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24

ceremony {e.g. the metropolitan of Jerusalem or of Abyssinia; but the latter is generally too far away to come).

He is then taken up the steps of the temple — seven in number — and on each step they recite a particular prayer. As soon "as he arrives at the seventh step the bishops come down to the sixth and lay down their crowns, and the patriarch puts on his. Then the archdeacon of the cathedral says a prayer, in which he mentions all his names — " Head of the Bishops, Pope of Alexandria, Abyssinia, Nubia, and all Africa."

The patriarch then reads the Gospel : '' I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep," &c. (St. John x. 14), His cross and rod are then placed on the table, and, after completing the consecration, all the bishops take the Communion from his hands. The highest bishop will blow in his mouth three times, and say, " Accept the gift of the Holy Spirit," and then he bids him to take the rod and cross from the Lord's table, and he (the patriarch) makes service two days more with the bishops, &c., who then return to their own dioceses.

THE END.

I i

LONDON : R. CLAT, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET JIILL.

/

THE CHURCH

INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION;

A LETTER

ADDEESSFD TO

HIS GRACE THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CAKTERBORY.

BY

EVAN DANIEL, M.A.,

PRINCIPAL OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY'S TRAINING COLLEGE, BATTERSEA ; HON. CANON OF ROCHESTER CATHELRAI.

LONDON:

NATIONAL SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY,

SANCTUARY, WESTMINSTER.

1883. ,

THE CHURCH

AND

INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION.

My Lord Archbishop,

I VENTURE to address your Grace on a subject of vast importance both to Church and State, viz. : The Education of the Middle Classes of this country.

The education of the two extremes of the English Higher and people may be considered to be now well provided for. Education^ Our public schools, though still unreasonably expensive, J^^ provided have been gradually led to frame their curriculum so as to meet the needs of the age, and to take advantage of the varied tastes and natural gifts of their pupils ; our elemen- tary schools may safely challenge comparison with those of any country in the world, and legislation has provided the machinery by which the supply of such schools may in future keep pace with the wants of the country. But intermediate education in this country is still, as a whole, intermediate

in a most unsatisfactory condition :* indeed it would be Education

. . . , verj defective,

scarcely an exaggeration to describe it as a national

disgrace. There are, it is true, scattered up and down the

country many admirable intermediate schools, some of

them ancient foundations that have been brought abreast

* *' Our secondary education is at present defective in every way : it ia poor in quality, deficient in quantity, and out of due harmony, both with our elementary education on one side, and our higher education on the other." From a letter of the Bishop of Exeter to the Council of the Boys' Public Day School Company, read at the meeting of the Company, 24th April, 1883.

of modern needs, some recently established by indi- vidual or coiporate enterprise ; but a very large pro- portion of our intermediate schools are bad from almost every point of view ; they are, in many cases, conducted in buildings utterly unsuited for the purpose to which they are applied. — often in buildings originally designed as ordinary dwelHng houses ; their teaching staff is often most inadequate in point of strength, attainments, and practical skill ; their methods of instruction are often wholly behind the age. The defects that were pointed out in our intermediate girls' schools in the report of the School Inquiry Commission still exist, more or less, in the large majority of intermediate schools, Avhether for girls or boys : *' want of thoroughness and fomidation ; want of system ; slovenliness and showy superficiality ; inattention to rudiments ; undue time given to accomplishments, and these not taught intelligently, or in any scientific manner ; want of organization." Teachers of Jn our public schools the teachers are invariably men of

intermediate i • i .

schools often high attainments and great ability, who know at least what imskilled!^" they have to teach, though they may be very ignorant at starting of the science and art of teaching, and who, in virtue of exceptional gifts and culture, soon make up for their want of professional training. In our elemen- tary schools no adult teacher can be employed who has not. given proof of possessing a sound knowledge of the subjects that he has to teach, and of practical skill in the art of teaching. The majority of our elementary teachers have served an apprenticeship to their profession of four or five years, and in addition thereto have spent two years in a training college. A considerable and constantly increasing portion of them graduate at universities not requiring residence. But it is only by accident that the public have any guarantee that the teachers of our

