Morning journal and courier., 1892-10-10

ENGLISH SCHOOL TEACHERS.

ENGLISH SCHOOL TEACHERS.
Their Work and Pay, With a GIs,c.
at John Bulbs EdueatiopaI S,.,.n
-"hat the Public Schools are No.
Ing for the People.
LONDON, Sept. 20.
Tothe Editor Of the JOURNAL AND CouRrKR.
The adult teachers employed in the pub.
lie elementary schools of England and
Wales are returned at about SEVENTY. FIVE
thousand, and we take 1t for granted that
all Americans who are interested in hu-
man progress will be glad to enlarge their
Information as to the work done by these
British educators and how they are paid
for 1t. Popular education is thing of re-
cent origin over here. Prior to 1870 the
board school was unknown, all the train
ing possible to the children of the masses
being wholly, before that time, in the
hands of the church or at the discretion of
private individuals. But in the year indi-
Gated marvellous advance was made
Not only were school boards instituted,
with liberal provision for their msinte-
nance by grants from the state, but in
creased grants of money and various other
incentives to enterprise were offered to
private and denominational schools, and,
in fact, the entire educational machinery
OF the country WAS overhauled, with the
object of shaping it, as far as seemed
practicable at that time, after the best
models afforded in Europe and the United
States. Since then ''the schoolmaster has
been abroad" in old England in a fashion
quite beyond anything Lord Brougham
could have known when he first used that
phrase. 1lliteracy, which was disgrace
fully common before, is now rapidly dis
appearing. The elections sfford a good
test of the progress along this line. A
polling clerk in one of the poorest dis
tricts in London expressed to us his de-
lighted amszement that in a vote of near
ly two thousand at the last election the
ballots cast by those who could not read
or write were only about fifty. In the
Strand division there were only twenty
seven illiterates out of 6,S9s voters; in
North Hackney only nineteen out of 4 All,
with similar evidences of improvement
both in town and country all over the ma
ton, not excepting even Suffolk and Cam
bridgeshire, although these counties at
present stand lowest in the list.
Another gratifying result of this exten-
sion of school privileges to the masses is
a marked diminution in the number of
criminals. On the assumption that the
public schools of England give only
little education, which is all that can be
reasonably expected from them, the old
saying that "a little knowledge is a dan
gerous thing" is completely refuted by
the criminal statistics of Great Britain.
Since 1869 the population has increased
by about seven millions, but notwith-
standing this, juvenile offenders against
the law, while they numbered in that
year about ten thousand, have decreased
at a steady annual rate until now the
average per year is only about four thou
sand. And the proportionste falling of
has been almost as great amongst the
worst classes of adult offenders In 1869,
year which will be ever memorable ss
that which marked the end of the old
school regime, the number of persons in
custody under senterca Of penal seryi-
rude was IL GEO; III 1891. after twenty
one years of the lat, w. E. Focs;er's
elementary education act, it was ). .3Si
In 1869 the number of persons impris-
"ned was II $40; in 1890 IL was only o.
PAP; that, too, spite OF the seven millions
increase in the number Of possible csndi-
dates for this distinction.
After this showing one Is quite pre-
pared for the exhibition of progress
which the schools themselves afford. In
1869 the pupils enrolled were less than a
million. In 1870 the state grants provi-
ded for ], SIS 5S4 children, or for about
s. 15 per cent. of the population, where
as in 1891 there was school accommoda-
ton enough for 62S, 201 pupils, which
is equivalent to 10 S5 per cent. of the
population as it is to day During the
same time, too, has the government grant
increased steadily from year to year, un-
til, from having been only about five
million dollars in 1869, it amounts now
to an annual sum of more than twenty
millions. There has also been an un-
broken trend of Improvement during this
time in the curriculum of these elemen-
tsry schools, as well a. in the standard
of scholarship amongst the teachers.
There are numerous schools now whose
head masters write the snfix ~ A. af-
ter their names; and this, it will be re-
membered, carries more weight than in
the United States, because, for the gene
rality of students, it is much harder to
obtain. There Is an elementary school in
Cambridge which has in il, We are tod,
three or four teachers who have tsksn q
university degree, and We are assured by
those we'll up in educational matters that
it will probably not be a great while be-
fore, in all urban schools, the acquisition
by the master of badge of scholarship
like this will be universal condition of
his employment.
The most recent evidences of improve
ment In English elementary schools are the
abolition, to a large extent, of the pay
ment of school pence by the pupils, and q
change in the form of inspection which
virtually abolishes the old "push and cram
system" in preparing for examinations.
Formerly the pupils in schools sharing in
the state grant could be assessed from
three to nine pence a week at the discre-
ton of those in charge. Now those
schools which are willing to forego this
source of revenue, or to modify 1t in prop
er ratio, are paid by the state an extra ten
shillings per annum for each pupil in at
tendance, and in the msjority of schools
this effort OF the government to make eau-
cation free to the children of the masses
| has been cheerfully acquiesced in. The
other change referred to affects the basis
on which the state grant is appOrtioned-
For many years each scholar WAS examined
| individually, aud the amount Of money re-
ceived by the school depended largely upon
| the individual passes. This was hard on
the children, and, with their own pay de-
| pending somewhat on the results, it was
very hard on the teachers. Happily this
has now been so changed that q school is
| judged aud rewarded upon its merits con-
| siaered as a whole, a system which proves
| to be a great boon to snIions pedsgogues
| and a great relief to dull aud lazy pupils.
All schools share equally in the govern
ment grant, whether controlled by school
boards or otherwise; and this means that
| under the peculiar educational system of
/ England the majority Of the schools shsr-
| ing in this grant are not board schools at
| all, but are church and denominational
/ schools, amongst the latter being fair
proportion belonging to the Roman Catho-
| lies. The only conditions imposed are that
certain branches shall be Taught, that not
more than nine pencs a week shall be
charged for tuition, that the schools shall
be open to her msjesty's inspectors, that
| instruction shall cover given number of
hours per day and days per year, and that
| within the hours specified there shall be
| no infringement of the rights of con-
| science by forcing upon the pupils any
teaching that is distinctly religious. Com
| plying with these requirements any ele-
mentsry school in the realm may claim its
share of government help, and the number
of day schools thus assisted in England
| and Wales last year was 10, 535.