Stress is rightly laid by all educational writers upon Luther’s famous letter to the German municipalities in 1524, urging upon them the duty of providing schools and upon parents the duty of sending their children to school. AnInfluence of Luther.attempt to give effect to this teaching was at once made by the electoral government of Saxony, which by a school ordinance of 1528 provided for the establishment in every town and village of Latin schools, for in Germany as in England the influence of the Protestant reformers was solidly on the side of classical education as the key to the study of the Scriptures and theological learning. All the more remarkable, therefore, was the initiative of the electorate of Württemberg, whose school ordinance of 1559 represents the first systematic attempt to make provision for both elementary and higher education, directing that elementary schools should be set up throughout the country, andParticularschulenor Latin schools in every considerable centre of population. The educational efforts both of the early Reformers and of the remarkable Jesuit educationists, who contributed so largely to the partial reconquest of south Germany for the Catholic Church, were brought to naught amid the troublous times of the Thirty Years’ War, and the desolation and national decadence which that calamity brought in its train. To this result the aridity of the Protestant scholastics who succeeded Luther and Melanchthon, and the frivolity, incompetence and petty despotism of the small German courts, contributed in no slight measure. The permanent and positive value of Luther’s pronouncement of 1524 consists not so much in the direct effects which it produced as in the hallowed association which it established for Protestant Germany between the national religion and the educational duties of the individual and the state, and doubtless this association largely contributed to the creation ofthat healthy public opinion which in Prussia rendered the principle of compulsory school attendance easy of acceptance at a much earlier date than in England and elsewhere, save only Scotland, where a similar historical religious influence was supplied by John Knox.
State interference in education is almost coincident with the rise of the Prussian state. Already in 1717 Frederick William I. ordered all children to attend school where schools existed, and fixed the fee at 5 pf. (½d.) a week. ThisEarly Prussian measures.was followed in 1736 by edicts for the establishment of schools in certain provinces and by a royal grant of 50,000 thalers for that purpose in the following year. In 1763 theGeneral Landschulreglementof Frederick the Great laid down the broad lines upon which the Prussian state has since proceeded, asserting the principle of compulsory school attendance, fixing the fees, with provision for the assistance of very poor children, prescribing the course of instruction, and giving directions for the examination and supervision of teachers. Much progress was made, more especially in the organization of higher education, under Baron von Zedlitz, who was appointed minister for Lutheran church and school affairs by Frederick the Great in 1771, and retired under Frederick William II. in 1788. The last-mentioned year saw the establishment of theAbiturientenexamen, or leaving examinations, which form the determining element in the state organization of secondary education in Germany. As in England, the fear of the French Revolution produced a corresponding reaction in educational affairs, and the policy of Frederick William II. was to bind ever closer school and church in a system practically independent of state control. The first departure from this policy was marked by theAllgemeines Landrechtof 1794, which boldly proclaims that schools and educational institutions may be founded only with the knowledge and consent of the state, and must always be under its supervision and subject to its examination and control. This law also laid upon heads of families in every place the duty of providing and maintaining schools.
It was not till the disaster of Jena and the prostration of Prussia at the feet of Napoleon awoke the dormant spirit of patriotism, and concentrated all the intellectual forces of north Germany upon the task of national regeneration,Reconstruction after Jena.that the principles of theAllgemeines Landrechtof 1794 bore full fruit. “The organization of the Prussian school system,” says Dr James E. Russell in his work onGerman Higher Schools, “waited on the reorganization of the Prussian State.” One of the first acts of the great patriotic minister von Stein, upon his assuming control of the civil administration in 1807, was to abolish the semi-ecclesiastical Oberschulkollegium which had been set up as the central authority under the churchly policy of Frederick William II., and to place education under the Ministry of the Interior as a special section. Wilhelm von Humboldt was placed at the head of this section in 1809, and the work which this “great master of the science and art of education” (as Professor Seeley terms him in hisLife of Stein) inaugurated in his one year of office entitles him to be ranked among the founders of German unity. Humboldt’s greatest positive achievements—the foundation of the university of Berlin and its organization under a professorial staff which included Fichte, Schleiermacher, Savigny, Wolf and Niebuhr, as also the internal reform of secondary schools undertaken with the pedagogical assistance of Wolf and under the inspiration of Fichte—lie beyond the scope of this article. It may, however, be observed that Humboldt’s policy in secondary education represents a compromise between the narrow philological pedantry of the old Latin schools and the large demands of the new humanism of the period; and the recent reform of the Prussian secondary schools may be said to represent a return to the spirit of Humboldt in this respect. The measure introduced by Humboldt in 1810 for the state examination and certification of teachers checked the then common practice of permitting unqualified theological students to teach in the schools, and at once raised the teaching profession to a high level of dignity and efficiency which of itself sufficed to place Prussia in the forefront of educational progress. It was due also to the initiative of Humboldt that the methods of Pestalozzi were introduced into the teachers’ seminaries, through them to vitalize the elementary schools. To the period of the national struggle belong the revival in 1812 of the Abiturientenexamen which had fallen into abeyance, and the institution about the same time of the local authorities calledSchulvorständefor the country andSchuldeputationenfor the towns.
Though the period which succeeded the peace of 1815 was one of political reaction, the cabinet order of Frederick William III. in 1825 strengthened the law of compulsory attendance and carried on the work of administrativeReforms of 1825 and 1834. Abiturientenexamen.organization by defining the duties of the Provinzial-Schul-Kollegium and the Regierung. In 1834 an important development was given to secondary education by making it necessary for candidates for the learned professions as well as for the civil service, and for university studies, to have passed the leaving examination of the gymnasia. Thus through the leaving examination the state holds the key to the liberal careers, and has thereby been able to impose its own standard upon all secondary schools. Apart from the privileges relative to professional studies, the system of leaving examinations has exerted a wide influence upon popular education in connexion with the institution of compulsory military service, in virtue of a regulation which entitles those who pass the leaving examination of any of the recognized kinds of secondary schools to the much-coveted privilege of service for one year as a “volunteer” instead of two years as an ordinary conscript.
The revolutionary and national movement of 1848 was followed by a period of further educational activity. The Act of Constitution of 1850 declared teachers civil servants and elementary education free. In practice, the abolition of school fees did not become general until 1888. Since then the view has more and more prevailed that elementary education must be free,2and, broadly speaking, fees in elementary schools are now charged only for children attending from another school district.
In connexion with theKulturkampf, or struggle between the state and the Roman Catholic Church, theSchulaufsichtsgesetzof 1872 reasserted the absolute right of the state alone to the supervision of the schools; but the severityKulturkampf and the confessional system.of this law as a measure against Roman Catholic clerical education was considerably modified as a result of the subsequent reconciliation with the papacy under Leo XIII., and the Prussian system remains to-day both for Catholics and Protestants essentially denominational. All schools, whether elementary or secondary, are Evangelical, Catholic, Jewish or mixed. In the elementary sphere, in particular, recourse is only had to the mixed school (Simultanschuleorparitätische Schule), where the creeds are so intermingled that a confessional school is impracticable. In all cases the teachers are appointed with reference to religious faith; religious instruction is given compulsorily in school hours and is inspected by the clergy. The general purport of the Prussian school law of 1906 is to strengthen the system of separate confessional schools, which it extends to certain provinces where it had not previously been in operation.
