2. What difference exists between (a) an Urban District Council, (b) a Borough Council, (c) a County or County Borough Council in respect to the Educational powers they each possess?

3. Where is the nearest Council School? Is it still ever called a "Board" School?

4. What is meant by the " Conscience Clause"? (See Section 27 of the Act of 1921.)

5. Make a list of all the Educational Institutions in your town and the objects aimed at by each.

6. What do you know about Trade Schools and Farm Schools? Are there any of these in your neighbourhood?

7. Discuss the causes that led to the decay of the Apprenticeship System.

CHAPTER XIII

SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS (Continued)

ENDOWED SCHOOLS

THERE have always been in our country charitably disposed people who have given or bequeathed money for the foundation of schools or scholarships; but such charitable action has been individual and local in its character. We find, for instance, that the town of Bedford has been particularly fortunate in this respect, having received large endowments from a wealthy citizen Harpur (or Harper), who lived in the time of Elizabeth. By industry and talent William Harpur rose to be Lord Mayor of London, and after attaining wealth and fame he granted a piece of land with school buildings upon it to the town of his birth. Moreover, for the support of the school, and for other charitable objects, he left thirteen acres of meadow land in the parish of St. Andrew's, Holborn, London. This land is now covered with buildings, and is immensely valuable, and yields a rental of many thousands per annum. The funds are administered by Trustees, who have been able -so great is the income to provide Bedford with many institutions of every educational grade, for children of both sexes belonging to all classes of society. Even "Exhibitions" to the Universities are provided out of the "Harpur Trust."

Though Bedford has been specially favoured in educational endowments, other towns have also to a less extent been furnished with schools and colleges by Founders who desired to benefit and be remembered by posterity. Consequently we find the Endowed Schools built in most unlikely places, in small towns and villages, important, perhaps, in the eyes of the founders, but remote from the great centres of population. The new industrial cities that have sprung up during the last century frequently lacked an endowed school, and until the

State of late years took in hand the supply of secondary as well as elementary education, these towns had to get on as best they could with "private schools" (i.e. schools conducted by private persons for their own profit), or with such other institutions as the public spirit of the townsfolk succeeded in establishing. In Liverpool, for example, where there was no ancient foundation such as Bedford enjoyed, we find a band of philanthropic citizens establishing schools. In 1819 they founded the Royal Institution, in 1825 the Liverpool Institute, and in 1840 the Liverpool College-all of which are existing to-day and performing valuable educational work.

What you must understand, therefore, is that for many generations the Endowed Schools, upon which the country chiefly relied for the higher education of its boys (Girls' Schools upon a public basis are of very recent growth), were scattered irregularly here and there, sometimes in tiny country villages (e.g. Sedbergh and Giggleswick), just where the original benefactors had placed them. In places where no Endowed Schools existed the inhabitants depended upon private effort. Rich people, of course, could afford tutors and governesses for their children, or could send them to the big boarding schools like Eton, Harrow, Rugby, etc., but the middle and poorer classes had the greatest difficulty in securing for their boys and girls. any sort of higher education, unless they lived in the immediate vicinity of an Endowed School. Even then many parents found the Grammar Schools, as most of the endowed schools were termed, very unsuitable. They had become hopelessly out of date. Many of them were established in the days when Latin and Greek were the only subjects of study, and some were so restricted by the terms of the foundation as to be unable to teach anything beyond these languages. Science, mathematics, modern languages, drawing, music, manual instruction, etc., rarely entered into their curricula. The school buildings also were often antiquated in design, and out of harmony with modern ideas. Nevertheless, with all their limitations, the ancient Grammar Schools did a great work for English education, and numbers of our most famous citizens have been reared within their time-honoured walls and nurtured on their classical scholarship.

Although the present generation has found it necessary to alter some details in their original constitution, the spirit of the great Revival of Learning; of Erasmus; of Colet

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founder of St. Paul's one of the pre-Reformation schools and of Lilye its first High-master, has survived in them to this day. In the new shape which modern legislation has given to them, the old Grammar Schools of the 16th and 17th centuries, drawing their inspiration from the classical models of Eton, Winchester, and perhaps, above all others, from Colet's foundation, are among the most potent factors in modern education.

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As far back as 1818 Parliament had set up a body known as the Charity Commissioners, whose duty it was to inquire into the administration of educational and other charities. In 1864 a Schools Inquiry Commission was appointed to report upon the measures required for the improvement of Secondary Education, and as a result of their recommendations a body of Commissioners was appointed under the Endowed Schools Act, 1869,1 with full powers to deal with endowed schools in England and Wales, and to frame Schemes" for their reconstitution and management. The Endowed Schools Commissioners did a great work during their existence, and restored vitality to hundreds of these antiquated and decaying institutions. In 1874 their work was taken over, and continued by the Charity Commissioners, and finally transferred to the newly created Board of Education in 1900 (see p. 134). Boards of Governors have been created to manage the schools, limiting restrictions have been removed, scholarships and free places awarded, and many other valuable reforms effected.

CENTRAL AND MUNICIPAL SECONDARY SCHOOLS

The Endowed Schools were quite insufficient for the many children who wanted and deserved to have their education continued beyond the Elementary School. The Grammar Schools were few and comparatively expensive and many people could not afford their fees.

Little by little provision has been made for the free secondary education of the brightest children from the Elementary Schools. It is now-in the towns at least-quite easy for promising boys and girls up to the age of 16 to obtain, practically without cost, an education such as a generation ago could only have been secured at great expense, if indeed at all. The Central Schools-found in almost every centre of

1 32 & 33 Vict. c. 56.

population are splendidly equipped institutions at which a very practical education is given by highly qualified teachers. Though officially classed as "elementary they are really secondary in character. Formerly they charged small fees, but are now thrown open,1 free of cost, to children from the elementary schools.

By the famous Act of 1902, of which you have already heard, the County and other Councils are permitted to aid Secondary Education, and the Municipal Secondary Schools referred to below are one of the results of this Act. Large numbers of free places are reserved in these grant-aided secondary schools for scholars proceeding from the elementary schools, and even maintenance allowances are made in the case of the poorer children.

Languages, literature, mathematics, and science form the principal subjects of instruction, and the boys and girls generally look to passing some fairly severe university examination before leaving, such as-in the future-will exempt them from compulsory attendance at a Continuation School (see p. 140).

In the next chapter you will learn how it is possible for the brightest children to climb still further up the "educational ladder," and even enter the Universities with little or no cost to their parents.

PAYMENT AND REPAYMENT

[And now let us pause to ask two questions. Firstly, have you ever considered what it costs to educate a child to the age of 14 in an Elementary School, and then for two years in a Central School? You may like to know that although the cost varies somewhat in different localities and in different years, we shall be under rather than over the mark if we reckon the cost of educating a child in our Elementary Schools at £10 per ann., whilst in the Central Schools it rises to over £14 per ann. Thus, every child who spends 9 years in an Elementary and 2 years in a Central School has had not less than £118 spent on his or her education. If he or she passes on to a free place in a Secondary School, the total is considerably more.

Now let us ask the second question and that is, Who pays this large sum of money? Out of whose pockets has it come? The child's parents have not paid it, for the Schools were free." And the

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1 Under the Education Act of 1918, which is incorporated into the consolidating Act of 1921.

2 At a cost of not less than £25 per ann. to the community.