upon the county "education committee." As for the rest, each municipal council must submit a "scheme" for the approval of the board of education, and that "scheme," as regards its cooptative elements, must provide: "For the appointment by the council on the nomination, where it appears desirable, of other bodies, of persons of experience in education, and of persons acquainted with the needs of the various kinds of schools in the area for which the council acts; "For the inclusion of women as well as men among the members of the committee; "For the appointment, if desirable, of members of school boards existing at the time of the passing of this act as members of the first committee." Further, it should be noted that "any person is disqualified for being a member of an education committee who, by reason of holding an office or place of profit, or having any share or interest in a contract or employment, is disqualified for being a member of the council appointing the education committee. But no such disqualification shall apply to a person by reason only of his holding office in a school or college aided, provided, or maintained by the council." There is no reason why every municipal council having powers under the act should not get together a thoroughly representative and able "education committee." Existing school board members, existing technical instruction committee's members, members of the governing bodies of the various voluntary and secondary schools of the area, and representative members of the various grades of the teaching profession-these are the elements from which the coopted membership of each "education committee" should be drawn. One of the dangers of the situation is this, that the "committees" may, in places, be packed with too many representatives of diocesan and church associations. Another is the stupendousness of the work in each of the great county boroughs. In any one of the ten or dozen great cities there are from 700 to 800 school departments to supervise; the education of some 100,000 pupils of all ages to direct; the work of some 3,000 teachers to overlook, and about half a million of money annually to expend. Now, in these cases, a majority of the members of the "education committee" must be members of the city council. And these city councilors are already very hard-worked business men. What will follow? The control of this great and detailed public work will necessarily fall into the hands of officials and of persons not directly responsible to the ratepayers. I can not think that this will make for effective local government, and I can well imagine the time when there will be a general demand from the great urban centers for reestablishment of the ad hoc local board of education. THE LOCAL MANAGEMENT OF THE SCHOOLS. Although the "education committee" is to have complete control of all the education given in the schools hitherto known as “board schools," and of all the secular education in the schools hitherto known as "voluntary schools," it is obvious that it can not directly "manage" each individual school. This task will be essayed by a body of six managers in each case. As to the "board schools" (in future they may as well be known as "undenominational" schools) there will be no difficulty. The "education committee" will nominate the managers for each school as the London school board does to-day. In the boroughs the "education committee" may, indeed, for its own schools, dispense with "local managers" altogether. The managerial problem becomes acute when we come to the "voluntary" schools (which may as well be known in future as the ' denominational" schools). Here the "education committee" is to nominate two managers; the managers under the trust deed of the school are to send four. Thus the six. These six-two public and four denominational-are to have managerial control over all the work of the school, secular (subject to the direction of the "education committee") and religious (subject to the provisions of the trust deed). Trouble as regards both the secular and the religious instruction may be anticipated under this arrangement. The "education committee,' which is from public funds to send to the school the whole of the money necessary for its maintenance, is likely to (and I sincerely hope will) impose obligations respecting the staffing of the schools, the payments to and the conditions of service by the teachers, the choice of books and apparatus, etc., which will certainly be resented by those very estimable clergymen who in the past have been not only the sole managers of the school, but the sole and undisputed dispensers of all the little patronage connected therewith. It is scarcely in human nature to expect that these good folk will in all cases take the stripping from them of their ancient authority with anything approaching equanimity. Then there is the question of the religious instruction in these schools. It is to be in accordance with the trust deeds, and at the same time, by the terms of the famous Kenyon-Slaney clause, * * under the direction of the six managers. But the trust deed usually in force, in Church of England schools, for instance, provides that "the principal officiating minister for the time being * shall have the superintendence of the religious and moral instruction of all the scholars," subject, in case of dispute, to an appeal to the bishop of the diocese. Supposing the clergyman resents the interference of the other five managers. What then? Supposing, on appeal, the bishop upholds the view of the incumbent. Again, what then? Visions of difficulty, therefore, both in respect of the secular and of the religious instruction arise without