664
EDUCATION
provision made for secondary instruction. The report says:— “Some are boarding schools, some are only for day-scholars. Some are the property of private individuals or of partners in private enterprise ; some are controlled by committees representing bodies of subscribers ; some are the property of companies formed under articles of association with limited liability; some are controlled by local public authorities ; some are regulated by Royal Charter, by Act of Parliament, by scheme under the Charitable Trusts Act or under the Endowed Schools Acts, or by some other legal instrument. Some are for boys only, some for girls only, some for both boys and girls. But as there is no general system of inspection applying to all the schools alike, it is not possible, with any approach to accuracy, to classify the whole number of schools, private and public, into grades of educational service. Nor is there in existence any list or register of these schools which pretends to be exhaustive. The whole subject is exceedingly obscure and has never been brought within the scope of comprehensive statistical inquiry.” The statistics in this return are based on information from 6309 schools, of which 1958 are for boys, 3273 for girls, and 1078 are mixed. The total number of boys was 158,502, and of girls 133,642. In 343 schools—224 for boys, with 13,248 scholars; 101 for girls, with 3864 scholars; and 18 mixed, with 2147 scholars—no day pupils were admitted. Endowments have furnished from the earliest times a larger part of the provision for education in England than in any other country. But it is only within the Endow present generation that a systematic attempt has been made to bring them under control and to provide a special tribunal for dealing with them. Before the Reformation there were schools attached to monasteries, chantries, cathedrals, and guilds; and the education given in them was chiefly directed to the training of choristers or priests. The description given by Mr J. B. Mullinger (in The Schools of Charles the Great) applies, not inaptly, to the schools attached to religious houses in England before the time of Henry VIII. : “ They were designed mainly for the monastic life : boys were taught to read, that they might study the Bible and understand the services; to write, that they might multiply copies of the sacred books; to understand music, that they might give with due effect the Ambrosian chant. Even arithmetic found a place in the course of instruction, mainly on the plea that it enabled the learner to understand the Computus, and to calculate the return of Easter and the festivals.” Mr A. F. Leach, whose industry has unearthed the names of 200 such schools, does not in his well-known book, English Schools at the Reformation, enable us to tell to what extent these schools were available for laymen, or how far they helped to provide general liberal education. Among them Winchester and Eton are the only notable survivors. The dissolution of monasteries and the policy of the Protector Somerset, under Edward VI., caused many of these schools to disappear in their old form; but a resolute effort was made to liberate them from purely ecclesiastical control, to re-establish them on a new footing, and to provide by these means a liberal education for all classes. The reign of Henry VIII. witnessed the foundation of 63 grammar schools; that of Edward VI., 51; that of Mary, 19 ; that of Elizabeth, 138; of James L, 84; and of Charles I., 59. The general characteristic of these schools was the provision in them for teaching the Latin and' Greek languages, and for encouraging quick-witted and diligent learners in all classes of the community to qualify themselves for entrance to the Universities. After the time of the Commonwealth, and especially in the time of William and Anne, scholastic endowments took a new form, and were directed rather to the establishment of charity schools for the children of the poor than to the encouragement of liberal studies in the community at large. The 18th century
endowments provided, in what were popularly called charity schools, gratuitous instruction of a very elementary kind, besides clothing and apprentice premiums for the children of the poor. These schools were in almost every case closely connected with the Established Church, and designed to attach scholars to that communion. Lord Brougham in 1816 persuaded Parliament to make an elaborate inquiry into the condition and resources of endowed charities generally, and the reports made in that and the following years gave many particulars respecting the incomes of the several trusts and the way in which they were administered. But the Commissioners to whom the work was entrusted were not charged with the duty of reporting on the educational efficiency of the schools. It was not till the year 1865 that the first serious attempt was made by the Legislature to ascertain the condition of secondary education and to take measures for its improvement. Two previous Commissions—that of Lord Clarendon in 1861 and that of the Duke of Newcastle in 1859—had reported, the former on the nine great foundations known par excellence as the “ public schools ”— Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Shrewsbury, St Paul’s, Westminster, Merchant Taylors’, Charterhouse, and Rugby— and the latter on the condition of popular or elementary education. Between these two there was a wide field for investigation and report, which was entrusted to the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1865. This body, under the presidency of Lord Taunton, made, with the assistance of Sir Stafford Northcote, Dr Temple, Matthew Arnold, and others, an elaborate investigation into the whole subject and an estimate of the provision then afforded, not only by endowed foundations, but also by private and proprietary establishments, for education other than elementary. The general character of the report, so far as ancient endowments were concerned, was extremely disappointing. A large number of the grammar schools were found to be in a feeble or decaying condition. The writer of this article was Assistant-Commissioner for the purpose of this inquiry, and his testimony, confirmed by that of all his colleagues, was that the number of scholars who were receiving the sort of classical education contemplated by the founders was very small and was steadily decreasing ; that the general instruction in other subjects was seriously defective; and that the existence of statutes prescribing the ancient learning often served as a reason for withholding any modern addition to it. The causes of this deterioration were carefully examined and reported on by the Commission. They were declared to be (1) the faulty composition of the governing bodies, who were often little groups of persons renewing the trusts from time to time by co-optation, and in no wise representative of local wishes or needs; (2) the system of freehold masterships, which made it nearly impossible to remove incompetent teachers or to effect improvement; (3) the absence of any public or other supervising authority to ensure efficiency; and (4) the haphazard distribution of endowments, often in places where they were least suited to the requirements of the population. The elaborate reports of this Commission made a great impression on the public. They revealed a lamentable state of decay and uselessness in regard to many of the ancient “ classical ” foundations; they showed the supply of good intermediate schools, whether private or public, to be wholly inadequate;: and they urged the necessity for legislation, to correct the abuses and revise the schemes of the grammar schools, and to co-ordinate, extend and improve, and bring under public supervision the work done by local and private bodies. The Endowed Schools Bill, brought into Parliament by Mr Forster in 1869, was the immediate fruit of this report. Its author contemplated a large and comprehensive measure
