FREE SCHOOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Y01.1 will oblige me if you will allow me to add a few words to those of Mr. Lee-Warner on the subject of Free Schools. As a member of the London School Board, I have
reason to know that fees are not the real hindrance to regular attendance. In our schools five-sixths of the cost is now borne from public funds, and during the last year fees were remitted wholly in more than 50,000 cases, so that the cry for Free Schools in London is raised not for the relief of any real burden, but because anything called " free " has a popular ring. But if we extend our view over a wider area, we shall better realise the financial effects of such an educational revolution.
We have now in England and Wales nearly 19,000 efficient Elementary Schools, of which about 4,000 are Board Schools and nearly 15,000 Voluntary. In all these schools together there are nearly three and a half millions of children in average attendance, of which number two-thirds at least are in Voluntary Schools. The remaining one-third are in Board Schools, at a cost of nearly Sae millions sterling a year. If from any cause the two-thirds now in Voluntary Schools were thrown into Board Schools, au additional sum of about seven or eight millions sterling would have to be provided from some source to carry on their educa- tion. For no one who has studied the subject doubts that the abolition of fees in Voluntary Schools means the gradual but certain disestablishment of more than one thousand efficient Elementary Schools, on the building of which alone more than five millions sterling have been spent by voluntary effort during the last fifteen years, and which are now earning Government grants almost equal to those earned by Board Schools.
If the agitators for the abolition of fees turn to other countries for lessons in this matter, they will find little en- couragement. The example of the United States may be said to have completely broken down ; and I can myself testify from personal knowledge that in two at least of our most important Colonies—viz., New South Wales and South Australia—the maintenance of school•fees co-exists with a first-rate system of elementary education. But if we are to have Free Schools, an classes of the community must be included. Personally, I should not have objected if the State had taken off my hands the education of my two sons at Eton and Harrow. But whether the Incometax is to be doubled in order to give us Free Schools all round is a question to be decided by the new electorate.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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