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Spens (1938) (page numbers in brackets) Preliminary pages (i-xxxviii)
Chapter I (1-86)
Appendix I (386-402)
Index (465-477) |
The Spens Report (1938) Secondary Education with Special Reference to Grammar Schools and Technical High Schools London: HM Stationery Office [page 1] 1. The 'lessons of history' are often difficult and obscure, but it is at any rate possible to discover, from the systematic study of an historical development such as the evolution of the traditional curriculum for Grammar Schools (including the non-local Public Schools) and for other types of secondary school, the successive phases of opinion by which it has been influenced. As we see one view or theory of education subjected to criticism and in consequence modified or superseded by another, we may be able partially to understand and appraise the value and meaning of each successive phase, and to form opinions of our own which, though they cannot possibly claim to be final, may at any rate claim to be based on something more substantial than current opinion and popular views of the significance of what has occurred. Secondary or higher schools in England and Wales and indeed in most Western European countries were at the time of their origin, and even down to a comparatively recent date, to a considerable extent institutions for the education of children, chiefly boys, either belonging to the more prosperous classes or selected for their ability. Schools designed to provide education for the mass of the people were not established till after Grammar Schools, and those institutions of University rank with which they were intimately connected, had long been in existence. Thus, whereas elementary or primary schools (1), provided on a large scale for the less affluent classes of the population, have developed from the ideas and necessities of modern times and have in general no very remote history, the Public (or non-local Grammar Schools) and the Grammar Schools of England and Wales, which may (1) A large number of chantry schools and collegiate church schools came to an end in the reign of Edward VI. [page 2] broadly be described as schools of the academic type, have a long and interesting history going back to the Hellenistic and Roman schools of rhetoric, such as the famous public school kept by Quintilian at Rome in the latter half of the first century of our era. Curricula for higher schools, if they be carefully examined over any considerable period of time, will be found to reflect and reveal in a remarkable way the interplay of deep seated forces in the national life. These opposing forces are often characterised as liberal or conservative. More careful detailed study of the evolution of the traditional curriculum shows that the train of causation is highly complex and that such names only partially and imperfectly describe the character and significance of the forces at work. The history of the traditional curriculum bears witness to the unending struggle between rival philosophies of life and widely divergent theories of education and human development. These find expression in varying forms in succeeding generations in the controversies which centre round this or that aspect of education and training; for instance, the rival claims of a classical and a modern education; of the humanities and the sciences; of a general and a specific (technical) education. The real root of the problem which confronts us today is probably to be found in the increasing complexity of the political, economic and social background of modern life and the rapid growth of knowledge which make ever fresh demands on the schools and the teachers. It is becoming more and more evident that a single liberal or general education for all is impracticable, and that varying forms both of general and quasi-vocational education have to be evolved in order to meet the needs of boys and girls differing widely in intellectual and emotional capacity. New 'subjects' are constantly obtruding themselves on the higher schools. Relief can only be found through a synthesis of claims and a constant reorientation of outlook resulting from greater insight and wider experience. 2. The conception of general education current throughout Western Europe in the Middle Ages which in England and Wales survived in a modified form down to the eighteenth century, was that of the seven liberal arts or sciences which were regarded as preparatory to the study of theology, law [page 3] and medicine. (1) Of these the trivium - grammar, rhetoric and logic, known as the artes sermocinales - were regarded as preparatory to the remainder, namely, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, described as the quadrivium, or artes reales vel physicae. The history and significance of the conception of the liberal arts are discussed in some detail in Appendix II to this Report. When Universities developed in Western Europe from the thirteenth century, the three 'philosophies', natural, mental and moral, were superimposed. In the sixteenth century in England and Wales the traditional general curriculum for the grammar school and the University, as distinct from the professional studies of divinity, medicine and law which were pursued at the University alone, was in substance the mediaeval seven liberal arts described above, but in them the balance of studies had been considerably modified. The quadrivium, comprising arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, belonged to the University; the trivium, consisting of grammar, rhetoric and logic, was rather unsystematically distributed between pupils in Grammar Schools and students in their first year at the University. (2) It must be remembered that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and to a great extent in the eighteenth century, youths were admitted to the Universities at the age of 15 or even earlier. Of the studies included in the trivium, the only one that was systematically taught in the Grammar (1) See Appendix II to this Report, cf. The Abbé Fleury. The History, Choice and Method of Studies (1686), English translation, London (1695), pp. 33-34. 'Thus, all studies were reduced in the twelfth century to four sorts of faculties. The fourth comprehended all preliminary studies which were accounted necessary to arrive unto the higher studies, which were called by the general name of the arts. Under the name of the arts were comprehended Grammar and Humanity; the Mathematics and Philosophy. But to speak properly this name ought only to comprehend the seven liberal arts which we find treated in Cassiodorus and Bede, viz. Grammar, Rhetorick, Logick, Arithmetick, Musick, Geometry and Astronomy. A Master of Arts should be one capable of teaching all these.'
(2) M Davies Athenae Britannicae (1716) - II, 328: 'He (i.e. Robert Talbot about 1540) was educated in Grammaticals in Wikeham School near Winchester and at Newe College, Oxford, in Logicals and Philosophicals.' A Wood Athenae Oxonienses (1691), I, 12: 'John Constable educated in Grammaticals under William Lilye (at St Paul's School); in Academicals in an ancient hostel (sometimes called Byeham Hall) at Oxford.' [page 4] Schools in effect was grammar, which meant Latin literature (1), and in particular the necessary preliminary study of Latin grammar, which was regarded as the special 'business' of schools. (2) 3. For some hundreds of years before the middle of the eighteenth century the typical school in England and Wales was the endowed Grammar School, which was generally regarded as the lower stage or feeder for 'grammar scholars', who in due course were to proceed to be be 'artist scholars' at Oxford or Cambridge. One of the basic ideas of the Grammar School was that it was designed to send at any rate its more gifted pupils to the Universities. It was implicitly regarded as a schola particularis of the University which was the studium commune vel generale, and in theory at any rate its function was to instruct its pupils in the trivium. In practice, however, the principal aim of the Grammar School was to give some form of instruction in Latin, which down to the first half of the eighteenth century was still to a great extent the language of theology, law, science, and even diplomacy in Western Europe. To quote a classic example, William of Wykeham in his foundation deed for Winchester College dated 20 October 1382, after referring to his foundation of New College Oxford (1379) - 'a perpetual college of seventy poor scholars, clerks, to study theology, canon and civil law and arts in the University of Oxford' - laid down that his foundation of 'Seinte Mary College by Wynchestre', which he designed to feed New College, Oxford, was to consist of 'seventy poor and (1) cf. Seuyn Sag (W.) 106 (about 1320 AD): 'He made the boke of Catoun (i.e. disticha Catonis) clere, That is beginning of gramere.'
(2) At Bruton Grammar School (1519) all scholars 'as well poor as rich, were to be taught freely grammar after the form of Magdalen College, Oxford, or St Paul's School, London, and not songs, or petite learning or English Reading, but to be made perfect Latin men.' (Schools Inquiry Commission Report (1868), p. 121.) It was not infrequently enjoined that Latin alone was to be spoken in school, e.g. Marlborough Grammar School (1550); Alton Grammar School (1641). (SIC Report, p. 114.) In a State paper of 1655 Grammar Schools are described as 'ffree Schooles of Literature'. cf. J Brinsley Ludus literarius: or the Grammar Schools (1612); cf. also De Quincey Aut. Sketches (1858), Works, II, 268: 'At the little town of Hawkeshead ... a Grammar School (which in English usage means a school for classical literature) was founded.' [page 5] needy scholars, clerks living college-wise in the same, studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art, faculty or science of grammar.' In the same way Eton College, founded by King Henry VI in 1440 on the model of Winchester, was planned as a great non-local Grammar School (1) which was to pass its pupils on to King's College, Cambridge. The teaching of grammar, described in William of Wykeham's foundation deed for Winchester College (1382) as 'the foundation, gate and source of all the other liberal arts, without which such arts cannot be known, nor can anyone arrive at practising them', and in the foundation deed for Wotton-under-Edge Grammar School in Gloucestershire (1384) as 'the foundation of all the liberal arts', was regarded as the distinguishing mark of higher education. The most frequent terms in which founders described the schools which they intended to establish, were simply a 'Grammar School', a ' free Grammar School', or ' a master to teach grammar'. That the teaching of the liberal science or art of grammar was regarded as the distinguishing mark of higher education is shown by the fact that in some cases an 'English School' for the 'pettys' was established side by side with the Grammar School, or, as it was sometimes called, 'the Latin School.' (2) Some foundations were designed not only for grammar, but for elementary subjects as well, regarded usually as a preparation for grammar. For instance, Enfield Grammar School (1507) was 'to teach children within the town of Enfielde to know and read their alphabet letters, to read (1) Henry VI in his grant of a monopoly to Eton College for teaching grammar and prohibition of other grammar schools in Windsor and ten miles round Eton dated 3 June 1446, states that he has granted to the Provost and authorities of the Royal College of Eton that they and their successors 'may always have within the boundaries of the said Royal College a public and general grammar school, and that the same school as it surpasses all other such grammar schools whatsoever of our kingdom in the affluence of its endowment and the pre-excellence of its foundation, so it may excel all other grammar schools, as it ought, in the prerogative of its name, and be named henceforth the King's general school, and be called the lady mother and mistress of all other grammar schools.' Chancery Warrants, Series I, file 1439. Quoted on pages 412-413 of Educational Charters and Documents 598 to 1909, by AF Leach (Cambridge, 1911).
(2) The Grammar School founded in 1635 by the Puritan settlers at Boston, Massachusetts was known as the Latin School. cf. The vernacular schools and Latin schools described by Comenius: Great Didactic (1657) XXIX, XXX. [page 6] Latin and English, and to understand grammar, and to write their lateines according to the use and trade of grammar schools.' In a few cases a self-contained primary school was established. For instance Archbishop Rotherham, at his Jesus College at Rotherham, provided, in a Foundation Deed dated 1 February 1483, for a writing school with a Fellow learned and skilled in the art of writing and accounts to act as Master to teach gratuitously the art of writing and reckoning 'to the many youths endowed with natural capacity who do not attain to the dignity and height of the priesthood, but are fitted rather for the mechanical arts and other concerns of this world.' It was not however till after the Restoration in 1660 that numerous endowed schools were founded for primary education only. The scholars, usually described in the school statutes as 'children' or 'youth' for whom the Grammar Schools were intended, were of no one class in particular. The school was to be for such as required an education in grammar, and among them there would be boys of all classes, but many more of those above the labouring class than of those in that class. The 'poor' are frequently named in the school statutes, but rather in a way indicating a desire to keep the school available for them, than in expectation that they would in fact form the majority of the scholars. 4. The statutes of Grammar Schools founded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries indicate clearly that the Grammar School was regarded as an institution primarily designed to prepare scholars to proceed to the Universities, from which they would in due course enter one of the three ancient learned professions or the profession of teaching. The Grammar Schools were thus from one point of view vocational schools orientated towards the Universities. (1) (1) The Report of the Public Schools Commission (1864) stresses on page 13 the close connection between the nine great Public Schools and the Universities. 'The great schools, again, have always educated principally with a view to the Universities; the path of access to the learned professions lies through the Universities; the work done at school tells thoroughly and directly on the examinations for admission to the Universities and for University prizes and distinctions, whilst it has not, until recently, assisted a youth to obtain entrance into the public service, civil or military, at home or in India; the cleverest and most diligent boys, for whom the system of study has been chiefly moulded, have gone to the Universities; all the masters have been University men.' [page 7] The danger of sending too many 'grammar scholars' to the Universities, and thereby overcrowding the learned professions, was always present to the minds of contemporary statesmen. A classic illustration is afforded by the following passage from a letter of 1611 from Sir Francis Bacon (afterwards Viscount St Albans) to King James I, about Thomas Sutton's proposed foundation of a hospital and school in the Charterhouse of Smithfield. 'Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion of one of the wisest and greatest men of your kingdom, that for Grammar Schools there are already too many, and therefore no providence to add, where there is excess. For the great number of schools which are in your Highnesses realm, doth cause a want, and likewise an overthrow; both of them inconvenient, and one of them dangerous; for by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry, and apprentices for trade; and on the other side, there being more scholars bred than the state can prefer and employ, and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion of the preparative, it must needs fall out, that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations, and unprofitable for that in which they were bred up, which fills the realm full of indigent, idle and wanton people, which are but materia rerum novarum.' (1) In this context it is important to point out that there was a certain connection, particularly in the seventeenth century, between the Grammar Schools with their orientation towards the Universities and the contemporary system of apprenticeship which corresponded to our modern system of technical education. In a number of endowed schools part (1) cf. Joseph Addison's Essay No. 21 in the Spectator on the overcrowding of the learned professions (1712). Several great French statesmen and educationists of the 17th century were fully aware of the danger of producing too many scholars. For instance, Cardinal Richelieu in his Testament Politique (probably about 1640) writes: 'Ainsi qu'un corps qui aurait des yeux à toutes les parties serait monstrueux, de meme un Etat Ie serait-il, si tous ses sujets étaient savants. ... Le commerce des lettres bannirait absolument celui de la marchandise, et ruinerait l'agriculture.' The Abbé Claude Fleury (1640-1723) in his Traité du choix et de la méthods des études (1686) observes: 'L'abus des études surcharge la republique d'une infinite d'oisifs, qui se croient au-dessus de tout depuis qu'ils savent un peu le latin.' cf. also B Mandeville Essay on Charity and Charity schools (1722) p. 223 - 'The understanding of Latin thoroughly is highly necessary to all that are designed for any of the learned professions ... but to youth who are afterwards to get a livelihood in trades and callings ... it is of no use.' [page 8] of the funds was allocated to binding boys to a trade after several years at school. A good illustration of this tendency is afforded by the statutes of Sir Thomas Cookes for Bromsgrove School (1693). Cookes gave an annual income of £50 to the school, £20 of which was paid to the schoolmaster for the gratuitous instruction of 12 foundation scholars in the English and Latin tongues and, if they were capable, in the Greek tongue also and to write and cast accounts. The remaining £30 was to be expended by the trustees on clothing the boys and paying premiums for boys after six years at school, 'to be placed apprentice or put out to such trade as the trustees think proper'. (1) 5. The only grammar that was or could be taught in the Grammar Schools at first was Latin. Greek was added in the sixteenth century by many founders. The Reformation movement, by its insistence on Biblical study, helped to strengthen the position of Greek, and in a few cases also established Hebrew on the list of school studies. Arithmetic and Elementary Mathematics are rarely mentioned in early foundations. At Bungay (1592) 'The school master and scholars were to keep school every Saturday and half-holiday till 3 o'clock in the afternoon for writing and casting accounts with the pen and "counters" according to their capacities.' The statutes of Blackburn Grammar School (1597) suggest that 'the principles of Arithmetic, Geometry, and Cosmography with some introduction into the sphere are profitable.' (1) cf. Christopher Wase (1625-1690), sometime Master of Tonbridge School and supervisor of the University Press at Oxford Considerations concerning Free Schools, as settled in England (1678), Section 24, p.53: 'Many of these foundations by their constitution or narrow revenue are only Nurseries of piety and letters, as preparatory to trade. This discrimination in every County duly made would depress the swellings of minds possessed with prejudice arising from the growing numbers of these houses of all sorts, yet supposed to prepare men for an unactive life only. ... Some counties are slenderly provided of the conveniences of this education. ... A free school is sometimes not erected, or without scholar, or without school-house, or unendowed, or without competent endowment, or arbitrary for a town's convenience, and revocable at the patrons pleasure: some wholly, very many in part, having stocks to bind out for husbandry or trade. ... This preparation is not like to give terror to the State, though the provision may minister some relief to the Church.' [page 9] In its main features, however, the ordinary grammar school curriculum up to the beginning of the nineteenth century reproduced the education in rhetoric described by Quintilian and inherited by the Western Church from the Roman Empire. (1) The narrow and restricted character of the traditional curriculum in the Public Schools and Grammar Schools, representing as it did an all too faithful adherence to the form, if not to the real spirit, of the Renaissance, was largely due to the inert condition of the two ancient Universities in the seventeenth and still more in the eighteenth century. In the middle of the seventeenth century the conservatism of the Universities, which were steeped in the neo-scholastic tradition, was to some extent counteracted by the great movement which spread from Italy all over Western Europe for the establishment of scientific academies. In England a series of tentative proposals for founding a great society or academy for scientific research finally assumed concrete form in the Royal Society of London, which received its first Charter from Charles II in 1662. It is interesting to note the emergence of the idea of associating a school with a scientific society of this type. It appears, for instance, in Abraham Cowley's Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1660), in which he suggested that a school should be attached to his philosophical college for scientific research. 6. Even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was much criticism of the limited vocational aim of the Grammar Schools, based as it was on the requirements of the Universities and the learned professions. In particular, it no longer suited the needs of the upper classes, who desired their sons to be trained for posts at Court, for diplomacy and for higher appointments in the army. Meanwhile institutions based on the vocational needs of the governing class had developed on the Continent. They were known in France and in the German and Scandinavian states as knightly (11) cf. HI Marrou Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique Paris (1938), pp. 47-157; 505-541.