In financial respects the last-mentioned law effected some readjustment of burdens by charging a proportion of the expenditure upon landed property. Other recent changes relate to the reform of secondary education referred to below. The system of educational administration as it stood in 1909 may shortly be described as follows.
Under the ministerium in Berlin stands the Provinzial-Schul-Kollegium, the chairman of which is theOber-Präsidentof the province, composed of four or fiveRäteorAdministrative machinery.councillors, generally selected from the directors of training colleges and gymnasia. This body is concerned mainly with higher education.
Each province is divided for purposes of general administration into twoRegierungenor governments, and in each Regierungthere is a section of usually three or four Schulräte, which controls the elementary schools. This council is usually recruited from the ranks of directors of training colleges and from the inspectorate. The Regierung is divided intoKreiseor districts, and in each district an administrative officer, called theLandrat, represents the government. The Landrat is concerned with the provision and repair of elementary school buildings; as regards internal organization, the elementary schools are under the Kreisschulinspektor.
In the Protestant districts the inspectors (Kreisschulinspektoren) are usually Evangelical clergymen holding the position of superintendent in the Lutheran Church. In the Catholic and certain other exceptional districtsInspection.inspectors with pedagogical qualifications and the status of full government inspectors are appointed. Every candidate for Lutheran ordination is required to spend six months at a training college, but pedagogical opinion is hostile to the system, which must be regarded as a survival of the traditional union of church and state in educational affairs, retained at the present day from motives of economy and a desire to conciliate the church.
For every school there is anOrtsschulinspektor, usually the clergyman of the parish, who discharges the duties of local manager and correspondent. This local inspector is also chairman of theSchulvorstandor committee, elected by theSchulgemeinde, and charged with questions of attendance and maintenance rather than with internal affairs. The Schulgemeinde need not coincide with the civil parish. Parishes may unite to provide one school, or within one parish different religious communities may form separate school “parishes.”
Thus the administrative system of Prussia in education as in other matters may be described in general as a decentralized bureaucracy. This bureaucracy is somewhat checked by the rights of patronage attaching to the local boards in certain cases, but the exercise of such rights is in all cases subject to government approval. As regards higher-grade elementary and secondary schools, the local boards in the towns (Schuldeputationen) are able to exert a considerable influence in the way of selection of the type of school, and even of suggestion for the modification of recognized types, as is shown by the cases of the famous “reformed” secondary curricula of Altona and Frankfort. Still, the legal powers of the local board are restricted to the establishment of an approved type of school, the control of externa, and the right of nominating teachers.
Elementary Schools.—The single-class school (Einklassige Schule) and the half-day school (Halbtagsschule) are features of the Prussian elementary system which require notice. The Einklassige Schule is a school taught by a singlePeculiarities of elementary education.teacher, who may teach a maximum number of eighty children. The Halbtagsschule is a single-class school of which half the children are taught in the morning and half in the afternoon. During the summer months, owing to the exigencies of agricultural labour, many single-class schools are taught as half-day schools. The system of course is regarded as a makeshift, but in this, as in the matter of buildings for rural elementary schools, the Prussian administration attaches great weight to the consideration of financial economy. As regards staff, a large measure of economy is rendered possible by the high average standard of merit reached by German elementary teachers, whose powers of oral exposition have struck English observers as specially remarkable, and again by the national readiness to be content with a moderate salary in return for official status. A survival of the old close connexion between church and school is to be found in theKirchendienste, the duties of training the choir, playing the organ, &c., which are attached in many cases to the post of schoolmaster, and afford an additional source of emolument, rendered feasible by the practical absence of religious dissent.
For the preliminary training of elementary teachers there are special schools calledPräparanden-Anstalten, of which most are state institutions, some are municipal, and a few are private. The training colleges themselves are provided by the state and have a three years’ course.
Continuation Schools (Fortbildungsschulen).—Germans have been foremost to realize the truth which is gradually being brought home to English educationists, that adequate value for the heavy expenditure of public funds uponContinuative education.education can only be obtained by providing for the continued education for two or three years of the children of the working classes who leave school at fourteen years of age. One of the educational results of the war of 1870, with its great lesson of the importance of national education, was the Saxon law of 1873 making attendance at continuation schools compulsory for three years (i.e.up to seventeen) in that kingdom: The Saxon law appears to have been justified by the experience of nearly a generation. It must suffice here to note the following features of its working. (1) The schools are taught by the primary teachers, supplemented in the towns by some technical instructors. (2) The school session may be either for the whole year or for only half the year, and may also be held on Sunday, like the old English secular Sunday schools. (3) The schools are brought into close relation with trades, not only for purposes of curriculum, but also with a view to considering the exigencies and meeting the convenience of employers with respect to hours of attendance. (4) The discipline of the continuation school is extended to supervision out of school hours. “Visits to dancing-halls and all such exhibitions as are dangerous to uprightness and purity are forbidden to scholars of continuation schools.” Further, useful institutions such as savings banks, and also associations for social intercourse and the promotion ofesprit de corps, are organized in connexion with continuation schools. There is no doubt that in this matter of continuation schools, as in so many other fields of social organization, the adoption of compulsion has been facilitated by the habituation of the working classes to compulsory military service, which has made the German workman more disciplined, more “organizable” as a social unit, more accustomed to subordinate the principle of individual freedom and self-will to the collective claims of the state, than the workman reared in the traditions of Anglo-Saxon individualism.
Attendance at continuation schools is now compulsory by state law in 12 states, including (besides Saxony) Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria. The city of Munich is notable for its highly organized system of technical continuation schools for apprentices. In Prussia compulsory attendance is still the exception (save in the provinces of Posen and West Prussia, where it is enforced by state law), but the permissive act is being rapidly adopted by the great cities, including Berlin.
Secondary Education.—The official classification or grading according to the type of curriculum of secondary schools in Prussia (and indeed throughout Germany) is very precise. The following are the officially recognizedGrading of secondary schools.types. I. Classical schools: (a) Gymnasium, with nine years’ course; (b) Progymnasium, with six years’ course. II. Modern schools: (a) with Latin (semi-classical)—(i.) Realgymnasium (nine years’ course), (ii.) Realprogymnasium (six years’ course); (b) without Latin (non-classical)—(i.) Oberrealschule (nine years’ course), (ii.) Realschule (six years’ course). The six-year classical and semi-classical schools are comparatively unimportant subdivisions in smaller towns.
