CHAPTER XII
1898
Such is in brief the story of the last half-century, 1848 to 1898. Looking back on what is in the main a line of progress, there seems now and then a check, here and there a retrograde movement under the guise of a new discovery. All this is inevitable, since we are but human. But taking the period as a whole, none can doubt that it marks a very real advance; and this end of a century seems a fitting time to pause and rest on our oars, while we survey the breakers through which we have passed; then once more set forth on our onward path, assured that there can be nothing worse before us than what is already behind.
It is not only for girls’ education that the revival has come. A general awakening has passed over the country: men and women, boys and girls, rich and poor, the lady of leisure and the hard-working mechanic, all have had something brought within their reach that formerly belonged only to the few. Three years ago these gains were summarised in convenient form by the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, appointed ‘to consider what are the best methods of establishing a well-organised system of secondary education in England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having regard to such local sources of revenue from endowments or otherwise as are available, or may be made available, for this purpose.’ Even now the country is waiting for legislation on the findings of that Commission. When we remember that we have really been waiting ever since 1867, we do not feel over-sanguine of results; but happily events have since then moved in many directions, and the Commission, before proceeding to recommendations for the future, was able to draw up a long list of reforms that had already come about and changed the whole face of education in England in less than thirty years.
First in order of time stands the Endowed Schools Act, which did so much for boys, and rescued something from the spoils for the benefit of girls. Next came the Elementary Education Act, which brought primary instruction within the reach of every boy and girl in the land, and set a new machinery in motion destined to change the whole face of the country. In 1888 the institution of county councils provided that local authority which was to make a system of decentralisation in education possible, while the Technical Instruction Acts of 1889 and 1891 and the Local Customs and Taxation Act of 1890 at once brought these new powers into play, and originated a fresh set of educational institutions in the Polytechnics and other similar colleges. Lastly, the Welsh Intermediate schools, established by the Act of 1889, were providing an object-lesson in the organisation of secondary education.
Besides this public work, the Commission had to take cognisance of the enormous changes in the education of girls, due to the wide diffusion of High Schools and the admission of women to the Universities. ‘There has probably been more change in the condition of the secondary education of girls than in any other department of education,’[19] say the Commissioners, and they also note that ‘the idea that a girl, like a boy, may be fitted by education to earn a livelihood, or, at any rate, to be a more useful member of society, has become more widely diffused.’ Various other changes came under their cognisance: the gradual rise of Higher Grade schools, evolving themselves through inherent necessity with no impulse and little encouragement from without; the many attempts at what has been called Continuative education by means of evening classes; the help afforded to large numbers by University Extension; the improved status of the teachers; the various colleges established for their training, and the many educational societies which have grown into powerful forces during the last twenty years. After taking due note of all this, they declare that the time has come to weld these various organisms into one consistent whole. They anticipate no easy task. ‘The ground of secondary education is already almost covered with buildings so substantial that the loss to be incurred in clearing it for the erection of a new and symmetrical pile cannot be contemplated. Yet these existing buildings are so ill-arranged, so ill-connected, and so inconvenient, that some scheme of reconstruction seems unavoidable.’[20]
This touches the key of the situation. The reconstruction must at any rate begin with adaptation, then the gaps may be filled with new and convenient edifices. However much such a plan offends our notions of order and logic, we do well to remember that every one of these structures, jerry-built though they may be, has grown up out of some real need; and before we propose to fit all their tenants into neat little model dwellings, it behoves us to be quite sure that such a plan would be as satisfactory in the working as it looks on paper. The mere fact that of the girls receiving secondary education in England seventy per cent., and of the boys thirty-eight per cent., are in private schools, often in towns where there are grammar and high schools with plenty of empty places, should make the advocates of ruthless innovation pause and stay their hand. The public must in the last resort determine what it wants, and though demand sometimes follows supply, the opposite process is a constant one. However much theorists may inveigh, according to their special prejudices, against higher grade or ‘private adventure’ or any other kind of school, the fact of their successful existence, even in the face of rivals, shows that they do supply a want; and the only prudent course is to find them a place in our system.
