THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL AND THE POLYTECHNICS.
[To THE EDITOR Op THE ".SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In a fortnight's time the members of a new County Council will be elected, and the usual signs of political activity have appeared. Electors are being asked to vote for or against a policy which vividly concerns itself with a tuuni. cipal tramway service, the housing problem, and a number of other questions supposed to represent the urgent needs of the ratepayers at the time of the contest. For some occult reason, these are the sources whence party cries are derived, and thereby votes secured. Yet at election time no one seems to remember that, apart from its politics, the County Council is a huge administrative body whose estimated expenditure for the year ending March 31st next is close upon eleven and a half millions sterling, of which over seven millions have to be - raised from the rates, or to inquire closely as to the details of cost in any of the numerous departments through which the Council is active. As to effective criticism of or control over such expenditure, the elector is a negligible quantity. In the one particular, of education alone, the Council annually spends over six millions, of which less than a sixth represents the- cost of redemption of debt, pensions, &c., on that account;
and the charge upon the rates amounting to nearly four millions is accountable for more than half the total rate levied by the Council throughout London.
• There is a popular idea that local taxation is accompanied by local representation, and therefore that effective control of expenditure is secured ; but this belief is a fallacy. The Education Committee of the Council consists of fifty members, of whom about one-fourth are co-opted and have no direct responsibility to any constituency. Nevertheless, these unrepresentative members exert much influence over the proceedings of the Committee, especially in connexion with higher education, which includes the work of evening schools, polytechnics, and secondary schools. It is the expenditure on this branch of the Council's work which requires particularly careful watching to see that the results are commensnrate with the cost, and to inquire whether the line of policy now pursued by the Higher Education Sub-Committee is the best in the circumstances. The Council, since it assumed control as the local education authority under the Act of 1903, has, in the matter of elementary education, largely followed the procedure of the old School Board, and has not materially altered the policy of that Board, except for such modifications as were involved in the inclusion of non-provided schools within the sphere of its operations. In the matter of higher education. the Council had more or less to initiate a policy of its own. The needs of technical education in London had already been partly provided for by the allocation of funds obtained from the parochial trusts of the City of London, which were dealt with by Bryce's Act in 1882, and later by the Act of 1888, which permitted the appropriation of "Whisky Money" by local authorities to the purposes of technical education, so that by 1891 a number of Polytechnics were actually esta- blished or in process of constitution. All these are governed by schemes framed by the Charity Commission, with, in the case of institutions almost entirely educational, modifications made in recent years by the Board of Education, which in such cases has superseded the Charity Commission. The government of these institutions was generally entrusted to a body of independent and influential men who were largely responsible for finding the funds which enabled the Poly- technic buildings to be erected and the work of the classes to be established ; who, in addition, were so familiar with the educational needs of their localities as to be able effectually to supervise the work of the particular institution with which they were connected. By the side of the Polytechnics there grew up certain technical institutions which, though at the outset not of great importance, in course of time secured recognition from the "Technical Education Board." Later these were called Council Institutes.
As originally outlined, the policy of the London County Council followed very nearly the lines of the Board of Education with respect to grants. It was intended that grants from the central authority should be based upon the value of work actually done, but since the central authority has to some extent departed from that policy the Education Committee of the London County Council has initiated a new scheme providing for the payment of " block grants," assessed for a period of three years, and accompanied by regulations which virtually reduce the governing bodies of Polytechnics to a position of abject dependence on the will of the Education Committee or of its permanent staff. The regulations in question have aroused considerable controversy between the governors of Polytechnics and the London County Council, and much dissatisfaction that while many Polytechnics have been compelled to accept the grants with the restrictions imposed upon their freedom of action others are standing out for the independent control of their own organization. The trouble seems to arise from the idea on the part of some members of the Education Committee that their duty is to co-ordinate and organize higher education in London, and to do this at the expense of any and every institution which seems to stand in the way of the fulfilment of their paper schemes. So far the experiment of direct control of technical institutions by the central authority in London has not been a brilliant success, while it has been costly. The School of Building at Brixton, the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, the Bolt Court School of Lithography, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, are instances where the money of the ratepayers has been spent with the utmost freedom Without solar achieving any beneficial results. The Central
School of Arts and Crafts is a particularly striking example of the inefficiency of the methods of direct control exerted by the Education Committee. •Built some years ago at a considerable capital cost, it failed for a long time to attract students ; its own staff had no particular faith in it; and as a last desperate effort to furnish it with students other Polytechnic institutions were practically forced to surrender their Art Departments in order to compel students to join the Central School. This is one of the great mistakes of which the Higher Education Sub•Committee has been capable. No doubt some experts are favourable to the theory that grouped courses of instruction, whether in art, science, literature, commerce, law, or technology, are advisable, and in some cases indispensable; but it must not be forgotten that adult students, for whom the polytechnics and technical institutes provide, are not to be dragooned into attendance at particular places for the study of certain subjects at the direction of a central authority, especially when the standing of the authority is open to question. The idea of fitting the polytechnics and technical institutes into some sort of patch- work design is not really feasible ; and if the Higher Education Sub-Committee possessed the knowledge and experience enjoyed by the Governors of the various institu- tions, the futility of the effort would be realized and Polytechnics remain free to pursue their own courses. The attempt to substitute for this healthy condition of responsible freedom a system of supreme control by officials of a centralized department can only end in disaster, as well as pile up the load of debt, already serious enough, for which the charges of education have been largely responsible. At the present time the Council's contribution to the revenue of the Polytechnics is about thirty-five per cent. If the present policy prevails, and the Education Committee insist upon complete control, they will ultimately have to find the remaining sixty-five per cent. from the rates. That is a vital fact for Londoners ! The excuse for the action of the Education Committee is the necessity for uniformity and economy of administration. Uniformity is all very well in the case of a provincial constituency ; but London is so large and its interests so varied that uniformity of administration is the last thing to be desired, and as for economy, it is certain that the central authority cannot carry on any of the Polytechnics as economically as they are managed at present. Moreover, once the services of the present governors are removed and replaced by the system of bureaucracy—with its formalities, circular letters, and red tape—it is certain that the cost will mount higher and higher, and the figure in the current year's estimates for higher education of over a million pounds will be largely exceeded. Wherefore let the ratepayer look to the matter ; he will not have another chance of doing so until 1916. Meanwhile, he will serve his interests if he suggests to the candidates for his constituency that the subject of education is vital. A real supervision must be exercised by elected members of the Council over the proceed- ings of the co-opted members of the Education Committee and its permanent staff.—I am, Sir, &c., A LONDON RATEPAYER.
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