The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-01-20 00:00:00

MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND MR. MM.
DELLA ON EDUCATION.

A new Board School was opened on Monday in
Icknield•street, Birmingham, by Mr. Mundella, the
Vice-President of the Council on Education. The
school is built upon the class-room system, accommo-
dation for 870 children being afforded in the class-
rooms independent of the central hall. The cost of
the building, including fittings, is 2-10,700. The
company invited to take part in the opening ceremony
was composed mainly of members of the Board and
the head masters and mistresses of the various schools.
Mr. Mundell& having been escorted over the building
by the chairman of the Board, Mr. George Dixon,
was briefly introduced to the company in the central
hall.

Mr. Dixon said the school they were about to open
was the 2gth new school that had been erected by the
Board and he must call Mr. Mundella's attention to
the fact that probably in no large town in England
was there so large—certainly there was no larger—
proportion of new schools.
Mr. Mundella, after referring to the circumstances
of his invitation, said there was no town in England—
one, perhaps, excepted—that had such a task before
it as Birmingham had when the Education Act
was passed. Great as was their zeal for educa-
tion, great as was their reputation for sacrifice
and earnest efforts, noble as many of their institutions
were, the state of elementary education in Birming-
ham was something appalling when the Education
Act was passed. (Hear, hear.) He was glad to find
they were doing so much to overtake the deficiency.
He wished to say how much he rejoiced to find a
school in Birmingham erected on a principle which
he had always advocated. He was convinced they
would come to the class-room system at last. At the
same time he was glad to see the Icknield-street School
a model, not of ornamental art, but rather of severity
and simplicity, while admirably adapted for the work.
Mr. Mundells then described a magnificent public
elementary school which he visited at Lucerne, erected
at a coat of £25,000. The school offered accommodation
for 300 boys, and the heaviest ratepayers of Lucerne
told him they were all proud of it and that the edncation
rate cost them about half their entire taxation. Having
regard to the present state of public opinion in Eng-
land, however, he was glad that the School Board of
Birmingham had been cautious and economical, because
lavish expenditure on the appliances of education in
this country was contrary to the interests of education
and calculated to create a reaction in the minds of the
ratepayers. He hoped that-the day would come when
the people of Birmingham and of every town of Eng-
land would feel such pride in their schools that they
would do something to beautify them. Turning to the
class•room scheme his own impression was that the
Birmingham Board would find it a little more expen-
sive in teaching. But it was the truest possible
economy after, all, for it would economize the time,
strength, energy, and temper of the teachers and also
the efforts of the children. If there Was anything im-
portant to this country at the present moment it was
that our teachers should have their hearts in their
work and be thoroughly up to their werk and contented
with it. The profession of pupil•te,acher Was begin-
ning to be regarded with greater respect. 'lt wat,nbw
looked upon as a high profession, and he believed that
year as the nation became better educated, the teachers
would be better appreciated and he hoped better. re-
munerated.

In the evening a public meeting was held in the
Town-hail, under the presidency of the Mayor, Mr.
W. White. There was a large attendanee.
Mr. Mundella, who was received with cheers, said
he should invite the meeting to a general review of our
national progress in education. In that great mid-
land metropolis he should not indulge the politics
or polemics of education. He wai grateful to every-
body who had done anything for the cause of
education, by whatever name they might be called or
to whatever section of the community they belonged,
or however humble their services. It was only after
tremendous opposition that Parliament made its first
grant of £30,000 for education. Later came the
system of grants in aid, which appealed to the volun•
troy zeal of the country, and that zeal nobly responded.
Still, there was no room for boasting of what had been
done, for no man who had occupied a responsible pod-
tion in this country for the past half century had reason
to boast of his services in swiped of education. It
was fifteen years ago that day since he stood on a
platform at a great educational conference in the
Manchester Town-hall. That became the first departure
of the agitation for compulsory education. The pro-
position for universal compulsion was received by the
political leaders present with bated breath. They were
aghast at the proposal, and declared that the conference
would be ruined, However, the proposal was carried,
and within two years of that time the Education Act
of 1870, establishing the principle of compulsion, was
passed, within four years compulsion was applied to
the whole of Sco•land, and within 12 years the Eng-
lish people, through their representati Ls, had volun-
tarn"- adopted compulsion. Before the end of the 13th
year he (Mr. Mundella) was Vice-President of the
Council, and had carried ra Act extending compul-
sion throughout Great Britain. More than that, there
was not a dissentient voice in either House of Perlis-
ment. Compulsion was not due to the middle classes
or the magistrates—they were the greatest obstacles to
it—but to the working classes, who had shown
themselves most loyal to the subject, which was an
honour to themselves and the country. The opposition
to the compulsory working of the Act always came from
the employer, the magistrate, and the ratepayer, and
not from the parent, He trusted that public opinion
would gradually overcome that op'position until educa-
tion should reach the humblest child and elevate him
to the position for which God intended him. To show
the educational destitution of this country at the time
the Education Act was passed, he might say that in
1870 there were places in public eleinefitaey schools for
1,878,000 children, while in 1862 the number of places
was 4,538,000. l'he number of children on the register
in 1870 was 1,693,000, and in 1882 4,190,000. The
average attendance was 1,152,000 in 1870, and in 1882
3,015,000. Every year, too, the number on the register
-increased about 150,000, but there were still 700,000
children not on the rolls of public elementary schools,
and for these they had to provide plecee in the schools,
or, rather, fer about half a million, as there were prob-
ably 100,000 in private schools. The increase in
the quality of the education, too, was marvellous,
the number presented for examination in the lower
standards having increased by 411 per cent., and in
the upper standards by nearly 12 per cent. If Eng-
land had adopted compulsory education when Prusaie,
Switzerland, and Seemly did, what an England it
would have been to day. After referring to the pro-
gress of education on the Continent and in America,
and the subjects taught in the Board Schools as com-
pared with the school work of a few years ago, the
right hon. gentleman concluded by congratulating
Birmingham upon its educational institutions, by
means of which the educational ladder was complete
frem the gutter to the Univers tee Let them not rest
satisfied until, in the words of the most eloquent of
Englishmen, John Bright, every child in their border
should be trained in the love of virtue, the love of
truth, and the love of God. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. Chamberlain also addressed the meeting. He
advised the friends of sectarian education not to revive
their claims at present, and paid that since the pass-
hag of the Education Act the school accennmodation
had increased 148 per cent., but the attendance in-
creased 170 per cent. He also advocated a universal
system of free education, and concluded by saying :—ln
France education owed much of its present position to
that great Republican who had just died, and the pre-
mature termination ef whose illustrious career was
a loss, not for France only, but for the Liberal cause
throughout the world. (Cheers.) M. Garnbetta
made it a chief point in his-policy to draw a sharp
line of dietinotion between the Church and State in
all matters of education, and it was in that direction
that the thoughts of men and the actions of legis-
latures were constantly tending. With reference to
school fees and free schools, be said that so long as
the working classes were content to go on paying fees
for the education of their children as well as rates
and taxes, he did not know how any Government
could interfere, but he marvelled at the patience with
which English people bore the infliction which had
been abolished long ago in the United States, which
hardly existed at the present time in any English
colony, and had been removed in almost every Con-
tinental country. It made compulsion nnpopular, it
was unfair in its incidence and it burdened the poor
man, not in proportion to his means, but in propor-
tion to his wants. (Cheers.)