Lower-grade Secondary Education.—Inasmuch as French is taught in the lowest class of the Realschule under the official curriculum (English, on the other hand, beginning in Tertia, the fourth class from the lowest), it followsCo-ordination of elementary and secondary education.that this, the lowest type of secondary school, is not directly co-ordinated with the elementary school. The Realschulen of Berlin, however, form an important exception to the general rule; their curriculum, sanctioned by the ministry at the instance of the Berlin municipality, provides for the beginning of French in Quarta (the third class from the bottom) and English in Secunda. The consequence is that in Berlin a very large number of pupils pass from the elementary schools to the Realschulen, which take the place of the Mittelschulen or higher-grade elementary schools thatare to be found in some towns, though something in the nature of higher elementary education is afforded by the top sections of the elementary schools.
First-grade Schools.—One of the most striking features of German secondary education is the careful differentiation of schools according to the type of curriculum adopted. Thus, every German school is a homogeneous unitFirst grade secondary schools.with a definite educational aim and organization, conforming to a common standard approved by public authority for the particular type to which it belongs. Hence the importance attached by the Germans to nomenclature; so that in selecting a Gymnasium, a Realgymnasium or an Oberrealschule, the parent knows exactly the type of education he is going to secure for his son. In England, on the other hand, as has often been observed, a great school tends to multiply within itself different types of curricula in a haphazard way according to the demand of parents, whose original choice of school is based rather on social than on educational grounds. Modern sides, army classes and engineering classes grow up as excrescences upon an originally classical type, with the waste of power that results from loss of consistency and concentration of purpose. The difference between the English and German systems is due ultimately to the adoption in Germany of the day-school system and the absence, very remarkable in an otherwise aristocratically governed country, of the caste spirit in education above the elementary level, thanks to which the nobly born are not ashamed to sit on the school bench side by side with the children of the trading classes. On the other hand, the English boarding-school system, despite all the want of social solidarity, and all the class jealousy and exclusiveness with which it is inevitably associated, has admittedly favoured those ideals of the cultivation of character as distinct from book-learning which give a special value to what is in England called a public school education.
The present differentiation of first-grade schools in Prussia is the result of a natural educational development corresponding with the economic changes which have transformed Prussia and the empire from an agricultural to anRise of semi-classical schools.industrial state. It was in 1855 that semi-classical schools (teaching Latin without Greek) were first recognized for a nine years’ course under the title of Realschule I. Ordnung, and in 1871 pupils possessing their leaving certificates were admitted to mathematical studies in the universities. The Latinless Realschule II. Ordnung is the direct product of the great industrial development of the modern empire. In 1882 the Realschule I. Ordnung received the title of Realgymnasium, and the Realschule II. Ordnung that of Oberrealschule, both types being at the same time admitted to certain privileges in the universities, schools of technology and civil service.
About the same period official recognition was obtained for reformed secondary curricula, first at Altona and afterwards (1892) at Frankfort. These two types differ from each other in detail, but the feature which distinguishesThe “reform school” movement.both from the older types is the postponement of Latin to Untertertia. The design is to secure for all types of secondary education a common non-classical base coextensive with the first three years of school life, followed by a trifurcation or threefold choice between the classical, semi-classical and non-classical types. The principle of the “reform-school” has been adopted in a considerable number of German (chiefly Prussian) schools, but it would be premature to see in it at present more than a new variety of Realgymnasium or semi-classical school; it can hardly be said as yet to have affected the course of classical studies in the full sense. The widespread sentiment of discontent with the old philological type of classical school was vigorously expressed in a private letter written by the emperor William II. as crown prince of Prussia in 1885, but not published until some-years later. In December 1890 the Prussian ministry convoked a conference at Berlin of secondary school experts, and the emperor presided in person at the opening session. His majesty delivered a speech criticizing the Gymnasia as wanting a national basis. “It is our duty to educate young men to become young Germans and not young Greeks or Romans” was the keynote of the imperial discourse. The outcome of the conference was a shortening of the hours allowed to Latin in the Gymnasia, a reduction of the hours of study in view of over-pressure, and an expression of official opinion adverse to the Realgymnasium. These changes, introduced in 1892, did not go far enough to satisfy the reformers, whilst the reduction of the hours allowed for Latin caused misgivings among the upholders of the traditional Gymnasium. Moreover, the Realgymnasium showed greater vitality among the large towns than its official critics anticipated. The ensuing decade witnessed a certain reaction in favour of the classical humanities as a barrier against the materialistic influences of the new industrialism. At the same time the protagonists of the classics came to recognize that side by side with the old humanities there must be accorded to modern and scientific subjects that place in the high-grade schools which the practical exigencies of industrial life demanded. Thus, the opinion grew that the best line of defence for the classical schools lay in the concession of equal privileges to the non-classical types; in this way only could the classical schools be kept safe from demands upon their time that could not be conceded without endangering their proper work. It was upon this basis that an agreement was reached between the contending parties at a second school conference that met in Berlin in June 1900. As the result of this conference there was issued a royal decree laying down certain general principles, of which the following are the most important. (1) There must be equality of privileges as between classical, semi-classical and non-classical first-grade schools. The decree recognizes, however, that this principle must be applied with a certain elasticity and with due regard to the necessity for training in particular branches of knowledge as a preliminary to certain lines of university study and certain professional pursuits. Consequently the Prussian system of privileges has become extremely complicated, and it is truer to speak, as the decree goes on to do, of an extension of the privileges of the non-classical schools, rather than of absolute equality. (2) “In thus acknowledging the equality of the three types of higher institutions, it will be possible more thoroughly to strengthen the special characteristics of each type. In this connexion,” the royal decree proceeds, “I shall offer no objection to an increase in the number of hours devoted to Latin in the Gymnasium and Realgymnasium.” Thus, both as to the place of Latin in the curriculum of classical schools and as to the status of semi-classical schools, the decree of 1900 involves a reversal of the policy of 1890. (3) The decree expresses approval of the reformed curricula of Altona and Frankfort, and a desire for an extension of the experiment where the conditions are suitable.
Notwithstanding the growing official encouragement of education upon semi-classical or non-classical lines, the upper and professional classes of Germany continue to show a marked preference for the fully classical Gymnasium; hence, in Germany as in England, the tendency for a widening gulf to disclose itself between the education of the directing classes in politics and administration and the bulk of the industrial population, which suggests that the problem of combining in just proportions the liberal and practical elements in a thoroughly national system of education has not yet reached the solution that the needs of the age require.
Switzerland.
Switzerland affords perhaps the best type of a democratic system of local authorities. The central authority is the canton, not the federation. The interference of the federal authority is confined to the imposition of certain broadEducational influence of federal constitution.principles by the constitution, to the indirect influence exerted by the examination of recruits for the national army, and to financial grants for technical instruction, its most important direct educational work being the support of the technological university at Zurich. The federal constitution (1) states that primary instruction must be underthe control of the canton (an important point in view of the strength of ecclesiastical influence in some of the Catholic cantons), and must be compulsory and gratuitous; (2) declares that it must be possible for the public schools to be attended by the adherents of all creeds without hurting their freedom of conscience; (3) forbids the employment of child labour before completion of the fourteenth year, with a provision that in the fifteenth and sixteenth years factory work, together with the time given to school and religious instruction, must not exceed eleven hours a day. (4) All recruits for the federal army (in which service is compulsory on a militia basis) are examined in their twentieth year, and the results are published. This examination affords an instructive index to the state of education in the several cantons and promotes a healthy emulation among them.
