INSPECTION OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I regret that my letter last week, which you kindly in- serted, was partly based on a misconception as to the scope of the "Oxford and Cambridge Conjoint Scheme." It appears that those Universities do not purpose examining any schools which are not either under some governing body, or engaged in the preparation of boys for the Universities. I have no wish to blame them for this limitation of their work, but the universal inspection of Secondary Schools is a matter of national interest, and as such it must sooner or later be viewed. It is a logical sequence of the inspection of Primary Schools, and the Com- mittee of Council on Education cannot continue for ever to deal out one law to the poor and another to the rich. They have, through their Inspectors, closed hundreds of inferior day-schools —dame-schools, and such like—for the poor, why should they be debarred from acting with similar vigour in the interest of the claw socially above the poor?
I would suggest that in the inspection of secondary schools, rather than in the examination and authorisation of schoolmasters, lies the remedy for the evils which the College of Preceptors and the Registration Association are striving to amend. It is extremely difficult to devise any system of examination or autho- risation of secondary teachers which would not be open to serious practical objections, but there are really no difficulties in the way of the inspection of such schools, excepting those of a pecuniary nature. And these, I conceive, can only be adequately met by extending the jurisdiction of the Committee of Council, and compelling all schools alike to submit to inspection.—I am,
Previous page