This has been fully recognised by the Commissioners, who wisely suggest proceeding on lines similar to those on which elementary education was at first organised. The local authority proposed in 1867 can now be easily constituted, since we have the county councils to supply a nucleus to which educational experts can be added, as is already done on some technical instruction committees and in the Welsh county governing bodies. The local authority would proceed ‘to inquire how far the schools within its area provide secondary instruction adequate in quantity and quality to the needs of each part of that area.’ In doing this, regard is to be had to proprietary and private as well as endowed and other public schools, and the report adds the following significant comment: ‘We are far from desiring to see secondary education pass wholly under public control, and into the hands of those who are practically public servants, as elementary education has done, and we believe that where proprietary or private schools are found to be doing good work, it would be foolish as well as unfair to try to drive them out of the field.’[21] Where the supply of secondary education is deficient in any part of the area, the local authority should have power to establish new schools.
The functions of these authorities are therefore to fall under four heads—
1. The securing a due provision of secondary instruction.
2. The remodelling, where necessary, and supervision of the working of endowed (other than non-local) schools and other educational endowments.
3. A watchful survey of the field of secondary education, with the object of bringing proprietary and private schools into the general educational system, and of endeavouring to encourage and facilitate, so far as this can be done by stimulus, by persuasion, and by the offer of privileges and advice, any improvements they may be inclined to introduce.
4. The administration of such sums, either arising from rates levied within the area, or paid over from the National Exchequer, as may be at its disposal for the promotion of education.
In this way these local authorities would receive large powers of supervision, but comparatively little coercive control, since ‘it is not so much by superseding as by aiding and focussing voluntary effort that real progress may be made.’
The general guidance and direction of secondary education should be committed to a central authority, to include the various departments of Government now concerned with it.
Further recommendations are: the consolidation of existing sources of revenue into one fund; and a generous scheme of scholarships for the poor, in preference to a general lowering of school fees.
These main recommendations, as well as other subordinate ones, seem wise and moderate, fair to all classes, and consistent with their professed aim, ‘to draw the outlines of a system which shall combine the maximum of simplicity with the minimum disturbance of existing arrangements.’ A bill drawn up on these lines would probably meet with very general acceptation from all classes, except those persons, probably few, who are ready to subordinate the general good to their own private fads. Unfortunately Parliament has hitherto proved unwilling to give time for such a bill. The ill-fated Education Bill of 1896 dealt with secondary education as a sort of accessory to primary; and as, unlike the latter, it has not yet become a subject for party divisions and acrimonious controversy, it is not at present sufficiently interesting to the general run of politicians to call forth any special exertions on their part. The private bill brought in last session by Colonel Lockwood expressed the wishes of a large section of the teaching profession. It proposed to form one central educational authority under the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, by consolidating powers relating to secondary education possessed by the Charity Commissioners, the Science and Art Department, and the present Education Department, and to establish local secondary education authorities, to consist partly of members of the county council and partly of other persons with special educational experience. It also proposes registers of efficient schools and of persons qualified to teach in them. The ministerial bill introduced by the Duke of Devonshire into the House of Lords at the fag-end of the session merely proposed to bring together in one office the two departments of Science and Art and Education, under the control of one permanent secretary, and to create a Board of Education on the model of the Board of Trade. To this new department the supervision of endowed schools, under schemes framed by the Charity Commissioners, was to be transferred. The thorny questions of constitution of local authorities, raising of rates, etc., were left untouched. It was not proposed to carry the measure, merely to show the country before the vacation the lines on which the Ministry were inclined to proceed. Thorny as are many of the points under discussion, such as central and local authority, amalgamation of existing departments, etc., they are as nothing to the real difficulties that must follow when these matters of administrative machinery are settled. The inspection and grading of schools, the due consideration that must be shown to secondary education proper and to that part commonly known as technical, the proper respect for existing schools that are good and the ruthless elimination of such as are bad—in these lies the true crux of the situation, and under all circumstances some part of this work will probably fall to the local authorities. An enormous amount of responsibility must devolve on those who first take up the arduous task.