any vigorous exercise of the imagination under this two-and-four arrangement. In any case it is open to the grave objection that it does not give the public a sufficient return for the public money by which the denominational school will in future be maintained; and this, of course, will be its ultimate undoing. A rough estimate shows that in future the rates and taxes will find 55 shillings a year for each child in the denominational schools. The church adds to this (a) the use of the school building, and assisted by the public authority, (b) the cost of keeping that building in good repair. As to (a) the annual value of the buildings, at the church's own estimate, is £750,000. The public is to have the use of these for five days a week, and for, say, six hours each day, plus also the free use for three nights a week. Call this, roughly, two-thirds of the week, and the value of the rental comes down to, say, £450,000. Divide this among the 3,000,000 of children attending the denominational schools, and the value of the buildings works out at about 3 shillings a child per year-an estimate which, it will be noted credulously, swallows the absurd contention that these buildings are in all cases church property built with church funds. To this 3 shillings a child per year must be added the cost of (b)—the duty of keeping the buildings in good repair. A fair estimate puts this at 2 shillings a child per year, or £300,000 a year in all. Originally this sum was to have been met out of that £800,000 a year voluntary subscriptions which will no longer be needed for educational “maintenance," that being entirely met out of rates and taxes. Toward the later stages of the bill's discussion, however, steps were barefacedly taken, and taken after the scheme of "closure by compartments" had made any serious discussion quite impossible, to secure that, for the purpose of keeping the fabric in repair, the managers should in each case be allowed a share of the school fees paid by the children, the income from endowments, and the proceeds of the rent charged for the teachers' residences. Even after this had been done the Lords, on the motion of the Bishop of Manchester, threw part of the cost of repairs on the local authority! The result of this impudent raid upon funds which ought properly be applied to the relief of the education rate will be that little or no voluntary contributions will be needed for the upkeep of the fabric. However, I will put the case with hypercritical fairness, and let the 2 shillings a child by way of voluntary contributions for the fabric stand. So I get this: Furnished by the public in rates and taxes.. Shillings. Furnished by the church (3 shillings for use of buildings, 2 shillings for upkeep of fabric) Total cost per child per year 55 5 60 Thus the public which finds eleven-twelfths of the money is to get two out of six, or four-twelfths of the managerial seats! Of course the thing can not stand. And Mr. Balfour simply essays the rôle of an educational Mrs. Partington in endeavoring to stem the measure of local control which must follow from rate aid. The government, in an act which it has taken eight months to pass, stakes the whole future of the denominational system on a single word of four letters! That word is the word "four" in the fourteenth line of the sixth section of the act. Let a liberal Government pass-which it could do inside of a week-a bill of one clause, as follows: "Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows: "I. That the word 'four' in the fourteenth line of the sixth section of the education act, 1902, be read and construed as if it were the word 'one.' What then? The public would have two managers on each body as in the act; the denomination would have one. And down like a house of cards would come the whole fabric, to build which has nearly smashed the Unionist party, has bitterly alienated the free churches, and has eaten up a whole year of the time of the Empire's l'arliament. At this point it may be well to set out the whole position as between the public and the denominationalists, which this act establishes. The denominationalists get- national religious instruction en- year. The community gets 1. General supervision of the secular instruction by the "education committee." 2. The right to impose a denominational 2. Veto by the “education committee” religious test upon 14,000 out of the 20,000 head teachers appointed to the public elementary schools. over the appointment and dismissal of the teachers-questions affecting religious instruction being excluded from the said veto. The appointment of two managers out of six. The free use of the buildings five days a week and six hours a day and also for three nights a week, equals about 3 shillings a child per year. Buildings to be kept in good repair by the managers and the local authority, equals about 2 shillings a child per year. I leave the impartial reader to make his own comment on this scheme of give and take as between the public and the denominationalists. THE FINANCE OF THE ACT. The act revolutionizes the system of financing education in this country. It sweeps away once and for all the dangerous anachronism of endeavoring in part to maintain the education of more than half the children attending the elementary schools out of voluntary contributions. And for that alone I am profoundly grateful-subject, of course, to the reservation I have already made respecting the inadequacy of the measure of local control. In the past the financial support accorded to both “board" and "voluntary" schools has been of two kinds-central and local. The central support has consisted of grants from the exchequer paid upon the