The cantonal organization of education presents the variety which the extraordinary diversity of race, language, religion and physical conditions of the component states of the federation would lead one to expect. The large cantonCantonal organization.of Bern may be instanced as the type of a strong central authority. The commune or parish is the unit for elementary education. The communal council nominates a school board of at least five members, whose function is to spend the money voted for school purposes by the general communal council. Several communes in combination form a district authority for the support of what are in reality higher primary schools, though called in SwitzerlandSekundarschulen, maintained by the district. The maintenance both of the primary and higher primary schools is aided by grants from the central authority. The true secondary schools, called middle or higher schools, are maintained and controlled by the central or cantonal authority. The existence of separate local authorities for each grade of education is characteristic of Switzerland generally, this system being the opposite to that adopted in England in 1902.
The central grants in Switzerland always take the form of payments to the local authorities of a proportion of the teachers’ salaries; they are never, as in England, assessed upon the number of children in attendance, nor are they dependent, as was formerly the case in England, upon the results of examination, nor again are grants made in respect of particular subjects as is the case with the grants for special,i.e.practical, instruction in England.
Religious instruction in the Swiss communal schools generally follows the faith of the majority; in a few cantons separate schools being provided for minorities if sufficiently numerous. In the town of Lucerne, Catholic instruction is given in school hours and Protestant instruction is provided out of school and out of hours for the Protestant minority.
In 19 out of the 25 cantons attendance at continuation schools is compulsory (at least in some districts) for boys up to 17, and in 3 cantons it is compulsory also wholly or in part for girls.
Belgium.
The interesting feature in Belgian education is the treatmentBelgian treatment of religious question.of the religious question in successive laws.
1. The law of 1842 obliged the communes to provide primary instruction, which was to be free in the case of poor children. The state made grants in aid, subject to inspection. Subject to a conscience clause, religious instruction was obligatory, and was placed under ecclesiastical inspection.
2. The law of 1879 removed religious instruction from the curriculum, and provided for facilities to the clergy to give such instruction outside school hours. This law furnishes a striking instance of the futility of a parliamentary majority legislating in a sense opposed to the convictions of a considerable section of the community. The law evoked a storm of opposition in the country, still profoundly Catholic and attached to ecclesiastical traditions, and within eighteen months the Catholics founded private elementary schools with 455,000 scholars. In 1883 the Catholic private schools numbered 622,000 scholars, whilst the attendance at the communal schools had sunk to 324,000. Their doctrinaire treatment of the education question resulted in the political annihilation of the Belgian Liberals, and was responsible for the strongest and most persistent Roman Catholic reaction that has been witnessed in western Europe since the beginning of the 19th century.
3. The law of 1884 was the work of the moderate Catholic party. It did not make religious instruction obligatory, but it gave liberty to the communes to provide for the giving of religious and moral instruction at the beginning or end of school hours, subject to a conscience clause. Power was given to the communes to “adopt” private confessional schools and maintain them. Provision was further made entitling any twenty parents of children of school age to demand a school of the normal communal type as against a proposal to adopt a confessional school. Power was also given to a like number of parents to compel the adoption of a confessional school in the case of the commune refusing to provide religious instruction of the type demanded by them, or putting obstacles in the way of its being given by the clergy or their representatives.
4. The law of 1895 is the work of the more authoritarian Catholics, and makes religious instruction obligatory, placing it directly under the control of the clergy. It also increased the subsidies to private schools. This law was passed in face of opposition from the moderate section, who saw in it an exaltation of state authority which might be turned by opponents to the disadvantage of the religious interest. It is by no means clear that Belgium has yet attained a final solution of the religious difficulty; the life of the present law is probably to be measured by that of the Catholic political majority.
Holland.
The outstanding feature of public education in Holland is the strength of the private primary schools. Under the law of 1857 secular teaching alone was provided in the primary schools at the public cost. The law of 1878 allowed communes to make grants to private schools on condition of their becoming neutral in the matter of religion. The law of 1889 allowed private denominational schools to receive government grants while retaining their denominational character, but forbade further grants to such schools by the communes.
In 1905 there were 566,460 children in the public and 278,632 in the private schools.
Scotland.
The diverse religious and social conditions of the three constituent parts of the United Kingdom must necessarily cause the education problem to assume a different shape and to receive different solutions in England, Scotland and Ireland respectively; latterly also the special conditions obtaining in Wales have received partial recognition at the hands both of the legislature and the executive. In Scotland the conditions have been less complex than in England. The practical unanimity of the people in religious faith, which has remained undisturbed by the institutional divisions of recent times, the wider diffusion of a sense of the value of education, the greater simplicity of life which has rendered all classes largely content to avail themselves of the preparatory education afforded by the common school and favoured the development in the secondary sphere of day rather than boarding schools, are among the causes which have contributed to the early building up of a national system which in some respects resembles the continental rather than the English type.
The national appreciation of education is found marked already before the Reformation in a statute of James IV. (1494) requiring all freeholders of substance to send their heirs to school and to keep them there until they hadHistorical development.perfect Latin. The Reformation, asserting itself by common consent under one ecclesiastical form, and free from the divisions of religious organization which tended to neutralize it as an educational force in England, put fresh life into the educational aspirations of the people. As early as 1560 the Church Assembly, largely under the influence of John Knox, putforth theBook of Discipline, providing that “every several kirk” in a town “of any reputation” was to have its Latin school, that the “upaland” or country parts were to have a teacher of the “first rudiments” in every parish, and that each “notable” town was to have “a college for logic, rhetoric and the tongues.” Practical effect was later given to this scheme by an act of the Scottish parliament in 1696, under which parish schools were set up in connexion with the Established Church of Scotland. This system was extended by an act of 1803, which made better provision for teachers’ salaries and also confirmed the position of the parish school as an adjunct of the parish church. The system of inspection and state aid introduced in England in 1839 was made applicable to Scotland, thus grafting upon Scotland the English system of voluntary state-aided schools. At the same period another new factor was imported into Scottish education by the ecclesiastical disruption of 1843. As a result of these changes in 1861 a new act was passed which relaxed, though it did not sever, the ties which bound the parish school to the church.
The Education (Scotland) Act of 1872 set up elective school boards for parishes and boroughs, and vested in them the existing parish and burgh schools. Long prior to the act it had been the practice of the Church of ScotlandScottish school boards and school attendance law.to allow exemption in the schools from religious instruction; consequently in imposing a compulsory conscience clause the act did little more than confirm existing usage. The school boards were left full liberty as to the religious instruction to be given in their schools, and in practice school boards universally adopt the Shorter Catechism, which is acceptable to all denominations of Presbyterians. The act made the school boards responsible for the supply of school accommodation, and introduced compulsory attendance, for which opinion in England was not at that time ripe. By the act of 1901, the age of compulsory attendance was raised to fourteen, with provision for exemption after twelve.