One burning question, which ought to be settled for the whole country alike, is the relation between the grammar and high schools on the one hand, and the elementary schools on the other. Are we to have one upper department for both, or two? Some time ago the consensus of opinion seemed to be in favour of one; that was on the assumption that the proportion of children passing beyond the standards would be a small one. Some such idea seems to have been in the mind of the Duke of Devonshire when he spoke of ‘a sound system of secondary schools which will be open alike to the most promising children of the elementary schools and to the middle classes generally.’ But this view rests on the assumption that the primary departments of both sets of schools are very similar in their curriculum and methods. This is very far from being the case. ‘The elementary schools are not, under the present conditions in England, the common basis of secondary education, nor, though an increasing number of pupils proceed from them to secondary schools, are the public elementary schools the sole, nor, indeed, the chief channels through which pupils proceed in this country to day or boarding-schools of the secondary grades.’[22] The changes that would be necessary in the elementary schools would be so numerous and far-reaching, and the expense so enormous before they would be able to attract the great mass of the middle classes, that no one could seriously propose to abolish the primary departments in secondary schools, as long as parents are able and willing to pay the school fees. They are a necessity, and would have to be supplied by private adventure, as is done at Cardiff and other large Welsh towns, if a public system declined to acknowledge them. In the interest of what we might call the ‘secondary party,’ the primary department of the secondary school must be maintained. On the other hand, the teachers in Government schools seem equally unanimous in the view that their own special continuation schools are better suited to the mass of elementary pupils than the grammar or high school. Neither party seems anxious for the fusion, and so long as a liberal scheme of scholarships is maintained, it is possible to do full justice to those elementary scholars who can look forward to a school life sufficiently long to enable them to reach the highest classes of their new school. To allow pupils to enter upon an extensive and liberal curriculum, who are likely to be removed before its real meaning and unity has dawned upon them, is a thing we should never even contemplate, were our notions of curricula and grades of schools a little less hazy than they are at present in England. The board school child, who is sent at the age of thirteen by her proud parents to have a year’s finishing at a high school, is typical of the present confusion. There is really no more urgent problem before us than a scientific differentiation of schools.
Still, whatever course legislation may take on this and other problems, whether funds are raised by fresh rate or merely by adding together existing sources of income, no matter what are the constitution and functions of the local authority, this, at least, we may rely on—the interests of girls will not be forgotten. For that we have to thank that little band of men and women who have laboured during this last half century in the face of prejudice, opposition, and indifference to remove the neglect with which England treated one half of her children. This much, at least, is established: no future educational legislation will omit to provide for women and girls. For this we have a pledge in the appointment of women on this last Commission, in their mention in every scheme for a new educational institution that now passes through Parliament, and their recognition on every new elective body constituted.
We have gained, gained immensely. Still, we cannot blind our eyes to some evils the good has brought with it. The very acknowledgment of the right of girls to as good an education as their brothers has in some cases, happily rare, led, under the pretence of equality, to a subordination of the girls’ interests. Thus, some of the recent attempts to establish joint schools for both sexes, whether on the grounds of economy or the fanciful plea of imitating the family life in a large school of over a hundred children, does indirectly involve a fresh injustice. What the reformers asked for was a share in educational funds for girls and a better education for the teachers, that they might be qualified to undertake the very highest teaching in girls’ schools. The attempts recently made in some schools aided by public money to economise by teaching boys and girls together, abolishing the head-mistress and putting a headmaster over boys and girls alike, while arranging the curriculum and time-table to meet the needs of the boys and letting the girls do the best they can with it, is only a revival, under a new guise, of the old idea, that girls are not entitled to the same consideration as boys. Our modern reformers will not find their occupation gone while they have this old prejudice to combat. It is unjust to the teachers as well as to the taught. Hitherto it has been almost universally acknowledged that teaching was an occupation for which women were by nature specially suited. Is it really proposed to oust them from all but the lowest ranks, and reserve the prizes, the chief inducement to work, for men only? This is what must happen, should there be any wide spread of the mixed schools. With the disappearance of the head-mistress we should lose much of that moral training which has hitherto been regarded in England as no less important than the intellectual and physical. We have hitherto prided ourselves on being in advance of Germany in employing women to teach the highest classes in our girls’ schools. Germany is now beginning to follow suit, and by means of special courses at some of the universities and at the Victoria-Lyceum, Berlin, some of the best mistresses are being trained to take these posts. Surely we in England do not intend, without a struggle, to take the retrograde path!
