SCHOLARSHIPS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "
SPECTATOR."
SIR,—There is an Eastern proverb that runs, "Hast thou sufficient for two loaves ? Buy one loaf and a bunch of flowers." But flowers need at least a vase and water if they are to delight the eye and satisfy the mind in arid surroundings. This reflection comes to one's mind in reading a letter in the Daily Graphic of July 18th from the headmaster of a school in the East End of London, commenting on a letter of mine which speaks of scholar- ships for elementary school boys and girls, admirably devised by the Board of Education, but leaving out of count the actual workaday needs of the young people to whom they are offered. This headmaster, Mr. Robert Cook, of the Bethnal Green Council School, N.E., says :— " I was delighted to see in Mr. Fleetwood Williams's letter, published in your issue of Saturday last a suggestion that a fund be raised to enable some of our neediest boys and girls to benefit by the junior County Council and other scholarships which their brains can win but their parents' poverty prevents them from taking up. There are many schools where it is a farce to put children in for scholarships. If a boy wins, one the maintenance grant is at most £6 per year for the first two years. In some scholarships there is no maintenance grant at all. The boy, if after much persuasion by the headmaster his parents allow him, is sent to a secondary school, where his clothes cause him much misery. At the elementary school he probably received free meals, but there is no provision for free meals at the technical or secondary school. Directly he becomes fourteen years of age his mother needs him at home, the father often being ill or out of work.. The boy, as likely as not, enters some blind-alley occupa- tion, and the country loses the best that might be obtained from brains it sorely needs. I have been fortunate enough to find financial help for four of my scholarship boys ; but is it right that an able child's future should be left to the chance of a headmaster finding someone wealthy and good enough to pay for clothes, train fares, and dinners ?"
Here, Sir, I submit, is a matter absolutely vital. Money is freely given for the benefit of derelicts, human and animal—money is always forthcoming for "picturesque" appeals and for causes that are shouted at us by megaphone. These 6,000,000 boys and girls now passing through onr elementary schools are destined to be, for good or ill, the arbiters of our country's destiny. Their aspirations and demands on life must be met. Will some of your readers fairly and squarely face up this obvious problem ?—I am, Sir, &O., FLEETWOOD H. WILLIAMS, General Secretary National Association of Old Scholars' Clubs. Donington House, Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C.
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