FREE SCHOOLS.
AN article in the Fortnightly Review—the fifth in the series entitled The Radical Programme "—puts the case in favour of Free Schools almost as well as it is possible to
put it. We should say quite as well, if it were not for one or two passages in which the writer betrays that certain incidental
consequences of the change have a share, perhaps a large share, in making it dear to him. A politician who says that in 1870 " the final honours of the contest remained with the reactionary party," and does not disguise his abstract preference for a settlement which should involve a " forcible transfer" of Voluntary Schools to School Boards, has probably something else in view when he inveighs against school fees than the removal of a burden from poor parents, or the increase of regular attendance on the part of the children. But the force of an argument is not destroyed by the fact that he who em- ploys it has a concealed as well as an avowed object in putting it forward. The point to be determined is not, is the writer of this article perfectly disinterested ? but, has he proved his case ? If he has, his motive in entering upon the controversy is nothing to the purpose.
We will begin by admitting that he has done three things. In the first place, he has shown that the notion, in itself a highly probable one, that Free Schools would make parents value education less, is contrary to the facts. At Manchester, a Free School is maintained for children whose parents can prove total inability to pay fees. Naturally, the children belong to a lower class than those attending the other Board Schools, and all the ordinary temptations to irregularity, other than the difficulty of finding the fee, are, therefore, present in peculiar force. But last year the average attendance at the Free School was 98 per cent., while the average of passes was 99.6. Out of 450 possible attendances, 150 boys made every one. In the other Board Schools of the city, any child who makes 350 attendances receives a prize, the infer- ence being that 350 attendances is rather an exceptional feat. "If the same standard were accepted in the Free School, 278 boys, or 821 per cent. of the average number on the roll, would be entitled to prizes." And finally, the length of at- tendance at the Free School is three years and three-quarters, a very much longer term than is reached in the other Board Schools. In the next place, the writer has shown that the existence of school fees subjects parents who cannot pay them to real annoyance and inconvenience. The process of applying to the School Board for remission is not in itself pleasant, and the reference to the Guardians which follows as a matter of course, in many cases, is less pleasant still. In the third place, the present connection between fees and attend- ance tends to keep children away from school. The child who does not bring the fee on a Monday morning is, in many instances, refused admission ; and if the machinery for enforc- ing attendance is weak, the parent soon finds that the simplest way of evading the payment of fees is to send the child to school without the necessary pence, and then to acquiesce in his exclusion. The two last of these objections might in some measure be removed by an amendment of the law under which school fees are charged. The power of refusing admis- sion to children who do not come with the money in their hands might be abolished, and in its stead some simpler method of enforcing payment be adopted in all cases where the parent cannot prove that his earnings are less than so much a week. The annoyance of subjecting earnings to an " inquisitorial " test is more difficult to get rid of ; but then,
on the theory on which the combination of school fees with compulsory attendance can alone be justified, it ought not to be got rid of. The defenders of school fees maintain that a parent is bound to give his child a certain minimum of school- ing, just as he is bound to give him a certain minimum of food. He may be able to fulfil only one of these obligations, or he may be unable to fulfil either of them. In that case, the community helps him because greater evils will follow if the child is starved or is left in ignorance, than will follow if the parent is subsidised. But unless some means are taken to ensure that the inability alleged by the parent is genuine, the com- munityhas no protection against imposition. Still, the particular means adopted may be needlessly vexatious, and we think that the writer of this article has shown that they are so. The remis- sion of fees should be entrusted either to the School Boards, or to the Guardians, but not to both. The conditions on which they are remitted should be made more uniform. The authori- ties to which application for remission has to be made should be within easy reach of the parents. Half of the reasons given in this article for abolishing school fees are really only reasons for abolishing needless hardships by which the exaction of school fees is, at present, accompanied.