intermediate schools possess either adequate knowledge or practical skill. There is nothing to prevent any person, no matter how ignorant or unskilful, from opening an intermediate school. A man or woman who would not be allowed by law to hold the most subordinate post in a school for the education of the children of artizans, is at perfect liberty to open a school for the children of the artizans' masters. It is perfectly true that a considerable number of the teachers in our intermediate schools have been compelled, in self-defence, to pass examinations certifying as to their acquaintance with the principles of education ; but these teachers bear a very small proportion to the mass of intermediate teachers Avho possess no such diplomas. Until quite recently we had no proper machinery whatever for the training of teachers for intermediate schools, and what we have now, viz., the excellent train- ing College for Schoolmistresses at Bishopsgate, imder Miss Ward, and the newly started College at Cowper Street for Schoolmasters, is utterly insufficient to meet the needs of the country.

Another common defect in our intermediate schools is Inspection in the matter of inspection and examination. The success tion of inter- of a public school may be measured by the distinctions ^f^^^^e

^ "J "^ ^ schools.

won by its ex-pupils at the universities and in pubhc examinations ; the work of an elementary school is tested by Government Inspectors, who, in all essential subjects, examine each individual pupil ; in our intermediate schools there is no common standard of examination. Some schools call in an outside examiner; some send selected pupils into' the Oxford and Cambridge Local Examinations, or the examinations of the College of Preceptors; but in very few cases are the public supplied with the reports of com- petent independent examiners showing clearly how each child has done as compared with other children in the

6

same school, or how the school has done, as a whole, as compared Avith similar schools elsewhere.

That such a state of things should have been allowed to continue so long is simply astounding, and can only be accounted for by the fact that the public, for the last ten or twelve years, have been so much absorbed in meeting the still more urgent need of elementary education. The Middle fj^i^Q effects of the disproportion between the proe-ress

Classes usingf ^ ^ ^ ^ .

Board Schools, made by elementary and intermediate education respec- tively are beginning to be felt in various ways. One more " the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel o the courtier, he galls his kibe." The children who have passed through our elementary schools often out-distance the children of the lower middle class in such competi- tions for employment as are open to them ; and the parents of the lower middle class are withdrawing their children from intermediate schools to send them to Board Schools. The endeavours made by some of our School Boards to establish higher grade schools, and the ncAv regulations of the Department by which elementary schools may charge what fees they like, provided the average fee does not exceed 9r/. a-week, favour this tendency. When it is borne in mind how largely the middle classes contribute to elementary education, it ought not to be surprising that the lower grades of those classes should consider themselves justified in sending their children to Board Schools. The more widely this feeling is entertained, tlie less powerfully of course will the dread of indiscriminate social mixture operate ; Board Schools will become so leavened with children of a superior grade, as to lose their present social character. A good education is, perhaps, the very highest benefit that parents of any class can bestow upon their children ; but in the case of the middle

classes it is very often the only fortune that parents can leave tlieir children : ihe one thing that will prevent their children from sinking in the social scale ; the one chance of their children rising in the world. They will make great sacrifices for it therefore ; great pecuniary sacrifices if necessary ; if necessary, the sacrifice of that feeling of caste which usually grows intenser with each downward step in the social scale.

The Q^eliqious instruction eriven in our intermediate Religious

. . instruction m

schools is, it is to be feared, as bad as the secular. In our intermediate Church elementary schools the greatest pains are taken ^^ ^°° ^' to familiarize the young with the great fundamental truths of the Bible, and with the distinctive principles of the English Church ; we require the teachers to hold diplomas certifymg the sufficiency of their attainments in religious knowledge; we employ diocesan inspectors to see that the religious instruction they give is efficient ; we have diocesan prize schemes for rewarding those pupils who distinguish themselves by their proficiency in religious knowledge. In our intermediate schools none of these measures are taken. In many there is no religious instruc- tion at all ; in many others such religious instruction as is given is of the most indefinite character, having no regard whatever to the Churchy or to a child's relation to the Church ; rarely does it happen that there is any outside examination in religious knowledge. Hence it constantly happens, as our parochical clergy find out in preparing candidates for Confirmation, that the children of the middle classes know far less of the Bible and the Church Catechism than children who have passed through a National School. As a necessary consequence of this neglect, the middle classes instead of being the strength of the Church, are perhaps its greatest weakness. Ill- grounded in Church principles in their early years, it is

8

Greater defi- cienej for girls thai for boys.

Different kinds of intermediate schools wanted.

