THE STORY OF THE WOODARD SCHOOLS By K. E. Kirk
When Nathaniel Woodard, then a humble curate opened a day school in one room of New Shoreham vicarage in 1848, he had no money but an abundance of faith. His project was to establish a chain of Church of England public schools for the middle classes, with the help of private benefactors. Dr. Kirk's little book (Hodder and Stoughton, 3s. 6d.) tells how this resolute man, before his death in 1891, achieved his purpose and left trustees to continue his work, so that now there are .16 Woodard schools for boys or girls, all housed in stately buildings amid attractive surroundings up and down the country, as the photographs show. Lancing with its magnificent chapel, where the founder is buried, is the oldest and best known of the series. The Bishop-Designate of Oxford, who is now also Provost of Lancing, does not suggest that Woodard was an educational reformer in the strict sense ; he felt that more boarding schools were needed and that the Church should provide them, but he was satisfied with the ordinary curri- culum. The continued success of the schools in securing both pupils and benefactors shows that Woodard judged his countrymen rightly.
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