It is a common error to assume that when it has been shown that there are real inconveniences attaching to a system, nothing more is needed to prove that it ought at once to be done away with. In practice, a great deal more is needed. It must be shown not only that what we have is faulty, but there is a reasonable probability that what it is proposed to put in its place will be less faulty. It is here that the argument of the article breaks dawn. What the writer pleads for comes in principle to this,—that any duty imposed by the community for the general good, should be performed at the expense of the community which imposes it. To send your child to school is a duty imposed by the community for the general good. Con- sequently the community, not the parent, should pay the school fees. If the major premiss is true, the conclusion here drawn stops very far short of the point to which it may legitimately be carried. The school fee is but a very small part of the cost of a child's education. When the law says that every child who is not receiving education in some other way shall be sent to school till he is thirteen, it saddles a poor parent with much more than the payment of 2d. or 3d. a week. It compels him to forego the wages which the child might have been earning during the latter part of his school course, wages which in many districts would run up to six or eight times the amount of the school fee. It is little better than mockery to tell a parent that, on the principle "that a duty imposed by the State for the common good should be provided out of a common fund," he ought to be charged nothing for his child's schooling, and then, when he asks, "But how about the wages I" to reply, "That is no business of ours." On the contrary, it is just as much our business as the other. If the cost of performing a duty im- posed for the common good ought to fall upon the community, it is the whole cost that ought so to fall, not a part of it. If the whole cost to a parent is ls. 9d. a week, it is no reason for paying only 3d. of this sum, and leaving the rest to fall upon the parent, that the 3d. is called school fees, while the ls. 6d. is called child's wages.
On the theory of the writer in the Fortnightly Review, the parent has a right to expect that the authority which creates the duty will pay the cost of performing it, and in this case, the cost of performing it means the whole sum by which the parent who performs it is the poorer. It may be said that this is a wild notion, which can never be reduced to shape. We have only to turn to this same article for disproof of this. With few exceptions, we are told, the smaller ratepayers "have an urgent personal interest in abolishing the fees." Whether the cost were transferred to the Imperial Ex- chequer or to the local rate, the rich would pay more, the poor less. In fact, the former would have to share the burden which the poor now sustain alone. Once accustom the smaller ratepayers to this view of the case, and they will be both illogical and unpractical if they stop here. They will have an equally urgent personal interest in compensating themselves for the loss of their children's wages. There is a very easy method of doing this, and one which would fall in with another form of philanthropy which has lately come into favour. Let the compensation to the parent take the form of a gift of food to the child. In this way, the benefit to the parent and to the State will be equal. The parent will find his weekly outlay lessened by at least as much as the child's earnings would have swelled his weekly income ; the State will find the child better able to profit by what is spent on his education, because he will no longer come to school half- starved.
The Fortnightly reviewer wisely excuses himself from dis- cussing the consequences of this principle by treating it as already admitted, " by the arrangement which throws three- fourths of the burden on the community at large." But to hold this is to misrepresent the meaning of the undoubtedly large contributions which the State already makes towards the cost of elementary education. Those contributions are made for the benefit not of the parent, but of the community. It is the duty of a parent to give his child the education which he requires, if he is to earn his own living, just as it is his duty to give him the food which he must have, if he is to live at all. But in both these cases, it is to the interest of the com- munity that this duty should not be left unperformed, in the event of the parent being unequal to it. The State has not for centuries past willingly allowed a child to die for want of food, and of late it has allowed no child to go altogether without schooling. The manner in which it supplements the parent's inability differs in the two cases, but the underlying principle is the same in both.
The plain truth is, that the moment the life of the poor comes to be looked at closely, there is a great deal that one would be very glad to change, if change were possible. " Instances," it is said, "could be brought forward in hundreds, of parents tramping many miles to workhouses, and after waiting many hours, being sent away empty-handed, or offered the alternative of the house." But are there no in- stances of starving people tramping many miles to workhouses, and after waiting many hours being sent away empty-handed, or offered the alternative of the house / When we have dis- covered the secret of taking people's burdens off their shoulders without thereby making them less fit to bear those which remain, we may safely declare free education for his children the common right of every English parent. Till then, we shall be wise to get from him such portion of the cost as it is found. possible to obtain.
Previous page