report of His Majesty's inspectors of schools; and, generally speaking, has been receivable by the "voluntary" schools on the same terms as by the “board” schools. But this exchequer aid has, admittedly, not been enough to run the schools efficiently, It has been necessary, therefore, to supplement it by moneys drawn from local sources. In the case of the schools known in the past as "board" schools this supplementary income has been provided from the rates, and in school-board districts this local contribution has been compulsory upon all ratepayers. The schools hitherto known as "voluntary" schools, and now to be known as denominational schools, have had no such compulsory local income to turn to. They have had to supplement their central aid from the offerings of benevolent and charitable persons. The school boards last year found it necessary to supplement their central aid by a sum equal to £1 89. 24. per child of the children in attendance in the schools. The conductors of the voluntary schools were only able to secure a local supplement to their central aid in the form of a voluntary subscription equal to 6 shillings 8 pence per child. It is this serious difference in the local income of the schools which, by placing all the schools boldly upon the rates for their local maintenance, the education act of 1903 sweeps away once and for all. For the first time, too, the local rate will be universalized. Up to the present, eight county boroughs (Preston, St. Helens, Chester, Lincoln, Stockport, Wigan, Bournemouth, and Bury), never having had a school board, have never levied a local rate for education. Now they will be compelled to do so. So, too, will something like half the 248 municipal boroughs which up to now have never had a school board. In this way the townspeople of 109 municipal boroughs, including such towns as Accrington, Cambridge, Chatham, Chelmsford, Cheltenham, Chichester, Crewe, Deal, Devizes, Doncaster, Dover, Eastbourne, Ealing, Grantham, Hereford, Penzance, Peterborough, Pontefract, Ramsgate, Richmond, Ripon, Southport, Taunton, Torquay, Truro, Weymouth, Whitehaven, and Winchester, will find themselves at last compelled to pay their due share in what ought long ago to have been viewed as a communal obligation. Ninety-two urban districts, too, will for the first time be rated, these including such towns as Bilston, Bishop's Stortford, Clevedon, Ilfracombe, Nantwich, Rhyl, Rugby, and Stretford. Finally, about half the rural parishes of the country (or, as nearly as I can gather, some 5,000) will also be rated for the first time. Of the entire rateable value of England and Wales—£186,500,000—quite sixty millions will thus be brought under compulsory contribution toward elementary education for the first time. In the administrative counties there will be a general county rate laid for elementary education. This must reach 3 pence in the pound, or the locality will be fined a portion of its share of the exchequer grants. The danger here is that this "3 pence in the pound" may be taken as a maximum. Indeed, the attorney-general, Sir Robert Finlay, says he is sorry that it has not been possible to fix it as a statutory maximum for the agricultural areas under the act. This, as coming from a Scotsman, strikes me as rather startling. Of course, where there has been no rate raised in the past this 3 pence in the pound is 3 pence to the good. But I must point out that at the present time in the areas where a local rate for elementary education is levied the average amount so raised is in the English boroughs 9.4 pence in the pound, in the English parishes 15.5 pence in the pound, in the Welsh boroughs 13.1 pence in the pound, and in the Welsh parishes 13.6 pence. I must also point out that last year 92 per cent of the English school boards and 94 per cent of the Welsh school boards found it necessary to raise a rate which in each case was higher than 3 pence. Further, over a third of the areas rated in England and Wales were rated at a shilling and upward in the pound. It must also be remembered that rate aid is now to be given, roughly, to double as many children as heretofore. It is now to be raised on behalf of the denominational as well as on behalf of undenominational school children. So any talk of even keeping the rate-in districts where it has hitherto been levied-at anything like its present level can only mean that part of the efficiency of the present board school is to be sacrificed to make up the leeway between them and the voluntary schools. For instance, take a town like Gloucester. The present school-board rate is 10 pence on behalf of 2,500 children in average attendance in the board schools. But you have now to rate-aid 4,000 voluntary-school children at 15 shillings a head on the rates-which is a moderate estimate-and this would raise the Gloucester rate from 10 pence to 1 shilling 2 pence. Again, take the case of Birkenhead. The rate is, roughly, 5 pence on behalf of the 2,800 board-school children. Add to the rates a share of the maintenance charge for 12,580 other children now in the voluntary schools and you raise the rate to over 9 pence. Take, again, the extreme case of Blackburn. There you have 1,000 school-board children and a rate of 34 pence. But you have now to rate aid 18,260 voluntary-school children. On the 15-shillingsa-head estimate the people of Blackburn would need to raise their rate from 33 pence to 10 pence. As I shall have to explain presently, this necessity has been in some degree mitigated by the provision during the passage of the act through committee of about £1,360,000 further grants in aid of elementary education from the imperial exchequer. On the other