Cheapness and efficiency indisi^ensable.

not surprising that tliey so frequently drift away into other communions, or grow indifferent to religion alto- gether, when they reach maturity.

What has been hitherto said with regard to inter- mediate schools, applies as much to schools for boys as to schools for girls ; but the supply of fairly good intermediate schools for girls is far short of the corresponding supply for boys. Until quite recently the demand for a solid education for girls did not exist ; it was almost universally considered enough for girls to possess a few superficial "accomplishments;" and even where the demand for a more rational education existed, the means for satisfying it did not exist. There were no schools where persons proposing to become teachers in girls' schools could get a sound education for themselves ; there were no colleges where they could get trained for the work of a teacher.

I come to what is wanted. Intermediate education covers a vast area. There is a wide interval between an elementary school the average fee of which cannot exceed 9d., and a public school where the boarding and instruction of a lad costs some £200 per annum. It is clear therefore that no single type of schools will meet the needs of the middle classes. On the other hand, it is not desirable, on many grounds, to have too many grades of schools. The exigencies of the case would probably be met by two grades of schools, which may be designated, for con- venience, Lower Intermediate and Higher Intermediate Schools. We want Church day schools of these two grades, charging respectively about £5 and £10 per annum ; and we want Church boarding schools of the same grades, charging respectively about £30 and £50.

All intermediate schools, of whatever grade, must be at once cheap and efficient ; and in order that they may satisfy these two conditions, they must be conducted on a

large scale, and must avoid, as far as possible, all needless expenditure in the way of buildings. The necessity for large schools must be obvious. It is only in large schools Large schools that children can be nicely classified, so as to avoid keeping ^^^^^ * the forward back for the sake of the backward, or pushing on the backward faster than they can safely go ; and it is only in large schools that the teaching power can be nicely adjusted to the wants of the school, and specialists em- ployed in the teaching of subjects where specialists are almost indispensable. The division of labour upon which modern civilization so largely depends, has brought with it a necessity for a corresponding division of knowledge ; we cannot learn everything, and individual teachers cannot teach everything. It follows that our children must, to some extent, be taught by persons who have made a special study of particular branches of knowledge, and have acquired special skill in the teaching of those branches. Such specialists can obviously not be economi- cally employed except in schools sufficiently large to occupy the whole or a large portion of their time.

Another condition of intermediate education is that it Intermediate must be self-supporting. This condition, as will be shown ^e self- hereafter, can be successfully satisfied. Here it will be supporting, sufficient to remark that the middle classes are only too glad to pay what for them are large fees, provided they can get for their children the education they want.

It is sometimes urged that, if the old educational Educational endowments of the country available for intermediate education were properly utilized, there would be adequate funds for rendering it thoroughly effective ; but the number and value of these endowments are grossly exaggerated in public estimation; they are most unequally distributed over the country, and are not to be found at all where they are most wanted, viz., in those great centres of population

10

that have sprung* up during the last three centuries subse- quently to that great outburst of educational zeal which accompanied the Revival of Learning and the Reformation of the Church.* It will give some notion of the educational needs of the middle classes, to mention that the Endowed Schools Commissioners computed that the number of boys who remained at school up to the age of 16, and who may, therefore, be fairly considered to belong to the middle classes, was 25 out of 2,000. The number of girls is, perhaps, somewhat greater, so that in a city of 100,000 inhabitants there ought to be provision for the intermediate education of 2,500 children.

People who are fond of looking to the Government for assistance in all their difficulties, say, *' Why should- not the State take middle class education into its own hands in the same way as foreign States have done, and, indeed, in the same way as our own State has undertaken elementary education ? " To this it might be considered sufficient to reply that the middle classes of England are not accus- tomed to allow others to do for them Avhat they can do for themselves, and that it is most undesirable that this spirit of independence should be in any way weakened. But there are still stronger reasons why intermediate education should be kept free from Government control, reasons which have been poAverfully stated in a letter

* Lord Aberdeen, President of the Boys' Public Day School Company, recently stated in a letter to the " Times," that the following are only a few of the towns that have no endowments, or endowments so small as to be practically useless : " Liverpool, Birkenhead, Stalybridge, Ashton-under- Lyne, Accrington, Barrow, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Bristol, Sunderland, South Shields, Stockton-on-Tees, Tyneraouth, Luton, Dover, Brighton, Ply- mouth, and Devonport, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport (Mon.), &c." He adds, *' The Schools Inquiry Commission (Vol. I, p. 341) returned a district in the north of London, comprising Marylebone, St. Paneras, and Islington, all containing over 500,000 inhabitants, as possessing no endowments whatever for secondary schools."

