|In the remote age when I was a good little boy I remember being induced
to join a Dorcas meeting. Don't imagine that I ever so far forgot
the dignity of my sex as to sew or make little flannel petticoats and
baby-linen for the poor of the parish. The young ladies did that, and
we--myself and about ten other good little boys--were inveigled into
joining on the plea that while our sisters plied needle and thread we
could stick scraps into books and colour them, make toys, and perform
various other little feats of usefulness which would eventually benefit
the benighted Hottentots.
I know that when I had consented to join I was in agonies till the first
day of meeting arrived, and wondered to what I had committed myself; and
I remember to this day how very red I blushed when I arrived late and
found fifty other good little boys and girls assembled, all of whom
looked up and eyed me as though I was a natural curiosity, when the good
lady who directed the society said, 'This is little Master So-and-so,
who has come to help us in our good work.'
How I got past all those little girls I don't know, but I kept my eyes
fixed modestly on the ground, and at last found myself seated at a table
with about a dozen young gentlemen of my own age.
The elderly, good-hearted spinster who presided instantly deposited in
front of me a huge pot of paste, an empty book, and some old illustrated
papers. I guessed what she intended me to do, and I made wild efforts to
do it. I was informed that this book, when I had completed it, would be
sold at a bazaar for the benefit of the heathen.
I never ascertained what that book did fetch, but I know that it never
paid expenses. The mess that I got into with that paste, the way it
would get all over my fingers and on to my coat-sleeve, and all down me
and all over me--why, I wrecked a whole suit, which in my vanity I put
on new, at a single sitting. That was my first introduction to scissors
and paste, and I took an intense dislike to them..
I quote the reminiscence because this article is to be all about a 'B'
meeting; and when I first heard of a 'B' meeting I made sure it must be
something like a Dorcas meeting, where everybody was a busy bee, and did
work for the poor.
I had not had a very long experience before I found out that it was
something not half so pleasant as the scrap-book and flannel petticoat
society of my youth.
A 'B' meeting is held under the auspices of the School Board, to hear
the reasons parents may have to give why they should not be summoned
to appear before a magistrate for neglecting to send their children to
school.
Here is an exact reproduction of the Notice B left with the parents,
which brings them to the meeting I am about to describe:
[By-laws.] [Form No. 13.]
NOTICE.--FORM B.
The Elementary Education Acts, 1870, 1873, and 1876.
SCHOOL BOARD FOR LONDON.
Notice to attend before Divisional Committee.
...........Division.
May 30, 1883.
To Mr. Bridge, 2, Smith's Court.
Take Notice, that you have been guilty of a breach of the law in that
your child Robert has not duly attended school, and you are hereby
invited to attend at George Street School on Wednesday, the 6th day of
June, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon precisely, to state any excuse you
may have, and to show cause why you should not be summoned before a
magistrate and fined.
Dated this 31st day of May, 1883.
(Signed)...............
Officer of the School Board for London.
Few persons who have not actual experience of the lives of the poorest
classes can have any conception of the serious import to them of the
Education Act. Compulsory education is a national benefit. I am one of
its stoutest defenders, but it is idle to deny that it is an Act which
has gravely increased the burthens of the poor earning precarious
livelihoods; and as self-preservation is the first law of nature, there
is small wonder that every dodge that craft and cunning can suggest is
practised to evade it.
In many cases the payment of the fees is a most serious difficulty.
Twopence or a penny a week for each of four children is not much, you
may say; but where the difference between the weekly income and the rent
is only a couple of shillings or so, I assure you the coppers represent
so many meals. The Board now allows the members to remit fees in cases
of absolute inability to pay them, and the remission of fees is one of
the principal items of business at a 'B' meeting.
Again, many of the children who are of school age are of a wage-earning
age also, and their enforced 'idleness,' as their parents call it, means
a very serious blow to the family exchequer. Many a lad whose thick
skull keeps him from passing the standard which would leave him free to
go to work, has a deft hand, strong arms, and a broad back--three
things which fetch a fair price in the labour market. As I will show you
presently, from the actual cases which come before the 'B' meeting, the
hardship of making boys and girls stop at school who might be earning
good money towards their support is terrible. Often these children are
the _sole_ bread-winners, and then the position is indeed a hard nut for
the kind-hearted official to crack.
After the children have passed a certain standard the officials have the
power of granting 'half-time'; that is to say, the boys and girls can
earn money so many days a week, and come to school for the remainder.
'The halftime grant' is another feature of the 'B' meeting.
The worst duty of the official who presides is to authorize the
summoning before a magistrate of the parents who cannot or will not send
their children regularly. The law leaves him no option. All children
must come unless illness or some equally potent excuse can be urged, and
if they don't the parent must appear before a magistrate, who, if the
case is made out, is bound by the law to impose a fine. I will endeavour
to show you, as the meeting progresses, a few of the parents who
thoroughly deserve the penalty.