The experience of the Scottish Education Department, like that of the English, has led to the gradual abandonment of individual examination as the basis for the payment of grants. The institution of the merit certificate isAdministrative progress.one of the features in which the Scottish system differs from the English. Prior to the code of 1903 the merit certificate, awarded on examination after the age of twelve, was properly described as the leaving certificate of the elementary school. Under the more recent codes merit certificates are awarded under a system designed to encourage the transference of promising pupils at an early age to supplementary courses or higher-grade departments. Under this system the fitness of the pupil to enter upon a course of higher studies is determined not solely by the results of a single examination, but by the whole character of his work during the preceding school course.
A notable factor historically in Scottish education was the extent to which the parish schools supplied their best pupils with higher or further education. The administrative changes last mentioned have led to a remarkableHigher-grade schools.development of organized higher-grade schools and departments. These departments have now been organized upon the lines of the higher primary schools of France, “to continue a stage further” (says the report of the Scottish Education Department) “the general education of that considerable body of pupils who, under new conditions, may be expected to remain at school till fifteen or sixteen.” The function “of giving something of the nature of a specialized education to pupils who will leave school at a comparatively early age” is now discharged by the supplementary courses.
Elementary education has generally been rendered free by the fee grants under the parliamentary vote, and by the sums accruing under the Local Taxation (CustomsFree education.and Excise) Act 1890 and the Education and Local Taxation (Scotland) Act 1892.
Voluntary schools are not numerous, being chiefly those of the Roman Catholic Church. The average cost of maintenance per child in average attendance in public schools (according to the official report 1907-1908) was £3, 11s. 1¼d., of which £2, 4s. 4½d. was met by government grants for elementary education. In voluntary schools the average cost of maintenance was £2, 15s. 1¾d., of which £2, 2s. 7d. was met by elementary grants, including a special aid grant of 3s. per head under the Education (Scotland) Act 1897.
The total number of children (1907-1908) in average attendance in grant-earning schools was 712,076, and the percentage of attendances to numbers on the register was 87.66%. As regards teaching power, 81.52% of the male teachers and 56.71% of the female teachers in the elementary teachers had been trained in training colleges.
Certain miscellaneous additional powers are conferred upon school boards by the Education (Scotland) Act 1908, including powers to provide school meals; in outlying parts, to provide means of conveyance, or pay travelling expensesEducation (Scotland) Act 1908.of teachers or pupils, or defray the cost of lodging pupils in convenient proximity to a school; to provide for medical inspection; and as to children neglected by reason of the ill-health or poverty of the parent, to supply food, clothing and personal attention.
Perhaps the most noteworthy provision in the act of 1908 is that which enables (not obliges) school boards to make bye-laws requiring attendance at continuation classes upCompulsory continuation classes.to the age of seventeen years. Apart from compulsory attendance, the act lays upon school boards the duty of making suitable provision of continuation classes with reference to the crafts and industries practised in the district.
The Scottish Education Act of 1872 distinguished certain burgh and parish schools as “higher class public” or secondary schools. The act of 1908 deals in some detail with secondary education, modifying and strengtheningSecondary education.the framework in various ways, but without introducing organic changes. “Secondary” schools are distinguished from “intermediate,” the former being defined as providing at least a five years’ course; the latter as providing at least a three years’ course in languages, mathematics, science and such other subjects as may from time to time be deemed suitable for the instruction of pupils who have reached a certain standard of attainment in elementary subjects under the code. Intermediate and secondary schools may be provided and maintained either by school boards or otherwise, and provision is contained in the act for the transfer of endowed schools to the school board. Thus secondary (as well as elementary and continuative) education is organized upon the basis of the parish or burgh; it receives, however, grants in aid through the agency of county (or large urban) authorities (called district committees) constituted under schemes of the Scottish Education Department. For the purpose of such grants in aid the funds available under the various local taxation acts, together with parliamentary grants, other than a fee grant at the rate of 12s. per child in average attendance, form a fund called the Education (Scotland) Fund. After provision has been made for (inter alia) grants for universities, higher technical education and training colleges, the fund is allocated to the district committees according to a scheme laid before parliament and approved by the king in council. Out of the “district education fund” the school board receives (ordinarily) a sum equal to one-half of the amount by which the net cost to the school board (after deducting income from grants made by the department and from fees) exceeds the amount which would be produced by such rate per pound upon the district of the school board as the committee may determine, not being more than a rate of twopence in the pound. Important powers are also conferred upon the district committee for organizing and aiding within their district the provision by the school boards of medical examination and supervision of school children, the supply of bursaries for purposes of all forms of higher education, and the provision of instruction in special subjects, such as agriculture, &c.
Ireland.
The full development of a system of public education in Ireland has been hampered and retarded by the general difficulties inherent in the problem of Irish government. In consequence of the fundamentally different social,Special difficulties of Irish education.religious and political conditions in the two countries, the English and Irish systems have developed down to the present time upon divergent lines. In England, popular education was founded in the first instance upon individual initiative combining in organized voluntary effort, and, though the voluntary agencies have been first supplemented and latterly to a large extent supplanted by public action, the tendency has been in the direction of municipalization rather than in that of central state control. In Ireland, on the other hand, education has suffered in the past from the general absence of individual initiative and local interest almost as seriously as from the mistakes of the English government. These causes, more directly perhaps than the prevailing poverty of the country, made it necessary to throw the burden of supporting the schools to an increasing extent upon the state, while the want of local self-government precluded any devolution of powers and duties upon municipal authorities.
State intervention is actually of earlier date in Ireland than in England. From the reign of Elizabeth onwards, English Protestant schools were founded by the government in a sporadic and intermittent fashion in pursuanceHistoric retrospect.of its Anglicizing policy. To mention briefly one or two historical features, the great religious educational enterprise of Edmond Rice in founding the well-known Irish Catholic order of the Christian Brothers in 1802 forms an exception to the general lack of initiative among the people themselves. About the same period the Kildare Place Society (founded in 1811 while the first commission of inquiry into Irish education was sitting) attempted to grapple with the peculiar difficulties of the religious situation upon lines somewhat similar to those just laid down by Lancaster and his followers in England. This organization comprised both Roman Catholic and Protestant schools upon a common religious basis of Bible reading without note or comment, and received government grants which rose to £30,000 a year before they were discontinued in 1833. The religious compromise which the system embodied broke down in consequence of Catholic dissatisfaction, and that it was at first fairly successful may seem extraordinary in view of the later attitude of the Catholic Church towards the question of common schools and combined religious instruction.