11

of the Bisliop of Exeter, already quoted : "Action by a Government is necessarily hampered by the slowness of its movementSc It is difficult for a Government department to retrace its steps, when experience has proved the need of doing so; and it is difficult for the Government to accommodate itself readily to the special needs of par- ticular places. A Government department almost invari- ably finds that centralization is necessary for economy." To these objections to State interference may be added the still more important one from a Church point of view, that JState intervention would inevitably bring with it restrictions upon definite religious teaching, if not its absolute exclusion.

Economists may be disposed to say why not leave Private education to individual enterprise. It has been left to schools. individual enterprise, and the results, as has been pointed out, are not satisfactory. This is a case where the ordinary law of demand and supply is slow in operation : the demand being largely dependent on the intelligence of parents, who have, in many cases, not had the advantage of a good education, and are, therefore, il] capable of judging of the excellence of a school; and the supply being dependent on an outlay of capital such as few individual teachers could command. The demand needs direction; the highly educated must help the less highly educated to find out what they need, and how they can make sure that they get what they need ; corporate endeavour must supply the machinery which is beyond the means of private enterprise.

This discovery has been already made. Public com- P^^blic com-

. panies for

panics for the establishment and mamtenance oi niterme- intermediate diate schools are rapidly springing up, and the unvarying ®^^^^^^^'^- success of their efforts, both from an educational and a financial point of view, shows very clearly in what Avay

12

Churchmen can best help forward the work of Church

mtermediate education. The middle classes must be

taught how to help themselves. It may possibly be

Lower grade difficult to make lower qrade intermediate day schools a

intermediate _ _ ^

daj schools, remunerative investment, but experience shows that such schools can at least be made self-supporting, once the buildings are provided. The syllabus of instruction for such schools should include, in addition to the ordinary English subjects, and without extra charge, French, German, Latin, mathematics, drawing, natural science, book-keeping, and shorthand. It is not meant that every child should learn all these subjects, but that parents who wanted their children to learn any one of them should be able to get what they asked for. As the children attending such schools would leave in most cases before the age of sixteen, one foreign language would probably be as much, in the way of language, as a pupil should attempt. The fees should be from four to six guineas per annum. A London clergyman who has a highly flourishing school of 250 children of this grade, writes : " The object of this class of middle schools should be to prepare boys for a commercial life. Very few of the parents care about the boys learning Latin. Writing, arithmetic, spelling, and composition, are the subjects I find parents most anxious about." Schools of this class might be successfully started in all our large towns, the grade for which they would provide being the most numerous in the country after the grade that feeds our elementary schools. The only difficulty in the way of establishing them is the provision of suitable buildings ; where that can be overcome, plenty of competent head- teachers will be forthcoming capable of making the schools self-supporting, and willing, if necessary, to make their salaries dependent on success. The class of teachers best

13

suited for such schools are elemeutary teachers of abihty and experience, who have carried on their studies after leaving the Training College, and who possess the requisite manners and tact for dealing with middle class children and their parents. It is scarcely necessary to point out what an enormous advantage it would be to the Church to be able to promote teachers who had rendered good service in our elementary schools to such schools as have been described.

An urgent need of existing lower intermediate schools, both as it affects the parents of the pupils and the managers of such schools, is a uniform, trustworthy, efficient, and economic system of inspection and exami- nation.

Before quitting the subject of lower intermediate Lower education, it may be well to point out that, unless the education Church undertakes it, it will inevitably and very speedily ^^ School pass entirely into the hands of School Boards. Such an event is to be deprecated on many grounds. There would be no guarantee that religious instruction of any kind would be given in School Board intermediate schools, and in any case it could not be of that definite character that would satisfy Churchmen. There are other objections to allow- ing School Boards to undertake intermediate education. If an advanced education were given in existing Board Schools, it would tempt teachers to give an undue atten- tion to their middle class pupils; and in the long run it would injure lower intermediate education itself, which could never be so effectually given to a few children in a Board School as in large schools specially set apart for it. If School Boards set up special schools for intermediate education, they will be going beyond the object for which they were called into existence, and will throw a heavy and needless additional burden on the rates*.