[page 10] or courtly academies. (1) They gave instruction to young nobles, not only in horsemanship and the use of arms, but also in modern languages, history and geography, and in the application of mathematics to military and civil engineering. A proposal for the establishment of a school on these lines in England was made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1572, and in the following century Cowley, Locke, Defoe and many minor writers urged in vain that schools of this type should be established. The upper classes in England in the seventeenth century frequently entrusted the education of their sons to private tutors, and afterwards sent them to the knightly or courtly academies on the Continent. The development of these courtly academies on the Continent to meet the needs of the upper classes showed that the vocational motive was present. Incidentally, the development of this type of school designed for the governing class was one of a number of movements which reflected the maladjustment between the classical grammar schools and the needs of contemporary life. 7. In the latter part of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century there was a great development of seaborne trade and a consequent demand for captains and officers for the mercantile marine who had an adequate knowledge of mathematics. This led to some interesting attempts to develop a specific or quasi-vocational education in some of the endowed schools on or near the sea coast. For instance, at Dartmouth Grammar School (1679) there was to be a master to teach Latin and another to teach English, the art of navigation and other mathematics. (1) The theory of this form of education, primarily designed for the governing class, was expounded by Baldassare Castiglione of Mantua in his treatise Il Cortegiano (The Courtier) 1528, translated into English by Sir Thomas Hoby in 1561. Among the most famous courtly and knightly academies on the continent were the Mauritianum at Kassel (1599); the Knightly Academy at Soroe in Denmark (1623); the Academic Royale established at Richelieu's request by the Oratorians at Juilly in 1638, and the Academy founded by the Cardinal himself at Richelieu near Tours in 1640. In 1635 an attempt was made to found in London, under the patronage of Charles I, an institution to be called Minerva's Musaeum for the education of young noblemen in the liberal arts and sciences. cf. Bishop Joseph Hall's Works (1643), p. 358: 'With what shame and emulation may we look upon other nations. They have their solemn academies for all those qualities which may accomplish gentility from which they return richly furnished both for action and for speculation.' [page 11] A few other schools on or near the sea coast, such as Williamson's School at Rochester (1701), Neale's Mathematical School in Fetter Lane, London (1705), and Churcher's College at Petersfield (1722) made explicit provision in their statutes for the teaching of the 'art of navigation and other mathematics'. The most characteristic development of this kind was at Christ's Hospital (1552), within which a 'Mathematical School' for 40 boys was established in 1673. The boys were to be well grounded in grammar and common arithmetic and were to be taught 'the whole science of arithmetic' and the art of navigation. They were then to be bound as apprentices for seven years to captains of ships. Books, maps, globes and mathematical instruments were ordered for the instruction of the boys, who were to remain at school till the age of 16. Though this mathematical school enjoyed royal patronage and was supported in various ways by Pepys, Halley, Sir Isaac Newton and other eminent mathematicians of the period, it was a comparative failure up to the latter half of the eighteenth century, largely owing to incompetent management. (1) 8. During the Commonwealth many proposals were made for modifying the traditional courses in schools and Universities, but the liberal movement received a check at the Restoration which tended to make the endowed Grammar Schools even more conservative than heretofore. The policy of ecclesiastical uniformity adopted after 1660 further reinforced the static tendencies of the Grammar Schools and compelled many youths to seek on the continent a training foreign both in aims and in means. Their criticisms of the conventional curriculum on their return to England must have indirectly added to the widespread dissatisfaction which became still more acute after the industrial revolution. During the eighteenth century the endowed schools remained impervious to new ideas, and their tenacious adherence to (1) 'In fact it had everything in its favour - endowment, a plentiful supply of scientific instruments, a complete set of class-books - everything except the requisite personal impulse which can only come from settled and sympathetic instruction. The history up to the latter half of the eighteenth century is one long story of inefficient, ineffective teachers, and one may add of a good deal of incompetent management.' (EH Pearce Annals of Christ's Hospital pp. 98-134.) [page 12] ancient custom further stimulated the growth of a body of public opinion hostile to the traditional curriculum. The celebrated controversy in England at the end of the seventeenth century between the 'ancients' and 'moderns' was indicative of the change that was gradually taking place in conceptions of curriculum, and of the demand for 'useful studies', which became so insistent towards the close of the eighteenth century and which may already be traced in Locke's treatise Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693). The Nonconformist Academies, established in considerable numbers from 1670 onwards, though at first intended for the education of ministers, received many lay pupils. (1) They often provided a wide curriculum, including (in addition to the traditional Greek and Latin), English, Modern Languages, Mathematics and a certain amount of Natural Science, principally Physics. Moreover, they were far less insular than the Grammar Schools and were influenced indirectly by educational developments in Scotland, Holland, Germany and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. For instance, the Academy at Newington Green (1666-1706) had a garden, a bowling green, a fishpond, a laboratory, an air pump, a thermometer and mathematical instruments of various kinds. At the Sherriffhales Academy (1663-1697) in Shropshire, practical exercises accompanied the course of lectures and the students were employed at times in surveying land, composing almanacs, making sun-dials of different construction and dissecting animals. The celebrated Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), who taught for several years at the Warrington Academy, published in 1765 his essay on A Course of Liberal Education for Civil and Active Life, in which he stresses the importance of English, History, Geography, French, Practical Mathematics with some Algebra and Geometry, Chemistry and sufficient Latin to read the easier classics. He urges that the whole plan of education from the grammar school to the finishing university should be designed for the use of the general students as well as for those intended for the professions. When Protestant Nonconformists were legally allowed to follow the teaching profession by an Act of Parliament passed in (1) I Parker Dissenting Academies in England (1914).
[page 13] 1779 (1), a large number of new private schools, partly modelled on the older dissenting academies, were established, especially in London and industrial towns such as Birmingham and Manchester, to meet the needs of manufacturers and merchants who demanded a more practical education for their sons than that provided in the endowed schools. These commercial academies and private schools undoubtedly had many faults, but they were more receptive of new ideas and more ready to experiment than the old endowed Grammar Schools, and subsequent reforms in the curriculum can be largely traced to their influence. 9. The Grammar Schools, local and non-local, with their narrow curriculum almost confined to Greek and Latin, were not able to meet the new demands for courses of training and education fitting boys for the life of the period. This dissatisfaction with the traditional curriculum was well expressed in Locke's Thoughts concerning Education (1693) in which he stressed the importance of a broader intellectual training, moral development and physical hardening. Locke's low opinion of the contemporary curriculum is shown by his statement, that 'Of a great part of the learning now in fashion in the schools of Europe ... a gentleman may in good measure be unfurnished with, without any great disparagement to himself or prejudice to his affairs.' (2) Locke's view on the value of private education by tutors rather than public education found wide acceptance among the upper (1) 19 Geo. Ill, c. 44. An Act passed in 1791 (31 Geo. Ill, c. 32, Sections 13-17) extended a like measure of liberty to Roman Catholics. Several of the English Colleges in France were transferred to England after the Revolution. For example, St Edmund's College, Ware, founded as a private school for Roman Catholics in 1769, received in 1795 the southern half of the students from the English College at Douai, while the northern students from Douai settled at St Cuthbert's, Ushaw. In the same way, the Benedictine schools at Downside (1792 and 1814) and Ampleforth (1802) represent schools transferred by the Order from France after the Revolution. Several of these schools long retained traces of the French tradition of secondary education. For instance, the top forms at Downside were called Rhetoric and Poetry and the boys who had passed the London Matriculation were called 'philosophers'. Dom Birt History of Downside School p, 243.
(2) Edward Leigh writing in 1663 described Eton, Winchester and Westminster as 'trivial' schools, i.e. as teaching only grammar and rhetoric, since logic, the third subject of the trivium, had dropped out. [page 14] classes who frequently throughout the eighteenth century educated their sons at home by tutors and then sent them on the 'grand tour' either with or without a period of residence at Oxford or Cambridge. Throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century there was a marked decline in the numbers of the pupils at Grammar Schools and of students at the Universities. The middle classes frequently sent their sons to small private schools. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the boys attending the non-local Public Schools, such as Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Harrow, Rugby and Shrewsbury, tended to be drawn from the upper and wealthier classes. A book entitled Liberal Education or a Practical Treatise on the Method of Acquiring Useful and Polite Learning, published in 1787 by Vicesimus Knox, Head Master of Tonbridge School from 1778 to 1812, gives a good general idea of the aims and methods of the more efficient Grammar Schools towards the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Knox, who was a vigorous upholder of the 'established manner' in education, regarded Latin and Greek as the basis of all sound instruction, but thought it desirable, when this foundation had been laid, to include Modern Studies. Classical teaching should consist chiefly of the grammar of the two languages and the composition of prose and verse in both. To these basic studies might be added the elements of History and Geography, some Mathematics, French and accomplishments such as Drawing, Music and Fencing, though Knox himself approved more of 'dancing and the learning of the military exercises which is now very common'. Boys were expected to read English books and easy Latin books in their leisure time. It is clear from the stress which Knox lays on the inadequacy of the education given in many private schools, which prepared boys for business and office life, that the established classical curriculum did not entirely meet the needs of the middle classes. Knox asserted that, though these academies professed to teach many subjects, their success was in fact confined to reading, writing and summing. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were marked by great advances in various branches of science and by the development of rich vernacular literatures in the countries of Western Europe, and many protests were raised in different quarters against the narrowness of the traditional [page 15] curriculum. (1) Nevertheless, the endowed schools, both local and non-local, supported by the conservatism of the old Universities, successfully resisted all attempts at reform. There is evidence to show that a considerable number of endowed Grammar Schools tried to provide an education of a more modern type alongside the traditional classical curriculum, For instance, 183 boys, of whom 153 were boarders, went from Manchester Grammar School to the University between 1749 and 1784. Most of the local day boys at that period left school about the age of 12, either to go into trade or to get a more vocational training at a commercial academy. (2) At Stafford Grammar School, about 1820, Ward's edition of Lilly's Latin Grammar and the Westminster Greek Grammar were used, 'but as not a sixth part of the boys ever wish to learn the Classics, being principally destined for commerce and manufacture, the system of education is chiefly directed to English Grammar, Writing and Arithmetic. This system has been adopted by the present masters in the last 20 years.' (3) At Odiham Grammar School in Hampshire, the course in the latter part of the eighteenth century included systematic teaching in English. (4) In 1805 Lord Eldon, accepting Dr Johnson's definition of a Grammar School as 'a school in which the learned languages are taught grammatically', ruled in the Court of Chancery that no part of the funds of the Leeds Grammar School could be expended in engaging teachers of French or German or in creating a subsidiary department for commercial training. His judgement was upheld by subsequent decisions and this state of affairs continued till the passing of the Grammar School Act 1840. (5) In a few instances the governors of well endowed grammar schools were able to incur the expense of securing the passing of a private act of parliament to
(1) cf. Robert Lloyd A Schoolmaster's Life (1750):
(3) Carlisle Endowed Grammar Schools (1819), II, p. 491.
(4) B Webb An Essay on Education Reading (1782).
(5) A process for revising charitable foundations in cases of breach of trust had, however, been provided by Romilly's Act 1812, 52 Geo. III. c. 101. [page 16] enable them to enlarge the scope of the original Foundation. For instance, in 1838 a private act was passed to enable the governors of Macclesfield Grammar School to establish a second school to be called the Modern Free School, at which instruction should be given 'in writing, arithmetic, mathematics, the modern languages and in such other branches of education (exclusive of the learned languages) as the Governors shall for that purpose from time to time direct.' The static condition of the education given in most of the Public Schools and Grammar Schools down to 1840 or even later was largely due not only to the predominant influence of the two old Universities, but also to the fact that they were endowed foundations. Few institutions are so proof against change as foundations supported by endowment, and consequently to a great extent independent alike of external control and of popular demand. Thus, till the middle of the nineteenth century the endowed schools of England and Wales were, for the most part, in a backwater, and their pious founders determined from the tomb their studies and their methods of instruction long after changes in the circumstances of the districts or of the pupils had made the founders' statutes inappropriate, or the development of educational theory had rendered them obsolete. The Grammar Schools have had very varied histories. Some with slender endowments gradually fell into decay; some became in practice elementary schools, and most of them were distracted by the varying claims of different classes of boys who required different kinds of training. Nevertheless, many small Grammar Schools continued till the middle of the nineteenth century or even later to take the sons both of the lower middle class and of the gentlefolk of the neighbourhood, sending boys not infrequently to the Universities and producing from time to time some distinguished scholars. Meanwhile, certain well endowed educational foundations, some of which, such as Eton, Winchester and Westminster, had always been non-local, and some of which, such as Harrow, Rugby and Shrewsbury, became non-local in the eighteenth century, came to be regarded as the proper places of education for the sons of the gentlefolk; and those who could afford the expense became anxious to send their sons from a distance to them. There thus grew up the practice of sending boys to boarding schools, and ultimately a preference for boarding schools as opposed to day schools. (1) The reforms in discipline and (1) cf. JL Brereton County Education 2nd ed. 1861; p. 2. [page 17] corporate life effected by Dr Arnold during his tenure of the headmastership of Rugby (1828-42), which spread to other Public Schools, together with the facilities for travelling afforded by the new system of railways, tended to increase the prestige of a few great schools among the affluent classes and particularly the new class of wealthy manufacturers. From these different circumstances there arose a class of Public Schools which maintained a high standard of efficiency, but at a cost which confined them to the wealthier classes. Meanwhile, the habit of founding Grammar Schools gradually died out towards the end of the eighteenth century; also, owing to the industrial revolution there was a great increase in the population, and the distribution of it was wholly changed. Many of the old Grammar Schools were situated in thinly populated areas, and on the other hand in many new and populous neighbourhoods there was no provision of higher schools. The absence of Grammar Schools in some places and their inefficiency in others afforded an opening for private venture, and over a large part of the country 'Commercial Academies' and private schools became the recognised means of education for the middle and lower middle classes. 10. The narrow range of studies in vogue at the Public Schools and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was vigorously attacked by writers in the Edinburgh Review in 1809 and 1810. These articles pointed out that the principal defect of the Public Schools was excessive devotion to Latin and Greek to the exclusion of modern subjects. It was absurd to regard the classics as the only test of a cultivated mind. A place should be found for modern history, modern languages, geography, chronology, experimental philosophy and a considerable amount of mathematics. The attack was renewed in the Edinburgh Review in 1830 in an article chiefly devoted to Eton: 'The most precious years are spent, not in filling the mind with solid knowledge; not in training it to habits of correct and patient thought; but in a course of half-studious idleness (1), of which the only lasting trace is the recollection of misspent time.' James Pillans (1778-1864), Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University, who was for some time a private (1) In point of fact one of the best features in the arrangements at Eton and Winchester at this period was that the boys had a good deal of free time for general reading etc. [page 18] tutor at Eton, gives an interesting description of the curriculum at the great Public Schools about 1823 in his Rationale of Discipline, written in 1823 and published in 1851. 'In the great schools of England - Eton, Westminster, Winchester and Harrow, where the majority of English youth who receive a liberal and high professional education are brought up - the course of instruction has for ages been confined so exclusively to Greek and Latin that most of the pupils quit them not only ignorant of, but with a considerable disrelish and contempt for, every branch of literature and scientific equipment, except the dead languages. It may be said that there are in the immediate neighbourhood of the College, teachers of Mathematics, Writing, French and other accomplishments to whom parents have the option of sending their sons. But as these masters are extra-scholastic - mere appendages, not an integral part of the establishment - and as neither they nor the branches of knowledge they proffer to teach are recognised in the scheme of school business, it requires but little acquaintance with the nature of boys to be aware, that the disrespect in which teachers so situated are uniformly held extends, in young minds, to the subjects taught and is apt to create a rooted dislike to a kind of instruction which they look upon as a work of supererogation. And this, we venture to say, is all but the universal feeling at Eton.' (1) The fourth decade of the nineteenth century was a period of great unrest both in primary and secondary education (2), and the traditional curriculum and current ideas about education were subjected to severe examination and criticism in the publications of the Central Society of Education, founded in 1837. The following passage from an article by Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) (afterwards Sir Thomas Wyse), entitled Education Reform (1837), gives a vivid picture of the state of secondary education at the time: 'In no country is the strife between the new and the old educations more vehement - the education which deals with mind as spirit and that which deals with it as matter. In no country are there greater anomalies - greater differences (1) James Pillans Contributions to the Cause of Education London (1856), p. 271.
(2) The general unrest in higher education in Western Europe in the thirties may be seen from the fact that the Jesuits found it necessary to revise in 1832 for the first time since 1599 their famous Ratio atque Institutio Studiorum (1599). [page 19] not merely in the means, but in the ends of education ... it runs through the entire system.' (1) Such was the position of education in England according to Wyse at the time of the first Parliamentary grants for elementary education (1833). He adds: 'If we find in the country and town schools little preparation for occupations, still less for the future agriculturalist or mechanic, we find in the Grammar Schools much greater defects. The middle class in all its sections, except the more learned professions, finds no instruction which can suit its special middle class wants. They are fed with the dry husks of ancient learning when they should be taking sound and substantial food from the great treasury of modern discovery. The applications of chemical and mechanical science to everyday wants - such a study of history as will show the progress of civilisation - and such a knowledge of public economy in the large sense of the term as will guard them against the delusions of political fanatics and knaves, and lead to a due understanding of their position in society, are all subjects worth as much labour and enquiry to that great body, as a little Latin learnt in a very imperfect manner, with some scraps of Greek to boot - the usual stunted course of most of our Grammar Schools.' (2) Though educational reformers such as Pillans and Wyse, and a large section of the middle classes, were profoundly dissatisfied with the curriculum in vogue in the Public Schools and the Grammar Schools, nevertheless these schools, which were the resort of the governing classes of the time, had many defenders. For instance Vicesimus Knox published in 1821 a vigorous defence of the Grammar Schools in opposition to a bill presented to parliament in 1821 authorising the authorities of Grammar Schools to allow English, Writing and Accounts to be added to the classical curriculum. (3) (1) Sir Thomas Wyse was considerably influenced by Rousseau. His ideas on education are not unlike those of RL Edgeworth (1744-1817). See Edgeworth's Practical Education (1798).
(2) cf. the following passage from The Aims of Education and other Essays by Professor AN Whitehead (1929), p. 2: 'In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with a ferment of genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas.'
(3) Knox V Remarks on the Tendency of Certain Clauses in a Bill now pending in Parliament to Degrade Grammar Schools etc, London (1821). [page 20] Again, the writer of the article on education in the Penny Encyclopaedia (1845) states that the endowed schools were still the best all-round schools in England. 11. The writers of the articles in the Edinburgh Review cited above held that it was impracticable to reform the Public Schools, and suggested that educational experiments should be carried out in other schools. There were, however, few organisations or individuals who were prepared to experiment. The Protestant Nonconformists, who had been allowed to follow the teaching profession by an act passed in 1779, though they were still excluded from the Universities and the Public Schools, made comparatively little use of the opportunities thus afforded. Mill Hill School, founded by the Congregationalists in 1807, which was organised on public school lines partly on the advice of Dr Keate, headmaster of Eton, had from its inception a curriculum somewhat wider than that in vogue in the ancient foundations. In addition to classics the boys devoted a considerable amount of time to Mathematics, including Algebra, Euclid and Trigonometry; French was taught by a Frenchman and courses of lectures were given on natural and experimental philosophy; drawing was taught by 'an artist of respectability'; and history, English reading, elocution and ancient and modern geography formed an integral part of the school course. The schools established in the first half of the nineteenth century by the Society of Friends showed a noticeable tendency to break away from the trammels of the traditional curriculum. Special attention was devoted to the study of English and particularly to oral reading and composition, and the pupils were frequently required to write descriptions of excursions, lectures and other incidents of school life. Considerable attention was also given to natural history, elementary natural science, geography and manual work of various kinds. The most remarkable experimental school at this period was the private school conducted from 1819 by the Hill family at Hazelwood, near Birmingham, and later at Bruce Castle in Tottenham. The salient features of these two schools were the breadth of the curriculum and the arrangements for self-government. (1) The younger pupils, who were taught (1) These two schools are described in Plans for the education of boys in large numbers, as practised at Hazelwood School (1825) and in Sketch of the system of education, moral and intellectual, in practice at the schools of Bruce Castle, Tottenham, and Hazelwood, near Birmingham.
