HOME-LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.
MR. MUNDET,T,A, in moving the Education Estimates on Monday, was well entitled to take credit " for the progress all along the line " which his department has made during the past year. But if the decision given in the Queen's Bench Division the same day is not overruled by legislation or evaded by administrative ingenuity, it is greatly to be feared that the progress all along the line will be made appreciably slower, if not checked altogether. The decision given by Justices Matthew and Day was to the effect that the learning lessons out of school could not be enforced. The case arose at Bradford. The people of Bradford, a place naturally identified through its connection with Mr. Forster with the idea of educational progress, very properly wish to make their schools as efficient as possible. The " truest test of educational progress," as Mr. Mundella said, "is to be found in two things, —in the increase in the average attendance and in the increase in the number presented for examination in the higher standards." An increase in the average attendance may perhaps take place without resort to work out of school-hours. But it is almost impossible that any marked increase in the number of those who pass the higher standards can take place if the work is to be entirely confined to school-hours. The Bradford School Board, therefore, like many other School Boards, and like the authorities of all schools worthy of the name, endeavours to induce the scholars in its schools to do work in the shape of preparing lessons at home. It is not to be expected that all children should be possessed by such a burning desire for edu- cational advantages as to learn their lessons at home without some pressure, and pressure is accordingly applied, by giving half-an-hour's extra school to those who have failed to prepare their lessons at home. According to Mr. Justice Matthew this detention is illegal and constitutes an assault. The Bradford Justices had held that no assault had been committed, " but the Education Acts," said Mr. Justice Matthew, "being an interference with the liberty of the subject, mast as such be construed strictly ;" and neither the Education Acts nor the bye-laws gave power to the master to order the child to do lessons at home ; and it followed that " the child had been punished for not doing that which the master had no power to order him to do," and the detention was illegal. It was unfortunate that the Bradford School Board did not appear on the argument of the case, or they might have urged that as the Education Acts merely enforce a legal duty on the parents for the benefit of the children, they are not to be construed with the fierce technicality of penal statutes ; and that there is an implied power in the Board and its agents to enforce that duty in all reasonable and proper ways. However, thus the decision is, and it is one which would justify not only an indictment for assault, but an action to recover damages for false imprisonment. It is to be hoped that some parent who " don't see the use of this laming and stuff," aided and abetted by those who do see the use of it for themselves in the means it gives them of cheating the lower classes, will be moved to bring an action for false imprisonment, that the case may be taken to a higher Court, where it will be dealt with in a more liberal spirit, and on broader grounds. It is stated, indeed, that the School Board at Bradford have already decided to adopt an ingenious method of obtaining their object, by passing a bye-law to the effect that the ordinary school time shall be from 9 to 12 a.m., and from 2 to 4.30 p.m. ; but "for those whose home-lessons have not been duly prepared, it shall be extended to 12.30 p.m. in the earlier part of the day or to 5 p.m. in the later, at the discretion of the head teacher, the extra thirty minutes being spent under the superintendence of a teacher in learning the home-lessons." As it is clearly de- sirable that when reasonably practicable some lessons should be learnt at home, instead of in the din of school, and that the children should not be left wholly without mental employment out of school-hours, it is to be hoped that the device may be successful. The system of home-lessons has been adopted by the London School Board without any general ill-results. Not a single case of serious illness from over-pressure has been prayed, though if such cases had existed it should surely be easy enough to produce them, and certainly none have been traced to home-lessons. After all, School Boards and schoolmasters are human, and the majority of them are possessed at least- of average discretion and reasoning power, if not of something over the average. The London School Board, for instance, instructs its teachers not to insist on home-lessons with children of delicate health, or with what might be called " impossible " homes, nor, as a rule, when the parents object to home-lessons. But to give. the parents an absolute veto on home-lessons, as the decision of Mr. Justice Matthew tends to do, is to transfer the direction of education and management of schools from the Board and ita teachers, specially elected or selected for the purpose, to the casual irresponsible individual, and to upset the Education Acts. So far as over-pressure has existed at all in connection with Board Schools, it has been in the case of pupil teachers, an institu- tion which grew to diseased proportions (owing to the outcry for economy which was chiefly another manifestation of the hatred of education), but which is now being successfully cur- tailed, and will soon be almost reformed out of existence. Which is the worst over-pressure, the sending children out in all weathers to agricultural and street labour of an exhaust- ing or injurious character, or the keeping them employed at home in the elevating occupation of easy tasks proved by wide experience to be generally within their strength I Mr. Mundella says that constant complaints reach him from the- clergy of the early age at which the children are taken from school, and the lowness of the standards which they pass. Home-lessons can be made to furnish at least a partial remedy for this state of things. Without them there is little hope of our reaching the excellence of Germany, where the average. attendance is 95 per cent. against our 73, and where no child may be employed till fourteen years old, and must, even when he has left school, attend night schools till sixteen,. instead of passing out of school at the age of ten,. knowing nothing but the "Three R.'s," and those imperfectly.. The system of home-lessons, like every other part of the edu- cational system, must be worked with discretion,—perhaps,. indeed, it needs more than ordinary discretion,—but it is essential to educational progress, and needs not curtailment. but development. If by a narrow construction of the law the new Bradford bye-law should meet with the condemnation of , the Queen's Bench Division, as ultra vices, some other means' must be devised of getting over the difficulty, or recourse must' be had to fresh legislation. The country clearly does not suffer from over-pressure in education, but from under-pressure. The educational engine at present only works half-time and half-power. It should not be in the power of a recalcitrant, parent to turn off steam at pleasure.
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