The Problem of the Family
VI.—The New Way in Education
OUR new secondary schools are one of the great and solid achievements of twentieth-century England. They are solving, so far as our great cities and many country parts are concerned, the problem of providing good teaching, at prices that all but the very poor can afford. They train the boy or girl, from about twelve years old, on the lines and with the curriculum of the great Public Schools, for a very small cost or for no charge at all.
And they enable their picked pupils to graduate at the Universities. No middle-class married couple within reach of one of the newer secondary schools need fear to have children because of the cost of education.
There is a tendency in some quarters to treat the secondary schools as rivals or substitutes for Public Schools. They are not rivals but supplements, and admirable supplements. The Public School has its per- manent place in our national life. But it can only, because of its necessarily high costs, serve a limited class. Many families of professional men cannot, under conditions existing to-day, pay Public School fees. The secondary schools meet their need.
What are the new secondary schools ? They are, primarily, high schools taken over or newly founded as a result of the Balfour Act of 1902, which empowered County Councils and County Boroughs to deal with education as a whole, in place of elementary teaching alone. The London County Council, which in this matter has led the country, is establishing a ring of new schools around the outer suburbs, which give the same education as Public Schools. Thirty-eight per cent. of the pupils have won scholarships and pay 'takes. These come mostly, but not exclusively, from elementary schools. Most of the remainder pay an inclusive fee of from £13 13s. to £15 15s. a year. This fee is about one-third the actual cost, half of the balance being paid from the rates, and the remainder from State grants. The average cost of London public day schools, including extras, is £60-£70 per annum. British officials abroad unable to send their boys to Public Schools because of expense are more and mare letting them live with relatives in London to attend county secondary schools.
Starting de novo, with young masters, ambitious pupils and adequate plant, it is perhaps not surprising that the secondary schools are beating, from the merely educational point of view, some of the older foundations. Grammar schools, formerly struggling along under inadequate endowments, now receive grants sufficient to pay their teachers a living wage, and to provide really good education.
Last year four old boy's from one LOndon County secondary school alone obtained appointments for the higher branches of the Civil Service, including lint place in both the Indian Civil Service and the Consular' Service.
Boys and old boys from Holloway School last year gained two scholarships at Cambridge, one at Kings College and one at the London School of Economics.'
Old boys' places in the historical triposes at Cambridge were History, one in Class 1, Div. 2, one in Class 2, Div. 1. Mediaeval and Modern Languages. Part 1. Two hi Class 2, Div. 1. Part 2. One in Class 2, Div. 1. One old boy was last year awarded the W. W. Skeat Prize for English Literature. Four took honours in the London Final, two First Class. Holloway does not stand alone.
I have in front of me a list of certain distinguished London County scholars, which shows how the secondary schools open the way to the great professions. Among the places won during the past few years, by boys educated in schools such as Goodrich Road (Battersea), Canal Road (Crouch End), Oldfield Road (Hackney Downs), arc: Principal of a London Polytechnic, Director of Mathe- matical studies at a Cambridge College, Inspector (Board of Education), Fellow of New College (Oxford), technical adviser to the U.S. Government.
The Public School has many advantages over the secondary school, tradition, prestige, association. But the newly-built county secondary schools score on some points. They are planned in the most modern fashion. Their sanitary and domestic arrangements leave those of many famous old schools hopelessly - behind. They pay their masters high salaries, and give security of tenure, the assurance of a pension, and the possibility of a head- mastership. They are more and more drawing the best of the younger teachers into their service. An honours man in a London secondary school—most of the masters are first-class honours men—can reach £600 a year, and if he becomes head-master, £1,850 a year. These figures do not, of course, compare with the great prizes of the Public Schools, but they compare very favourably with the average. • Next, the secondary schools, being new, have a large proportion of young masters. Here I am touching on a delicate question. Everyone knows that one of the handicaps of some of our great schools has been that old masters continued their duties long after they should have retired. Men were teaching in the great schools who had seen fifty years and more of work. Everyone loved them. • Affection,' tradition and solid service made it ithpossible to move them. But does anyone suppose that age in their place counted for efficiency ? In the secondary boo's, such men would have. _ retired long before on dequate pensions. The founders of the new secondary schools make no ret of the fact that they take the Public School as their odd. They aim to establish a corporate life in each ntre. Every boy on entry is given a " house," and is pected to work and fight for the honour of his use. Prefects are appointed. Boys have their house asters to whom they. are expected to go in all difficulties. f course there is a touch of the artificial about this, and time the county secondary schools will work out their wn salvation on their own lines. The authorities do not all into the error of making learning—in its limited eaning—and examinations their main aim. They plan the full development of the individual in intellect, in haracter and in physical well-being." It cannot be pected that the traditions and the potent character- orming elements that have made our older schools what hey are can be transplanted in a day to young growths. ut they are being sought after. The men at the head of ese big new ventures are not seeking a superficial, mmercial efficiency. They are going deeper. The ublic School spirit is being emulated. The boys have heir cadet corps. Some miserable business which I do of understand prevents their being part of the O.T.C., though they sit for the same certificates. They have heir own missions down in the slums of London.
From what classes are these boys drawn ? Up to now, rofessional men have on the whole fought shy of them. he average professional man still values the Public School life so highly that he is willing to make great sacrifices to secure it for his sons. But the numbers of sons of professional men are steadily increasing. The commercial traveller, the small tradesman, the City clerk endure great sacrifices to keep their children here till eighteen or nineteen. Fathers earning as little as £250 a year will pay for two children. How do they do it ? I. cannot imagine. Here is the poor family's road to the University and to the professions.
What are the difficulties these schools have to face ? Snobbishness may be one. People with Victorian traditions heavy on them do not think it " genteel " to send their children to a rate-aided school. They prefer, at first, to waste their days at cheap private schools. Hard facts and common sense are breaking down this feeling.
The secondary school is already doing a magnificent work in bringing different social classes together. Here comes the clever boy from the slums and the son of the higher grade Civil Servant, the son of the mechanic and the son of the clerk. Fifty per cent. of the boys who come from the elementary schools really make good, twenty-five per cent. do fairly well, and about one quarter fail to adapt themselves fully to the new life.
I believe that the Public Schools could do much to help the social life of the secondary schools by arranging more matches with them. Public School teams are so full up with engagements, I shall be told, that this is not possible. But it is worth while trying. My own impression from what I have seen of the newer schools is that sports arc
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