[page 21] in a separate classroom, were kept together for all subjects while the remainder were grouped and regrouped for each branch of study. The course in the eight classes of the school included orthography, geography, parsing, shorthand, mathematics, French, Greek and Latin. The first geography class was composed of members of the highest French class and was taught by the French master in French, 'improvement in French being quite as much the object as the acquisition of geographical knowledge'. Modern languages were taught as early as possible. A description of the school published in 1833 states that fencing, dancing and music were taught by visiting teachers and that lectures in natural philosophy were also provided. There was systematic instruction in swimming and gymnastics, and boys with practical tastes were encouraged to take up subjects such as drawing etching, painting, mapmaking, surveying, making mathematical diagrams, making machines, printing at the school press, reporting debates and trials before the school jury, and music. Many of the arrangements show the influence of Pestalozzi (1746-1827). For instance, mapping was carried on out of doors in association with surveying. Adequate facilities and rewards were provided for voluntary work in a series of activities, many of which were manual, and much stress was laid on civic and moral training. The government of the school was vested in the headmaster, the teachers and a committee of boys who were elected once a month and met weekly to frame rules and regulations. The school had a judge, a keeper of records, an attorney-general, a constable and a jury appointed by lot. There was a weekly conference of the teachers, dealing with instruction rather than government. The school attracted much attention at the time and De Quincey wrote an article about it in the London Magazine in 1834. 12. It is broadly true to say that till some time after the passing of the Grammar Schools Act 1840 (1), the two classical languages with the elements of History and Geography held a decided predominance over the whole course of study in most endowed schools. (1) An Act for Improving the Condition and Extending the Benefits of Grammar Schools. 3 and 4 Vict. c. 77. [page 22] At Eton, Rugby, Shrewsbury and some other schools, French, Arithmetic, Writing and Drawing were taught on half-holidays by 'masters of accomplishments'. One of the most progressive of the endowed schools in the first half of the nineteenth century was Shrewsbury, where the curriculum was carefully reorganised under Dr Samuel Butler, headmaster from 1798 to 1836. The course was still mainly classical, but more attention was given to Greek than was usual in most schools, and English, Geography, Algebra, Euclid and English History formed part of the ordinary work of the Fifth and Sixth Forms. The boys had a considerable amount of time for private reading, to which Butler attached great importance. He introduced promotion by merit and periodical school examinations for the Upper Forms in which an English theme played an important part. Butler's successor, Dr BH Kennedy, made French a part of school 'business' in 1836, appointed a German master in 1837, and in 1836 added Mathematics to the regular school curriculum. Butler's work as a reformer of the traditional curriculum was further developed by Dr Thomas Arnold, who was Head Master of Rugby from 1828 to 1842. Regarding the formation of moral principles and habits as the most important part of education, Arnold assigned a leading place to history and other forms of instruction calculated to develop character. Under the system which he had established at Rugby by 1835 the boys were taught in three divisions - Classical, Mathematical and French. The Sixth Form remained the same in personnel for all studies. Classics formed the core of the curriculum, but were supplemented by instruction in French and Mathematics (including Arithmetic, Algebra and Geometry), which were taught by the classical form masters. The curriculum also included English, German, Ancient History and Modern European history. The teaching of Ancient History was partly based on a first hand study of Greek and Roman historians; and the French texts read in the Sixth Form included some of the historical works of Guizot and Mignet. Arnold devoted much attention to developing the corporate life of the school and exercised a profound influence over his prefects. Apart from the fact that he brought neo-humanistic ideas to bear on the traditional classical studies he did comparatively little to enrich the traditional curriculum. On the other hand his far-reaching reforms in the corporate and [page 23] social life of the school did much to rehabilitate the Public Schools in popular esteem, and prepared the way for the foundation of a number of new proprietary schools on public school lines which are described in the following section. Arnold's successor, Dr Tait, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed a special teacher of modern languages at Rugby to whom the classical form masters might transfer their pupils. Tait also appointed two special mathematical teachers for the whole school instead of requiring all classical masters to teach Mathematics. Physics under the name of 'Natural Philosophy' became a subject of instruction at Rugby in 1837 and a Physics laboratory was erected in 1859. The Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868), which is summarised in Section 15, shows that the reforms introduced by Butler and Arnold spread rather slowly except in the larger schools. The curriculum devised for Uppingham by Edward Thring, Head Master from 1853 to 1887, is of interest on account of its recognition of the importance of the teaching of English and of the aesthetic subjects, especially Music and Art. The ordinary school subjects, Classics, English Composition, on which great stress was laid, Scripture, History and Geography, were taken in the morning. In the afternoon came music and various optional subjects of which every boy had to take one or two, such as French, German, Chemistry, Carpentry, Turning and Drawing. Thring was one of the first head masters to assign to Music a prominent place in the school by making attendance at singing classes and music lessons compulsory. He also attached great importance to systematic physical exercises and to hobbies. The Uppingham gymnasium, opened in 1859, was the first of its kind in any English Public School, as were also the workshops, laboratories, school garden and aviary. It was largely owing to the indirect influence of Thring's methods that school activities outside the classroom developed so rapidly after 1868. The older endowed schools had already systematic organised games, school magazines and debating societies, and these spread rapidly to the smaller schools. In the same way systematic gymnastics were introduced on the Uppingham model into most schools. School plays, concerts, natural history societies and other out-of-school activities were developed somewhat later. [page 24] 13. Arnold's work at Rugby (1828-1842), as has been said above, restored the prestige of the large boarding schools among the middle class who welcomed the social and moral training which they offered. The demand for more boarding schools of the public school type, which coincided with the rapid increase in wealth of the middle classes, and the construction of the new system of railways facilitating means of communication, led to the establishment of a considerable number of new boarding schools, partly by stockholding companies. The most famous schools of this type were Cheltenham College (1841), Marlborough College (1843), Rossall School (1844), Radley College (1847), Wellington College (1853), Epsom College (1855), Bradfield College, (1859), Haileybury (1862), Clifton College (1862), Malvern School (1863) and Bath College (1867). These institutions, described in the Report of the Public Schools Commission (1864) as proprietary schools, were designed to make boarding schools accessible to those sections of the middle class who found difficulty in paying the fees of the older and more expensive Public Schools. To the same end Canon Nathaniel Woodard (1811-1891) founded in 1848 the Woodard Society to provide Anglican boarding schools for the various sections of the middle class. Thus Lancing was founded for the gentry, Hurstpierpoint for the upper middle class and Ardingly for the lower middle class. (1) One outcome of Arnold's influence was appreciably to arrest the movement for the foundation of day proprietary schools, which had begun in the third decade of the nineteenth century. Among the most important day schools of this type were the Liverpool Institute (1825), King's College School (1829), University College School (1830), Blackheath Proprietary School (1831), the City of London School (1837) and Liverpool College (1840). These new schools, being untrammelled by the statutes of founders and being in most cases without endowment, were obliged to make an effort to respond to the needs of the time and to offer an education which, if from one point of view liberal, was also controlled to a considerable extent by the vocational aim. (1) Dr KE Kirk, Bishop of Oxford The Story of the Woodard Schools (1937). [page 25] The vocational motive is specially apparent in the arrangements at Cheltenham College (1841), which had from its inception a Modern (or Military and Civil) Department designed primarily to prepare boys for Woolwich and Sandhurst, for appointments in government offices, for engineering or for commercial life. The main study was Mathematics, and though Latin was to a certain extent retained, Greek was omitted, Natural Science was introduced and more stress was laid on Modern Languages. The lower forms were carefully grounded in Latin, English, history and Elementary Mathematics. Several of these new schools besides Cheltenham had developed modern sides. For instance, King's College School had a modern department which contained in 1862 almost as many boys as the classical department. The City of London School also had a modern side. One aim of these modern departments was to prepare boys for definite examinations, in which they would not have succeeded if they had competed direct from the classical department. Amongst these examinations were those for Woolwich and Sandhurst, which at Cheltenham College 'mainly guided the reading of the higher classes in the modern department'. 14. There was a large section of the middle and lower middle classes who either could not afford to send their sons to the Public Schools and the Grammar Schools or to the new proprietary schools, or who desired a more modern type of education at a lower cost. (1) Many of them sent their children to private boarding or day schools. The chief defects of these private schools, which were later described in detail in the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868) and the ancillary Reports of the Assistant Commissioners who inspected schools for that Commission, were the absence of standards and the interference of the parents, who were apt (1) The middle classes had been enfranchised by the Reform Act 1832, and exercised great political influence from then till the successive extensions of the franchise in 1867 and 1884. A large number of new avocations which demanded an education of a super-primary type, though not necessarily of the grammar school type, were becoming available for boys in the first half of the nineteenth century, e.g. the Stock Exchange; insurance in its various branches; posts connected with municipal corporations, after the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835; posts connected with the administration of the Poor Law, after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834; posts as officials of the numerous Gas and Water Companies etc. [page 26] to impose a utilitarian curriculum on some at any rate of these schools. Dr Arnold, writing in 1832, thus described the Commercial or English schools at which a considerable proportion of the sons of tradesmen and farmers received their education: 'In some instances they are Foundation Schools, but more commonly they are private undertakings entered upon by individuals as a means of profit for themselves and their families. The pupils receive instruction in Arithmetic, History, Geography, English Grammar and Composition. ... The rudiments of Physical Science are also taught in them, and with a view to his particular business in life he learns Land Surveying if he is to be brought up to agricultural pursuits, or Bookkeeping if he is intended for trade.' There was, however, especially after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832, a very considerable popular demand for this type of school in order to complete an elementary education with a course of two or three years of studies of a utilitarian character designed as a preparation for a business career. Some of the Grammar Schools and the new proprietary schools (eg Manchester Grammar School and the Liverpool Institute) set up distinct departments to provide such a course. In Manchester the Church Education Society opened in 1846 the first of four 'Commercial' schools. This school provided a modern curriculum including French, German and Drawing. The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, founded in 1811, began about 1838 to interest itself in the question of establishing Middle Schools designed to offer the middle classes at moderate fees a good general education based on Church principles. The Society accordingly began to graft superior schools on to its already existing Normals Schools. Thus a Middle School, sometimes known as the Yeoman School, was founded at York attached to the Church Training College. It was arranged in six classes, the lowest class containing some children of the ages of 5 and 6. In addition to the three Rs, Grammar, Latin, History and Mensuration [measuring] were taught. Schools of like type were founded by the Society at Canterbury, Lincoln, London and elsewhere. In Devonshire a scheme was started about 1855 to provide middle class County Schools for the sons of farmers and others concerned in agriculture. It was proposed to teach in these schools, in addition to the three Rs, English, History, [page 27] and Religious Instruction, Mathematics including Arithmetic, Algebra, Euclid and Trigonometry, Bookkeeping, Mensuration and the elements of Political Economy. Latin, Chemistry, Mechanics, European History and Music were suggested as extra subjects. In some cases after 1869 middle class schools were engrafted on to ancient grammar school foundations by the Endowed Schools Commission (1869-1874) and the Charity Commission (1874-1902), e.g. the Middle School for Boys at Tiverton. (1) 15. In 1861 the Government appointed a Royal Commission with Lord Clarendon as chairman to inquire into the administration of nine great Public Schools. (2) The Report of this Commission, published in 1864, is of much interest not only as marking the beginning of direct state intervention in the affairs of the endowed schools (3), but also as illustrating contemporary views on the curriculum for boys. The constructive suggestions of the Commissioners on the curriculum show the strength and vitality of the classical tradition, and indicate that the Commissioners had sought to justify their adherence to this tradition in a modified form by taking as their model the Prussian Gymnasium of the period, with its ideal of neo-humanistic 'general culture' deriving from the reforms introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1809. (4) The Commissioners were of opinion that the course of study provided in the nine great Public Schools was sound and valuable in its main elements, Latin and Greek, but was lacking in breadth and flexibility. The position held by the different studies in a school was determined by several considerations: their admission into or exclusion from the school course; the (1) See Section 18 of this Chapter.
(2) The Public Schools Commission only dealt with nine ancient foundations, viz. Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, St Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby and Shrewsbury, whereas the Schools Inquiry Commission which sat from 1864 to 1868 dealt with secondary schools as a whole, i.e. all that lay between the nine great Public Schools and 'the education of boys and girls of the labouring class' which had been dealt with by the Newcastle Commission (1858-1861).
(3) The state had already intervened indirectly in the management of charitable and educational foundations by Romilly's Act 1812, 52 Geo. Ill, c. 101, and by the Grammar Schools Act 1840.
(4) See Appendix II to this Report, pp.408-9. [page 28] time allowed to them; the value assigned to them in examinations and in promotion within school. At all nine schools Arithmetic and Mathematics were taught. In all except Eton there was instruction in one modern language, either French or German, and at Rugby and Charterhouse instruction was given in both. At Rugby, Natural Science was taught to boys who elected to study it instead of languages. Lectures on it were given at Winchester and occasionally at Eton. The Commissioners pointed out that Natural Science was thus practically excluded from the education of the higher classes in England, 'a plain defect and a great practical evil'. Drawing might be taken as an extra and some instruction in Music might generally be obtained in the same way. In their general observations on the subjects approved for school courses the Commissioners strongly supported the classical tradition. 'For the instruction of boys, especially when collected in a large school, it is material that there should be some one principal branch of study, invested with a recognised and, if possible, a traditional importance, to which the principal weight should be assigned, and the largest share of time and attention given. We believe that this is necessary in order to concentrate attention, to stimulate industry, to supply to the whole school a common ground of literary interest, and a common path of promotion. The study of the classical languages and literature at present occupies this position in all the great English schools. It has, as we have already observed, the advantage of long possession, an advantage so great that we should certainly hesitate to advise the dethronement of it, even if we were prepared to recommend a successor.' The Commissioners thus regarded classics as the principal study, but held that the main object for which boys learned Latin and Greek was to teach them to use their own language. They recommended that in addition to Classics and religious teaching all boys should learn Arithmetic and Mathematics and at least one modern language, which should be either French or German; one branch at least of Natural Science and either Drawing or Music. Boys should also acquire some general knowledge of Geography and English History, some acquaintance with modern History and a command of pure grammatical English. Mathematics should include the elements of Geometry, Algebra and Plane Trigonometry; Natural Science should, where practicable, include two [page 29] main branches, one comprising Physics and Chemistry and the other Comparative Physiology and Natural History. These recommendations for the teaching of Natural Science were apparently taken direct from the arrangements then in force for the teaching of Naturkunde in the Prussian Gymnasium, which assigned to that study one hour a week out of 28. The Commissioners also regarded Geography as ancillary to History (1), as it was at that time in the Prussian Gymnasium. 16. The Report of the Public Schools Commission directed attention to the need for a comprehensive investigation of the state of secondary education in England and Wales, and the government accordingly appointed in 1864 a Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Taunton, to inquire into the education given in schools not included within the terms of reference of the Public Schools Commission, 'and also to consider and report what measures (if any) are required for the improvement of such education, having especial regard to all endowments applicable or which can rightly be made applicable thereto'. The Report of this Commission, which is usually known as the Schools Inquiry Commission, was published in 1868. It throws much light on contemporary ideas regarding the curriculum. The Commissioners reported that in general the distribution of secondary schools throughout the country was inadequate, particularly in the more populous areas. There seemed to be no clear conception of the purpose of secondary education (2), (1) In regard to History, the opinion expressed by Dr Moberly, the headmaster of Winchester, was probably then widely held: 'I wish we could teach more History, but as to teaching it in set lessons I do not know how to do it.'
