Difficulty with regard to school fees

when there is

-As far as my own experience goes, some of the boys from the best of these schools write well, and cypher fairly, but work the sums mechanically The girls do not even write well, still less do arithmetic well.

As to the general knowledge and intelligence of these scholars, the opinion of trained teachers is that the standard is low. One master, Mr. Dodd of Bromsgrove, writes:- Their general knowledge consists of strings of facts regularly drilled in by means of home lessons, but these have not been used to convey intelligent ideas to the child's mind. Mr. Talbot of Messrs. Chance's school thinks they are inferior in general intelligence to his ordinary scholars; but that as they come from better homes, they are often superior in tone and conduct. As to religious knowledge, Scripture, I should think-writes Mr. Pritchard, of Walsall Bluecoat school-must be ignored. I doubt this, but I fancy it must be taught from abstracts. It appears then that the education given to a vast number of the children of the middle class is of an inferior kind.

This is one bad result of there being but one class of schools which is under inspection, and taught by trained teachers. Another is the disproportionate payments; disproportionate I only one set of mean to the means of the parents which are made in the vast majority of town schools.

schools for the poor and the middle class.

The school fees are generally made according to the class in which a child is placed, little or no regard being paid in most cases to the circumstances of the parents. From the fact that there is a considerable number of the children of tradesmen and well-to-do operatives, the school fee for the upper classes is fixed often as high as 4d., in many cases as high as 6d. a week.

The first named fee puts the higher teaching of the school, which is not really in high subjects, out of the reach of the poorest class. The second named fee puts it out of the reach of the poorer class of operatives. At one of the best schools in my district, the fee for the first division, below which none are examined in arithmetic so far as the compound rules, is 6d. a week. However, in this case the parents may substitute a quarterly fee of 38. 6d., which of course is much less.

I allow that where the school fees are regulated according to the means of the parents, the intermixture of children of different grades has a very good effect.

The good results of this plan can nowhere be better seen than in the village school of Hagley. Out of 70 scholars who attend there, rather more than 20 pay 1. a year or more, which is about four-fifths of what the education costs. Yet even here the middle class scholars do not pay what they ought. The manager, Lord Lyttelton, erases 27 from the capitation list as not eligible for the grant, while only 21 pay 17. or more; only three of them the actual cost of the education-30s. a year.

It may be asked why cannot the managers of town schools adopt the same system? I can only answer that with one or two exceptions in my present district they do not adopt it.

At several of the town schools in my present district a sort of modification of the plan has been tried. The sons of well-to-do parents pay 2d. or 3d. more than the ordinary school fee, and have extra teaching out of school hours. This plan is open to the following objections; first, it is too great a tax on the teacher, who, if he has any extra energy after his six or seven hours' work, ought, as a teacher of the working class, to expend it on the teaching of young operatives in the night-school; secondly, it gives the scholars alluded to more than they are entitled to, and creates an impression in the minds of parents when they pay 4d. or 6d. a week that they are paying more than what the ordinary education costs, whereas they are really paying less, the cost of ordinary instruction being 74d. per week.

At Bromsgrove the plan of graduating the fee according to the circumstances of parents has been in force for many years, and in many respects answers admirably.

Even at Bromsgrove there is this disadvantage from children of so many different classes being taught in the same school, that the master has more in his hands than he can properly manage. The teaching power is sadly deficient. In fact, at Bromsgrove one master in one school, with the help of three or four lads (pupil-teachers) of from 14 to 17 years of age, is trying to effect for 400 boys what would be carried out, if not always in two schools, at any rate by two or four or more masters in any similar town in Germany or Switzerland.

By way then of remedying the defect pointed out there are Remedies sugseveral plans that might be suggested, some of which are already gested. being adopted.

National and

One would be, to have higher departments attached to one or Iligher departmore of the most flourishing schools in each town. These ments in higher departments should act partly as middle-class schools, other primary partly as secondary schools. They would be middle-class schools schools. in so far as scholars of a superior class to the ordinary labourer would as a rule attend them, the school fee being, except in certain cases, 18. or 9d. a week.