14

With regard to higher grade intermediate day schools, there can no longer be any question that they can be successfully established and maintained on a purely com- mercial basis. The Girls' Public Day School Company, Limited, which was started in 1872 in connection with the National Union for Improving the Education of Women, has for its object, as stated in its prospectus, the establish- ment and maintenance in such parts of London and the provinces as may from time to time be decided on, superior day schools at a moderate cost for girls of all classes above those provided for by the Elementary Education Act. It started Avith a capital of £12,000, and has now an authorized capital of £100,000, in 20,000 shares of £5 each. At present this Company has 27 schools opened and in full operation, with an aggregate atten- dance of 4,770 scholars, and it contemplates the speedy erection of other similar schools all over the Kingdom. The curriculum of studies includes undenominational religious instruction, reading, writing, arithmetic, mathe- matics and book-keeping, English grammar^ composition, and hterature, history, geography, French, German, Latin, the elements of physical science, social economy, drawing, class singing and harmony, gymnastic exercises, and needlework. The schools are annually inspected and examined by the Oxford and Cambridge Examining Boards, or other independent examiners. Student teachers are attached to each school, and arrangements are made for giving them training in the practice of class manage- ment, so that each school is, to some extent, a training college for teachers also. The fees range from nine guineas a year for pupils under 10, to fifteen guineas for pupils entering the school over 13. Extra fees have to be paid or music and other subjects not included in the course. That the secular education given in the schools of this

15

Company is thorouglily efficient, is evident from the re- markable success of the pupils in the University local examinations, and in the examinations of the London University, where many of the girls matriculate ; that it is appreciated by the parents is clear from the rapidity with which the schools have been filled and multiplied. The schools have without exception been eminently successful, and they have deserved to succeed ; the education they give is well devised and sound ; they are admirably officered, and their methods of instruction are fully abreast of the most scientific teaching of the day.

The net profit for 1882, after transferring £4,155 17s. Id. to the Depreciation Fund, was £3,573 3.9. ?>d. The dividend paid to shareholders ivas at the rate of five per cent.

The following figures, taken from the annual report Growth of of the Company, will serve to show the kind of places g^^^^^-^ ^ where Church schools giving an equally good education might be successfully planted, and with what rapidity they might be expected to develop : —

Date of Opening.	Name of School.		Present No. of PujDils.
1875, September 21st .	. Bath ..		96
1880, January 7th	. Blackheath		. 286
1876, June 20th . .	Brighton		. 146
1883, January 18th	Bromley		23
1882, September 19th .	Clapham, High. .		. 151
1875, May 3rd . .	Clapham, Middle		. 110
1874, September 14th .	Croydon		. 339
1878, September 17th .	Dulwich		. 326
1876, September 19th .	Gateshead		. 281
1875, June 2nd . .	Hackney		. 188
1878, March 5th..	. Highbury and Islingto	n 213
1878, April 30th . .	Ipswich. .	.	. 213
1880, September 28th .	Kensington (late Che sea, opened Januar 21st, 1873)	1- 277
1880, March 2nd. .	. Liverpool	.	. 213
1878, March 5th. .	Maida Yale		. 186

16

Date of Opening. 1881, May 10th . .	Name of School. Newton Abbott	Present No of Pupils. 28
] 875, February 22nd . 1875, September 14th . 1873, September 16th .	Norwich Nottingham . Notting Hill and water	Bays-	147 137 34.0
1875, November 3rd	. Oxford..	. ,	182
1882, February 21st	Portsmouth		133
1878, March 12th	. Sheffield	. .	238
1882, April 25th.. 1883, January 18th	South Hampstead (late St. John's Wood, opened March 7th, 1876) Tunbridge Wells	245 23
1880, September 21st . 1880, November 9tli	Weymoutli Wimbledon	••	40 113
1880, November 2nd .	. York ..	,.	121

It will be observed tliat almost the only schools in this list with a small attendance are schools recently established. Indeed, the Company very wisely takes the precaution not to plant a school anywhere until it ascertains that the neigh- bourhood is prepared to take a sufficient number of shares to furnish a substantial guarantee that the school will be well supported when it is estabhshed. The ("ompany has usually engaged at first some suitable existing building as a school house, enlarging or adapting it as circumstances required. Adapted buildings are rarely wholly satisfactory for educational purposes, bat the Company showed, per- haps, a wise discretion at the outset in multiplying schools in hired buildings rather than in sinking their little capital in building two or three schools of their own.

