FREE GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS.
OUR columns have been open during the last few weeks to an interesting correspondence bearing on Entrance- Scholarships, and on the means by which secondary and tech- nical education may be rendered accessible not only to the great mass of the community, but especially to those of- the poor who evince merit, and whom it is desirable, in the public interest and in their own, to encourage in the pursuit of further knowledge at school. To the conclusions which most candid readers will have formed, especially after reading the letters of Dr. Abbott, of Mr. Haslam, and of others who possess practical knowledgeaf the subject, it is superfluous to add much. It is evidently easy, without any vicious or exciting system of com- petition, for a skilled examiner to select, even from .among young children, the scholars of most promise. And it is equally certain that so far from the poor being placed ata dis- advantage in such an examination, the well-instructed child in a public elementary school is, of all others,-the most likely to succeed. It has been stated on authority that of the candidatesfor open scholarships in the Birmingham Grammar-School, those. who come from the elementary schools are more frequently successful than others in the proportion of three to two; and similar testimony has been given from many other places. We have examined a considerable number of the schemes which have recently become law under the operation of the Endowed Schools Act, and we find in nearly all of them, pro- visions of two kinds,—(1) free admissions or scholarships tenable in the school ; and (2), exhibitions upwards, to enable the most successful pupils in the school to proceed either to one of a higher grade, to a university, or to some place of profes- sional instruction. And in the case of- a considerable number of these schemes, in which the endowment appears to have been originally designed for the special use of the poor as a class, we have observed a further provision requiring the whole or a part of the entrance scholarships to be given preferentially to bond fide scholars in the public elementary schools, or to be awarded on the result of the ordinary examination by the Inspector of such schools.
But assuming that a 'nexus between the primary and the secondary education is thus provided, either by endowments, or where they are lacking, by such voluntary efforts as. have recently been made, the further questions occur, where are the secondary schools into which the scholarship shall be carried, how are they to be created where they do not exist, and on what footing are they to be placed? And one of our corre- spondents, Mr. Crosskey, of Birminghami makes the bold sug- gestion that it would be well to revert to the old Free Gram- mar-School system, and (apparently) to admit all corners gratuitously into the secondary schools, simply on passing an entrance examination. To those who know how deeply the Free Grammar-School system has been discredited, and how emphatic and unanimous was the evidence given against its continuance, less than ten years ago, in the Schools Inquiry Report, this suggestion is somewhat startling. That it should come, if at all, from Birmingham, is, however, in some mea- sure intelligible. That town happens to possess an unusually rich grammar-school, and it has also given birth to a powerful party, which, having propounded the theory that all primary instruction should be gratuitous, would doubt- less find a great difficulty removed out of its way, if secondary instruction could be made gratuitous also. It is important therefore to inquire how the realisation of this vision could become possible. And this is mainly an economic question. Assume that the cost-price of a thorough secondary education, ranging, as it probably would, from about £5 per scholar in the third grade and in the technical schools, to £20 or £25 in the schools which were officered by men of the highest academic qualifications, may be set down at an average of £10 per head, and that such instruction ought to be placed within the reach of all boys and girls who desire to prolong their school-life be- yond the age of thirteen, which is the practical limit of in- struction in the primary school. Accept, also, the low estimate that two per cent. of the entire population represents the
number who at any given time would need and desire such in- struction. It is not difficult to estimate from these data the number and the cost of the secondary schools which would require to be furnished. Now, the only possible resources for such a provision are a Government subsidy, the fees paid by parents, and the endowments. The first is at present and is likely long to remain out of the question. The second, it appears, Mr. Crosskey would like to dispense with. There remains only the third ; and as the educational endowments are often spoken of for controversial purposes, as if they formed a perfectly boundless store of wealth for this purpose, it may be well to examine the facts, in order that we may indulge in no illusion on this point.
The Schools Inquiry Commission reported that, excluding the nine great public Schools, there were in all 782 endowed foundations in England and Wales, which appeared to be or to have been reputed as grammar-schools ; and that their united annual income was £195,184, with an addition of £14,264 per annum in the shape of exhibitions more or less attached to the schools, and available for one of the Universities. Of these 782 foundations, eight only (Birmingham being one) enjoy incomes exceeding £2,000.; thirteen have incomes inferior to these, but exceeding £1,000 ; fifty-five others possess revenues of £500 upwards, 222 have less than £500 and more than £100, while all the rest, including considerably more than half of the total number, are endowed with less than £100 a year.. Hence it is easy to infer what the demand for the resuscitation of the Free Grammar-School system really means. It means that in only 21 schools in all England it shall be possible to receive gratuitously 100 boys, and to give them an education worth £10 per head. It means that all the schools with less than £500 a year shall continue feeble as before, either under-officered and with teachers miserably under- paid, or else restricted to so few scholars that there shall be no proper emulation or intellectual life. It means that nothing shall be done by means of the endowments to place higher in- struction within the reach of girls, since it is very doubtful whether any of the founders contemplated their admission, and it is certain that a considerable number of them absolutely prohibited it. Finally, it means that, at least in nineteen im- portant centres of population out of twenty, since there is no endowment rich enough to supply a free grammar-school, there shall be no public secondary school at all, until that very remote period when Parliamentary aid, to the extent of an enormous sum per annum, can be invoked for the purpose of making such schools universal.
