and technical schools and for the application of endowments, and for administering a 12d. county rate, which was supplemented by a treasury grant not exceeding the amount raised by the rate. Certain supervisory functions were entrusted to a Central Education Board, to which are committed the duties of inspection and examination. The joint education committees have now (except for the purpose of framing schemes for endowments) been superseded by the local education authorities under the act of 1902. The public assistance afforded to secondary education in Wales under the Intermediate Act is supplemented by the grants of the Board of Education, and the Board’s revised Secondary School Regulations were applied to Wales in 1908. There were (1907–1908) 92 county secondary schools in Wales administered under schemes made under the Welsh Intermediate Act, attended by 6235 boys and 6727 girls, total 12,962; and 12 other secondary schools, of which 8 were provided by local authorities. The total attendance at all secondary schools was 13,615, viz. 6819 boys and 6796 girls. The Board of Education grant amounted to £31,090. The expenditure of the local authorities for the year 1906–1907 was £85,242.
The number of scholars on the registers of ordinary public elementary schools in Wales was (Statistics, 1907–1908), in council schools 330,413, and in voluntary schools 100,290, total 430,703. The percentage of average attendance was 86·98. The ordinary parliamentary grant (1906–1907) was £794,161, and the net expenditure of local authorities £561,234.
In 1907 a Welsh department of the Board of Education was established with a permanent secretary and a chief inspector, each responsible directly to the president. A movement was in progress in Wales in 1908–1909 for the creation of a national council of education under an independent minister, but this change could in any case only be effected by legislation; and meanwhile the special religious and social conditions in Wales caused administrative difficulties in working an act (that of 1902) primarily designed to meet those prevailing in England. (G. B. M. C.)
United States.
History.—The first white settlers who came to North America were typical representatives of those European peoples who had made more progress in civilization than any other in the world. Those settlers, in particular those from England and from Holland, brought with them the most advanced ideas of the time on the subject of Beginnings.education. The conditions of life in the New World emphasized the need of schools and colleges, and among the earliest public acts of the settlers were provisions to establish them. The steps taken between 1619 and 1622 to provide schools for the colony of Virginia were frustrated by the Indian war which broke out in the latter year, and were never successfully renewed during the colonial period. In New York, where the influence of the Dutch was at first predominant, elementary schools were maintained at the public expense, and were intended for the education of all classes of the population. This policy reflected the very advanced views as to public elementary education which were then held in the Netherlands. The assumption of control in the colony of New York by the English was a distinct check to the development of public elementary education, and little or no further progress was made until after the Revolution. The most systematic educational policy was pursued in the colony of Massachusetts. As early as 1635, five years after it was founded, the town of Boston took action to the end that “our brother Philemon Pormort shall be entreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing children with us.” The General Court of the colony in 1636 made the first appropriation for what was to become Harvard College, taking its name in honour of the minister, John Harvard, who died in 1638, leaving his library and one-half of his property, having a value of £800, to the new institution. The amount of this appropriation of 1636 (£400) was remarkable in that it was probably equal to the whole colony tax for a year. In 1642 followed a legislative act which, while saying nothing of schools, gave to the selectmen in every town power to oversee both the education and the employment of children. It is made the duty of the selectmen to see that the children can read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the country, and that they are put to some useful work.
Five years later, in 1647, was enacted the law which is not only the real foundation of the Massachusetts school system, but the type of later legislation throughout the United States. This epoch-making act, the first of its kind in the world, represented the public opinion of a colony of about 20,000 persons, living in thirty towns. It required every town of fifty house-holders to establish a school, the master of which should be paid either by the parents of the children taught or by public tax, as the majority of the town committee might decide; and it further required every town of one hundred families or house-holders to set up a grammar school in which pupils might be prepared for the “University,” as the new institution at Cambridge was designated. Moreover, a penalty was attached to neglect of this legislative requirement, in the form of a fine to be devoted to the maintenance of the nearest school. Horace Mann said of the act of 1647: “It is impossible for us adequately to conceive the boldness of the measure, which aimed at universal education through the establishment of free schools. As a fact it had no precedent in the world’s history; and, as a theory, it could have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of argument and experience than was ever marshalled against any other institution of human origin. But time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries of successful operation now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, and as beneficent as it was disinterested.” The significance of these acts of 1642 and 1647 is that they foreshadow the whole American system of education, including elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges, and that they indicate the principles upon which that system rests. These principles as summarized by George H. Martin in his Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System are the following:—(1) The universal education of youth is essential to the well-being of the state. (2) The obligation to furnish this education rests primarily upon the parent. (3) The state has a right to enforce this obligation. (4) The state may fix a standard which shall determine the kind of education and the minimum amount. (5) Public money raised by general tax may be used to provide such education as the state requires. The tax may be general, though the school attendance is not. (6) Education higher than the rudiments may be supplied by the state. Opportunity must be provided at the public expense for youths who wish to be fitted for college. These principles have now found expression in the public acts of every state, and upon them education in the United States is founded.
Despite the praiseworthy attempts made in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to develop schools and school systems, very little was accomplished in those colonies which was permanent. The sentiment in the more southern colonies was, as a rule, unfriendly to free schools, and nothing of importance was attempted in that section Development.of the country until the time of Thomas Jefferson. Through religious zeal or philanthropy colleges were founded as far south as Virginia, and no fewer than ten of these institutions were in operation in 1776. Their present names and the dates of their foundation are: Harvard University, Massachusetts (1636); College of William and Mary, Virginia (1693); Yale University, Connecticut (1701); Princeton University, New Jersey (1746); Washington and Lee University, Virginia (1749); University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania (1749); Columbia University, New York (1754); Brown University, Rhode Island (1764); Rutgers College, New Jersey (1766); and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (1769). In the colleges the ecclesiastical spirit was at first almost uniformly dominant. The greater number of their students were preparing for the ministry in some one of the branches of the Protestant Church. These facts caused the grammar schools to take on more and more the character of college-preparatory schools; and when this was brought about they supplied the educational needs of but one portion of the community. As time passed, the interdependence of governmental