The annual report of the Company shows how the expenchture of each school is distributed, and indicates very clearly how the financial success of the Company lias been achieved. The following figures relate to one of the largest and most flourishing of the Company's schools, that at Notting Hill (340 children) :—

17

Salaries

Examination Fees . .

Eents

Eates, Taxes, and Insurance

Current Eepairs

Wages . . .1

Fuel and Lighting . .

Stationery and Printing . .

Libraries

Scholarships and Prizes

Miscellaneous

Total ..

£ s.	d.
3,490 14 11
30 12	3
377 3	10
122 16	7
71 4	0
120 16	0
52 19	4
4 12	4
5 9	2
30 0	0
50 0	2
4,507 7	9

The cost last year of working some other of the Company's large schools is subjoined : —

Name of School.	No. of Pupils.	Expenditure for 1882. £ s. d.	Cost of Girls High Schools
Blackheath , .	286 . .	. 2,991 11 1
Croydon Dulwich	339 . . 326 . .	. 3,488 2 1 . 3,881 8 6
G-ateshead	281 . .	. 2,745 2 9
Kensington . .	277 . .	. 3,717 5 7

The average expenditure per child on all the schools of the Company (the new schools included, in which, of course, the expenditure is for a time excessive) is about £12 6s. The subjoined table shows the excess of receipts over expenditure in the foregoing list of schools : —

Name of School.

Blackheath . Croydon Dulwich Gateshead . Kensington . Netting Hill

f Eeceipts over penditure. £ s. d.	Profit on Girls' High Schools.
1,299 15 5
1,580 12 2
1,202 0 6
929 0 3
335 10 11
1,053 10 3

18

The surplus, after allowiug for depreciation and 5 per cent, interest on capital expenditure, for the same schools, was as follows : —

o 1 1 Surplus, after allowing for

Depreciation and Interest.

Blackheatli £865 6 1

Croydon 758 16 3

Dulwich 684 14 9

Gateshead 449 12 0

Kensington . . . . . . 51 1 8

Notting Hill 496 0 0

The gi'eat success of the Girls' Public Day School Company, both as an educational and as a financial venture, has led to the formation of a similar Company for the establishment, " on a Christian basis, with a con- science clause," of self-supporting intermediate day schools for boys. This Company starts with a capital of £50,000, divided into 10,000 shares of £5 each, with power to increase, and has already met with considerable support. It proposes to have two classes of schools — Lower Inter- mediate, and Higher Intermediate. The fees charged at the former will be from £6 to £9 per annum ; at the latter from £9 to £15 per annum. " The capital," as stated in the prospectus, " will be applied to hire, purchase, adapt, or erect school buildings, and in furnishing the same. The profits arising, after the establishment of a school, will be applied to the payment of a moderate dividend on the shares. It is intended as soon as possible to establish a Reserve Fund. If the funds of the Company permit, scholarships and prizes will be estabhshed, the object of the Company being not so much the payment of a large dividend as to meet a public want, by providing for the classes intended a thoroughly efficient education at a moderate cost."

19

An interesting experiment has been tried m the way Churcli of of starting intermediate day schools for girls on a s'dfoof Com? Church of England basis by Canon Holland, and a few P^"y ^or

^ -^ ... C^irls (Limi-

of his friends, who formed themselves into a limited ted). liability company, under the title of the Church of England High School for Girls (Limited). Two schools have been founded by this Company, one at Baker Street, comprising a senior, junior, and elementary school, in which there are altogether 236 pupils ; and one in Coles- hill Street, containing 120 pupils. The aim of these schools is to give girls sound instruction in secular subjects, together with definite religious teaching. The fees are fifteen guineas per annum for children entering the school below the age of 15 ; eighteen guineas for children above that age. The course of instruction is much the same as that given at the schools of the Girls' Public Day School Company. The pupils at present in the school are princi- pally the children of independent and professional people living in the neighbourhood. These schools pay a dividend of four per cent., the remaining profits going to form a reserve fund. This experiment, though limited in its operations, shows conclusively that high schools, con- ducted by a limited liability company on a Church basis, are quite as likely to succeed, if efficiently conducted, as undenominational schools.