side of the account, however, there is the fact that not only have you to rate-aid double as many elementary-school children as before, but you have to proceed with the development of higher education, which is now to include all pupilteacher instruction, all training of teachers, and a very great deal of evening-school work. The counties in respect of this higher education are to rate themselves up to 2 pence in the pound, with a further subsidy from the rates by grace of the local government board. The county boroughs may rate themselves for higher education up to any limit. Now, 2 pence in the pound on the rateable value of England and Wales comes to £1,554,000, which is not much more than the additional exchequer grants provided for elementary education. Therefore, let no locality be in a fool's paradise over this matter. Where it has never been rated before for elementary education it must face with equanimity a new rate which it will have to levy, and face that rate without any jeremiads about 3 pence in the pound. Where a rate has been previously levied the locality must be prepared, despite the additional exchequer grant, and having regard to new obligations placed upon it in respect of higher education, to see its present rate increased by anything from 3 pence up to 6 pence in the pound--and even more in certain cases. Otherwise the board-school Peter will be robbed to pay the voluntary-school Paul. With regard to the new grant in aid of elementary education, a word or two as to its dispensation will be useful. The Government annexes the special-aid grants under the voluntary schools and necessitous school boards act of 1897, in all a sum of £860,000 a year; and to this it adds an entirely new State grant of about £1,360,000. These two together, making in all a special-aid grant of £2,220,000, are to be dispensed on the following plan: First of all, there is to be a fixed grant of 4 shillings per head allowed. This, on the average attendance, excluding London, will eat up £824,600. The remaining portion-£1,395,000-will be distributed as follows: For every 2 pence below 10 shillings which the proceeds of a 1-penny rate divided by the number of children in average attendance would produce, the Government will give a sliding scale grant of 14 pence per child. This sliding-scale grant will range from 6 shillings 9 pence per child in the case where the proceeds of a 1-penny rate divided by the number of children in average attendance will only produce 1 shilling, to nothing at all in the case where the proceeds of a 1-penny rate divided by the number of children gives 10 shillings. All schools will receive from this new grant sums varying from 4 shillings a child to 10 shillings 9 pence a child, according to the circumstances of the case. * * * THE ULTIMATE RESULT. So far, what I have written deals with the immediate working of the act. But no matter how it may be worked, it can not be viewed as the last word on the education question. That word will not have been spoken until all publicly aided schools are not only entirely under public control but are conducted in such a way as to impose no religious disability upon any pupil or teacher. Toward this end the Liberal Party will, of course, work; and the task before it has, in my opinion, been enormously lightened by the placing of all the schools upon the rates for maintenance. Ultimately, I have no shadow of doubt, we shall arrive at a national system, the main features of which will be: 1. All schools, as to general supervision and local management, under complete public control. 2. The denominational school buildings will be rented to the public authorities for the hours they will need them daily. 3. Religious instruction will take the form of a common family opening service of an undenominational character, right of entry being conceded to denominationalists for purposes of denominational teaching before and after the hours of the publicauthority's occupancy. 4. All teachers to be appointed by the public authorities for the purposes under their jurisdiction, and to be exempt from any theological test. PART II. SECONDARY AND UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. RELATION OF THE NEW ENGLISH LAW TO THE PROVINCE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION. The education law of 1902 is the first measure adopted for England which includes in its scope both elementary and secondary education. Besides the laws pertaining. to elementary education, several laws have been passed since 1860 dealing with particular classes of secondary schools, but the new law deals with both grades of education as related interests. The unsatisfactory condition of secondary education in the country had much to do with bringing about this legislation, and its importance as the initiatory step toward a unified national system of education can not be understood without reference to this higher department, which is no longer dealt with piecemeal, but in a comprehensive manner. It should be observed at the outset that the typical secondary schools of England, the great endowed schools that prepare for the universities, form a class by themselves, and if affected at all by the new law will only be so indirectly through & gradual change in scholastic demands. The purpose of the law indeed is, not to change what has become an integral part of English life and ideals, but to systematize, correlate, and direct new agencies which have been created by or are required to meet modern demands. By reference to the law (Part II, classes 2 to 4) it will be seen that the local education authorities (county and borough councils) are ordered to take such steps as ED 1902- -66 |