SECONDARY EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL BOARDS.
ON Monday evening in the House of Lords the in.. tricate subject of the present position of education, secondary and elementary, was argued by the Chairman of the London School Board and the Lord President of the Council. The discussion, which arose out of the Cockerton decision, raised so many points of interest that we make no apology for bringing the matter again before our readers. Lord Reay, as was to be expected, spoke from the point of view of the School Boards. He desired to see the English approximate as near as possible to the Scottish Code, which provides for advanced departments ; and he contended that since before the Whitehall grant can be earned the instruction in a school must conform to the Code, by an alteration in the Code itself the difficulty would disappear. On the question of night schools for adults he proposed that litigation should be avoided by the introduction of a short Bill legalising the arrangement. The Duke of Devonshire, in reply, pointed out what seem to us insuperable difficulties in the proposal. Lord Reay wished to increase the power of the School Boards, to increase the scope of elementary schools, and in general to reform matters by means of the present machinery. Apart altogether from the legal difficulties contained in his first scheme, it seems vain to propose that a large share in the control of secondary education should be given to School Boards when Parliament is about to consider a comprehensive scheme for the establishment of local autho- rities for the same purpose. Lord Reay's dictum that "a higher elementary school was in no sense a secondary school" seems to us for all practical purposes to be a dis- tinction without a difference. As the Duke of Devonshire well said : "When Parliament has decided upon the pro- posals to be made to it, then will be the time to attempt to draw the line between the functions and powers that can be properly exercised by the School Boards and the functions and powers that will be more properly exercised with regard to secondary education by the new authori- ties." To make the English Boards the same as the Scottish at a time when it is contemplated to vest the very powers which constitute the substance of the differ- ence in bodies other than School Boards would be a curiously illogical policy. Either the Government pro- posals must be dropped, or the School Boards must be left for the present as they are.
The case seems, then, to stand as follows. There is need for a reform in elementary, and there is a vast need for a reform in secondary, education. At present the first is substantially under the control of the School Boards, and the second practically managed by a variety of other bodies. How is the reform to take place ? Are we to give secondary powers to the Boards, and at the same time create new local authorities for the same purpose ? In what way are we to provide some continuity of education, and bridge the present gulf between its two branches ? These are two of the questions which the Government has shortly to face. We cordially agree with Lord Reay's insistence upon the supreme importance of elementary education, and the imperfections of our present system. The Cockerton judgment has shown its strict legal hmita-.
tions ; and to &wisp wiee emre of secondary educa-
tion on this basis is pertiously lik- building a house upon The send. " You cannot- graft' as the Duke of Devon- shire once said. "a scientific and artistic education upon the stunted stump of a defective elementary education." Ii
is not a static thing. but varies with every decade, and the scheme which was valuable in 1870 may be antiquated in 1901. It. must censtantly rend to intrude upon the domain of secondary instruction, and if we drive it back and form a hard-and-fast boundary we shall in all likelihood defeat the intentions with which the secondary domain wa- instituted. Our aim must be to make our educational system continuous, one stage leading to another with easy transitions. By scholarships and grants the poor scholar should be able to go from one school to another, and thence to the University, without any occasion for extreme self-denial, and such a course should come to be regarded as the ordinary one for industrious boys. But so long as we mark off elementary education from secondary education it will be difficult to achieve this ; and naa.ke it far too easy for parents who can well afford to allow their children to remain on at school to take them away the moment the rudiments of their education are completed.
It s ems to us that the future Government proposals, instead of merely creating new local bodies for secondary
instruction, alai" .1 g0 to the root of the matter and over- haul our whole educational system. It will not help matters to have School Boards still confined to elementary matters, and new local bodies absolutely distinct from them managing the secondary department, even though by this means both domains are better managed. We desire to see a. new system which shall provide for a con- tinuous education from the entrance at the primary school to the entrance at the University. And the first change should affect the constitution of the responsible eduea.tional authorities. The School Board system has in its day done admirable work, but conditions have entirely changed since it was first created. The result is that we have endless auxiliary bodies to perform the other educational functions which the time has demanded. We need now larger authori■ies dealing with larger areas and with larger powers. The county, not the parish, might be taken as the unit of area, or in the case of the large towns special districts might be created. The new Boards might be specially elected bodies, or County Councils, or Town Councils, or Committees of either. They would administer all the educational funds in their districts, and by this means the expenses of administration would be greatly lessened. At the present time, the funds for secondary education are in the hands of several entirely independent authorities, such as Cone ty Councils, Town Councils, and various educational Trusts, and this leads to much delay in the allocation of money to the schools. There is for example, a well-known Scottish case, where an organiser of technical education in Ayrshire had to get the consent of five separate authorities in order to spend £150 in one small burgh.
The suggestion is not a new one. Lord Balfour's Scottish Education 1111 for 1900, which was withdrawn after passing through the House of Lords, contained a scheme for making the county the unit, and appointing certain central authorities, who, however, were to confine themselves to second-try education. At least half the members of these " Hgher Educational Committees" were to come from the local municipal authorities. But the scheme which we suggest would embrace elementary education as well, and so provide a thoroughly uniform system throughout. We remember a speech by Sir John Gotta in whieh he said be hoped be would live to see the day " when there would be in every district one sole authority, responsible to the people and possessing the confidence of the people, which would arrange the whole of the educational system, elementary and secondary." But the most interesting development of this view is contained in a private Bill, to be presented in the forthcoming Session, promoted by the Corporation of NottiL
That Corporation has established and endowed the Univeisity College in the town, and has already per- formed many educational duties. It now proposes that it should b come the sole educational authority for Nottingham, that the School Board should be dissolved, and that the Council; acting by an "Education .Com- mittee." should administer the E location Acts within its prescribed area. Tne proposed constitution of this "Educa. lion Committee" is interesting. The Council is to fix the actual number of members, which must be an odd one. A majority must be members of Councd, but the remainder is to consist of " persons of either sex" specially qualified, who are to be co-opted by the Council with the consent of the Board of Education. We can hear the old cry railed against this, as it was raised against Lord Balfour's Bill, that you are abolishing popular election of the responsible authority, and that you are giving powers to levy rates to bodies not wholly representative of the ratepayers. We have frequently in these columns combated the absurd view that popular control means popular interference in every detail. An elected body, elected on a special basis, and given powers to add to its number and perform other actions at its own good pleasure, is as truly a representa- tive body as one which cannot spend sixpence without having the expenditure ratified directly by a popular assembly. For ourselves we would be glad to see some such system as we have indicated adopted throughout the country, for only thus, it seems to us. can the uniformity and continuity of policy and the competent powers be provided which are iudispensable in educational reform.
Meantime we do not desire to commit ourselves absolutely or in detail to any one scheme till the Govern. ment has produced its Bill and that Bill has been discussed. The Government has long had the matter under considera- tion, it is really anxious to settle the question, and we hope and believe it may be able to produce a measure at once thorough and practical.
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