In 1833, as the result of a second commission of inquiry (1824) and a select committee of the House of Commons (1828), Mr Stanley inaugurated the national system of elementary schools under a board of commissioners nominatedThe national system.from the different religious denominations. The government appears from the outset to have aimed at combined secular and separate religious instruction for Roman Catholics and Protestants. At the same time, an attempt was inconsistently made to provide an ethical basis for the secular instruction by means of Bible extracts. The story of the preparation of these extracts by an ingenious compound of the Protestant Authorized and Douai versions of Scripture is in its way one of the curiosities of religious history. The extracts were designed to meet the recognized Catholic objection to the indiscriminate reading of the Bible without note or comment. In practice they were chiefly used in the Protestant schools (in which their use is now practically extinct), and the growing Catholic objection to the policy of the National Board in this respect found authoritative, though somewhat cautiously worded, expression in a decree of the Roman Congregation De Propaganda Fide of January 11, 1846, declaring that non-sectarian religious instruction was dangerous to youth. “Tutius multo esse ut literarum tantummodo humanarum magisterium fiat in scholis promiscuis, quam ut fundamentales, ut aiunt, et communes religionis Christianae articuli restricte tradantur, reservata singulis sestis peculiari seorsum eruditione. Ita enim cum pueris agere periculosum valde videtur.” The religious difficulty in Irish elementary education may be said to have been solved in process of time by the conversion of the national system in practice, though not in theory, into a system strongly denominational and therefore widely different from the design of its founders, combined Biblical instruction being discarded, and separate schools for the most part taking the place of common schools for the two creeds. In the latter respect the like tendency has been noted in the case of Germany.
The following are the chief specific points upon which the Irish system of elementary education differs from the English.
Finance.—The state still makes building grants to the extent of two-thirds of the cost. Such grants are only made to what are called vested schools, that is to say, schools of which the premises are vested in trustees or in theIrish elementary education.commissioners themselves. The state further pays in the case of all national schools the entire cost of maintenance except only the upkeep of the building, and the provision of books after the exhaustion of a first free grant.
Appointment and Payment of Teachers.—For the purpose of promotion the state through its inspectors undertakes the duty of classifying the individual teachers in four grades, passage from one grade to another being secured by examination. Appointments of teachers to schools are made by the school managers subject to the approval of the commissioners. Rights of dismissal are reserved to the local managers and also to the commissioners independently. Lastly, the teachers’ salaries are now paid directly by the state. The old system of payment by results was abandoned in 1900, and the teacher is paid (a) a fixed salary according to grade, (b) a continued good service salary which may be increased triennially, (c) a capitation payment.
Convent Schools.—In addition to the national schools supported as above, there are a considerable number of convent or monastery schools which receive capitation grants after the English plan, but not direct salaries. There were 308 such schools in 1908, with an average attendance of 70,003. There were also 83 other convent or monastery schools paid by personal salaries, with an average attendance of 11,075.
School Attendance and Free Education.—The Irish Education Act 1892 provided for compulsory attendance in towns and for the adoption of compulsion in other districts. In virtue of the financial sections of this act, which provided an increased grant for salaries, most national schools have become free.
General Elementary-School Statistics.—In 1908 the average number of scholars on the rolls of all the schools was 708,992, and the average daily attendance was 494,662, or 69.8% as compared with the number on the rolls. As regards religious denomination, 74.42% of the scholars on the rolls were Roman Catholics; 28.6% were in schools attended by both Roman Catholic and Protestant children and 71.4% in schools attended solely by Roman Catholics or solely by Protestants. The total expenditure on the schools and teaching staffs was £1,591,214, of which £1,451,139, equivalent to £2, 19s. 3d. per scholar, was contributed from state grants, and £140,074, equivalent to 5s. 9d. per scholar, from local (i.e.voluntary) sources, the rate per scholar from all sources being £3, 5s.
Training of Teachers.—Salaried monitors are employed in the Irish schools, but, unlike the English pupil teachers, are not explicitly recognized as forming part of the school staff. There are now seven training colleges, viz. one undenominational college maintained by the commissioners, five Roman Catholic colleges, and one college in connexion with the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland. Of the scholars in the undenominational college, 73 out of 312 were Roman Catholics. The total number of students in training was 1189, viz. 514 men and 675 women. The percentage of trained teachers to the total number of teachers was 64.7. A special training college for the instruction of teachers in Irish has been recognized.
One of the chief desiderata in Irish education is a single central authority for all branches of education, elementary, secondary (or “intermediate”) and technical. There are twocentral authorities dealing with secondary education, viz. theSecondary education.Intermediate Education Board and the Department for Agriculture and Technical Instruction. The Intermediate Board administers sums available under the Intermediate Education Act of 1878 from the Irish Church Surplus, and also the sum allocated under the Local Taxation Act 1890. The vice of the system in the opinion of educational experts lies in the statutory obligation to award grants on the result of an individual examination of the scholars. As a result of the vice-regal commission of 1898, power was taken to introduce a system of school inspection, though not to dispense with the individual examination as the basis for the award of the grants; this measure of reform was ultimately carried out in 1909. The sum distributed in result grants is about £50,000 per annum.
Prior to the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act 1899, science and art grants were administered by the Science and Art Department in England; by this act they were transferred to the new Irish Department for Agriculture and Technical Instruction. This department makes block grants to secondary schools in respect of science and art teaching, and manual instruction or domestic economy. Measures have been taken for the co-ordination of the duties of the Technical Department and the Intermediate Board, and the impetus given to the teaching of experimental science by grants for the erection of laboratories represents a reform of undoubted value for higher education in Ireland, especially when considered in connexion with the enlistment of the local interest of the technical education committees in the intermediate schools. Nevertheless, in the absence of a reform of the results system of intermediate grants, the special subsidizing of science teaching has tended to put an undue premium upon this subject to the detriment of the rest of the curriculum.
Ireland possesses no such system of scholarships for assisting the passage of scholars from the elementary to the secondary school as England enjoys as a result of the municipalization of the educational system. Nevertheless, Irish children as a fact pass much more freely from the elementary to the secondary school than is the case in England where social prejudices are stronger. The schools of the Christian Brothers are usually organized in two departments, primary and intermediate, and thus supply for the Roman Catholic population the demand for the cheap type of secondary day school represented by the municipal schools in England. It must be added that the Irish intermediate schools are purely denominational. The widespread demand for secondary education among the people, to which the report of Messrs Dale and Stephens bears witness, is a gratifying feature of Irish life, while the recent establishment (1908) of the long-deferred national university, and the perceptible quickening of intellectual interests throughout the country in connexion with the Celtic revival, point to better conditions for higher education and to the development of a wider, deeper and truer, because more national, culture.
England.