(2) There is reason to believe that in a considerable number of endowed schools the conditions prevailed which are described in the following passage from the evidence given by Sir Charles Lyell FRS to the Oxford University Commission in 1851. (Oxford University Commission's Report (1852), Appendix and Evidence, page 122): 'A school, I speak from experience, may consist of about 80 boys taken from the higher and middle classes, of whom 75 are never intended for the University ... The headmaster, a graduate of Oxford, models his plan of instruction for all the pupils in such a way as will tell best in preparing these five favoured youths to cut a figure at the University ... The parents of the other 75 boys may wish for the introduction of the French and German languages, or the elements of Physics and Natural History, or some modern literature, but they must submit to be ruled by the standard set up at Oxford, and even those assumed to be the best only for a class of students which can afford to persevere in a preliminary and unprofessional training up to the age of 22.' [page 30] nor was there any appropriate differentiation of courses adapted to the needs of pupils who left school at different ages. Only a small number of the existing schools took advantage of the standards set up by the various external examining bodies, and a still smaller number sent pupils on to the Universities. The best work, on the whole, was found in some of the endowed and proprietary schools, but the general results were unsatisfactory in nearly all the subjects that were taught. The private schools were for the most part unsatisfactory, and were subject to interference from parents who were only interested in education that had an immediate practical value. Of the old endowed schools of England and Wales, 782 in number, only 209, or about 27 per cent, were really classical schools; 183 schools, or about 23 per cent, were semi-classical and taught little or no Greek; 340, or about 43 per cent, did not teach either Greek or Latin, and seldom gave any effective instruction even in Mathematics, French or Natural Science. In fact the majority of these 340 schools gave an education no wider than that of an ordinary elementary school. In the Grammar Schools which really taught classics, the teaching was generally poor and in many instances it seemed as if the main function of the classical teaching was to furnish an excuse for the neglect of all other useful learning. English and Natural Science were rarely taught systematically or regarded by the head master as a serious part of the school 'business'. It is especially interesting to note the inferiority of the non-classical schools described in the Report. This was doubtless partly due to the fact that few of the advocates of reform had any clearly defined notion of what the non-classical school should do. The Commissioners insisted on the importance of grading and stated that schools of three grades were required above the rank of primary education. 'The wishes of the parents can best be defined, in the first instance, by the length of time during which they are willing to keep their children under instruction. It is found that, viewed in this way, education, as distinct from direct preparation for employment, can at present be classified as that which is to stop at about 14 (1), that which is to stop at about 16, and that which is to continue till 18 or 19; and for convenience we shall call these (1) The principle of compulsory attendance (subject to certain exceptions) at elementary schools up to the age of 13 was first introduced by the Elementary Education Act 1870, and affirmed by the Elementary Education Act 1880. [page 31] the third, the second, and the first grade of education respectively. The difference in the time assigned makes some difference in the very nature of the education itself; if a boy cannot remain at school beyond the age of 14, it is useless to begin teaching him such subjects as require a longer time for their proper study; if he can continue till 18 or 19, it may be expedient to postpone some studies that would otherwise be commenced early. Both the substance and the arrangement of the instruction will thus greatly depend on the length of time that can be devoted to it. It is obvious that these distinctions correspond roughly, but by no means exactly, to the gradations of society. Those who can afford to pay more for their children's education will also, as a general rule, continue that education for a longer time.' The persistence of the classical, or at any rate the Latin, tradition in English higher education is strikingly shown in the constructive recommendations of the Commissioners for their three grades of secondary schools, viz.: (a) First grade schools with a leaving age of 18 or 19 closely connected with the Universities which would teach Greek as well as Latin. The Commissioners' archetype for this grade of school was probably the contemporary Prussian Gymnasium.The Commissioners themselves explicitly state on pages 79 and 80 of their Report (1868) that their proposed third grade schools were intended to provide good instruction 'for the whole of the lowest portion of what is commonly called the middle class', but even in these schools they urge that boys (1) It is possible that the Commissioners derived the idea of these three grades of school from the tripartite organisation of Liverpool College with its three distinct schools, Upper, Middle and Commercial; (SIC, IX, 591), and Sir Michael Sadler's Report on Secondary Education in Liverpool (1904), pp. 23 and 40). [page 32] between the ages of 12 and 14 in the upper divisions should study the elements of Latin or some modern language. The Commissioners go on to say that these third grade schools need not be all of one type. 'On the contrary it would be wise to put no obstacle in the way of a free growth of very various kinds of schools of this sort. Some, like the Bristol Trade School (1), might give up the study of language, and cultivate the elements of the sciences most needed for the trade or manufactures of the place. Others might give up Natural Science and perfect the boys in French. But in the great majority of cases it would be best, for the reasons already discussed, to retain Latin, with the precaution that it should not be allowed to engross too large an amount of time.' It will be noted that the Commissioners were at pains to urge that Latin should still be treated as a constituent element in the curriculum even of third grade schools. The constructive recommendations of the Commissioners in respect of curriculum show clearly the influence of that class idea of education which held the field in England till the end of the nineteenth century. Education was envisaged in terms of social classes, there was to be one education for the less affluent class, another for the middle classes of society and a third for the upper classes. There was no machinery for passing from one grade to another, though a boy of exceptional ability might succeed in doing so. The type of education which a boy received depended on the wealth and social position of his parents, the career marked out for him, and the age at which he would like to embark on it. For girls there was nothing but home education or private schools. The Commissioners emphasised the importance of organising a system of secondary schools within the reach of every class of society. 17. In discussing the problem of the choice of subjects for the curriculum of schools of different grades, the Commissioners considered the preliminary question as to whether schools (1) The Bristol Trade School was founded in 1856 to provide an advanced course of training for the best pupils from elementary schools in order to fit them better for their work in industry. The curriculum made provision for the study of Mathematics and several branches of Science, particularly Chemistry, Physics, Applied Mechanics and Experimental Physics and for Geometrical Drawing, Machine Drawing and Architectural Drawing. (GCT Bartley The Schools for the People (1871), pp. 156-159.) [page 33] should endeavour to give general education or, as far as possible, to prepare boys for special employments. They state that on this point there was almost unanimous agreement among their witnesses in favour of general education. 'Of course, no objection could be raised to the teaching of any subject which, though specially useful in some particular employment, was either well suited to the general cultivation of the intellect, or could easily be made so. The double purpose served by such a subject would be of necessity a weighty argument in its favour. But special preparation for employments to the neglect of general cultivation was all but universally condemned as a mistake. It disorganised and broke up the teaching. It conferred a transitory instead of a permanent benefit, since the boy whose powers of mind had been carefully trained, speedily made up for special deficiencies and very often it taught what soon had to be unlearnt or learnt over again.' (1) The Commissioners held that the demand of some parents for a modern education in first grade schools was one which could best be met by establishing separate Modern Schools of the first grade since the modern side of a classical school was apt, being apart from the main current, to become a refuge for boys of inferior calibre, and since the inclusion of fresh subjects in first grade classical schools was difficult without direct encouragement from the Universities. The Commissioners thought that in second and third grade schools the industry or business of the district gave an exceptionally practical value to specific sciences or languages, but they held that, in the curriculum of all secondary schools alike, three leading subjects should be used as the chief instruments for the discipline of the mind, namely, language, mathematics and physical science. The Commissioners were disposed to agree with the majority of their witnesses that language was the most valuable instrument of the three. The humane subjects of instruction, of which the study of language is the beginning, appeared, in their view, to have a distinctly greater educational power than the material. 'Nothing', they say, 'appears to develop and discipline the whole man, so much as the study which assists the learner to understand the thoughts, to enter into the feelings, to appreciate the moral judgements of others. There is nothing so opposed to true cultivation, nothing so (1) This passage shows the vitality and persistence of the traditional conception of general liberal education. See Appendix II, passim. [page 34] unreasonable as excessive narrowness of mind; and nothing contributes to remove this narrowness so much as that clear understanding of language which lays open the thoughts of others to ready appreciation. Nor is equal clearness of thought to be obtained in any other way. Clearness of thought is bound up with clearness of language, and the one is impossible without the other. When the study of language can be followed by that of literature, not only breadth and clearness, but refinement become attainable. The study of history in the full sense belongs to a still later age: for till the learner is old enough to have some appreciation of politics, he is not capable of grasping the meaning of what he studies.' Among languages, Greek could only be taught with advantage in first grade schools, but the Commissioners held that Latin could be taught with good results in other schools, and Latin held its ground, in their view, against all other languages, including English, by its character as a language, and by the help it gave in acquiring an accurate knowledge of English, and in learning other languages at the same time or afterwards. (1) Latin, together with French or German, or both, should accordingly occupy, with Mathematics and Science, the greater part of the school time of boys who had first mastered the indispensable elementary subjects. English, Literature and History merited careful attention but had subordinate claims on the time of the school. Science teaching could best be made a valuable discipline if it began with sciences that appealed principally to the faculties of simple observation, such as elementary Botany, advancing to Physical (1) The Schools Inquiry Commission, in adhering so closely to the classical tradition, had completely ignored the friendly warning given to them by Matthew Arnold, who, in his report on French secondary schools prepared specially for this Commission in 1866, wrote as follows: 'This current of opinion is, indeed, on the continent, so wide and strong as to be fast growing irresistible; and it is not the work of authority. Authority does all that can be done in favour of the old classical training; ministers of state sing its praises; the reporter of the commission charged to examine the new law is careful to pay to the old training and its pre-eminence a homage amusingly French. Men of the world envy us a House of Commons where Latin quotations are still made, school authorities are full of stories to show how boys trained in Latin and Greek beat the pupils of the new instruction even in their own field. Still in the body of society there spreads a growing disbelief in Greek and Latin, at any rate as at present taught; a growing disposition to make modern languages and the natural sciences take their place. I remark this in Germany as well as in France, and in Germany too, as in France, the movement is in no wise due to the school authorities, but is rather in their despite, and against their advice and testimony.' Schools Inquiry Commission VI, 512. [page 35] Geography as a subject which led to some general understanding of natural objects, and ending with elementary Physics and Chemistry as the common groundwork of all the sciences. The Commissioners were of opinion that 'the extent to which Natural Science may be carried may greatly vary, just as is now the case with Mathematics. Indeed it may be highly desirable that there should be considerable variety in this respect; for it must not be lost sight of that boys of very ordinary power of grasping other subjects may evince special ability in natural science, which ought to be provided for. Nor would it be wise in a country whose continued prosperity so greatly depends on its ability to maintain its pre-eminence in manufactures, to neglect the application of Natural Science to the industrial arts, or overlook the importance of promoting the study of it, even in a special way, among its artisans.' 18. Though the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission made a considerable impression on public opinion at the time, the only step taken by the government of the day to carry out the administrative recommendations of the Commissioners was to pass the Endowed Schools Act 1869, establishing the Endowed Schools Commission. This body, which was merged in the Charity Commission in 1874, was vested with extensive powers in respect of educational trusts. From 1869 onwards part of the funds of educational trusts was in many instances applied to girls' education by this Commission. (44) The new schemes prepared for endowed schools for boys and girls by the Endowed Schools Commission (1869-1874) and the Charity Commission (1874-1902), frequently contained clauses regarding curriculum and external examinations, and did much to liberalise the courses in such schools and to introduce some measure of differentiation in the curriculum for girls' schools. (1) 19. The examination system in England and Wales is at present so closely associated with the education of boys and girls in both the primary and secondary schools that it is difficult to realise that it is of comparatively modern growth. (1) See footnote on p. 45. [page 36] Before 1850 competitive examinations had a limited place even at the Universities and were not much in use in secondary schools. It is true indeed that the establishment of severe examination tests for the Honours Degree of BA at Oxford and Cambridge at the beginning of the nineteenth century had a salutary indirect influence on the teaching of Classics and Mathematics at the Public Schools and Grammar Schools, which, as we have shown in an earlier section of this chapter, had always been intimately connected with the ancient Universities. For instance, from the beginning of the nineteenth century the requirements for the Honours Degree at Cambridge obliged every candidate first to take Mathematics. Oxford, too, under the academic Statute of 1800 required Mathematics as well as Classics for the BA Degree from 1802. After 1807 a special Honours class list for Mathematics was established at Oxford. The prominent position thus assigned to Mathematics at the two Universities helped to give Mathematics an assured place in the curriculum of the endowed schools, non-local and local. Indeed it is broadly true to say that the Public Schools and the Grammar Schools began to recover, at the same time as the two ancient Universities, from the condition of torpor and stagnation into which they had sunk in the eighteenth century, and that their recovery was considerably accelerated by the institution of serious examination tests for Arts Degrees at Oxford and Cambridge. So, too, the establishment of the Natural Sciences Tripos at Cambridge in 1851, and of the Honours School of Natural Science at Oxford in 1853, undoubtedly helped to prepare the way for the inclusion of Science in the school curriculum. But after 1850 the curriculum of most of the better boys' schools, both endowed and private, began to be largely determined by the requirements of various external tests such as the examinations for the Indian Civil Service and the Home Civil Service, first held in 1855, the London Matriculation Examination, the Oxford Local Examinations and the Cambridge Local Examinations, both first held in 1858, and the examinations of the College of Preceptors, instituted in 1853. The Local Examinations of Oxford and Cambridge were originally designed to meet the needs of what were then termed 'middle class' schools. (1) Later, when the needs of (1) See Section 14 of this chapter and TD Acland Some Account of the Origin and Objects of the New Oxford Examinations (1858). [page 37] secondary education as a whole were considered by the Schools Inquiry Commission in 1868, the Commissioners recommended the establishment of a statutory council for examinations in secondary schools, and provisions to this end were included in the original draft of the Endowed Schools Bill of 1869. These sections of the Bill were afterwards dropped, but the movement of public opinion which they reflected had two important effects on the development of examinations in secondary schools. The Endowed Schools Commission (1869-1874) and their successors, the Charity Commissioners (1874-1902), frequently included in their schemes for endowed schools clauses providing for annual examinations by external bodies. In the second place the abortive proposal made in the Endowed Schools Bill of 1869 for the establishment of a central examinations council aroused much opposition on the part of the Public Schools, who were opposed to state intervention of any kind, and thereby contributed to the establishment of the Headmasters' Conference in 1870. This body at first tended to favour a system of leaving examinations conducted by the state, but subsequently decided that it would be more satisfactory to invite the co-operation of the two ancient Universities. The Universities accordingly established in 1873 the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Board to act as a joint examining body for those schools, particularly the Public Schools, which sent large numbers of pupils to both Universities. The first examination instituted by this Joint Board was the Higher Certificate Examination for boys of the age of 18 and over, held for the first time in 1874 as a Sixth Form examination. In 1879 girls were admitted to this examination. In 1884 the Lower Certificate Examination was started for boys leaving school at the age of 16, and in 1905 the School Certificate Examination was established for pupils of 17 years of age. Thus, the examinations conducted by the Oxford Delegacy and the Cambridge Syndicate and by the Joint Board were expressly designed for pupils in secondary schools. On the other hand the London Matriculation Examination, for which very large numbers of pupils in secondary schools were presented, was in its origin, an examination for entrance into London University and had no relation to the courses of study in any individual schools. It gradually came to be used as a leaving examination in secondary schools by many pupils who did not intend to proceed to a University course. In 1902 the University of London set up an Extension Board [page 38] vested with definite powers for the examination and inspection of secondary schools, and this body established some examinations on rather different lines from the existing Local Examinations of the two old Universities, based on an intimate connection between examination and inspection. In addition to these examinations conducted by academic bodies, a large number of professional bodies organised general entrance examinations of their own for admission to each individual avocation. This had the effect of creating a large number of external authorities each of which had liberty in a sense to make its own rules for general school education. The bewildering variety of standard and requirement imposed by these various bodies caused much inconvenience in the schools and interfered very considerably with the systematic organisation of the curriculum. In this context it should be mentioned that in the last four decades of the nineteenth century public elementary education as from 1861 and the development of instruction in Science and Art as from 1870 were chiefly promoted by examinations, which, as a result of the monetary reward involved in their results, had the effect of standardising and dominating the work of the schools concerned. While financial rewards were not attached to the results of the examinations in secondary schools described above, many of these schools were disposed to advertise unduly their successes in these external tests. Another class of external examination which had a very considerable influence on the work of the better endowed schools and private schools was the examinations for open scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge. The Act of 1854 giving effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1850-52 on Oxford, and the Act of 1856 giving effect to the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1850-52 on Cambridge, included provisions for the removal of restrictions in electing scholars at the various Colleges. These scholarships, thus thrown open for competition, provided a strong stimulus to the better boys in the schools and tended on the whole to raise the general standard of scholarship. (1) The examination system, and particularly the examinations of the various professional bodies, had a disturbing effect on the curriculum of many secondary schools, but on the other hand it should in justice be pointed out that English Literature and modern (1) See Sir Michael Sadler's Essay on the scholarship system in England, in Essays on Examinations (1936), pp. 1-78 [page 39] subjects were fostered in the last decades of the nineteenth century by being included in the programmes drawn up for the examination of boys and girls in secondary schools by the Universities and the College of Preceptors. Again, the London Matriculation Examination, which has greatly influenced the curricula of schools, public and private, imposed in effect an exacting standard of general education by requiring candidates to offer Latin, Mathematics, English with English History and Modern Geography, two branches of Natural Science, Greek (which was required down to 1874), and either French or German. (1) 20. As a result of the great advances in science during the nineteenth century it became more and more apparent that the legitimate claims of science to be included as an integral part of the curriculum for secondary schools must be recognised. William Whewell, the celebrated Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, had urged in 1837 the claims of Mathematics and Science to be regarded as part of a liberal and academic education. The Prince Consort was keenly interested in the claims of science, and these were further stressed by the Great Exhibition of 1851, which brought home to Englishmen their comparative backwardness in this respect. In 1854 three eminent scientists urged the claims of science as an integral part of general education. Professor TH Huxley delivered a famous address on the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences; John Tyndall lectured on the Importance of the Study of Physics as a Branch of Education; and Michael Faraday, in a lecture on the Education of the Judgement, stressed the importance of cultivating the scientific spirit. Herbert Spencer, in an article in the North British Review, took the view that a knowledge of life was more important than any other knowledge whatever. In 1859 Spencer published four essays in the Westminster Review which were issued in book form in 1861 under the title of Education: Intellectual, Moral, Physical. This work, which had a very wide circulation, did much indirectly to undermine confidence in traditional methods of education. The section dealing with curriculum is for the most part a restatement of the utilitarian point of view. Spencer concludes that knowledge of the various branches of natural science is of the highest (1) See our Report on Examinations in Secondary Schools (1911), Chapter I, passim. [page 40] value, and his section on curriculum mainly consists of an elaborate plea for giving the teaching of natural science the leading place in formal education. In another passage of his book he strongly advocates systematic physical training. The most prominent advocate of the teaching of natural science in the [eighteen] sixties and seventies was Professor TH Huxley (1825-1895), who in his Essays (1) and other writings urged the claims of science to be included in any proper scheme of secondary education. His views exercised much influence on the development of public opinion in regard to the teaching of science. Huxley outlines a curriculum which consists of natural science, the theory of morals and of political and social life, the history and geography of the motherland, English literature and translations of the greatest foreign writers, English composition, drawing and either music or painting. The volume entitled Essays on a Liberal Education, published in 1867 under the editorship of Dean Farrar, who was at that time an assistant master at Harrow, reflects very clearly the widespread dissatisfaction with the traditional curriculum. In regard to science, Professor Henry Sidgwick of Cambridge, in an essay on the theory of classical education, points out that even if it be admitted that knowledge of the processes and results of Physical Science does not by itself constitute culture, nevertheless it is of such great importance that the intellectual man who has been trained without it must feel at every turn his inability to comprehend thoroughly the present phase of the progress of humanity. In regard to Natural Science and English he writes: 'I think that a course of instruction in our own language and literature and a course of instruction in natural science ought to form recognised and substantive parts of our school system. I think also more stress ought to be laid on the study of French. While advocating these new elements I feel most strongly the great peril of overburdening the minds of youth to their intellectual and physical detriment or both.'Canon JM Wilson, at that time Science Master at Rugby, in his essay on Science Teaching expressed the view that a study of two unlike branches of Natural Science was a necessary part of any complete education, and emphasised the habits of accurate observation, exact reasoning, and power to judge evidence which could be developed by good scientific (1) Huxley's Collected Essays were published in nine volumes in 1893-1894. [page 41] teaching. Mathematics in his view did not altogether serve the same purpose. In another paper, written in 1866, Canon Wilson stated that the decided opinion of those who had given most attention to the subject was that Experimental Physics ought to form the staple of scientific teaching in schools. The Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science issued in 1875 deals with secondary schools. The Report recommends that (i) in all Public and Endowed Schools a substantial portion of the time allotted to study should, throughout the school course, be devoted to Natural Science, and that not less than 6 hours a week on the average should be assigned to this purpose; (ii) in all general school examinations not less than one sixth of the marks should be allocated to natural science, and that in any Leaving Examination the same proportion of marks should be maintained. It is significant that the Report omits to define precisely the character of the scientific teaching to be given. Contemporary scientists were unanimous in urging that Natural Science should be taught, but apparently they had never attempted to determine what specific sciences should be taught. The Commissioners, accordingly, merely record their opinion that school laboratories should be constructed to supply accommodation for practical work in Physics as well as in Chemistry, and that many persons of experience in education had arrived at the conclusion that Chemistry was not so well fitted for the practical instruction of young pupils as Physics. 21. There were three great movements in education in the second half of the nineteenth century which had important reactions on the traditional ideas about secondary education, namely: (i) The movement for the provision of higher education for girls and women.All three movements, like most new tendencies in education, were connected with wider movements of thought and action. [page 42] The movement for the provision of efficient secondary schools for girls was only one phase of the great movement for the emancipation of women; the passing of the Elementary Education Act in 1870 was only an important stage in a great movement for protecting children from premature employment in industry and for providing general popular education which began with the passing of Peel's Factory Act in 1802 (1); the movement for the provision, with state aid, of adequate facilities for technical education was one aspect of the vast changes in the organisation of industry which had been brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and was in its inception largely due to the pressure of foreign competition. We now proceed to give a brief description of these three movements. 22. In the historical chapter of our Report on Differentiation of Curricula between the Sexes in Secondary Schools (1923), we traced in considerable detail the evolution of the present curriculum for girls' secondary schools. We shall, therefore, in the present section only summarise the salient features of that development. In England, as in the other countries of Western Europe, girls were for the most part educated privately up to about 1845, and the traditional education, consisting chiefly of foreign languages and 'accomplishments' tended to accentuate the differences between the sexes. The new movement for the higher education of women formed part of a wider sociological movement and began, as in France and Germany, with an attempt to provide appropriate training for women who intended to teach. The Governesses' Benevolent Association, founded in 1843, established in 1846 examinations on the basis of which certificates were granted to governesses. This led directly to the establishment of lectures for them and so to the foundation of Queen's College, Harley Street, London, in 1848, with the support of FD Maurice, Charles Kingsley and others. It is evident from the early history of Queen's College that the leaders of the movement took as their model the traditional education for boys which they had themselves received. Among the first students of the College were Miss FM Buss and Miss Dorothea Beale, who became the founders of the present system of higher education for girls: the first as Headmistress of the North (1) An Act for the preservation of the health and morals of apprentices and others employed in cotton and other mills and cotton and other factories. 42 Geo. Ill, c, 73. [page 43] London Collegiate School (1850) and the second as Principal of the Cheltenham College for Young Ladies (1853). In both these schools the curriculum was largely modelled on the contemporary curriculum for boys, except that less stress was laid on Latin and Greek and that subjects such as Music, Needlework and Dancing were included. The curricula in vogue at these two schools were regarded as archetypal by the leaders of the women's movement and had profound influence in moulding the curriculum of the new High Schools for Girls which were established in considerable numbers after 1869. 23. In 1863 a small Committee of ladies interested in education, which had been formed in 1862 with Miss Emily Davies as Secretary, secured the concession that girls should be allowed unofficially to take the papers of the Cambridge Local Examinations. In 1865 this practice was given an official trial for three years and in 1868 it was accepted permanently. In this way the Cambridge Local and similar external examinations came to exercise an important formative influence on the development of the curriculum in girls' schools. Thus almost from the inception of the movement for the higher education of women, preparation for examinations was a salient feature of the new schools for girls; (i) because the admission of girls and women to public examinations came at the crucial moment of reform; (ii) because preparation for examinations was the principal reason for the foundation of several important educational institutions for women, such as Queen's College, London (1848), Bedford College, London (1849) and Girton College, Cambridge (1873); (iii) because, in the view of the educational world at that period and of many of the pioneers of women's education, the capacity to pass examinations was the principal if not the sole criterion of the educability of girls; (iv) because examinations seemed to offer a motive for girls to study and for their parents to keep them at school. 24. The main causes for the assimilation of the girls' curriculum to that of the boys in the fifth and sixth decades of the last [i.e. nineteenth] century may be summarised under three main heads: humanistic, vocational, and economic. All these implied the taking over of the existing system of education for boys as [page 44] nearly as was possible and the degree of assimilation varied according to the character, practice and principles of the pioneers of women's education. (i) Humanistic considerations.Combined with all these considerations, and in a sense controlling them, was the great movement for the emancipation of women (3), of which, as we have pointed out above, the educational movement was only one aspect, or facet. (1) See Appendix II.