The question now arises why should not Churchmen Need of a form a limited liability company for providing Church pany for ^^' Hi2:h Schools wherever there is a reasonable prospect of ^^^^'^^^^^^^^g

_ , ^ ^ High Schools

their succeeding? The great advantages of a company for Boys and for this purpose are that it can secure the counsels of the eveVneedeT educational authorities most competent to advise in such a movement ; it can found schools on a sufficiently large scale to secure a good classification of the pupils, and to engage a sufficient staff; it can profit at each new step in

1 c 2 ■

20

its operations by its past experience ; it can attract the support of large numbers of persons deeply interested in intermediate education, but powerless to promote it except by co-operation with others similarly minded ; it can make intermediate education not only self-supporting, but posi- tively lucrative. By making it a condition that no school shall be established in a neighbourhood where a certain proportion of the capital needed is not locally subscribed, it can take the safest possible precautions against unwise ventures, and at the same time secure that local support and sympathy on which the continued success of the scheme must depend. There can be no reasonable doubt that a Church Day School Company for boys and girls, wisely administered, would meet with abundant support, and would prove a financial success ; but it is not, of course, as a mere commercial speculation that the establishment of such a company is here advocated. There is a great gap in our Church educational machinery, and it is only through the instrumentality of a public company that the gap can he filled. Nor is there any time to lose. The existing undenominational companies to which reference has been made are rapidly planting schools in the most favourable situations in the kingdom. If Churchmen are to take their proper part in this great movement, they must do so quickly. At present large numbers of Church folk send their children to undenominational schools because there are no Church schools to send them to ; but they would naturally prefer schools where their children could be taught the definite principles of the Church to which they belong. Church inter- But besides intermediate day schools for our large W-dfn» cities, the Church stands greatly in need of hoarding schools schools to meet the necessities of those middle class

needed . .

parents who do not live sufiicientlj^ near a large centre of

21

population to allow their children to attend a day school, and cannot afford to send them to expensive boarding schools. This is a need more difficult to meet than that of parents living in great cities. The establishment of a boarding school involves a large outlay in lands and build- ings, and could never, for this reason, be made so remu- nerative as day schools. Yet much might be done to satisfy this need also, if a careful study were made of the conditions under which economic intermediate boarding schools have already been established.

The schools needed are of two classes, one giving a Existing lower intermediate education at about £30 a year, and bolrdino-^^ ^ one a higher education at about £50. At the excellent schools. middle class schools of the Society of Friends the charges per annum range from £15 to £40, the average being about £24 lO.s. At Canon Woodard's third grade schools at Ardingley and Ellesmere the total annual cost of a boarder is from £15 to £25. The cost at Canon Woodard's second grade schools at Hurstpierpoint, Denston, and Taunton, is from £40 to £60. The cost at the Devon County School, a most successful school of its kind, founded in 1858 by Earl Fortes cue and Prebendary Brereton, is about thhty guineas. The cost at the Norfolk County School, of which Prebendary Brereton is Chairman, is under £45.

The accounts of the two latter schools show that the Boarding proprietary principle is as appHcable to intermediate g^ppor^^^^^^ boarding schools as to intermediate day schools. " The dividends to the shareholders" [of the Devon County School], says Earl Fortescue in a letter to the Bishop of Exeter on Public Schools for the Middle Classes, '-including the trustees of the scholarship fund (for all the endow- ments of the scheme, except my father's for the chap-

22

laincy, and consequently all the scholarship funds, are invested shares), have for the last fifteen years been rather more than three , and for the last Jive years returned more than three and a half per cent., after ample deduction had been made for repairs, depreciation of furniture, &c. The capital upon v^hich the interest has been paid includes the as yet unremunerative cost of the recent additions to the buildings." The Norfolk County School pays, accord- ing to the same authority, ** an equally bond fide dividend, hut of five instead of only three and a half per cent''* No need of As regards intermediate boarding schools and inter-

eleemosynary ^nediate dav schools alike, therefore, co-operation, in some

support. "^ ^

form or other, would seem to be the best means of obtaining what the Church needs. Except in the case of lower intermediate day schools, there is no need of elee- mosynary support, and there only is it needed for the provision of buildings. Higher intermediate day schools and boarding schools of both grades ought to be, and can be, self-supporting. ^ , . Surely the time has come for Churchmen to move in

prompt liiig matter. It is a question of now or never. The

Church has done a noble work in the past in the cause of elementary education ; it has done something for inter- mediate ediication, but nothing systematically. All honour to her for providing for the poor before she provided for those who, to some extent, can help themselves ; but now that the poor are provided for. Churchmen of the middle classes may fairly ask that the Church should consider their educational needs, and help them in securing for their children a Church education. What is asked of her is at once her duty and her policy. It is her duty, for she was