But they should be also secondary schools, as distinguished Such departfrom our present primary or elementary schools, or they would ments should be really schools not remedy another defect in our educational system to which I of secondary wish now to draw the attention of the Commissioners. not primary instruction.

The defect is this, that in cases where there are two more institutions under public management they do not work harmoniously together, there is no proper division of labour, no graduated system of instruction, by means of which one class of schools might take up and carry forward the work begun in the other. Thus, for instance, I sometimes hear in towns where there is a grammar school (as at Walsall) that there is a large number of boys in the lower classes who are of far inferior attainments to the more advanced scholars of the National school, some of whom, too, belong to a class which would be more suitably taught in the National school. On the other hand, there are often boys in the first class of a National school whose attain

How to secure the above object (that middle schools be not elementary schools).

ments fit them for a higher kind of instruction than the master (without bestowing an undue amount of attention to them) can bestow, and who often grow lazy when at the head of a school, whereas they would be stimulated to fresh efforts if they were promoted to a higher school or department.

In order then to secure that our middle-class schools shall be really schools of higher instruction, the following rules might be adopted.* No scholar under 10 years of age to be admitted, nor any one who cannot write from dictation a simple sentence, and work sums in the three first rules of arithmetic. Again, the most intelligent and deserving children of a poorer class might be promoted to them from the National schools, being elected by examination; those elected in this way might pay a smaller school fee than the ordinary scholars.

It may be objected that the young children of the middle class would be thus left unprovided for; but boys of this age are often fairly well taught in private schools kept by ladies. Mr. Guest informs me that some of the best of his little boys come from schools of this sort. Again, might not children of this age with advantage attend the National schools. They would be taught in the elementary subjects thoroughly and on a good system; judging from certain experience which I have had I consider that the moral effects of this intermixture of classes is good both for rich and poor.†

The difficulty of regulating the school fee according to the circumstances of the parents would on this plan still exist in regard to the younger children; but in the lower school or department the labourers' children would obtain full instruction in the elementary subjects at a small cost, which, as things now are, they often cannot do.

That such a plan as I have described would answer, that scholars in sufficient numbers and paying a sufficient school fee would be forthcoming to form the secondary department, I am led to infer from the following facts.

At the first introduction of the Revised Code the boys' school at St. Edmund's, Dudley, was closed as a National school; but the master took it on as a private school, charging the scholars on an average 1s. a week, the younger boys something rather less; he managed to keep up a school of 40 scholars to support himself on the income derived from their fees. The case of the

* Scholars under 10 are not admitted, as a rule, into the Prussian gymnasia.

I am glad to find that Canon Brereton, who has done so much for middle-class education in Devonshire, is of opinion that middle schools are only wanted for boys over 12 years old, that up to that age they should be taught in the parochial school; the parochial school might thus, he thinks, be made self-supporting. (Letter to Earl Fortescue on "County Education.") I cannot agree as to the school, even then, being self-supporting without public aid. The nearest approach to a self-supporting rural school that I know of is that of Stokesay, in Shropshire; the clergyman, Mr. La Touche, devotes great attention to it, and many farmers' sons attend it; but it receives the grant, besides 221. in subscription and endowment. Mr. La Touche says, "I am more than ever convinced of the soundness of the principle of combined "education of the upper and lower classes."

boys' school at St. James's, Hull, was almost exactly identical with this.