There seems to be another danger imminent, due, perhaps, to the great speed with which events have moved. At any rate, we have landed ourselves in a dilemma. The educational movement has been parallel with many social changes. The fluctuations of business, the lowering of interest, and other complex causes which make saving difficult to men engaged in business or professions, have added greatly to the number of women who must now earn their living. Thirty years ago it was the custom to wait till the father’s death closed the parental home, when the daughters, untrained to work, unaccustomed to privation, were sent out into the world, to seek their bread as best they could. So general was this practice even among the more enlightened, that the committee who helped to found Queen’s College expressed their belief and hope that ‘the ranks of that profession (i.e. of a governess) will still be supplied from those whose minds and tempers have been disciplined in the school of adversity, and who are thus best able to form the minds and tempers of others.’ We are no longer such stern believers in adversity; we now realise that training and earning cannot begin simultaneously, and, further, we have learnt that neither for Adam nor for Eve should work be accounted a curse. All this has led to a great revolution in thought. Work has been made honourable in the eyes of girls. Already at school they are encouraged to choose a profession and to take the steps that lead to it much as their brothers do. If they marry, the years of regular disciplined work prove a helpful training for their new duties; if they remain single, they keep a purpose and an aim in life. This existence of regular duty, of appointed periods of work and holiday, is the easier life; and now that remunerative employment has come to be regarded as a privilege and not a stigma, the ranks of women workers are fast being overfilled. We have heard much talk of late about new careers for women; but the very abundance of the talk serves to betray the poverty of the land. Of new careers there are few. In some cases it only means that the work is transferred from a man to a woman at a lower wage. This is no economic gain to either sex. The field should be open to both alike, but for equal payment. There are also a considerable number of occupations which, if not performed by women, would remain undone, or be done less well. Such are nursing, certain branches of medical work and of factory and sanitary inspection, some kinds of journalism, the teaching of almost all girls and of little boys, to say nothing of the wide field of manual and domestic occupations which fall specially to the woman’s share. Large fields of philanthropic and social work are their own special domain, but these are usually unpaid. There is plenty in truth for women to do, but not enough remunerative work ‘to go round,’ as the saying is. Happily, the working life of many women is short, since marriage or the claims of relations often bring it to a premature close, so that the terrible over-supply has not yet made itself too keenly felt. As yet the sufferers have been chiefly those of the old school who entered the arena unarmed for the fray, and have retired to swell the ranks of the ‘necessitous gentlewoman.’ But signs are not wanting that even the trained and the capable will soon have to suffer. Worst of all is the pressure in the teaching profession. The delight of the enthusiast and the child-lover, it is also, unfortunately, the refuge of the destitute and the one resource of the unimaginative. The girl who has diligently and successfully pursued her own studies without ever learning to take an initiative or to turn out of an appointed groove can contemplate no other way of spending her life than in passing on to others the knowledge she has herself acquired. If hers is a rich home, salary is no particular object. So she ruthlessly spoils the market for her poorer sisters, and takes the bread from another woman whose very existence depends on her earnings. Meantime the work in the home, among acquaintances, the poor, the friendless, the native town, those endless and varied fields of woman’s labour, remains undone. In preaching to our girls the nobility of work, some of us have forgotten to speak of its very highest branches. All honour to those noble women like Miss Clough who never did forget it!
This rush of all women in the same direction, this excessive individualism which has given rise to the cant phrase, ‘living one’s own life,’ is surely a stage through which we have to pass, but which need not remain permanently with us. Much may be done by mistresses at school to revive the dignity of home life, to check the untrue notion in the girls’ mind that no work is worthy of the name unless it is paid for in coin of the realm. Unpaid service is the pride of Englishmen; why should it not be honoured by Englishwomen? Still, for most service money is the fitting reward, and some measure of independence belongs by right to every adult, whether man or woman. Why do not more parents try to make life at home a worthy substitute for a professional career? Why not pay the daughter a fair salary for services rendered, that shall make her as independent in the matter of pocket-money and holidays as her college friend who is teaching or writing? Just as important is a certain liberty of action and a little room, no matter how small, where she can see her friends undisturbed and have things her own way. Those persons who are rich enough to leave their daughter a fair income at their death can surely afford to allow her these little indulgences in their lifetime. If she is some day to be thrown on the world penniless or with a mere pittance, then the sooner she sets to work the better. Whenever it is possible, parents should make up their minds, before a girl leaves school, what sum of money can be laid aside for her, either for immediate professional training or with a view to an income in the future. It is reasonable and right that a girl, like a boy, should choose her profession, provided the occupations of home are included among those that are paid and respected. If the growing independence of girls helps to bring about this change, the family too will benefit by this quiet revolution that has taken place in our midst. The Sturm und Drang period will pass away, and the time for the quiet harvest must succeed it. Enough, then, has been said by the devil’s advocate; it only remains to enter into the fruits of our Nineteenth Century Renaissance.