(2) See Appendix IV.
(3) See pp. 127-130 of our Report on Differentiation of Curricula between the Sexes in Secondary Schools (1923). [page 45] 25. The chapter on girls' education in the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868) [text online] produced a profound and immediate impression on public opinion. The Endowed Schools Act of 1869 set up the Endowed Schools Commission vested with powers to apply part of the funds of educational trusts to girls' education. (1) In 1869 the Cambridge Higher Local Examination was instituted and the need to prepare women for it led to the foundation of Newnham College in 1871. Girton College, founded at Hitchin in 1869, was removed to Cambridge in 1873. In 1869 the University of London established a general examination for women with more advanced special papers. In 1870 women were admitted to the Oxford Local Examinations. In 1871 the National Union for the Improvement of the Education of Women of all Classes was founded, of which the chief aims were to promote the foundation of cheap day schools for girls and to raise the status of women teachers by giving them a liberal education and a good training in the art of teaching. To this end the National Union in 1872 formed the Girls' Public Day School Company, whose purpose was 'to supply for girls the best education possible, corresponding with the education given to boys in the great Public Schools.' The Company established first in London, and later in other large towns, a number of excellent schools the curriculum of which was largely modelled on that of the North London Collegiate School. By 1900 the Trust had 33 schools attended by more than 7,100 girls. Thus the standards for the secondary education of girls in England and Wales were rapidly raised by the admission of girls to external examinations and by the increased numbers of women teachers who had a University training. These two factors probably tended to emphasise too explicitly the academic character of the work done in girls' schools. (1) The Endowed Schools Commission (1869-1874) was merged in the Charity Commission in 1874. The work accomplished by these bodies in drafting new schemes for educational endowments may be seen from the fact that, whereas in 1868 there were only about 14 endowed secondary schools for girls (SIC Report, p. 565), in 1897 there were 86 endowed schools for girls, containing 14,119 pupils, and 31 endowed schools for boys and girls, containing 3,035 pupils. (C.-8634 (1898).) cf. 42nd Report of Charity Commissioners (1895), p. 12. 'As to one particular branch of educational endowments, namely, that for the advancement of the secondary and superior education for girls and women, it may be anticipated that future generations will look back to the period immediately following upon the Schools Inquiry Commission and the consequent passing of the Endowed Schools Acts as marking an epoch in the creation and application of endowments for that branch of education similar to that which is marked, for the education of boys and men, by the Reformation.' [page 46] The growing recognition of the claims of Natural Science, to which attention was directed by the Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of Science (1875), led to the gradual introduction of Natural Science, especially Botany, into secondary schools for girls. In the same way the increasing attention paid to questions of health and physical development prepared the way for the introduction of Physical Training into these schools. The Head Mistresses, who had organised themselves as the Association of Head Mistresses in 1874, were accordingly compelled even in the seventies to consider the congestion of studies. The more liberal education which they had received in the Women's Colleges, reinforced by the professional spirit which from the first, marked their activities, enabled them to arrive at a working solution of the problems involved. The curriculum was made more educative and more flexible by the recognition of diversity of aptitudes in the pupils and by a corresponding arrangement of studies, while a common core of basic subjects was retained in the lower part of the school. The new High Schools for Girls were to a great extent unfettered by the traditions and prejudices which obsessed the endowed schools for boys, and the mistresses were more responsive to new ideas, more critical and more disposed to adapt themselves to changing circumstances. Reforms in the curriculum and in methods of teaching were, on the whole, readily accepted. Manual work was introduced into girls' schools at a relatively early date, and mistresses were, on the whole, quicker than masters to recognise the claims of less gifted pupils. The rapid development of girls' education after 1869 is marked by the permission, accorded in 1876, for girls to take the examinations of the Oxford and Cambridge Joint Board, established in 1873. Games did not form part of the original tradition, but were introduced by the younger mistresses from the Women's Colleges at Cambridge, Oxford and London from about 1885. Drill was regarded as a necessary safeguard before girls were allowed to take part in the more vigorous games. St Leonard's School, founded at St Andrews in 1877, contained from its inception some wholly new features. It was not merely a day school with boarding houses attached, but the various Houses formed an integral part of the school, and each House Mistress was one of the staff, her work being divided between the School and her House. Much attention was devoted from the beginning to outdoor games. A number of boarding [page 47] schools for girls in England were founded largely on the model of St Leonard's. These schools, while retaining the ordinary subjects of study in girls' schools, have also adopted other subjects from the boys' curriculum as well as the whole public school plan - the house system, the prefects, house games, and colours - and have thus developed a particular kind of tradition and of esprit de corps. The ideas fostered in these schools are being widely spread by mistresses and old pupils who are now teaching in High Schools and County or Municipal Schools. Towards the close of the last century housecraft was introduced into the curriculum for older girls in some schools, and improvements in the methods of teaching Art and Music were also introduced. In addition to sewing, which had always formed part of the traditional curriculum for girls, crafts of various kinds, such as embroidery and book-binding, were introduced into some schools, especially as alternative subjects for the less gifted girls. 26. The development of secondary education in England and Wales was profoundly influenced by the fact that the State organised a national system of elementary schools for children between the ages of 5 and 13 in 1870, more than 30 years before it took seriously in hand the organisation of secondary education in 1902 alter the passing of the Education Act of that year. The development of popular, as distinct from middle class, education in England and Wales was due to a combination of religious, philanthropic and political motives, and was largely influenced in its early stages by the legislation incorporated in the Factory Acts and the Mines Acts, designed to prevent the early employment of child labour. We have traced the development of the State system of Public Elementary Schools in the historical chapters of our Reports on The Education of the Adolescent (1926) and on The Primary School (1931). In the first named Report we described in considerable detail the rise of the 'Higher Grade Schools' (1) We shall accordingly here only give a very brief account of that development. After 1870 the School Boards in the larger urban areas were gradually (1) Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926), p. 17-26. [page 48] forced by pressure of facts to extend the scope of their work to education of a type higher than elementary. This was partly due to the necessity for providing some reasonable education for their pupil teachers between 16 and 18 years of age, so as to secure a supply of teachers for their elementary schools, but it was partly due also to the natural tendency which education has to foster a desire for more education. It was soon found that a considerable number of children remained beyond the legal age of 13 after passing the Seventh Standard. 'Ex-standard' classes were accordingly organised for these children, but after a time it was found convenient to draft them into one central school. Sometimes a building was erected for the purpose, and sometimes a previously existing school was set apart for this work, but in either case the school in question became what was called in the last two decades of the nineteenth century a 'Higher Grade School'. Most of these schools had an upper portion arranged as an Organised Science Course or School under the Science and Art Department at South Kensington; some School Boards retained a few ex-standard scholars in their schools in science classes under the Science and Art Department. Some School Boards, especially those in large urban areas such as Bradford, Birmingham and Sheffield, devoted much attention to the development of these Higher Grade Schools. For instance, Sheffield established about 1878 a Higher Central School for the Sixth and Seventh Standards, to which pupils were admitted by competition. The upper part of this school was arranged as an Organised Science School under the Science and Art Department, and the course of instruction included Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry and Drawing, comprising Machine Drawing and Construction. The Birmingham School Board established a Central Higher Grade School with a three-year course. During the first year the pupils were Seventh Standard scholars earning grants from the Education Department. For the remainder of the course they became students earning grants on examination from the Science and Art Department at South Kensington. This procedure was adopted by other School Boards in organising and financing schools of this type, which were known locally as Higher Standard or Higher Elementary Schools. (1) They were essentially an organic outgrowth of the system of elementary education established (1) See the description of the Higher Grade Schools in the Final Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Elementary Education Acts, England and Wales (1888), C.-5485, Chapter V and passim. [page 49] by the Education Act of 1870. These 'Higher Grade Schools' were very fully discussed in the Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, 1895. The Report pointed out that the name 'Higher Grade Elementary School' had been applied in at least three senses. (i) The first type, which might be described as normal, was represented by the school which taught from the Fifth Standard upwards and gave an education for two years after the Seventh Standard, i.e. to the age of 15 at least, (ii) Another type was that which taught from the lowest Standard upwards, also giving an education for two years (in some cases even four) after the Seventh Standard, though the proportion of pupils remaining after the Seventh Standard was seldom large. A school of either of these two types might or might not include an Organised Science School working under the Science and Art Department. (iii) Lastly, there was the pseudo-'Higher Grade' school which charged a fee, and was supposed to be more select, while in respect to its curriculum it was almost wholly 'elementary'. Following the threefold classification of secondary schools adopted in the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868), the Commissioners described third grade schools as those of which the special function was the training of boys and girls for the higher handicrafts or the commerce of the shop and town. This could best be effected by continuing and enlarging the education of the elementary school, with such addition of manual instruction as might be needed to educate the hand and eye of the craftsman and at once to define and illustrate the principles he had learnt. 'Higher Grade Schools' which were adduced as an example of the type required, were held to be an absolute necessity in any efficient system of secondary education. Properly organised they would become the crown of the elementary school system. (1) The Commissioners held that these schools had risen to meet a legitimate demand and admitted of correlation and development, but not of abolition or even repression. (2) In their final recommendations the Commissioners pointed out that these 'Higher Grade Elementary Schools' had a double aspect, being in one sense elementary schools, and in another (1) Report of Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895), C.-7862, pp. 54 ff.
(2) Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895), C.-7862, pp. 143-144. [page 50] sense wholly or largely secondary schools, teaching subjects which could not be deemed elementary and not receiving in respect of those of their pupils who were beyond the so-called 'Standards' any grant from the Education Department. In point of fact, they did supply in those populous places where they existed much the same kind of secondary education which the Schools Inquiry Commission (1868) had proposed to have supplied by their schools of the third grade. The Commissioners accordingly recommended that such schools should be treated as secondary schools, placed under the jurisdiction of the local authority for secondary education, and co-ordinated with other secondary schools in the district by being brought into a definite and organic relation with other secondary schools and institutions of the districts, so that they should rather co-operate than compete with the latter where they existed, and should be made more available as places of preparation for advanced instruction. 27. Down to the beginning of the nineteenth century such technical education as existed was given mainly through the system of craft apprenticeship, which had been standardised in the Elizabethan Statute of Artificers, 1562. The industrial revolution, beginning towards the end of the eighteenth century, prepared the way by the introduction of machinery on a large scale for the gradual break-up of the old apprenticeship system. The master craftsman often developed into the capitalist employer, owning and using machinery, or applying to industrial practice scientific principles which he scarcely understood; the collection of machinery into factories prevented the employer from undertaking personally the training of his apprentices, even if he had wished to do so. Moreover, the character of industrial skill was changed; a smaller proportion of workmen needed manual skill, while a larger proportion required a knowledge of general principles, which could more satisfactorily be learnt in a technical school than acquired by practice in a workshop. Various Acts had attempted to check foreign competition by making it penal to enlist artisans for employment abroad. These Acts were repealed in 1825; but first the industrial revolution in Great Britain, and then the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, which absorbed the energies and dissipated the capital of most of the states of [page 51] Western Europe, gave British industry a position of unchallenged supremacy, with the result that, for half a century or more, foreign competition was no longer feared. In these circumstances, the State took no action to foster the training of industrial recruits; although the old apprenticeship system was no longer generally suitable, its modification to meet the altered conditions was left to voluntary agencies. An important movement began with the establishment in 1823-1824 of several Mechanics' Institutes, and by 1850 there were 610 of these Institutes in England and 12 in Wales, with a total membership of over 600,000. Nevertheless these Mechanics' Institutes did not fulfil the functions for which they had been founded, though they made an important contribution towards the development of the modern state system of technical education. Apart from the establishment in 1837 of a Normal School of Design in London and some annual grants made in aid of the maintenance of certain provincial schools of design from 1841 onwards, the state took no action in the direction, of aiding technical education until the Great Exhibition of 1851, which drew public attention to the lack of facilities for technical education in England as compared with those provided in various continental countries. In 1852 a Department of Practical Art was organised under the Board of Trade. The Department later became known as the Department of Science and Art and was organised as a branch of the Education Department in 1856. This Department instituted in 1859 a general system of examinations in science (i) for teachers, who received certificates of competency, and (ii) for students. The examinations were in branches of science related to industrial occupations and formed part of the provision for fostering the study of science among the industrial population. They were organised on much the same lines as the examinations of the Society of Arts which had been begun in 1856. In 1873 the Royal Society of Arts instituted examinations in technological subjects and these were transferred in 1879 to the City and Guilds of London Institute, a body composed of representatives of the Corporation of London and certain of the Livery Companies which contributed to its funds. The development of public interest in technical education, which prepared the way for further State aid, was largely due to the pressure of foreign competition. At the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851 there were 100 departments in which goods were displayed, and in most of these Great [page 52] Britain was awarded the prize. At the Paris Exhibition of 1867 there were 90 departments, and Great Britain received prizes in only 10 of these. British firms which exhibited at the Exhibition at Paris in 1878 had similar experiences, and public opinion at last began to be impressed by the inadequacy of the provision for technical education. A Royal Commission was accordingly appointed by the Government in 1881 'to inquire into the instruction of the industrial classes of certain foreign countries'. 28. The Reports of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (1881-1884) mark an important stage in the development of public opinion on the subject of technical and secondary education. There is in these Reports no more important paragraph than the passage on page 516 of Volume I of the Second Report (1884), in which the Commissioners stated that 'the best preparation for technical study is a good modern secondary school of the types of the Manchester Grammar School, the Bedford Modern School, and the Allan Glen's Institution at Glasgow'. (1) The Commissioners called attention to the fact that the middle classes in England were at a great disadvantage compared with those of the Continent for want of a sufficient number of such schools. They pointed out that 'the existing endowments are very unevenly distributed over the country; in many of the large manufacturing centres no resources of the kind exist; private enterprise is clearly inadequate to do all that is required in establishing such schools, and we must look to some public measure to supply this, the greatest defect of our educational system.' The Commissioners made the following specific recommendations in regard to secondary and technical instruction: 'IV. Secondary and technical instruction:(1) cf. the statement made by Mr DR Fearon in 1886, in his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the working of the Endowed Schools Acts, 'That a good secondary school is the best preparation for technical study.' [page 53] schools or departments of schools, in which the study of natural science, drawing, mathematics, and modern languages shall take the place of Latin and Greek. 29. Perhaps the most serious obstacle in the way of any adequate systematic organisation of post-primary education was the absence of local authorities and of administrative areas of suitable size. The Schools Inquiry Commissioners in their Report of 1868 had recommended the establishment of central and local authorities for secondary education, vested with powers to provide rate aid for existing schools and for the foundation of new schools. Owing to the fear of state intervention and the widespread dislike of public control, these suggestions were not carried out. The administrative difficulty was to some extent removed by the Local Government Act 1888, which set up County Councils for administrative purposes. This measure, with the Technical Instruction Act 1889, and the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act 1890, which were ancillary statutes from the educational point of view, made advance possible by creating for each county, and large county borough, an elected local authority with specific powers and funds for educational development. In 1887 a group of members of Parliament and scientists, among whom were AHD Acland, H Hobhouse, TH Huxley, Sir Llewellyn Smith and Sir Henry Roscoe, founded the National Association for the Promotion of Technical and Secondary Education under the chairmanship of the Marquis of Hartington. Its principal aim was to encourage educational reforms which would improve the capacity in a broad sense of all those upon whom the national industries depended. The Association undertook a vigorous campaign to educate public opinion and to diffuse information; and it was largely due to the efforts of this body that the Technical Instruction Act was passed in 1889, which empowered the newly established [page 54] councils of counties and county boroughs to supply, or aid in supplying, technical instruction, to establish committees for that end, and to levy a rate limited to one penny in the pound. The definition of technical instruction in this Act was so comprehensive as to include secondary education of a modern character (1), and the Authorities in question were thus empowered to assist secondary schools under certain conditions either directly or by means of scholarships and prizes. In the following year the Local Taxation, Customs and Excise Act 1890 made certain funds, known from their origin as 'whiskey money' available for technical education. 30. From the character of the legislation in respect of technical instruction at this period (1889-1890) it is evident that public attention was being directed to the lack of scientific and technical instruction bearing on industries. This attitude was due in the main to the Reports of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction (1881-1884). Unfortunately it was not generally realised that an adequate provision of good secondary education was the indispensable foundation for any effective system of higher technological instruction. It is, however, interesting to note the way in which the concept of technical education was associated at this period with that of secondary education. (2) The two were regarded not as (1) The expression 'technical instruction' was defined in Section 8 of the Technical Instruction Act 1889, 52 & 53 Vict., c. 76, as follows:
(2) Matthew Arnold, in the last published statement of his views on education, regards the technical school as a type of secondary school. See his chapter on schools in The Reign of Queen Victoria, edited by TH Ward, London, 1887, II, 269.