A 'B' meeting is held in the upstairs room of one of the Board Schools.
The summoned parents wait in a huge crowd outside. They come in one by
one to be disposed of. The president of the meeting sits with the book
before him, in which the cases to be heard are fully entered up. Beside
him sits the Board official, the inspector of officers, who advises him
on little points of School Board law, and who marks the papers which are
to be returned to the School Board officer 'in charge of the case' to be
acted upon.
Standing round the room are the School Board officers of the different
divisions in the district. They are familiar with the history and
circumstances of every one who comes into the little room, and they
supply confirmation or contradiction as the necessity arises.
Somewhere or other in the scene my friend and I stand. We are accepted
by the parents who come and go as part and parcel of the 'Inquisition,'
and some care is necessary in executing our descriptive task, for
this class is very great on the rights of property; and more than one
energetic dame, if she knew she was being 'noted' by an unauthorized
interloper, would return the compliment with interest.
'The short and simple annals of the poor, here related in their own
words, will induct the reader into the mysteries of 'How they live'
far more thoroughly than I could do did I fill pages with my own
composition; so, silence, pray, and let the 'B' meeting commence.
Here is a lady who very much objects to being summoned.
'What bizerness 'as he to summings me,' she says, pointing to the
officer, 'just cus my boy ain't bin fur a week? He's 'arsh and harbitury,
that's what he is.'Arsh and harbitury! D'ye think I ain't got anything
to do without a-trapesin' down here a-losin' my work? I tell ye what it
is----'
The chairman mildly interposes: 'My good lady----'
'Don't good lady me. I ain't a lady. If I was you daren't treat me like
it, you daren't; it's only because I'm----'
'My good woman, will you allow me to say one word?'
'Oh--yes--certainly--if you've got anything to say--go on.'
Thus encouraged, the chairman points out to the voluble lady that her
son has not been to school for a fortnight.
'Well, it's all through the boots.'
'Boots!' says the chairman; 'why, that was what you said last time, and
we gave you an order on a shoemaker for a pair.'
The woman acknowledges this is so. Some charitable people have started a
fund to let a few bad cases have boots, and this truant has been one of
the first recipients.
'I know you was kind enough to do that,' says the mother, 'but they 'urt
him, and he can't wear 'em.'
Here the officer who has brought the lady up before the Board tells
_his_ story.
'The boy had a decent pair of boots supplied him, sir; but Mrs. Dash
went back to the shop with him, and said they weren't good enough--she
wanted a pair of the best the man had in stock, and made such a noise
she had to be put out.'
'Which, beggin' your pardon,' strikes in the angry lady, 'it's like your
imperence to say so. They 'urt the boy, they 'did, and he haves tender
feet, through his father, as is dead, being a shoemaker hisself.'
The officer chimes in again, 'If he can play about the streets all day
in the boots, Mrs. Dash, they can't hurt him very much.'
'My boy play about the streets! Well, of all the oudacious things as
ever I' erd! And as to his comin' to school, he's a beautiful little
scholard now, and he ain't got no more to learn.'
Eventually the 'beautiful little scholard,' who was waiting outside, was
sent for.
He confessed that the boots didn't hurt him, and Mrs. Dash was informed
that if he didn't forthwith attend she would be summoned.
With much difficulty Mrs. Dash was induced to retire, and her place was
taken by a burly man covered with grime from a forge, or something
of the sort, who looked the personification of fierceness and
stony-heartedness. His daughter had not been to school lately, and he
was asked to account for her absence.
There was a moment's pause. We expected an oath or a volley of abuse.
Instead of that the man's lips trembled a moment, then his eyes filled
with tears, and one rolled slowly down each grimy cheek.
In a choking voice he gasped out, 'I am very sorry, sir, but I've had a
little trouble.'
'Dear me!' says the chairman, slightly staggered at the unusual display
of emotion; 'I am sorry for that. What sort of trouble?'
'Well, sir, it ain't a pleasant thing to talk about'--sob--'but my
wife'--sob--'she's left me, sir'--sob--'gone away with another man.'
Here the poor fellow broke down utterly and sobbed like a child. Then
he drew a dirty rag from his pocket, and rubbed and rubbed it round his
eyes till there was a white ring about them that looked like a pair of
spectacles.
The effect was ludicrous, but no one smiled. The audience, as they say
in theatrical notices, was visibly affected.
The man stammered out his tale bit by bit. His wife had left him with
four little children. He had to go out to work, and his daughter he
had to keep away from school to look after them. She had to be 'little
mother' in the deserted home.
