ENTRANCE SCHOLARSHIPS. (TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
• rather think Mr. Crosskey has in his mind a somewhat different class of boys from that which I have been considering. I have been speaking of the boys who attend our public elementary schools, the sons of artisans, or of parents of the artisan-class, and I have said that for these boys free admission to a secondary school is not desirable, either for their own sakes or for the school's sake. Free admission of such boys in any large numbers (even when restricted by a slight competition) would, in my opinion, not only lower the efficiency of the school, but also, in the majority of cases, result in the premature and injurious withdrawal of the boys, and in the disappointment of their parents. To this con- clusion I have been led by my experience as examiner for the School Board of London and for the Educational Council in Liverpool, and as a teacher for ten years in the City of London School. Let me add—for experience here is worth a great deal, and high a priori argument is not worth much—that I have also had two years' experience as a teacher in King Edward's School, Birmingham—the very school to which Mr. Crosskey appeals in support of his views—and that my experience there leads me to conclusions just the opposite of his.
Mr. Crosskey is pleading, and very eloquently pleading, for a class rather above that which I am considering ; he is advocating the cause of clerks, shopmen, and I imagine, of small tradesmen ; and he wishes to see large numbers of the children of these parents in our free grammar-schools, freely admitted, with nothing but the restriction of a slight com- petition. My opinion would be that for this class a middle- class school, at which the fee might be £3 or £4 a year, would be far more useful. Surely it is a significant fact that a school of this kind, the great and successful middle-class school in Cowper Street, City Road, though it has not been in existence for ten years, nevertheless numbers its thousand pupils. So striking a success proves clearly, first, that a school of this kind supplies a want ; secondly, that the parents of the class whose interests Mr. Crosskey is so generously advocating are both able and willing to pay a small fee. These great Middle- Class Schools are undoubtedly needed, and their place cannot be filled by the grammar-schools,---the education given in the former is what the parents want for their children, the education given in the grammar-schools is not what the parents want, and not what the parents ought to be expected to want. The middle-class schools prepare boys, as far as possible, for leaving school early, to begin work early ; the grammar-schools do not. Mr. Crosskey is indignant at being numbered in the claw of "generous but unpractical enthusiasts," and the more because he knows "the power wielded in England" by such an ex cathedrer condemnation. But when he proceeds to denounce the theory I have ventured to advocate as being "one of the most astound- ing class-assumptions that could be made even in aristocratic England," may I not fairly retort that I also know "the power- wielded in Birmingham" by such a popular and sonorous denun- ciation? Surely the subject is not one to be despatched either by denunciations or ex cathedra' condemnations ; the question is not what will read best in the Spectator, or what will sound best in the Birmingham Town Hall, but what will work best,—beat for the boys, and best for the schools. I am not behind Mr._ Crosskey, I think, in looking forward to a time when the children. of all classes, high and low, rich and poor, may sit together on the same school-forms ; I rejoice to hear, as much as he can rejoice to repeat, the sacrifices that poor parents are even now willing to make for the educational welfare of their children, and the increasing value set on education by the poor. But I contend that Mr. Crosskey's free-admission scheme at present altogether excludes the children of the very poor. The shopman-class receives from his scheme the appearance of a benefit, but the artisan-class receives no benefit at all. The shopman-class' receives an unfit and curtailed education for nothing, the artisan- class receives absolutely nothing. I do not want to deprive the- poor of a farthing of their endowments, but I say, give to the poor what belongs to them, in good, useful doses, instead of useless. driblets. Instead of giving sixty free admissions, give twenty scholarships, each scholarship with twenty pounds a year besides. the free admission. In order to secure these advantages for the poor, limit the competition for some of these scholarships to the public elementary schools of the district, the competitions for others to the middle-class, small-fee-paying schools of the district. There is no " class-assumption " here,—nothing but a plain. suggestion, from a schoolmaster who is in the habit of asking,. "Will this work?"
Mr. Crosskey appeals to King Edward's School, Birmingham, to disprove my assertions. My argument, he says, "does not apply to the free school (like King Edward VI.'s, Birmingham),. where all are on the same level." I do not know what Mr. Cross- key's experience of King Edward's School, Birmingham, may be. If he was educated there as a boy, or if he is a teacher there, his.. experience is, no doubt, of great value ; but if he means no more than that the masters make no difference between rich boys and poor boys, that is a matter of course, and scamely needed stating. But every one knows that boys can make differences where masters. and schemes make none. Boyish " cliques " and "levels" are quite independent of paper schemes, and far too independent of the best of teachers. But, in fact, King Edward's School, Bir- mingham, is not to the point. At least it was not to the point twelve years ago, for then it contained scarcely a boy of the class that I have in my mind, the boys attending our public elementary schools. No doubt there may have been in the school several boys draughted up from the elementary schools attached to King Edward's School, but these schools are, I believe, above the level of public elementary schools, and therefore that fact would prove. nothing.
One boy, and only one boy, I remember, who was studying in one of the three highest classes of King Edward's School while I was a master there, and who might be fairly said to belong to the public-elementary-school-boy class. He was a boy of far more than ordinary ability. Had he obtained such an entrance scholar- ship as I have been describing, he might have taken very high classical honours at the University. But he had no scholarship, and none of the prestige of having obtained a scholarship, and he- was looked down upon. He was poor, and seemed to be ashamed of being poor ; he had home difficulties to contend with, and not being a "picked" boy, and not having the position of a "picked" boy, he did not contend with them successfully. His life at school could not have been happy, and it ended—as I predict it must often end under Mr. Crosskey's system—in dis- appointment and in premature withdrawal.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Envaa A. Ansorr.
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