. On the other hand, if the recommendations of the Schools Inquiry Commission be carried out, and endowments are used to supplement and regulate, rather than to supersede the fee- paying system, the capacity of an educational endowment for usefulness becomes enormously increased. A free grammar- school, e.g., with £150 a year and an ancient building, could maintain, under the old system, one master, with a wretched income, and no prospect of improving it, who might in the most favourable circumstances give gratuitous instruction to twenty boys. In old days, a scholar, and not unfrequently a clergyman, would accept such a post, though in these times few respectable national schoolmasters would take it. But if the same sum be divided into three parts, of which the first is set aside to maintain the fabric and furniture, the second as a small, fixed stipend to the master independently of his fees, and the third to provide five free scholarships worth £10 each, and offered as a reward of merit to promising scholars from the schools below, a fee of £10 each being charged to the non-founda- tioners, who form the rank and file of the school, the institution has in it all the elements of development, grows stronger and richer as it increases in numbers, and becomes useful, not merely to the free boys, but to the entire community. For the non- foundationers, though paying nearly the full market value of the education they receive, derive substantial benefits, such as an unendowed and purely private establishment could not give. They share to the full the great advantage of a good and appropriate building, and whatever of historic and ancient renown may belong to the foundation ; they are taught by well- qualified teachers, who are removable, if they cease to be effi- cient ; and there is for all the scholars of such a school the supervision of a body of governors, largely chosen by the public, and responsible to it. These advantages can be given to an unlimited number of paying pupils, because every such pupil brings an addition to its resources. The foundationers, too, who mix on terms of honourable equality with the rest, are in a much better intellectual atmosphere than if they were confined to a small school entirely composed of free scholars
like themselves; and the teachers, who have a strong interest in attracting paying pupils, have with it obviously a motive to make the school as good as it can be made.
Even in Birmingham, which is exceptionally rich in an endowment of some £15,000 a year, and which happens to possess nearly the only grammar-school in the country which is at this moment absolutely gratuitous, and at the same time giving a really liberal education, the number of boys and girls requiring higher instruction than that afforded in the elemen- tary schools ought considerably to exceed 1,500, which is the utmost limit of the capacity of the foundation on the free system. And in every other town in England the difficulty is far graver, and the problem how to get the maximum of edu- cational advantage out of a limited educational endowment proves to be wholly incapable of solution in the compendious and easy fashion suggested by Mr. Crosskey. If the educational foundations were worth five millions a year instead of one- twenty-fifth of that sum, there might be some reason in a pro- posal to place gratuitous secondary education at• the disposal of all-comers. But if a town has a grammar-school with £200 a year, and at the same time 500 scholars wanting the sort of instruction such a school was designed to give, a limitation in the number of free admissions is inevitable. And the only practical question is, on what principle should the limited number of free scholars be selected ? If the first-comers in a few favoured towns are enabled, merely on the ground of their birth or residence, to absorb the whole benefit of the endowments, the schools will, as before, be bad, poverty-stricken, and restricted in their use- fulness to a very small number. It is manifestly far better that the schools should, first, be made so good as to draw to them a large majority of paying scholars, and then that the free educa- tion available for the minority should be reserved for those who evince special ability, and who have the power and oppor- tunity to make the best use of it. On this method it becomes possible not only to modernise and multiply good secondary schools on ancient foundations, however poor, but also to make every little non-educational endowment—such as apprentice or dole funds—if found to be locally useless, the means of establish- ing a new and valuable school. This seems, as far as we can gather, to be the principle on which the Endowed Schools Acts have been administered, and in virtue of which the country is being gradually covered with good middle and upper schools, both for boys and girls. The reorganisation of the whole secondary education of England by an economical and wise use of the endowments becomes reasonably probable, if this prin- ciple be kept in view. It would become hopelessly impossible if the Free Grammar-School system were restored to life.
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