THE LONDON SCHOOL-BOARD ELECTIONS.
THE Elections to the London School Board come off on the 27th inst., before our next issue appears, and we are • desirous to say a final word upon the subject. We believe the most expedient ?not d'ordre which can be given to the electors on this occasion is to re-elect all the old candidates who offer themselves, irrespective of opinions, and among new candi- dates, to select people as like the old as possible. Of course, in the case of new candidates, more attention must be paid to 'qualifications ; but conservative as that course may seem, we should like to see the voters return the old candidates en bloc, by a sort of plaiscite, and that for this reason. The first necessity of the School administration of London now is that it should be solidified by time, habit, and that impression of usualness which, in England, conse- crates all convenient, and some few inconvenient, institu- tions. It is not yet, what Sir R. Knightley once declared a parish to be, a natural institution, and it should be suffered to become one. The Board has done a work in its nine years of existence, the immensity of which is only concealed from the constituency by the vastness of London,—that province
• covered with houses which has the population of Scotland, and perhaps ten times its wealth, and it has done it on the whole as successfully as could be hoped. It has been a little too expensive, a trifle too magnificent, a thought too
• much inclined to forget that children without hereditary cul- ture sometimes suffer from knowledge as hereditary vegetarians suffer from beef ; but when we have said that, we have said all to be said against the Board. Its "persecution of parents," of which agitators complain, is most of it nonsense, the harshness, where harshness has been shown, having been in most eases that which attends any application of a penal law, or the result of that impatience with ignorant and " aggra- vating " resistance which is the fault of the sub-agents of authority in every department. The petty complaints or accidental though serious grievances, of which so much is sometimes made, would all be considered only natural, if the Board were twenty years old. There has been very little religious strife ; there have been no scandals, except a quarrel OT two, in which lady members were a little too outspoken ; and what is more than all, the children not taught before are actually being taught now, whole tribes of them, who were the plague of the streets, having been caught, disciplined, and com- pelled to learn at least the" three R's." Good teachers have been found, and have been so well treated that teaching under the Board will become a recognised sub-profession. The Board, in short, has been successful, and now the great necessity for it is to lose its newness, to cease to be discussed as if somebody might abolish it, to be exempt from criticism on abstract grounds, to be accepted as part of the order of things, like the Jury system, and King, Lords, and Commons, and fogs, and the Herald's Office. We want it to be regarded as the school system is regarded in Scotland, as something to be kept up and improved, and talked about, and if need arise, even modified, but self-existent, and no more liable to be given up than the Kirk, or golf, or the east wind. We contemplate a day when it shall be possible to conceive of a great legacy to the London School Board seeming to Londoners as natural as a legacy to Guy's or Bartholomew's, and its agency shall become almost a hereditary service, like the care of hospital estates. The moment that condition of cus- tomariness is attained, nine-tenths of existing irritations will disappear ; school-rates will be paid like water-rates, with a growl, but no demur ; and a truant-hunt will create no more annoyance than an unusual fall of hail, or a raid upon gambling saloons. A poor child will be sent to school by its parents just as it is fed, and with as little idea that the necessary disbursements are unjust, or can be in any way evaded. To secure that customariness, we want the School Board to remain as unchanged as may be for twenty years, its personages, its methods, and its agents, so that the people, slow as they are, may, after the English fashion, grow to them. They will never, perhaps, like them ; but though they do not like tax- gatherers, they pay them. Unfortunately, a good many mem- bers will be changed. The work is disagreeable and trying, takes up a great deal of time, and of late has been rather thankless ; and of course there have been numbers of with- drawals, not enough, it is true, to affect the tradition of the Board, but still too many, every new man wanting to begin at the beginning, and teach something else. There are new candidates who would not scruple to introduce Euclid into the curriculum, and candidates who think hem- ming a feeble waste of time. That is all the more reason for re-electing the old members, especially office-bearers, and as many among the new candidates as in the main will support their predecessors. If this rule is fairly attended to, there will be no change of magnitude in policy, and none in the composition of the Committees who carry that policy into detail, and this is the main thing to be desired. Let the grain grow, without any more fldgetting at its roots. It is well above ground, and wants sunshine, as usual in England, a great deal more than manure. The expensive work has most of it been done, and any violent swerve in the course of the Board would only lead to more expense ; while it would break that hold which we wish, before all things, to confer upon the Board, the hold upon average Englishmen of use and wont. Let the child go to school as it goes to bed, willing or unwilling, but with
everybody's approval. If it has been the custom before summoning parents to give them three warnings, let them have three warnings, even though one would be better, for then in time the parents will think three warnings as "natural," and "right," and " proper " as the number of a jury, or the boundary of the parish, or a hereditary right to a seat upon the Bench ; and when they have had them, will think themselves rightfully treated, and obey.
We would also strongly recommend the re-election of all female candidates. They have not, perhaps, done everything that was expected of them—they have not been specially eco- nomical, for instance, though the ship case was absurdly mis- represented—and the rejection of one or two might be a relief to the Board itself ; but anything like a general rejection of the lady candidates would be a breach of tradition, and do a vast amount of mischief. All the unanswerable reasons which existed at first for the admission of women to the Board exist now. Half the children to be taught are girls. Half the sanitary arrangements to be made to keep the children healthy have to be made for girls—they are not shod, for instance, like the boys—again, they secure half the " results " which make such a difference in the comparative success and failure of the schools. There must be a proportion of women on the Board, to look after the girls, and it would be safer to elect all who are there, than to run the slightest risk of reducing the total number too low. If too many women are rejected, they will abandon the field, and the chance, already small, of seeing the Board well attended by those organising women of benevolence who have helped to found so many institutions, will be finally lost. We may regret that too few of the exact type, Quakeresses in all but creed, are elected, and that for the most part, it is women of advanced opinions who come for- ward ; but the missing class will not be secured by ostracising
their sisters, most of whom, even if they talk too decidedly, the world not being quite so easy a riddle as they think, do excellent work, and in several ways directly help on the machine. Those who dislike them most do not accuse them of neglect or want of energy, and one or two of them are almost invaluable. They should be sent back in a body, if only to make sure that the Board is not to be reserved to men and clergymen alone, and that the feebler half of the children to be taught are to obtain the justice which throughout our educational arrangements, the primary schools excepted, is now refused to their sox. No body of men are ever pillaged by enemies as the girls of the English middle- class have been pillaged of endowments left for their benefit, and if the School Boards are confined to men only, as they would be, if a bad precedent were set once or twice, we may see the same evil, in a different shape, in primary education. We wish to avoid that, or any serious change whatever in the Board at present, and therefore advise everybody to vote, and to vote for the old candidates, and the women.
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