In both cases the Committee of Council have objected to the use of the rooms, toward the erection of which they had contributed, for the purpose of a middle school, and the schools have been removed elsewhere.

departments

National

But the plan of attaching a higher department to an elemen- Cases where tary school has been carried out successfully in the two following secondary instances. At the National school, Stoke-on-Trent, through the have been energy and influence of the rector, Sir S. Stamer, a department attached to comprising a large proportion of the children of the tradesmen and schools. superior operatives has been established in connexion with the National schools. There are about 65 scholars in this department, 30 of them being bonâ fidle middle-class scholars, on whom no Government grant is claimed, pay 10s. 6d. a quarter; 30 of them are the tidiest children of mechanics, who are taken periodically from the lower school, and pay 6d. weekly. A lower standard of age and attainments is required for admission into the upper department than I have suggested should be required. These boys seem to take a pride in looking neat and respectable, they are more advanced than the scholars of an ordinary National school, not so advanced as those of the very best. The head master of the National school teaches this department, having the lower school also under his charge.

The other case which I am acquainted with is Messrs. Chance's school, Smethwick. There 30 of the more advanced scholars (for a certain lesson, viz., instruction in French) form a higher department. These 30 scholars pay 9d. a week. A Frenchman gives the lesson. As this plan does not oblige the head master to pay any extra attention to the scholars paying the higher fee, I think it is the best of the two.

Handsworth

In cases where middle schools, at which the management is Secondary vested in corporate bodies, are established, it would be well if the instruction at same plan for securing that they be really schools of higher Bridge Trust instruction could be adopted. At one middle school with which middle school. I am acquainted, that of Handsworth, near Birmingham, it is partly acted upon. The scholars of the middle class are not indeed required to pass so high an examination as I have suggested that they should; but out of 120 scholars, only 16 are under 10 years of age, and scholars of a poorer class are elected* by competitive examination from the different district National schools of Handsworth; the scholars thus elected are free scholars. The four who have been elected, Mr. Guest tells me, do well.

I consider that in adopting this plan, instead of following the old plan of nomination, which works so prejudically elsewhere, the trustees of the Handsworth Bridge Street middle

* In Prussia, Mr. G. De Bunsen informs me that some of the Realschulen have free places (Freestellen), to which talented scholars from the Elementarschulen, are promoted.

Secondary instruction at grammar

schools.

school have conferred a great boon on the National schools of the district.

I am glad also to see that the governors of King Edward s School, Birmingham, have elected many scholars during the past year by examination. I submit, however, that if the plan is to be effectually carried out, the old plan of nomination ought, in the case of schools held under public trust, to be abolished by . Act of Parliament; and that where the poor have a claim on the school, the number of these poor competition scholars should be larger than it often is.

The master of a flourishing grammar school, who has a small blue-coat school attached to this grammar school, informed me that he agreed with the trustee to hold an examination for the election of the scholars; that the trustee, after he had classified the candidates, thought fit to elect the seventh instead of the first in his list.

How far the grammar schools can be made to meet the educational wants of the middle classes is a subject in regard to which the Commissioners will have received much more valuable evidence than any that I can give.

I would only urge that these institutions, if they are to do the work that is most wanted, must not be above working in the same line (at least to a certain extent) as our public elementary schools do;-must not be above teaching some humble subjects, though I presume they will do so, in a superior manner. The teaching in the first class of a very good National school excels in this, that it makes its lessons in arithmetic an intellectual exercise; its lessons in geography and history graphic and interesting; its lessons in Scripture simple and practical appeals to the heart and the conscience of the young, not a mere conning over of dates and names gleaned from some dry Scripture abstract.

I submit that, in regard to the above points, the English department of a grammar school should resemble the upper classes of a first-rate National school, besides teaching its scholars to write good English, which a National school rarely does.

Lord Lichfield, who was anxious two or three years ago to have middle schools established in Staffordshire, in connexion with a county board, thought that some subject bearing on the special trades in each district, e.g., the science that bears on coal-mining in South Staffordshire, should be taught in each school.

Grammar is a subject in which the best National school children, and even pupil-teachers, are often very deficient. I am inclined to think that this is in great measure because they do not learn it through the medium of a foreign language. On this account it would be very desirable that even when the constitution of an old foundation school has been modified, so as to suit modern requirements, and an English department has been established, that the study of Latin should be still retained. Again, the mental effort which is involved in puzzling out a