It was justly observed by Sir Joshua Fitch (Ency. Brit., 10th ed., xxvii. p. 655) that “the public provision for the education of the people in England is not the product of any theory or plan formulated beforehand by statesmen or philosophers; it has come into existence through a long course of experiments, compromises, traditions, successes, failures and religious controversies. What has been done in this department of public policy is the resultant of many diverse forces and of slow evolution and growth rather than of pure purpose and well-defined national aims. It has been effected in different degrees by philanthropy, by private enterprise, by religious zeal, by ancient universities and endowed foundations, by municipal and local effort, and only to a small extent by legislation. The genius—or rather characteristic habit—of the English people is averse from the philosophical system, and is disposed to regard education, not as a science, but as a body of expedients to be discovered empirically and amended from time to time as occasion may require.” Clearly, then, the English system of public education, as it results from successive acts of the administration and the legislature, is one which can only adequately be appreciated in the light of an historical survey of the various stages which have led up to it and the social conditions by which they were determined. The history of state education in England begins tardily in 1832, when after a generation of hesitation and controversy a beginning was made upon an exceedingly modest scale with the system of treasury grants in aid of elementary schools. The diverse forces which were at that date at work in the education of the nation as a whole, retarding state interference and marking out the limits within which it was long to be confined, derive their origin from a much remoter period.
The apprenticeship laws of Henry VIII. contain the earliest germ of state interference. These laws obliged children between five and thirteen years of age who were found begging or idle to be bound apprentices to some handicraft. If the immediateInfluence of the English Reformation.object was the prevention of crime rather than education as such, this early legislation is at least significant of the primary and intimate connexion that exists between popular education and industrial and economic needs. Yet in the shaping of the educational system the original influences were religious rather than economic; hence the importance of the canons of 1604, which secured the control of education to the Established Church. This of course was no novel doctrine, but merely the reaffirmation by the Reformed Church of the Catholic tradition of religious exclusiveness, presenting itself to the mind of contemporaries rather as the recognition of a national, that was also a religious, duty than as the assumption of an ecclesiastical privilege. Whatever mischief the Tudor statesmen wrought by indiscriminate destruction of chantries and other foundations which combined educational work with observances that the new religion branded as superstitions, however far the English Reformation fell short of the organized enthusiasm for popular education and culture that marked the first most vigorous and constructive period of Lutheranism in Germany, the Protestant, and especially the Puritan, spirit unquestionably inspired a considerable volume of individual educational effort during the latter half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries. Here, as in Germany, the influence of the Reformation was wholly on the side of classicism, the dead languages being the key to the theological learning which was of primary concern to the men of that theological age. The conception of elementary education as a system complete in itself and adapted to the needs of the masses of the people was unfamiliar at this date. The earliest elementary schools werepetitsschools, which (as the name implies) were really preparatory departments of the grammar-schools. Education in fact was still regarded as the privilege of an élite, but, as in the middle ages, the élite for whom it was sought to provide a ladder to the university by means of the endowed schools so numerously founded about this time was an élite of intellect and not of mere wealth; the class feeling which became so marked a feature of English higher education was of much later growth.
Towards the end of the 17th century elementary education began to differentiate itself, partly by way of reaction against the unnatural classicism of the preceding age, but more especially as the result of the growth of towns and theRise of elementary education.creation of a considerable industrial population. At the close of the century the moral evils attendant upon industrialism alarmed the religious conscience and prompted one of the great educational movements that stand to the credit of the national church. In 1699 Dr Bray founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and the movement thereby initiated may be traced in the numerous “charity” or “Blue Coat” schools scattered plentifully throughout the country and especially in the great centres of population. The foundation of these schools, which was pushed forward with vigour during the early years of the 18th century, represents an energetic and well-planned attempt to cope with the social evil of poverty by educational means. The instruction was elementary, the scholars were clothed as well as taught free, and the schools in the first instance were supported not so much by permanent endowmentas by voluntary effort, so that with this movement the voluntary system may be said to make its appearance. Lastly, all these philanthropic efforts were inspired by a solid but sober piety nurtured by a church which came nearer than at any other period of its history to enjoying the undivided allegiance of the people. Another notable movement in connexion with the church was one confined to Wales, that of the Welsh “circulating schools” established by Griffith Jones about 1730, consisting of an organized staff of schoolmasters who went round teaching adults to read the Bible in Welsh. In the English rural parishes the comparative religious unanimity favoured the quiet development of elementary education in a small way upon less specifically religious lines. Numerous small endowments for the elementary education of poor children were provided by well-to-do parishioners; indeed to such an extent did the practice of making charitable (and largely educational) bequests increase that the legislature intervened in the interest of private inheritance by reviving the law of mortmain in an act of 1736. The village schoolmaster became a feature of rural life, frequently enjoying a schoolhouse provided sometimes by endowment and sometimes even directly by the parishioners at the cost of the rate levied by the vestry, but more often aided only by a little stipend from an endowment for teaching poor children, and eking out an always scanty subsistence by the fees of such paying scholars as he could succeed in getting together.
Towards the end of the 18th century the emergency of the industrial revolution evoked a fresh religious effort upon a more highly organized scale in the shape of the Sunday-school movement, which may be said to represent theThe Sunday-school movement.educational contribution of the Evangelical revival Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School Union, established his first Sunday school in 1782. The idea of the Sunday school did not originate with Raikes; among earlier pioneers in this field were John Wesley, who held Sunday classes at Savannah in 1737; Theophilus Lindsey at Catterick in the North Riding of Yorkshire, about 1769; Hannah Ball at High Wycombe in 1769; and Jenkin Morgan near Llanidloes in 1770. Sunday schools, too, had been founded in England by Joseph Alleine, the Puritan Father, in the 17th century, and in Catholic Italy and France by St Charles Borromeo and Jean Baptiste de la Salle in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively. Nevertheless, in virtue of his achievement in organization, Raikes is rightly regarded as the founder of the English Sunday school. The peculiar value of the Sunday-school system in its early days lay in the combination of secular with religious instruction; in many cases the school was held on Saturday as well as Sunday, and its restriction to the one day or two days was due to the prevalence of child labour under stress of the great industrial expansion. With better economic conditions and with the development of day schools the Sunday schools gradually became restricted in function to purely religious instruction. Even with this limitation there is no doubt that the great Sunday-school organizations of the various churches still deserve to be reckoned among the educational assets of the nation, and as agencies both of religious instruction and of general culture they may tend, under modern educational and religious developments, to play an increasingly important part.
