SCHOLARSHIPS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—A letter in the Spectator of September 27th from the vicar of Plumstead revived my contention of July 26th in your columns that to offer scholarships in secondary schools to elementary school pupils under prevailing conditions has proved largely in practice a sorry farce. I pointed out that the absence of any adequate provision and allowance for suit- able clothes, travelling expenses, and, in many cases, for most necessary dinners (supplied free of cost under due inquiry and other safeguards in the elementary schools) are handicaps that operate inevitably to this barren result. Mr. Harold Gray pointed out that the Edgehill Memorial House, 26 Longton Grove, Sydenharn, S.E., represents a serious attempt to meet this clamant need in South London, and to-day there reaches me a letter from the headmaster of an important elementary school in the following terms : "I wish an Edgehill House could be started for East London. One of my 1911 scholarship boys has just lost his scholarship. He was a most able boy, but his drunken home prevented home lessons being done, and so he got into a ' don't care' attitude, truanted, and lost his scholarship." I commend this stark narrative to the attention of those practical educationists who have ears to hear and
eyes to see the whole matter in just perspective. Another letter on the subject, I would add, mentioned that through this short-sighted parsimony a certain headmaster had been forced to invoke " charity " to enable three out of four of his "scholarship boys " to take advantage of their opportunities ! Surely the whole matter deserves to be placed on a more statesmanlike basis by the creation of a public "maintenance fund " or otherwise.—I am, Sir, &c.,
FLEETWOOD H. WILLIAMS,
Doninglon House, General Secretary, National Asso-
ciation of Old Scholars' Clubs.
Norfolk Street, Strand, W.C. October 15th, 1913.
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