* " Public Schools for the Middle Classes." By Earl Fortescue, pp. 12, 17. (Hatchard's.)

23

commissioned to feed the lambs of Christ's flock without distinction of social grade; it is her policy, for how can she expect the children whom she neglected when they were young, to regard her with love and gratitude when they grow up? The opportunity is a splendid one, that can never recur, and to lose it would be a fatal mistake. In elementary education the Church can in future do little more, perhaps, than hold her own; but here is a field practically unoccupied, for what has been done is as nothing compared with what remains to be done. If the Church realizes the greatness of the occasion, and enters upon the field promptly, and with an earnest desire to discharge her duty, she will do a great religious work; and she will thereby attach more closely to herself what is numerically and influentially the most important class of the community next to the working classes. The object to be accomplished would justify an appeal to the generosity of Churchmen, but the occasion does not call for eleemosynary aid ; it calls for personal interest, for combined counsels, for combined capital, for wisely directed effort.

The formation of a company for the establishment of Church High Schools is not advocated in any spuit of opposition to the undenominational companies already in existence ; they have a great work to do, and every friend of education will wish them God speed ; but they do not give the definite religious instruction that Churchmen ask for, and without which no system of education, no matter how excellent in other respects, will ever satisfy Churchmen.

It may be that, after the Church has done her best for intermediate education, endeavours will be made to drive her out of the field, as endeavours have been made to drive her out of the field of elementary education ;

24

she cannot expect to occupy any sphere of usefulness long undisturbed ; but, whatever the future may have in store for her, her present obligation is unquestionably to dis- charge the duty that lies at her feet. She would, perhaps, have been able to make a more successful stand in defence of her rights in the field of elementary education, if she had been supported by a middle class well grounded in her principles, and alive to the great interests at stake in the maintenance of schools giving definite Church teaching. This is certain, that the present contains the future; the legislation of to-morrow will be the outcome of the education of to-day ; the middle classes of the next generation will be the children of the middle class of this ; and they will be what we make them, — religious or Godless, faithful, loyal and intelligent members of the Church, who will be ready to do battle in her service, or ignorant and alienated members who, having no reason for the faith which is only nominall}^ in them, will lightly value what the Church took so little pains to teach them.

Churchmen have been so accustomed to be asked to give to good causes, that they may not be quite prepared to recognize the religious obhgation imposed on them of helping forward such causes by other means than giving; they may even see a sort of bathos in an invitation to the Church to meet a great emergency by joining a hmited liability company ; but Christian duty assumes new forms with each successive phase of civilization, and the unro- mantic application in God's service of the principle of co-operation in our day, may be as true a way of dis- charging our duty as was almsgiving in days gone by. The strangeness will soon wear ofi"; at any rate it behoves those who take exception to the course proposed to suggest a better ; and by a better is meant

25

one that shall act more promptly and effectively; one that shall not interfere with the noblest traditions of the classes to be provided for ; one that shall secure a wider area of support ; one with greater powers of adaptation to all the varying conditions that will have to be satisfied.

Humbly commending these observations and sugges- tions to your Grace's consideration,

I have the honour to be,

Your Grace's obedient Servant,

EVAN DANIEL.

His Grace

The Lord Archbishop of Canterhury.

St. John's College, Batteesea. May Uh, 1883.

HARRISON AND SONS, PKINTBBS IN OBDINABY TO HER MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, LONDON.

.^■^

KIP

SECOND THOUSAND.

THE

OVERSTRAIN IN EDUCATION

BY

mCHAED A. AKMSTEONG B.A.

{Beprinted from The Modeen Eeview, April, 1883.]

IToAA' TjirlcrraTo ipya, kolkws 8' T]iri(rraro irdvra.

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JAMES CLAPvKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STEEET.

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