THE ENDOWED SCHOOL ACTS COMMITTEE.
LTO TER EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—One may venture to conjecture that, though Mr. Jesse Collings declined to sit upon the Committee or to give evidence before it, his views were not left unrepresented, and that we may find in the answers of Sir Horace Davey (5,120-5,342) a state- ment of them which is as complete and as able as Mr. Collings himself could have desired.
The principal point in Sir Horace's evidence is a bold applica- tion of the doctrine of cy-pres. It is allowed on all hands that the general object of the educational endowments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (for it is to these periods that the vast majority of these foundations belong) was the teaching of "grammar," and that by " grammar " the founders meant the Greek and Latin languages. The principle of administra- tion has been this, to go on teaching the classical languages, though with a considerable extension of late years, in the direction of other subjects, and to regard the class which avails itself of the instruction as a matter of secondary importance. In other words, the application of the cy-pres doctrine has been that the primary object of the founder was the teaching of Greek and Latin, and that to continue that teaching was to come nearest to his intention. Sir Horace Davey's proposed applica- tion is this :—" In regard to those grammar-schools which are expressly for the poor children of particular parishes, it seems to me that poor children are the primary objects, and not the teaching them grammar." (5,268.) This view he repeats, and expounds with a good deal of force, but does not, I think, succeed in making it probable. The object of the pre-Reforma- tion foundations, which are but few in number, was possibly eleemosynary; but when we consider the dominant feeling of the period to which the grammar. schools belong, we shall have no doubt that their object was literary. It was the time, to put it shortly, of the English revival of letters, a movement which many causes combined to postpone in this country to a period long after that which had seen it in full activity on the Con- tinent. In view of this, it is only reasonable to conclude that any mention of the poor, wherever it is made, was little more than accidental ; or, if that statement seems too strong, that the benefit of a particular class was an object wholly inferior in the founder's mind to his general desire for the advancement of learning. It is a curious thing that no one seems to know what are the actual facts about founders' wills. Mr. C. S. Parker put to Sir Horace Davey the question, "You think the grammar-schools generally were intended pretty largely for the poor ?" but could only draw from him the very vague answer, " I think some grammar-schools were expressly for the poor children ; other grammar-schools (and that is the more usual form of grammar-school) were for the children of such and such a place,. including therefore the children of parents of all classes." Even when pressed as to the intention of the more ancient. grammar-schools, he could only answer, " I cannot say," and retracted an opinion which he had hazarded about the terms of the foundation of Rugby. And, again (5,285), "The poor are, I should say, frequently mentioned; but if I were cross-examined to say what I meant by 'frequently,' and in what proportion of the foundations they were mentioned, I should not be able to give a definite answer." It might be worth while to obtain some definite information on this point, were it not that free education, which, whether we like it or not, seems to be looming in the near future, would take away all practical value from the result. If primary education is to be given altogether at the cost of the State, we may be sure that secondary education, which will also have its claim to be free, will be left in undisturbed possession of its endowments, whether legitimate or usurped.
Sir Horace is, one is glad to see, in favour of what is com- monly called "the ladder." " Boys who distinguish themselves should have free or partially free education in a superior school,. and then, perhaps, in a still better school, until they reach the University by a sort of ladder," though he has "a difficulty in saying that the funds can be altogether diverted from the direct elementary education of the poor." (4,146-47.) The difference of opinion seems, then, practically reduced to a minimum. Even allowing the new application of the cy-pre& doctrine, there will not be more than enough for the working of the "ladder " system in the grammar-schools (confessedly a. minority) that were expressly founded for the children of the poor.
The actual working of this system is a subject of much more practical interest. The difficulty, only too well known to elementary and second-grade schoolmasters anxious to- avail themselves of it, is that the boys whom it is intended to benefit find themselves terribly behind in the race. A boy of twelve, for instance, comes from a primary school into a second-grade school, and finds that he has to begin Latin, which some of his schoolfellows have been learning for- three or more years ; and if he overcomes this difficulty, when he wants to move up into a first-grade school, he will find him- self at a disadvantage in the matter of Greek. Still, the " ladder' does help some to mount. Canon Evans gave in (3,954) a most. satisfactory statement from the Head Master of King Edward VI.'s School at Birmingham. From this it appears that in less than eight years (since the framing of the new scheme in 1878),- three boys from public elementary schools have passed through, the school to Oxford and Cambridge, two have gone to the Mason Science College, and six have matriculated in the University of London. At the present time, " out of the first• thirty boys in the school, five were formerly in public elementary schools." It is probably better that the boys should pass at• once from the primary into the first-grade school. The inter- mediate step of the second-grade school is too likely to cause a, fatal waste of time. Another important point is that the exhibitions should be increased in value, and should give not only a free education, but a contribution at least towards maintenance. Mr. Lawrence, Rector of Bermondsey, thinks that the working class do not feel disposed to take them up. for their children,—in fact, cannot afford to do it. (4,730.) In any redistribution of grammar-school funds this object ought to. be kept in view; to allow them to be applied in relief of rates would be a most deplorable waste.—I am, Sir, &c.,
EMERITUS.
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