[page 55] distinct entities, but rather as complementary aspects of one whole. This point of view, as will be seen below, was developed in the Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895). It found expression at the time in the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, under which quasi-representative authorities for 'intermediate' and 'technical' education were set up and empowered to work out organised schemes for the intermediate and technical education of the inhabitants of each county in the Principality, and to establish new secondary schools in areas where they were needed. Section 17 of the Act defined 'intermediate education' as meaning a course of education which does not consist chiefly of elementary instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic, but which includes instruction 'in Latin, Greek, the Welsh and English Language and Literature, Modern Languages, Mathematics, Natural and Applied Science, or in some of such studies and generally in the higher branches of knowledge.' In the same Section of the Act the expression 'technical education' is defined as including instruction in: '(i) Any of the branches of science and art with respect to which grants are for the time being made by the Department of Science and Art; 31. The administrative confusion, resulting largely from divided control, had produced in the public mind vague and rather confused notions about secondary education. (1) It (1) An official return of the pupils in Public and Private Secondary and other Schools (not being Public Elementary or Technical Schools) in England on 1 June 1897, which was presented to Parliament in 1898 (C.-8634), showed how vague and indefinite was the contemporary conception of those schools which were furnishing what was known as secondary or intermediate education in its different grades. [page 56] was felt that effective steps should be taken to organise secondary education on the lines indicated by Matthew Arnold in 1866. In 1892 the Government introduced a Bill to enable counties to organise secondary education, but this measure had to be dropped. In October 1893 an important conference was held at Oxford on secondary education in England (1), and partly as a result of this conference the government appointed a Royal Commission on Secondary Education in 1894 under the Chairmanship of Mr (afterwards Viscount) Bryce, with wider terms of reference than any of the earlier Commissions, 'to consider what are the best methods of establishing a well-organised system of secondary education in England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having regard to such local sources of revenue from endowments or otherwise as are available or may be made available for this purpose and to make recommendations accordingly.' In their Report, published in 1895, this Commission, the first to include women, of whom there were three among its 16 members, discussed in considerable detail the character and content of secondary education. After summarising the views of the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1868, they pointed out that since that time the problem had been seriously affected by the rise of other studies and other ideas in education. Among the factors of this change were the Endowed Schools Acts, the Elementary Education Acts, especially so far as they had occasioned the foundation of the higher grade and the Organised Science Schools, the Technical Instruction Act, and the Local Taxation Act 1890. The Commissioners pointed out that it was accordingly necessary to consider whether and in what sense the idea of education in secondary schools required modification. Accepting the Schools Inquiry Commission's scheme for three grades of secondary school, the Commissioners pointed out that in the first place the standard of age had changed; in second grade schools the limit of age had distinctly advanced to 17 or 18, and in third grade schools to 15 or 16. This extension of the time spent at secondary schools was due to many causes, social as well as educational, but in second and third grade schools new subjects dealing with problems which the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1868 would have considered too complicated for a secondary school had been introduced to give what was termed 'special (1) Report of a Conference on Secondary Education in England convened by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 10 and 11 October 1893. Clarendon Press, 1893. [page 57] preparation for employment'. Technical subjects had been introduced in secondary schools and the whole system of technical institutes and colleges had come into being. Thus the school curriculum had been enlarged and pupils had in consequence tended to stay longer. Secondly, the gradation of social classes adumbrated by the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1868, required to be modified, since the legislation which they recommended had done something to open schools leading directly to the Universities to the sons of men who fell into the categories neither of the rich nor of the educated. Thirdly, the growth of special and technical studies in schools had created a branch of secondary education which, while not 'a substitute for apprenticeship', was yet as distinctly a preparation for it or for an industry as the old first grade school was for a profession or for the University. 'The technical college, while in the strictest sense a school of applied science and art, yet supplies what is so distinctly a propaedeutic [OED: pertaining to introductory instruction] to industry that its encouragement may well seem a primary duty of the bodies specially charged with the care of both our wealth as a State and our well being as a people. And its rise has no doubt modified our ideas as to Secondary Education.' The Commissioners pointed out that this modification, acting along with older and less obvious forces, had created conditions that could no longer be ignored. For one thing, it had tended to make what the Schools Inquiry Commission of 1864-1868 termed 'a general education' at once more difficult and more necessary; more difficult because the premium placed upon proficiency in special studies had thrust the preparation for them back to a too early stage in the educational process; and more necessary because special studies without a broad basis in general studies were both ineffective and narrowing. The Commissioners then explained that their witnesses seemed to feel that no more serious danger threatened modern education than a too early specialisation. 'It is instructive that witnesses representative of technical and classical education were agreed in regarding instruction in their special subjects as inadequate by itself, and in holding that secondary education suffered from a too narrow early curriculum, and we may add a too utilitarian spirit.' Thus, Mr Bothamley complained that in technical instruction they were 'constantly hampered by the want of [page 58] mathematics and the want of foreign languages'; and Mr Reynolds said 'that boys came, especially from the private and public schools, singularly ill-prepared to take advantage of the curriculum in a technical college.' (1) In the following remarkable passage, which we quote in full, the Commissioners expressed the view that the difference between technical and secondary education is one not of kind or character, but of emphasis: 'We have spoken as if technical and classical instruction alike fell as subordinate or co-ordinate divisions under the common head of secondary education. We are aware that there are some who would limit the term education to the discipline of faculty and the culture of character by means of the more humane and generous studies, and who would deny the name to instruction in those practical arts and sciences by means of which man becomes a craftsman or a bread-winner. But this is an impossible limitation as things now stand. We have just seen that the training in classics may have as little liberal culture in it as instruction in a practical art; modern literature may be made a field for as narrow and technical a drill as the most formal science. Education inevitably becomes more and more practical, a means of forming men, not simply to enjoy life, but to accomplish something in the life they enjoy. We may, therefore, describe its general idea thus: All education is development and discipline of faculty (2) by the communication of knowledge, and whether the faculty be the eye and hand, or the reason and imagination, and whether the knowledge be of nature or art, of science or literature, if the knowledge be so communicated as to evoke and exercise and discipline faculty, the process is rightly termed education.(1) Report of Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895), (C.-7862), pp. 132-135. (2) The doctrine of the faculties of the mind, which influenced educational thought so profoundly during the nineteenth century, had already been successfully attacked by JF Herbart (1776-1841). See Appendix IV; cf. also F Ryland Psychology published in 1880 (seventh edition 1897), pp. 50-53. [page 59] to be instructed in the mere rudiments of knowledge, but it is a process of intellectual training and personal discipline conducted with special regard to the profession or trade to be followed. Plato in the Protagoras draws a distinction between the man who learns the arts of the grammarian, the musician, or the trainer as a craftsman, for trade, and the man who learns them as a private person or freeman, for education or culture. (1) But even culture is not an end in itself: it makes the private person of more value to society and to the state. All secondary schools, then, in so far as they qualify men for doing something in life, partake more or less in the character of institutes that educate craftsmen. Every profession, even that of winning scholarships, is a craft, and all crafts are arts. But if Secondary Education be so conceived, it is evident that under it technical instruction is comprehended. The two are not indeed identical, but they differ as genus and species, or as general term and particular name, not as genus and genus or as opposed terms. No definition of technical instruction is possible that does not bring it under the head of Secondary Education, nor can Secondary Education be so defined as absolutely to exclude from it the idea of technical instruction. Under the common head there are many species, each distinguished by the particular means and instruments employed and faculties exercised, but all agreeing in method and end, viz. the discipline of faculty by exercise. Technical instruction is secondary, i.e. it comes after the education which has awakened the mind by teaching the child the rudiments, or, as it were, the alphabet, of all knowledge, and the better the whole of this alphabet has been mastered the better and the easier will the later learning be. And secondary instruction is technical, i.e. it teaches the boy so to apply the principles he is learning, and so to learn the principles by applying them, or so to use the instruments he is being made to know, as to perform or produce something, interpret a literature or a science, make a picture or a book, practise a plastic or a manual art, convince a jury or persuade a senate, translate or annotate an author, dye wool, weave cloth, design or construct a machine, navigate a ship, or command an army. Secondary education, therefore, as inclusive of technical, may be described as education(1) Protagoras 312B. [page 60] conducted in view of the special life that has to be lived with the express purpose of forming a person fit to live it.' (1) 32. In regard to curricula for secondary schools, the Commissioners refrained from laying down definite model curricula for schools of the three main types which they had contemplated. They held that it should be left to the local authority to determine the curricula in detail. 'It is now pretty generally agreed that besides the literary and humanistic course of instruction, based upon the languages of classical antiquity, which tradition has established among us, and whose incomparable value no thoughtful man denies, ample provision must be made in schools for scientific teaching, beginning, if possible, with natural history and the other sciences of observation, and working up into chemistry and physics. It is further agreed that mathematics, while more closely allied to scientific subjects, ought to enter also into a literary course; that the chief tongues of modern Europe ought to be studied not only as instruments of linguistic training, but as the keys to noble literatures; and that full opportunities to boys and girls to prepare themselves for the particular occupations which they intend to follow in after-life, whether industrial or commercial, ought to be supplied by the teaching of the practical arts, such as the elements of applied mechanics and the subjects connected with agriculture, as well as of modern languages and of the kinds of knowledge most useful to the merchant or trader. These three elements, however, which we may call the literary, the scientific, and the technical, may be combined in a great variety of forms and proportions. Experience alone can show which forms and which proportions are most likely to be absolutely best, we will not say as a scheme of intellectual training, but even as fitted to the needs of particular classes of persons inhabiting particular areas and engaged in particular kinds of industry. ... Each of the three elements above named has vigorous forces behind it. Not merely tradition, but the influences of imagination and philosophy, commend the first. The second is strong in the pride of its recent triumphs and still swift advance. The sense of its practical utility in days when industrial and commercial competition (1) Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1895), pp. 135-136. [page 61] grows constantly more severe is enough, perhaps more than enough, to secure its rightful place for the third. All have, in our view, a claim to be considered in the course of studies of every secondary school, and the last of the three will thrive all the better if the two former receive their fitting meed of recognition. Technical instruction must be considered not as the rival of a liberal education but as a specialisation of it, which, whether it comes earlier or later in the scholar's life, ought to be, as far as possible, made a means of mental stimulus and cultivation, and will be most successfully used by those whose intellectual capacity has been already disciplined by the best methods of literary or scientific training.' (1) 33. In the summary of their recommendations, the Commissioners pointed out that the first need of secondary education was greater unity of control. Local authorities were required which should be responsible for all secondary (including technical) education within their respective areas. There should also be one central authority which, while leaving due freedom of action to the local bodies, could supervise the general interests of secondary education as a whole. In regard to the provision of secondary schools, the first principle should be to utilise every existing element of the supply which was, or could be made, good of its kind. It was desirable, for instance, to utilise all those private schools (but those alone) which were really efficient and which accepted public tests of efficiency. Schools of the first grade for boys at least already existed in sufficient numbers. The deficiency which seemed most general was in the supply of second grade and third grade schools at a cost sufficiently low to place them within the reach of parents of limited means. The rapid growth and success of higher grade board schools, especially in great towns, indicated the extent of the demand for third grade secondary education at a cheap rate. The higher grade elementary schools were doing much to meet this demand in many places; but they could not satisfy the whole of it, and proprietary schools could not supply such education at the requisite price, unless they received aid in some form. In organising the supply of schools it was of the utmost importance to provide adequately for the literary type of secondary education no less than for the scientific and technical type. The means of transferring pupils of promise from a (1) Report, pp. 284-285. [page 62] lower to a higher place of education should be increased, and in doing this great care should be taken not to close the upward path against such pupils at too early an age. 'The training of secondary teachers should be systematic and thorough. At present the absence of such training is one of the causes which injuriously affect secondary education. 'In every phase of secondary teaching, the first aim should be to educate the mind, and not merely to convey information. It is a fundamental fault, which pervades many parts of the secondary teaching now given in England, that the subject (literary, scientific or technical) is too often taught in such a manner that it has little or no educational value. The largest of the problems which concern the future of secondary education is how to secure, as far as possible, that in all schools and in every branch of study the pupils shall be not only instructed but educated.' 34. The Royal Commission on Secondary Education recommended that one central Education Authority should be established. This was effected by the Board of Education Act 1899, which merged the powers of the Education Department and the Science and Art Department, and the powers of the Charity Commissioners in respect of educational charities, in the new Board of Education, which was authorised to inspect secondary schools. (1) The control of the Board over secondary education was greatly increased by the Education Act of 1902, which empowered the newly established local education authorities for counties and county boroughs to aid secondary education and to provide new schools. (2) Thus, historically, the State had approached the problem of secondary education from three distinct directions. Firstly, as supervisor of educational trusts it had come to supervise the administration of endowed secondary schools. Secondly, as promoter of Natural Science and of the instruction given in Schools of Art, the State came to exercise in regard to Secondary Schools that more detailed supervision associated (1) Board of Education Act 1899, section 3 (1). 'The Board of Education may by their officers, or, after taking the advice of the consultative committee hereinafter mentioned, by any University or other organisation, inspect any school supplying secondary education and desiring to be so inspected, for the purpose of ascertaining the character of the teaching in the school and the nature of the provisions made for the teaching and health of the scholars.'
(2) A book which exercised considerable influence on public opinion at the close of the nineteenth century was a volume of essays entitled 'What is Secondary Education?' edited by Dr RP Scott, the Joint Hon. Secretary of the Incorporated Association of Head Masters. [page 63] with the payment of state grants. Thirdly, the Board of Education Act 1899, which combined the first two functions in one Department, vested it with power to inspect Secondary Schools as the central Department of State for Education. 35. The position of the Higher Grade Schools was seriously affected by the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench (1901) against the London School Board (upheld by the Court of Appeal) on the point raised by Mr Cockerton, the Auditor of the Local Government Board, in 1899, that the School Board had spent the rates illegally on educating children on lines not provided for in the Code. This decision meant that enterprising School Boards were stopped from providing anything more than elementary education, and it was clear that a new Education Bill was required permanently to regularise the situation. (1) In consequence of this ruling, the Board of Education found it necessary to establish, by Minute dated 6 April 1900, a new system of Higher Elementary Schools. (2) The Minute provided that these schools were to receive a higher rate of grant than the ordinary Public Elementary Schools on condition that they were so organised as to give a four-year course of instruction to children between the ages of 10 and 15, who had been certified by the Inspector as qualified to profit thereby. The curriculum was required to show a sufficiency of science instruction, both theoretical and practical, in each year, and to include one foreign language and elementary mathematics. (3) Special attention was devoted to drawing. Owing partly to the requirement that such schools must have a dominantly scientific curriculum, irrespective of local conditions, and partly to the general uncertainty in regard to the future of Higher Elementary Schools, as distinct from Secondary Schools, few schools of this type were recognised, and in 1916-1917 there were only 31 Higher Elementary Schools in England and 14 in Wales. (4) (1) R. v. Cockerton (1901) 1 O.B. 322, and Rex v. Cockerton C.A. (1901) 1 K.B. 726.
(2) The expression 'Higher Elementary School', which seems to have been modelled on the French école primaire supérieure, was first used as an official term in the Board's Minute of 6 April 1900.
(3) Code of Regulations for Day schools 1901 (Cd. 513), article 110.
(4) The Regulations for Higher Elementary Schools were withdrawn by the Board in 1919, in view of the provisions regarding Central Schools and central classes in Section 2 (I) (a) of the Education Act 1918.
[page 64] 36. In 1902 an Education Act was passed which marked a very important stage in the development of a national system of education. The act recognised for purposes of higher education two types of administrative area, viz. counties and county boroughs. The councils of these two types of area were constituted the local education authorities for higher education as well as elementary education. The council of every non-county borough with a population of over 10,000 and of every urban district with a population of over 20,000 was constituted the local education authority for the borough or district, as the case might be, for elementary education only. The councils of every county and county borough were required 'to consider the educational needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary and to promote the general co-ordination of all forms of education'. (1) No definition was given of higher education, which was merely described as 'education other than elementary'. In fact, however, three main types of post-primary education could be distinguished in 1903: (i) the continuation of primary education in the Public Elementary Schools themselves within the limits assigned by Section 22 (2) of the Education Act 1902. (2) (ii) Its development and specialisation in various directions in Evening Schools, Science Classes, Trade Schools etc; (iii) Its transference to a higher plane in Secondary Schools. Owing to the long neglect of secondary education by the State, post-primary schools of various types had grown up without any proper co-ordination. As indicated in Section 19 of this chapter, there existed a variety of standards fixed by numerous examining boards. A tradition of co-operation between the Board of Education and the new local education (1) Education Act 1902, sections 1 and 2. The population referred to was that according to the Census of 1901. See Section 23 (8) of the Act.
(2) Section 22 (2) of the Education Act 1902, runs:
[page 65] authorities had to be slowly built up, due account had to be taken of vested interests, and care had to be exercised that the extension of facilities for secondary education should not involve any lowering of standards. With the aim of inducing greater clearness of thought regarding the main purpose to be kept in view, the Board of Education sought in their new Regulations for Secondary Schools for 1904-1905 to set a standard and to supply a working definition of the Secondary School as distinct from other types of post-primary education. In this enterprise the Board were confronted with a difficult problem. They had to take into account the tradition of grants for individual subjects established by the Science and Art Department which had been merged in the Board of Education by the Board of Education Act 1899. Furthermore, there was wide variety of type in the so-called Secondary Schools. The instruction provided in the smaller endowed Grammar Schools was still often at a low point of efficiency; their teaching staffs were poorly paid and lacking in adequate qualifications, and in general their curriculum was frequently neither coherent nor liberal. (1) A large number of the former Higher Grade Schools which had been taken over by the new local education authorities from the School Boards in 1903 and converted into municipal secondary schools had, owing to the system of grants elaborated by the former Science and Art Department, become unduly dominated by science subjects; indeed many of them had been Organised Science Schools. (2) The merging of this important type of higher primary education, and also of a number of the Pupil Teacher Centres which had (1) Many of the less prosperous endowed Grammar Schools also arranged science courses in order to earn the grants paid by the Science and Art Department to Organised Science Schools and classes.
(2) The Science and Art Department, in order to encourage the establishment of schools giving systematic instruction in science, offered attendance grants in 1872 to such schools and institutions as adopted one or other of the special courses outlined in the Science and Art Directory. These Organised Science Schools, as they were called, increased steadily till 1894, when they numbered 112. In order to check the natural tendency for the curriculum of these schools to become unduly developed on the scientific side, the rules in the Science and Art Directory for 1894 required that the timetables of such schools should provide 'for instruction in those literary subjects which were essential for a good general education'. In 1895 both the curriculum and the method of payment in Schools of Science were modified. Manual work and instruction in literary and commercial subjects became an integral part of the regular work of such schools to which a certain time had to be devoted. There were 187 of these schools in 1900. [page 66] slowly developed since 1870, into Secondary Schools of the academic type marks an important stage in the history of secondary education in England and Wales, since these new Municipal Secondary Schools, influenced by the tradition of the Higher Grade Schools, attached more weight on the whole to scientific and modern studies than the older types of Secondary School. The Day Schools carried on in Technical Institutes which were in some instances converted into Municipal Secondary Schools at this time, had a marked vocational tendency and usually had a predominantly scientific curriculum. (1) Nearly all the Public Schools and many of the Girls' Schools corresponding to them, held aloof from the Board and from other schools, and their curriculum exercised little influence outside their own precincts. 37. The new Regulations for Secondary Schools issued by the Board of Education every year as from 1904 grew up round the old provisions of the Directory of the Science and Art Department which was issued annually down to 1901-1902. Detached Science Classes had in many instances been gradually consolidated into Schools of Science. (2) These Schools of Science had been developed into schools of what was known as the 'Division A' type, providing a course of instruction in science in connection with, and as part of, a course of general education. Grants were afterwards given to schools of the 'Division B' type in which science did not form the preponderating element in the instruction. In the light of the data collected by their Inspectors after a series of systematic inspections of schools of different types, the Board in 1904 abolished all grants for individual subjects and provided a main single grant for an approved four-year course covering the period from 12 or 13 to 16 or 17 years of age. The most salient defect in the new Regulations for Secondary Schools issued in 1904 is that they failed to take note of the comparatively rich experience of secondary curricula of a practical and quasi-vocational type which had been evolved in the Higher Grade Schools, the Organised Science Schools and the technical day schools. The new Regulations were based wholly on the tradition of the (1) Report of the Board of Education for the year 1905-1906, p. 55.
(2) In the Regulations for Secondary Day Schools for 1902-3 and 1903-4, issued by the newly established Board of Education, the Schools of Science were classed as 'Secondary day schools (Division A)', and the Grammar Schools were described as 'Secondary day schools (Division B)'. [page 67] Grammar Schools and the Public Schools. Furthermore, the concept of a general education which underlies these Regulations was divorced from the idea of technical or quasi-technical education, though in reality much of the education described as 'liberal' or 'general' was itself vocational education for the 'liberal' professions. (1) In other words, the statesmanlike and far-sighted recommendations of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education of 1895, summarised in Sections 31-3 above, were passed by. An unreal and unnecessary division was introduced between secondary education and technical education. In the Regulations for Secondary Schools issued in 1904, the Board attempted to set a standard and supply a working definition of a Secondary School as distinct from other forms of higher education. (2) A Secondary School is defined as 'a Day or Boarding School offering to each of its scholars up to and beyond the age of 16, a general education, physical, mental and moral, given through a complete graded course of instruction, of wider scope and more advanced degree than that given in Elementary Schools'. (3) The Regulations provide that the curriculum of a Secondary School as so defined must include an approved course of general instruction extending over at least four years, and that the average age of the scholars in any class commencing the course must not be less than 12 years. The Regulations further provide that a Secondary School as thus defined must offer at the least a full four-year course providing instruction in a group of subjects so selected as to ensure a due breadth and solidity in the education given. This was indicated by a definite allocation of time per week (1) See Sections 3 and 4 of this chapter and Appendix II.
(2) The division of education into 'elementary' and 'higher' embodied in Part II of the Education Act of 1902 is not very satisfactory. In Section 170 (3) of the Education Act 1921 the expression 'higher education' is defined as meaning education other than elementary education. Unfortunately in the long series of Education Acts from 1870 there is no definition of elementary education.
(3) It should be noted that though the Board of Education have defined the expression 'Secondary School' they have not attempted to define 'Secondary Education', nor is there any statutory definition of 'Secondary Education.' See pages 266-268 of our Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926). [page 68] to the principal subjects, which were defined as (i) the English language and literature, together with Geography and History; (ii) at least one language other than English; (iii) Mathematics and Science, both theoretical and practical; and (iv) Drawing. For girls Practical Housewifery must be included in the course, and for both boys and girls some provision must be made for Manual Work and for Physical Exercises. The object of these rules was to ensure a certain amount of breadth and richness in the curriculum of recognised Secondary Schools, and to withhold recognition from schools offering only an education which was stunted, illiberal, unpractical, or over-specialised. 'Where two languages other than English are taken, and Latin is not one of them, the Board will require to be satisfied that the omission of Latin is for the advantage of the School.' This last provision illustrates the persistence of the classical, or at any rate the Latin tradition, in English higher education. (1) It will be remembered that the Schools Inquiry Commissioners in their Report of 1868 recommended that Latin should be included even in the curriculum of their proposed third grade schools with a leaving age of 14 or 15. (2) The Prefatory Memorandum to these Regulations states that the Board desired to emphasise the following three points as being essential to the course of general education given in a Secondary Day or Boarding School for pupils up to and beyond the age of 16: '(a) The instruction must be general; i.e. must be such as gives a reasonable degree of exercise and development to the whole of the faculties, and does not confine this development to a particular channel, whether that of pure and applied Science, of literary and linguistic study, or of that kind of acquirement which is directed simply at fitting a boy or girl to enter business in a subordinate capacity with some previous knowledge of what he or she will be set to do. A Secondary School should keep in view the development and exercise of all(1) cf. the following passage from the Report of the Board of Education for 1906-1907, p. 68: 'The Board attach so much importance to the inclusion of Latin where possible in the curricula of secondary schools that they have for some years past made it a rule that in all schools which take two languages other than English, Latin must be one of the two unless there is clear educational advantage in its omission.' (2) See Section 16 of this chapter. [page 69] the faculties involved in these different kinds of training, and will fail to give a sound general education to its scholars in so far as it sends them out, whether to further study or to the business of life, with one or other of these faculties neglected, or with one developed at the expense of the rest. Specialisation in any of these directions should only begin after the general education has been carried to a point at which the habit of exercising all these faculties has been formed and a certain solid basis for life has been laid in acquaintance with the structure and laws of the physical world, in the accurate use of thought and language, and in practical ability to begin dealing with affairs.The basic idea underlying the Prefatory Memorandum and the Regulations of 1904 so far as they deal with curriculum, seems to be that of a general liberal education as conceived by Wilhelm von Humboldt and Matthew Arnold. (1) These thinkers, however, assumed that the general liberal education would be prolonged at the Gymnasium or the Public School (or Grammar School) to the age of 18 or 19, when the pupil proceeded to the University and continued it there. In the attenuated form in which it is embodied in the Board's Regulations for Secondary Schools for 1904-1905, this 'general education' is designed primarily to cover the period between the ages of 13 and 17, and the vocational motive, even in its mildest form, is excluded. The Regulations imply that the main function of the Secondary School is to provide 'general education'. It is (1) See Appendix II, pp. 409-12. [page 70] not easy, however, to discover what precisely is meant by that phrase since it seems to bear at least two meanings which may or may not be traceable to a common source. Thus in (a) above, summarised from page 7 of the Prefatory Memorandum to the Regulations, 'general education' is viewed as a comprehensive course comprising the study of a number of specific branches of knowledge in contrast to a type of education based on a narrow range of subjects. But an attempt is made to think of a 'general education' as producing other results than merely the acquisition of particular kinds of knowledge in terms of the subjects specified. Thus, 'A Secondary School should keep in view the development and exercise of all the faculties involved in these different kinds of training, and will fail to give a sound general education to its scholars in so far as it sends them out, whether to further study or to the business of life, with one or other of these faculties neglected, or with one developed at the expense of the rest.' This is an entirely different conception which is merged into the notion of the comprehensiveness of the course. It would seem, therefore, that considerable ambiguity attaches to the term 'general education'. Indeed, it can hardly convey any clearly defined meaning so long as the problem of education in Secondary Schools is approached from the point of view of the subjects to be studied rather than from that of the development of the pupil as an individual. A careful perusal of paragraph (a) of the Prefatory Memorandum to these Regulations, quoted above, shows that it was chiefly influenced by the now discarded 'faculty' psychology, according to which every normal individual was supposed to possess certain faculties of mind which could be exercised and disciplined by appropriate studies, irrespective of the intrinsic value of the studies themselves. (1) The result of this doctrine of developing the various 'faculties' would be that teachers would attach special importance to certain subjects, particularly Latin and mathematics, which were considered to be specially valuable as intellectual disciplines, and the only restriction apparently would be that they would be prevented from making the mistake of the Organised Science Schools and Higher Grade Schools and concentrating their attention unduly on a particular group of non-humanistic subjects. Their task would be to deal with four or five groups of subjects and to (1) See Chapter III, Part II, Section 19, and Appendix IV. [page 71] see that no one group occupied much more time than the others, or was carried too far in advance of them. It is, however, by no means clear in the wording of the Prefatory Memorandum and the Regulations whether the distinction had been appreciated between two wholly different forms of 'faculty training' - the 'unitary' form, which postulated that one subject or group of subjects could be made to yield training for all the faculties, and the 'multiple' form, which assigned each faculty to a separate subject. On the whole, it may be inferred that the Memorandum inclines to the latter interpretation, though present day opinion would regard its logic as unsound and the identification of a faculty with a subject as wholly arbitrary. The use of the term 'faculty' is now commonly avoided, not as denying the existence of mental powers and abilities that are capable of being trained, but because these powers and abilities cannot be regarded as separate and self-contained qualities and are not capable of the sort of training which was formerly envisaged. It is laid down in the Prefatory Memorandum that the course of instruction must be graded (or progressive) and complete. It is hardly possible to say when a course is complete unless the aim be first defined. Where, as in this case, the aim is so indefinite, it is not possible to do more than to say that a course is complete when the pupils have gone so far in it as they may be able to go at a particular age and in particular circumstances. In the philosophy underlying these Regulations 'the general progressive complete course' is considered without relation to the child. This view is contrary to the idea which is now generally accepted, of the pupil as a developing organism, assimilating what best suits him or her at each successive stage of growth, and always dealing with material which he can understand and control. (1) 38. Perhaps the most striking feature of the new Secondary Schools provided by local education authorities, which have so greatly increased in numbers since 1902, is their marked disinclination to deviate to any considerable extent from the (1) See the Handbook of Suggestions for the consideration of teachers and others engaged in the work of Public Elementary Schools (1937), published by the Board of Education, in which the idea of the child as a developing organism is discussed in detail. [page 72] main lines of the traditional grammar school curriculum. That conservative and imitative tendency which is so salient a characteristic in the evolution of English political and social institutions, is particularly noticeable in this instance. The natural tendency, however, to keep within the ambit of the grammar school tradition was greatly re-enforced, and in a sense fostered, by the Regulations for Secondary Schools issued by the Board of Education in 1904-1905 and succeeding years, and later by the First School (Certificate) Examination as organised in 1917. (1) As will be seen from the detailed account of the Regulations of 1904 given above, the Board took the existing Public Schools and Grammar Schools as their general cadre or archetype for secondary schools of all kinds. The further development of post-primary schools with traditions somewhat different from those of the Grammar Schools, such as the Higher Grade Schools, the Organised Science Schools and the Day Technical Schools which had sprung into existence in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was definitely discouraged and new Secondary Schools were in effect compelled to take as their model the curriculum of the existing Public Schools and Grammar Schools. The tendency of Secondary Schools maintained or aided by local education authorities to imitate the Public Schools and Grammar Schools has since 1902 been considerably accentuated by the fact that economic difficulties have forced many of the old endowed schools to accept financial aid from public funds and thus to become an integral part of the public system of education. From some points of view the new Secondary Schools benefited by having a definite model to copy. It gave them standards of scholarship and internal organisation and an ideal of corporate spirit which, if somewhat limited, were also high; and it promoted healthy competition with the older schools for University and other scholarships which has done much to open the public and local services and the learned professions to poorer children of ability. Indeed within limits it would be difficult to appraise too highly the valuable contribution which the new type of Secondary School has made to English education as a whole. On the other hand, on a dispassionate retrospect of the history of post-primary education since 1900 we cannot but deplore the fact that the Board did little or nothing after the passing of the Education Act of 1902 to foster the development of secondary schools of quasi-vocational type designed (1) See p. 80. See also Chapter VII. [page 73] to meet the needs of boys and girls who desired to enter industry and commerce at the age of 16. The need in a highly industrialised society for post-primary schools of non-academic type with an orientation towards commerce or industry was shown by the development of the Central Schools in London and Manchester in 1911-12, and of the Junior Technical Schools from 1913 onwards. (1) The present difficulties in the field of secondary education have arisen largely out of the confusion which began about 1904 between a type of secondary education appropriate to the needs of boys and girls between the ages of 11 to 12 and of 16 to 17 and the traditional academic course orientated towards the Universities. In 1904-5 there were on the Grant List only 575 Secondary Schools containing 94,698 pupils. On 1 October 1936, there were on the Grant List 1,397 Secondary Schools containing 484,676 pupils. This vast increase in the provision of Secondary Schools of the academic type and of the number and variety of pupils attending them could hardly have been foreseen in 1904. 39. In 1907 the Regulations were considerably modified and provided, inter alia, that in all schools in which a fee was charged a proportion of places must be open without fee to scholars of Public Elementary Schools. The ordinary proportion was fixed at 25 per cent of the admissions in each year. In order to secure that this provision would not have the effect of lowering the standard of education provided by the school, applicants for free places were required to pass an entrance test of attainments and proficiency suited to their age and previous instruction, and of a standard such as the Board could approve as ensuring their fitness to profit by the education given in a Secondary School. (2) In 1906-7 the Board of Education began to abandon the pupil teacher system and issued Regulations for an alternative system known as 'the Bursary System' whereby the general education of future teachers might be continued uninterrupted in secondary schools until the age of 17 or 18. Boys and girls who intended to become Elementary School teachers and had received their previous education at a secondary school, (1) See Section 45 of this chapter, and our Report on The Education of the Adolescent, pp. 31-2.
(2) Regulations for Secondary Schools in England 1907 (Cd. 3952), Regulation 20. [page 74] might receive a special grant from the Board as bursars to continue at that Secondary School for an additional year. (1) The adoption of this new policy for educating in Secondary Schools boys and girls who intended to become Elementary School teachers, and the arrangements for Free Places introduced in 1907 had the effect of bringing very large numbers of pupils from Public Elementary Schools into the Secondary Schools maintained or aided by local education authorities. In many Secondary Schools maintained by local education authorities a large proportion of the pupils who remained beyond the age of 16 were intending teachers. In respect of curriculum the Regulations for 1907 provided for greater variety of aim and flexibility of arrangement. The four-year course for scholars between roughly 12 and 17 years of age was now merged in a general curriculum for the whole school, and recognition might be withheld or withdrawn if an adequate proportion of scholars did not remain for at least four years in the school or did not remain in it up to the age of 16. But in rural areas and small towns, where these conditions could not be secured, and yet the provision and support of a Secondary School were clearly advantageous, a three-year school life and a leaving age of 15 might be accepted. The Regulations for 1907 and subsequent years provided that the curriculum should make appropriate provision for organised games, physical exercises, manual instruction, and singing. The Regulations stated that provision should be made for the elements of housewifery in the case of girls. For girls above the age of 15, courses in practical housewifery might be taken instead of science. In regard to individual subjects, the Board early took into consideration both the actual state of teaching and the general lines on which improvement might be sought. From 1904 onwards a special section of the Board's Annual Report has frequently been devoted to some subject in the curriculum such as English, Geography, Science; and Circulars on the methods of teaching subjects in secondary schools - English, History, Latin, Modern Languages, Music, Mathematics and the like have been issued from time to time. (2) In this context mention should be made of the founding of various associations largely composed of secondary school teachers of subjects such (1) See pp. v-ix of the Prefatory Memorandum to the Regulations for the Preliminary Education of Elementary School Teachers, 1907, and also Chapter VI thereof (Cd. 3444).
(2) A Report by the Consultative Committee on Practical Work in Secondary Schools was published in 1913 (Cd. 6849). [page 75] as English, History, Modern Languages, Classics, Mathematics and Science. All these bodies have at least two aims in common - to secure for their subject its appropriate place in the curriculum and to advocate all possible steps for the improvement of its teaching. 40. In their Report for 1912-13 the Board stated that their Regulations for Secondary Schools were sufficiently elastic to allow a considerable amount of specialisation in the curriculum where local circumstances or the particular aims of the school appeared to require it. 'It would clearly be improper to allow pupils to concentrate their attention upon a single subject or group of subjects before a good foundation of general education has been laid, or to carry specialisation so far as to encroach upon the sphere of the Technical School; but subject to these limitations the Board are prepared in suitable cases to approve schemes of instruction which vary considerably from that of the normal Secondary School. The variation may take the form of specialised work in the higher classes alone, or the school course may be given a certain bias throughout with the object of developing interest in and capacity for the occupations, whether rural, industrial, or commercial, which the majority of pupils are likely to take up.' In 1913 the Board receded still further from their original policy of insisting on general courses and in their Report for 1913-14 outlined their future policy in regard to specialised and vocational courses in Secondary Schools. After pointing out that the existing Regulations aimed at encouraging considerable variation in the curriculum according to local circumstances and the legitimate aims of particular schools, the Board stated that such variation might be effected by means of specialised work in the higher courses or by means of a definite bias, rural, industrial or commercial, given to the whole school course. At the same time, care must be taken to prevent specialisation among pupils who had not a sound foundation of general education, or such specialisation as would encroach upon work proper to Technical Schools. All school work might in some sense be regarded as vocational, since it should be planned with due regard to the probable future of the pupils. The Report stated that some 70 or 80 [page 76] Secondary Schools already had a definite vocational bias. The courses in these schools might be generally classed as (a) rural or agricultural; (b) commercial; (c) domestic for girls; (d) engineering for boys. In an important memorandum on Curricula of Secondary Schools (Circular 826), issued in 1913, the Board pointed out that Secondary Schools had a two-fold function. They provided a general preliminary education for those who aimed at occupations or professions requiring highly trained intelligence and who meant to carry on their educational preparation for life to a considerably later age. Many such pupils would pass from school to the Universities or other places of higher education. The Secondary Schools were also responsible for the education of a very large number of pupils who would leave school at or about the age of 16 and, contemplating no further full-time education, would at once proceed to posts in public offices, commercial houses, and manufactories, or enter upon such occupations as farming and retail trade. In many schools these two groups of pupils had to a great extent to be taught together and one of the chief problems of school organisation was to devise a common course of work suitable for both groups. It was specially important that Secondary Schools should not further complicate the problem of organisation by attempting additional work of a kind that lay outside their proper sphere. The relation between the Technical School and the Secondary School was materially affected by the increasingly widespread conviction that even the general education of boys and girls would gain in effectiveness if their work at school were to some extent brought into direct connection with their probable occupations in after life. Many interesting experiments were already being made in this direction and there was room for a much wider development of activities of a definitely practical kind which, hitherto, had been generally held to lie exclusively within the scope of the Technical School. The Board stated in this Circular that in certain instances they were prepared to accept special courses of a vocational character, such as courses in commercial, agricultural, and domestic subjects. In the middle forms of secondary schools the special work in commercial subjects for pupils over the age of 15 might include Shorthand, Business Methods, Typewriting, and the Principles of Accounts; but special courses in Commercial History and Commercial Geography would not be accepted for middle forms, and the work in [page 77] Modern Languages should not be primarily concerned with their commercial use. This special commercial work should not in the Board's view begin before the age of 15 and should not as a rule occupy more than one fifth of the whole school time. In regard to domestic courses the Board, under article 9 of the Regulations for Secondary Schools, might approve for girls over 15 the partial or entire substitution of a combined course in Housecraft for Natural Science and for Mathematics other than Arithmetic. This combined course should include both Laundry-work and Cookery but not necessarily Needlework. If the combined course extended for more than one year, courses might be added in one or more of the following subjects: Home Nursing, First Aid, Care of Children, Hygiene, or Household Management generally. The suggestions made in Circular 826 (1913) in respect of the provision in the main portion of Secondary Schools of special courses designed to prepare the pupils for their future occupations in life, though well judged and based on sound principles, appear to have had very little effect. This was partly due to the outbreak of war in 1914, but in a far greater degree to the standardisation of the First School Examination in 1917, which we describe in Section 42 of this chapter. 41. The traditional psychology of the earlier nineteenth century, with its emphasis on faculties and its belief in the doctrine of formal discipline or mental transfer, played an important part in perpetuating a curriculum common to all pupils. It was tacitly assumed that most boys and girls were equipped with the same natural endowments, that most of them developed in much the same way and at almost the same rate of progress, and that all learned by the same methods. Little attention was paid to individual differences in interests or abilities. If it were objected that the content of the curriculum was uninteresting or difficult, it was agreed that at any rate it was good for mental training. Too frequently, however, little effort was devoted to the selection of content appropriate to the needs, interests, and abilities of the pupils, and time and attention were concentrated on 'drill' and exercises. Towards the close of the nineteenth century the faculty psychology was shown to be fallacious (1); and in the early years (1) See Appendix IV. [page 78] of the present [i.e. twentieth] century the doctrine of formal discipline or transfer, while it was not wholly discarded, was redefined with severe reservations on its operation. (1) Another important change, resulting in part from theoretical considerations and experimentation, and in part from practical experience with a constantly increasing body of pupils in secondary schools, has been the light thrown upon individual differences in interests, abilities, and rates of physical development and intellectual progress. Furthermore, increasing information is being collected on the effects on pupils of differences in cultural, social and economic environment. Finally, the whole approach to the learning process has been modified in the light of these changes; it is recognised today that he learns best who learns with interest and with a purpose, or to put it in another way, he learns best who sees meaning and significance in what he learns. It is evident that these changes in the psychological foundations must be followed by changes in the organisation of the curriculum and its content. The curriculum, to have meaning for the learners, must be adapted to the stage of development of the pupils concerned and must be related to the general environment in which they are being educated. In practice this must result in the discarding of a good deal of content in most subjects that has survived from the days when drill and exercises were emphasised for the sake of mental training. It means further that the content must be more realistic in the sense that it grows out of and develops with the expanding experience of the pupils. It means, finally, that teachers must be on their guard, first, to see that instruction is adapted to the interests and abilities of the pupils, and, secondly, to remember that subjects were not invented for scholastic purposes, but are the tools and instruments which the human race has crystallised out of its experience in order to understand the world in which it lives. 42. The Board's Inspections of Secondary Schools from 1902 onwards tended to show that external examinations were having unfavourable reactions on the work of many schools, often leading to cramming and over-pressure; that they (1) See Appendix V. [page 79] frequently set wrong ideas before schools and pupils; and that by their syllabuses and papers they often impeded improvements in method. The schools themselves drew attention to the restrictive effects of these external tests on their methods and curricula, and to the difficulties caused by the conflicting requirements of the various examinations for which they were obliged to prepare pupils. In 1904 the Board, with a view to remedying this state of affairs, inserted provisions in the Regulations for Secondary Schools, prohibiting the presentation of pupils under the age of 15, without their sanction, for any external examinations, except one which comprised the whole school, or one held solely for the award of scholarships or exhibitions. In 1909 a fresh regulation was introduced empowering the Board to require any school to submit such part of the school as the Board might think fit, for an examination approved by the Board for the purpose. In 1909 the Board referred the problem of examinations in Secondary Schools to the Consultative Committee, whose Report, published in 1911, substantially confirmed the conclusions at which the Board, in their inspection of the schools, had arrived. The main findings of the Committee were: (1) That the presentation of young and immature pupils for external examinations was mischievous.The main needs were to reduce the number of examinations; to ensure that their syllabuses should be appropriate as an indication of the degree and the type of knowledge that might reasonably be expected of Secondary School pupils of various tastes and capacities at successive stages of development; to secure a reasonable uniformity in the standard and method of awards in all examinations taken at the same age; and to arrange that examinations of similar standard should be accepted, with reasonable conditions, by Universities and professional bodies in place of their own preliminary examinations. The Consultative Committee recommended that for the solution of the problem application should be made to the University Examining Bodies. After prolonged negotiations in 1914, 1915 and 1916 the various examining bodies consented to modify their existing examinations in accordance with the Board's suggestions. Fourteen examinations were accordingly recast or brought [page 80] into existence between 1917-19, seven of which - known as the First School (Certificate) Examinations - were for pupils of about 16, and seven - known as the Second School Examinations - for pupils of about 18. The former were general in character and required that at least five subjects should be offered, one from each of three groups, namely English subjects; foreign languages; science and mathematics. The latter were specialised examinations in one of three groups: classics; modern studies; science and mathematics. In September, 1917, the Board established the Secondary School Examinations Council as an advisory body to co-ordinate the standard of these examinations and to secure that the methods of award were satisfactory. The First School Examination as standardised in 1917 had, on the whole, beneficial effects on Secondary Schools, and the Certificate, or School Certificate, as it was popularly called, soon acquired very considerable prestige with employers. The examination had the effect of setting a standard before the schools and of bringing the weaker Secondary Schools up to a certain level of efficiency. On the other hand, the fact that this examination soon came to be generally regarded as the terminus ad quem for pupils under the age of 16, had the effect of stereotyping and narrowing the curriculum. The examination unquestionably checked effectively any tendency to develop special courses in the main portions of secondary schools for pupils below the age of 16 on the lines indicated in the Board's Memorandum on Curricula (1913), summarised in Section 40 above. Though the various recognised examining bodies offered and continue to offer a wide range of alternatives in their syllabuses for this examination, the majority of the pupils presented for it offer a comparatively restricted number of subjects, namely - English, French, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Latin, and to a less extent Art. (1) This is probably largely due to the staffing arrangements in Secondary Schools. In Circular 1034, issued in March 1918, the Board of Education explained that it was a cardinal principle that this examination should follow the curriculum and not determine it. In the actual working of the examination this principle has been reversed, and there can be little doubt that in many Secondary Schools the Certificate Examination is now the dominant factor in determining the curriculum for the majority of the pupils below the age of 16. (1) See Chapter II, Section 7, Table 10. [page 81] 43. In general it is possible to distinguish three main causes which have combined to produce that uniformity which characterises most of the existing Secondary Schools particularly in the provision made for the training and instruction of pupils up to the age of 16. Firstly there is the traditional prestige of the Public Schools and the Grammar Schools which has tended to assimilate the newer types of Secondary School, and particularly those maintained or aided by local education authorities, to the grammar school type. In the second place this natural adherence to a traditional type of higher education was greatly reinforced and consolidated by the Regulations for Secondary Schools issued by the Board of Education in 1904-1905 and subsequent years. In the third place the First School (Certificate) Examination as organised in 1917 has undoubtedly had the effect of strengthening and intensifying the tendency towards uniformity. It is true indeed that the various examining bodies offer a comparatively wide range of alternatives in their syllabuses for the Certificate Examination, but as we have shown above, there is a strong tendency to present candidates in the traditional subjects in which the teachers feel most at home. 44. In 1915-1919 four special Committees were appointed to inquire into the position of Natural Science, Modern Languages, Classics and English in the educational system. The Reports of the Committees on Natural Science and on Modern Languages were published in 1918, and the Reports of the Committees on the Classics and on English in 1921. (1) These Reports contain many important and valuable suggestions, bringing under review the organisation of the secondary school curriculum and the scope of instruction in the four subjects in question. One result of these Reports was to direct attention to the congestion of the curriculum, and the (1) Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the Position of Natural Science, in the Educational System of Great Britain (London, 1918); Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to inquire into the Position of Modern Languages in the Educational System of Great Britain (London, 1918); Report of the Prime Minister's Committee on the Position of Classics in the Educational System of the United Kingdom (London, 1921); The Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into the Position of English in the Educational System of England (The Teaching of English in England), London, 1921. [page 82] overcrowding of the timetable. In an important Circular (Circular 1294, dated 8th December, 1922) the Board of Education attempted to co-ordinate the recommendations in these four Reports, and came to the conclusion that it was only possible to satisfy the minimum demands for time made for the four subjects by abandoning the principle that the curriculum should be 'general' in the sense that it dealt with all the traditional subjects. (1) 45. A number of full-time day Trade schools, mostly for boys, were established, especially in the London area, from about 1900. The first of these was the Trade School for Furniture and Cabinet-making founded at the Shoreditch Technical Institute in 1901 with a three-year course. These Trade Schools were designed to take boys on or near the completion of their elementary school career for a period of one, two or three years and to give them a specialised training that would fit them to enter into workshop or factory life about the age of 16 with a definite prospect of becoming skilled workers. The basic aim of the courses was to afford such an initial training in Handicraft and such an understanding of the principles underlying workshop practice as would make the learner an asset of value when he entered the workshop. (2) These Trade Schools received grant as Day Technical Classes from 1904-5 onwards under article 42 of the Board of Education Regulations for Evening Schools, Technical Institutions etc, which enabled Technical Schools to receive aid for Day Technical Classes attended by pupils who had completed their elementary education. Many of the full-time Trade Schools were organised as courses within a Technical College or Institute. The Board deliberately adopted a cautious policy in respect of these full-time day Technical Classes from 1905, in view of the fact that the improvement of the teaching of drawing in Public Elementary Schools since 1890, and the introduction of practical subjects such as woodwork, metalwork and cookery into the curricula both of Public Elementary Schools and of Secondary Schools, seemed to render the need for Day Technical Classes of the (1) See Chapter IV, p. 188.
(2) See the report on the London Trade schools for boys and girls in LCC Education Committee's Report on eight years of technical education and continuation schools (No. 1576), 1912, pp. 63-66.
[page 83] type contemplated in Section 42 of the Regulations for Evening schools etc, less urgent than would otherwise have been the case. Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that there was a distinct demand for whole-time Day Technical Classes. The movement for the establishment of 'Junior Technical Schools', as these full-time classes for ex-Elementary School pupils came to be called, was especially rapid in London, partly on account of the concentration of certain trades and industries within a limited area and partly on account of the decay of apprenticeship and the very limited opportunities afforded by employers for the training of young persons wishing to enter skilled occupations. In view of the marked increase in the number of full-time Day Technical Classes, the Board decided in 1913 to recognise these schools under a special set of Regulations and to pay grants to them 'to a degree more commensurate to their importance'. After prolonged consultations with representatives of local education authorities and teachers in technical institutions, the Board drew up Regulations which came into operation as from 1 August 1913, under which Junior Technical Schools might be detached for administrative purposes from the other somewhat miscellaneous full-time or part-time courses aided as Day Technical Classes under article 42 of the Regulations and encouraged and strengthened by means of increased grants. These schools were definitely not intended to provide courses furnishing a preparation for the professions and Universities, or for higher full-time technical work, or commercial life. They were designed to prepare their pupils either for artisan or other industrial occupations or for domestic employment. Under the Regulations the minimum age for admission is 13+, and the courses, which ordinarily last for 2 or 3 years, are normally planned to provide for pupils who enter them from Public Elementary Schools at the age of 13 or 14. The original Regulations for Junior Technical Schools issued in 1913 stated that the school hours in such schools were to cover not less than 30 hours a week, and that no pupil was to be admitted except upon a certificate given by the parent or guardian that he was intended to enter into an employment for which the school provided a preparation. Practical work would be required in all suitable subjects, and the staff must contain a reasonable proportion of members with practical trade experience of the occupations for which the individual school prepared. Wherever possible, an Advisory Committee should be appointed, containing representatives of employers and employed in these occupations. [page 84] The existing Junior Technical Schools fall into two quite distinct types, differing not only in their curricula, but in their relation to industry: (i) The Trade School (1), which provides training recognised by the trade or occupation concerned as at least equivalent to that given in the corresponding period of normal apprenticeship. In other words, these schools substitute for part of the apprenticeship in the workshop a training given in the school. Though these schools pay adequate attention to the general subjects of the curriculum, the proportion of time devoted to craft work is greater than that assigned to it in the schools described under (ii) below and frequently amounts to 50 per cent or more of the total time. Unlike the pre-apprenticeship schools described in (ii) below, the Trade Schools prepare their pupils for a defined occupation, such as printing, silversmiths' work, bookbinding, musical instrument making, women's needle trades, hairdressing. Most of these schools are situated in London, where they are now known officially as Junior Technical Schools. Outside the London area they are still usually described as Trade Schools.Akin to the schools of type (ii) are the Junior Technical Schools designed to prepare girls for home management, which give general preparation for home management rather than in any particular section or aspect of it. There are also a number of Junior Technical Schools akin in aim to type (ii) (1) The expression 'Trade School' has been in use since the middle of the last century to describe a School in which special attention was devoted to various branches of practical and experimental science with reference to their practical applications. See, for instance, the description of the Bristol Trade School (1866) in the footnote on page 32 of Chapter I. The Scheme prepared by the Endowed Schools Commission for Wakefield Grammar School dated 13 May 1875, contains in Part V provisions relating to the Technical or Trade School of the Foundation, in which the subjects of secular instruction were to be, in addition to the 3Rs, 'English, Geography, Mathematics, Drawing (with special reference to Mechanics and Engineering), and such other branches of practical and experimental science as the Governors may direct'. [page 85] known as Junior Commercial Schools, which prepare boys and girls for entry to commercial life. Trade Schools preparing boys or girls for one defined occupation are essentially vocational schools. On the other hand, Junior Technical Schools which prepare boys for the engineering and building industries, Junior Technical Schools which prepare girls for home management, and Junior Commercial Schools which prepare boys and girls for clerical occupations and the office arts, might well be described as quasi-vocational, since they prepare not for one specific trade or occupation, but for groups of related occupations. Nevertheless, since both types of school have in common the aim of preparing boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 16 for efficient work in industry and commerce, they have hitherto been classed for administrative purposes as 'Junior Technical Schools'. Though all these schools have a distinct vocational tendency, their curricula are not confined to crafts and technical subjects. They devote considerable attention to the social and physical welfare of their pupils, though many of them are deficient in provision for physical education. They include the study of subjects such as English, History and Geography, which were begun in the schools from which their pupils are drawn, and which are (i) directly useful in an occupation; (ii) necessary to elucidate its place in the structure of human life and society; (iii) necessary to enable an individual to take his place as a citizen of a democracy. Some schools include in their curriculum a modern language. In Junior Technical Schools it is possible to integrate the several subjects of the curriculum so that each makes a definite contribution towards the fulfilment of the primary aim of these schools, which is to train youths and girls for entering industrial and commercial occupations. The freedom of these schools from the requirements of external examinations facilitates this treatment of the curriculum and renders it possible for each school to frame its course in the light of local requirements. In consequence, though the names of the subjects in the curricula are the same as those in other types of school, the content and the treatment may be very different. In general the instruction is less academic, since it is possible to relate it to the known aims and future circumstances of the pupils. Up to the present these schools have deliberately aimed at not turning out more pupils than can be absorbed by the specific local industry or group of industries. It is evident [page 86] that both the Junior Technical Schools proper and the Trade Schools have a curriculum differing in content and in outlook from the curricula of other types of post-primary school.
Note. We do not in this chapter attempt to give any detailed account of the history of the development of Modern (Central and Senior) Schools for pupils between the ages of 11+ and 14+ or 15+, as we have dealt with these schools at considerable length in our Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926). It is evident, however, that the curricula which have been and are being evolved in Modern (Central and Senior) Schools for pupils above the age of 11+, in accordance with the suggestions in our Report on The Education of the Adolescent, have had considerable influence in modifying the traditional ideas about the academic curriculum of the Grammar Schools. We have also refrained in this chapter from attempting to give any account, however brief, of the development of Sixth Form work in Grammar Schools since 1904, and of the influence on such work of the Second School Examination and the Board's Regulations for Advanced Courses, since in this Report we are primarily concerned with the curriculum for pupils up to the age of 16+ in the middle part of the Grammar School. In Chapter XI (1) we give a number of conclusions based on this chapter. (1) See pp. 349-53. 
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