At the end of the 18th century the development of industry and the social unrest which followed the French Revolution combined to bring home to the public mind the need of a national system of day schools. Unfortunately,Movements of Lancaster and Bell, and rise of the religious controversy.just at this moment the revival of Nonconformity as the result of the religious vitality of the Evangelical movement shattered the religious peace of the early Hanoverian period and divided the nation once more into hostile camps, to which class distinctions lent additional bitterness. The famous controversy between Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster and their respective followers in the opening years of the 19th century served to define the religious difficulty substantially in the form in which it exists after the lapse of a century for the present generation. Both these remarkable men conceived independently the idea of a national system of popular education upon a voluntary basis; both concurred in extolling the merits of the monitorial system, which each claimed to have originated. The controversy between them, begun upon personal grounds, resolved itself into a national contest of rival principles of religious teaching. Lancaster as a young Quaker schoolmaster, confronted with pupils drawn from various religious bodies, planned his religious instruction upon the lines of doctrine common to all the orthodox Christian denominations. Thus he is the father of the undenominational religious teaching which later formed the basis of the Cowper-Temple compromise. But whereas the Cowper-Temple clause is purely negative in form and so seems to point to an undogmatic religion, the Lancasterian teaching was essentially positive and dogmatic within its limits. In 1805 Mrs Trimmer opened the attack upon Lancaster’s system with a work bearing the expressive title ofA Comparative View of the New Plan of Education promulgated by Mr Joseph Lancaster and of the System of Christian Instruction founded by our Forefathers for the initiation of the young members of the Established Church in the Principles of the Reformed Religion. The church as a whole refused to co-operate in religious teaching upon the basis of a common Christianity, and joined issue with Lancaster and his Whig and Nonconformist following not merely upon the question of the exclusion of dogmatic formularies, but also upon the question of the control of whatever religious teaching should be given. In fact the vital question at this period was whether the clergy of the Established Church were to control the national education. The religious issue was prominent in connexion with the remarkable attempt at legislation made by the Whig statesman Mr Whitbread in his Parochial Schools Bill of 1807. As originally introduced, the bill proposed to make it compulsory on parochial vestries to levy rates for the support of schools for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. The compulsory provisions were dropped in the House of Commons, but the bill was rejected by the Lords, mainly on the ground that it did not place education on a religious basis or sufficiently secure control to the minister of the parish.
The failure of the liberal proposals of Whitbread, and the strength of the Dissenting opposition to any settlement on purely church lines (such as that advocated by Bell in 1808 for establishing schools under the control of theFoundation of voluntary schools.parochial clergy), rendered recourse to voluntary effort inevitable. In 1808 the Royal Lancasterian Society was formed to carry on the work of Lancaster, the name being afterwards changed, owing to personal difficulties due to the wayward character of Lancaster, to the British and Foreign School Society. In the following year the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales was formed, with Bell as its superintendent. In voluntary effort on a grand scale the church easily outdistanced her opponents, and in 1831 the National Society was able to show that there were in all over 13,000 schools in connexion with the church, of which 6470 were both day and Sunday schools, having a total attendance of 409,000.
The rapid development of the voluntary school system was no doubt greatly facilitated by the monitorial plan of teaching, upon which Bell and Lancaster equally relied. Probably the first idea of utilizing the older pupilsMonitorial system.to teach the younger presented itself independently to Lancaster in the Borough Road and to Bell in Madras. The monitorial plan never rested upon any educational theory; it was simply a makeshift, a rough-and-ready expedient for overcoming the practical difficulty caused by the dearth of competent teachers. Historically it is important as the precursor of the pupil-teacher system which so long formed the exclusive basis of the English elementary system.
Meantime a further political move was attempted by Brougham, who included educational reform among his multifarious activities. In 1816 he procured the appointment of a general commission of inquiry into endowed charities. TheActivities of Brougham.labours of this great inquisition lasted for twenty years and ledto the reformation of many cases of abuse or waste of wealthy endowments, and eventually to the establishment of the Charity Commission in 1853. In 1820 Brougham introduced a remarkable bill which proposed to make the magistrates in quarter sessions the rating authority, to require teachers to be members of the Church of England and to be appointed upon a certificate from the parochial clergyman, and on the other hand to prohibit religious formularies and to confine religious instruction to Bible reading without comment. The bill naturally failed through the opposition cf the Dissenters, and served only to accentuate the religious impasse.
In 1832 the Whig government which passed the Reform Bill placed on the Estimates a sum of £20,000 for public education, thus initiating the system of the annual grant voted by parliament and dispensed under regulations framedTreasury grants.by administrative act. The grant of 1832 was administered by the treasury and not by a special department, under certain conditions laid down by treasury minute of August 30, 1833. The chief of these were that grants were confined to the erection of school buildings, and were to be administered only through the National and the British and Foreign School societies; there was a provision for audit, but no condition of inspection.
In 1839 Lord Melbourne’s government by means of an order in council established a separate education office under the style of the Committee of Council on Education, and the sum voted by parliament was increased to £39,000.Establishment of State-aided system.The original intention of the government was to establish a state normal school or training college as the foundation of a national system of education. Unfortunately this design had to be abandoned in view of the religious difficulty, with the result (so fruitful in controversy at the present time) that the training of elementary teachers was left in private hands and became a stronghold of the voluntary and denominational interests. In view of the limited resources placed at their disposal by parliament, the Committee of Council were at first compelled to confine their assistance to capital grants in aid of the provision of school buildings, but in the distribution of the money three important conditions were at once imposed. In the first place, the continuing right of inspection was required in all cases; secondly, promoters were obliged to conform to a fixed standard of structural efficiency; thirdly, the building must be settled upon trusts permanently securing it to the education of poor children.
By the minute of August 10, 1840, the Committee of Council concluded what came to be known as the concordat with the church. Under this minute no appointment was to be made of any person to inspect schools in connexionConcordat with the church.with the Church of England without the concurrence of the archbishop of the province, and, what seems still more extraordinary to modern ideas, any such appointment was to be revoked should the archbishop at any time withdraw his concurrence. The inspectors were charged with the duty of inspecting religious teaching, but under instructions to be framed by the archbishop, and their reports were to be transmitted in duplicate to the archbishop and the bishop for the information of these authorities. Further, the general instructions of the Committee of Council themselves were to be communicated to the archbishop before being finally sanctioned. The march of events, and in particular the altered financial relations between the state and the voluntary managers brought about by the institution of maintenance grants, soon rendered this concordat obsolete, but it remains historically important as showing how at the outset the denominational principle was recognized and fostered by the state.
Among the first acts of the Committee of Council was the promulgation of a set of model trusts deeds, one or other of which applicants for building grants were required to adopt for the settlement of their school premises. TheTrust deeds.necessary conditions were the permanent appropriation of the site to purposes of education, and the permanent right of government inspection; it must, however, be noted that this latter right was generally limited in terms to the inspection provided for by the minute of August 10, 1840. A conscience clause was not obligatory, and indeed was only offered in the limited form of exemption from instruction in formularies and attendance at Sunday school or public worship. A more systematic attempt to promote public control by means of trust deeds in 1846 led the Committee of Council into a controversy with the National Society which extended over a period of three years, turning chiefly upon the management clauses and the question of appeals, and resulting in compromises which constituted a fresh concordat with the church. In point of fact, the management clauses proved to be of little practical consequence, save in a few controversial cases, until the act of 1902, which had the effect of bringing them once more into prominence in connexion with the constitution of statutory bodies of foundation managers. The act of 1902 also dealt specifically with two other points arising upon the old trust deeds, viz. the control of religious instruction and the appeal to the bishop in religious questions. Special facilities for the conveyance of land for school purposes were afforded to limited owners by the School Sites Acts of 1841 and subsequent years. The landed gentry responded with great public spirit to the call thus made upon their generosity by the state, with the result that the vast majority of rural, and many urban, parishes were freely endowed with sites for elementary schools.