I wondered what the woman was like, and if she had any idea of the
genuine love for her that welled up in this honest fellow's heart. As I
watched the tears flow down his grimy face, I couldn't help thinking how
many a noble dame would like to know that her absence from the domestic
hearth would cause grief as genuine as this.
Under the painful circumstances the excuse was accepted; the 'little
mother' was allowed a short holiday till the betrayed husband had time
to make other arrangements, and he left the room murmuring his thanks
and mopping his eyes.
'Mrs. Smith,' calls out the Board official, taking the next case down on
the list for hearing, and a young girl of about fifteen, with a baby in
her arms and a child of five clinging to her skirts, enters the room and
seats herself nervously on the extreme edge of the chair.
'You're not Mrs. Smith, my dear,' says the chairman, with a smile.
'No, sir; that's mother.'
'Oh, you've come for her, eh? These boys, Thomas and Charles, who have
been absent for three weeks, are your brothers, I suppose?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, my dear, they ought to come, you know. What's the reason?'
'Please, sir, they're at work.'
'But they've not passed the Fourth Standard.'
'I know, sir; but they've got a job, and it's four shillings a week
each, and that's all I've got to keep us.'
'All _you've_ got, my dear? Where's your father?'
The girl colours a little and hesitates. The School Board officer steps
forward to the table and helps her.
'It's a very painful case, sir,' he says. 'The father's been living with
another woman--left his family. A fortnight ago the mother met him and
asked him for some money. He knocked her down, and she fell and cut her
head open. She's in St. Thomas's Hospital--not expected to live. The man
was taken up, and he's under remand now, and this girl has to look after
the entire family.'
'I see,' says the chairman; 'and Thomas and Charles are giving you their
money, eh? and that's all you've got?'
'Yes, sir. I can't work myself, because I've got the baby and the others
to look after.'
'Well, my dear,' says the chairman, 'I am very sorry for you, but your
brothers can only have half-time or come back to school.'
The girl says nothing, she is only fifteen, and can't argue it out with
the gentleman--so she curtseys and is ushered out. I wonder, if the
mother dies and the father gets a long term of imprisonment, what the
fate of the family will be?
I have said that the hardships entailed upon the poor by the Education
Act are numerous. Let me quote a few statistics gleaned from the papers
which I turn over on the chairman's desk by his kind permission.
They are cases in which the parents apply to have the fees remitted
because they cannot afford to pay them.
1. Mrs. Walker. 7 children of school age; fee 2d. a week each. Total
earnings of entire family, 10s. Rent, 5s. 6d. Husband once good
mechanic, lost employment through illness and deafness. Parish relief
none. Character good. Is now a hawker--sells oranges and fish. Children
half-starved. When an orange is too bad to sell they have it for
breakfast, with a piece of bread.
2. Mr. Thompson. 5 children of school age. Out of work. No income
but pawning clothes and goods. Rent, 4s. Wife drinks surreptitiously.
Husband, good character.
3. Mrs.-----. 5 children of school age; widow. Earnings, 6s. Rent, 3s.
Her husband when alive was a Drury Lane clown. Respectable woman; feels
her poverty very keenly.
4. Mr. Garrard. 8 children of school age; two always under doctor. No
income. Pawning last rags. Rent, 5s. 6d. No parish relief. Starving.
Declines to go into workhouse.
I could multiply such instances by hundreds. These, however, will
suffice to show how serious a burden is added to the lives of the very
poor by the enforced payment of school fees. As a rule they are remitted
for very good and sufficient reasons.
How these people live is a mystery. It is a wonder that they are not
found dead in their wretched dens, for which they pay a rent out of all
proportion to their value, by dozens daily. But they live on, and the
starving children come day after day to school with feeble frames
and bloodless bodies, and the law expects them to learn as readily
as well-fed, healthy children, and to attain the same standard of
proficiency in a given time.
It is these starving children who are not allowed to earn money towards
their support until they are thirteen, and in many cases fourteen. Less
necessitous children, as a rule, pass out of school earlier, for reasons
which will be obvious to anyone who reflects for a moment upon the
relationship of a healthy brain to a healthy body.
In another chapter we shall hear a few more personal narrations at a
'B' meeting. I will conclude this one with a story of a young gentleman
whose excuse for non-attendance is at least dramatic. He has been absent
for six weeks, and his mother explains, 'It's all along of 'is aven a
reg'lar engagement at the Surrey Pantermine, and there hev been so many
matynees.'
'He's on the Surrey, is he?' says the chairman.
'Perhaps that's the reason he can't pass the Standard!'
We see the joke and chuckle, but the boy doesn't. Evidently his
pantomime training has been thrown away upon him.