Higher Elementary School should be fixed by the Local Education Authority, but no fee should exceed 9d. [4p], or, where Fee Grant is paid, 6d. [2½p], a week. We think, however, that in schools charging fees a considerable proportion of the school accommodation should be open without charge to duly qualified children of the wage-earning classes. In schools situate in the poorest quarters or towns all the places might be free.

Returns by Local Education Authorities

Finally, we would suggest that the Board of Education should ask the Local Education Authorities conducting Higher Elementary Schools to furnish the Board with annual returns showing, as far as possible, the occupations into which pupils from these schools have passed. We believe that a return of this character will be very helpful in securing that a Higher Elementary School continues to perform its function in relation to the classes and callings for which it is intended. It will further aid the organising authority in determining whether in any case a Secondary School should be developed out of the existing Higher Elementary School.

W. HART DYKE,
Chairman.
May 24th, 1906.

HORACE E. MANN,
Secretary.

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The Right Hon. Sir William Hart Dyke, Bart. (Chairman).
The Right Hon. A. H. Dyke Acland.
Mr. Arthur C. Benson.
Mrs. Sophie Bryant.
Sir Michael Foster, K.C.B.
Mr. Ernest Gray.
The Right Hon. Henry Hobhouse.
Miss Lydia Manley.
Dr. Norman Moore.
The Venerable E. G. Sandford.
Mrs. Eleanor M. Sidgwick.
The Reverend Dr. D. J. Waller.
Mr. T. Herbert Warren.
Mr. Sidney H. Wells.
The Reverend James Went.

Horace E. Mann (Secretary).

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The following estimates as to the cost per head of building Higher Elementary Schools and Secondary Schools have been supplied to the Committee: