FIRST STEPS TOWARDS WORKING THE EDUCATION ACT.
POLITICIANS and the Legislature have now, apart from the great question of London, done for a time with the subject of national education, and the whole matter is referred to the working educationists of the land. It is true that the country is threatened with agitations and combined. efforts to thwart the working of the Act, but we shall be forgiven if we refuse to take such threats seriously. They must be regarded as the distant mutter- ings of a spent storm. However much Lord Rosebery may beat the air, he will find it impossible to bring the tempest back. It would be foolish, however, to expect that the agitation of the political atmosphere should at once subside. While the storm lasted it was possible for men, nor- mally possessing ripe and balanced judgment, to anticipate events of an abnormal character, and seriously to believe that the law of the land. would bedefied * a small minority of the people. The same belief is still held by a few men who can scarcely realise that the storm is over, but it is plain that this feeling of tension and excitement is passing away, and that the storm has left a clearer and fresher educa- tional atmosphere than England has ever known before. Educationists who for the moment were, despite themselves, forced, on one side or the other, into the ranks of party politics are educationists once more ; while politicians who for the sake of party " crammed " the subject of education are glad enough once again to forget all about a topic that must be of infinite dulness to the party hack. Edu- cation is a technical subject, and one, when it comes to business, that is inevitably left in the sole charge of men and women who have made either the theory or the prac- tice of education the subject of their life's work.
The important question now is, Who are these men and women ? Apart from the Board of Education and its able staff of specialists and inspectors, this country possesses a large and an increasing class that is vividly interested in the work of preparing the coming generation for their national and Imperial duties. The salvation of a nation is in the hands of its children, and the fashioning of their lives is a question that transcends all other political questions whatsoever. It is, therefore, necessary that all those who are taking part in school administrative work should realise as individuals and as members of local bodies the great increase of responsibility which the new Act throws upon them. Up to the year 1870 local educa- tional administration was entirely in the hands of the managers of voluntary schools and the trustees of en- dowed schools. Of the latter class up to that date it is not possible to say much that is good. Until the Endowed Schools Acts came into operation, the vast funds applicable to secondary education were shamefully squandered and abused. On the other hand, the work done by the voluntary managers of all denominations was a noble one, and inadequate as were the results produced in the face of a population increasing by leaps and bounds, it must be remembered that throughout the country great numbers of men and women were to be found who voluntarily devoted their time and energy to the work of educating the poor, and spent money lavishly in the creation of new schools. We may say without fear of contradiction that the first seventy years of the nineteenth century were devoted to the creation of a class of educational administrators. The great value of the Act of 1870 was that, in town and country alike, it enormously increased the numbers of this class. Board-schools and the bodies of Managers dependent on them, and Voluntary School Committees, pressed into their service the most willing and capable of local residents. The case was apart from politics altogether. Here were the children, and neither the children nor the nation could live by bread alone. It is a comparatively new cry that the bread depends upon education. The root idea which lay and lies beneath voluntary administrative work was and is that the children must be raised from that slough of despair which is ignorance.
This growth of voluntary effort was exhibited still more noticeably in the case of the endowed secondary schools. Under the Endowed Schools Acts schemes for the ad- ministration of such schools were sent out broadcast over the country, and men and women were found without difficulty to take up the technical, and often tiresome, work of administration. Nor was this all. Important functions with respect to technical education were cast upon the newly created County Councils in 1889, and again it was seen that men were to be found who would throw them- selves with zest into this new outlet for voluntary energy. The year 1902 found the country, in fact, endowed with a skilled class of voluntary educational administrators, and with a highly trained class of teachers. It was the psycho- logical moment to co-ordinate the entire educational system. This the Act of 1902 does, and its working is in the hands of those who, if they will put aside all bitter- ness and all prejudice, are capable of making England the educational model for the world.
The first step is always the most difficult, but that step can be taken at once. The Act cannot, as a working educational measure, come into force until March 26th next. During a period of eighteen months from that date the Board of Education has power to direct that the Act shall come gradually into operation on dates which will best suit the idiosyncrasies and needs of different counties and towns. The sooner the Act is at work the better, but it cannot operate until the various districts have put their machinery in order. The first step, as we have said, can be taken at once. The great initial difficulty is to intro- duce order and uniformity into the system of management that now prevails—and necessarily prevails—in the volun- tary schools which educate more than half the children of this country. These schools have been created. during the last ninety years as the exigencies of particular parishes dictated and the means of private donors allowed. The system of administration in each case varies with the circumstances in which each school was created. It is necessary that a uniform system should be introduced, and introduced in such a way as will combine equity with efficiency. The Board of Education has lost no time in issuing an official Memorandum to assist owners, trustees, and managers in adapting their system of management to the normal type. In future every voluntary school will nor- mally be managed by a body consisting of four "founda- tion managers "—managers of the present type represent- ing the interests of those by whom the school was established or is managed—and two managers repre- sentative of local authorities. The future manner of the appointment of the foundation managers is the chief subject dealt with in the Memorandum. Wherever the provisions of the trust-deed, or the usage followed where there is no deed or insufficient trust provisions, with respect to the appointment of managers are inconsistent with the provisions of the Act, the owners, trustees, or managers must apply to the Board of Education for an Order (under Section 11 of the Act) for the purpose of meeting the difficulties of the case. It is expected, we are told, that such an Order will be found necessary for a large majority of voluntary schools. Indeed, this is almost obvious, as is the fact that failure or delay in making the application "may result in serious embarrassment and inconvenience to the district served by the school." The Memorandum goes on (we hope and believe unnecessarily) to warn trustees that the capri- cious closing of schools will involve a breach -of trust with grave consequences, and to inform them that they can, if they find it impossible to adapt their position to the new requirements; resign their trust into the hands of the Board of Education.
The duty of moulding the existing trusts or trust- deeds into conformity with the requirement of the Act throws a heavy burden of work both upon the Central Department and local managers. The term "trust-deed." includes any instrument of trust whether made by a private donor, or drawn by a Court of Law, or in pursuance of any Act. In peculiar cases, or where there is no trust-deed, or where the deed is lost or defective, or the school is held on agreement or lease, no private attempt should be made to draft a suitable deed. The matter should be specially referred to the Board of Educa- tion. This Memorandum should be read with great care by all managers, and the necessary steps taken forthwith to bring the deed of management into conformity with the Act. We do not doubt that this will be done. As we have pointed out above, there are now available a great number of persons closely interested in the effective working of the educational system, and we would urge those persons individually to spare no effort to assist the Board of Education in its present arduous work. Each county, each small educational area, must remember that its own efficiency depends upon itself. As soon as it is ready, the Act can be set in operation independently of other districts. Surely this will lead to friendly and healthy rivalry. No county, no district, will care to see its neighbour reaping before itself the manifold advantages of this Act. The preparation of the voluntary schools for the reception of the provisions of the Act is the first great step. In the meantime the County and Borough Councils and the minor local authori- ties will be getting everything in order for the appointment of the bodies that will manage the " provided" elementary schools, and will be planning the development of the second- ary systems with which they are in touch, and bringing those systems into a working relationship with the element- ary schools of both the " provided " and voluntary type. Moreover, it will be necessary to prepare for the formation of the local Education Committees that will in most cases undertake the great task of binding the elementary system and the secondary endowed-school system into one great and continuous educational force.
The work that lies before all those who are engaged in school administration is enormous, but the harvest which is waiting to be reaped. is incalculable ; and believing, as we do, that the army of Workers is one which realises the value of its work, we cannot but think that the harvest actually reaped will be great indeed. But much depends on the spirit in which this national issue is approached. All narrowness of administration, whether of Churchman or Dissenter, must be put away. This is the Children's Statute, and must be interpreted and administered in the interests of the children alone. The legacy which that great educationist, Dr. Temple, has left us is the advice, we might almost say the spiritual charge, that this Act should be administered in a spirit of strenuousness, toleration, and charity. It is not intended to protect or foster any particular denomination. It is intended to protect and foster all denominations in so far as those denominations strive to make the children God-fearing educated Englishmen and English- women. It has brought national education into the full blaze of public criticism, and has emphasised. the fact that Christian teaching is an essential and integral part of all education. The system will incorporate itself into local life as easily as did the once much-feared system of elective Parish Councils ; but the result of the incorpora- tion will do far more than did the Local Government Act of eight years ago to secure the one thing needful,— national efficiency.
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