ENDOWMENTS FOR GIRLS
The history of endowed schools carries us far away into the misty realms
of the past, before ever the Conqueror set foot in England and put back
the clock of civilisation a hundred years. The earliest schools of which
we have any knowledge were attached to the chief collegiate churches,
where one officer would be specially told off to teach the boys, just as
another would conduct the singing. Convent and school or church and
school were invariably allied. The first separable school endowments
were merely assignments of a specific part of the general endowment for
the support of the chancellor or his deputy, the grammar school master.
Like the earliest colleges these schools were founded ‘for prayer and
study.’ The first person to reverse this order, and endow an independent
school, was William of Wykeham, when in 1393 he founded Winchester
College, to give free instruction to seventy poor boys, and so help them
to holy orders or the university. Thus the new school became ‘a
sovereign and independent corporation existing of, by and for itself,
self-centred, self-controlled.’ ‘To make education, and that education
not the education of clerics in theology or the canon law, the paramount
and pronounced object of an ecclesiastical institution, with all the
paraphernalia of Papal bull and royal and episcopal license, was no
small innovation. It was a new departure, which opened a new era in the
world of education, and therefore of thought.’[13] Later founders,
following in the steps of William of Wykeham, gave sums of money for the
training of youth in ‘grammar and good manners.’ Grammar meant Latin and
Greek, the ‘key to all the sciences’; the manners were to be those of a
true gentleman, ‘trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.’
Following on these came the schools of the Reformation age, of which the
most familiar example is Dean Colet’s foundation of St. Paul’s. These
were established or assisted by the gifts of ‘pious founders,’ or
sometimes by diverting old funds originally destined for other purposes.
Reading school was founded out of funds obtained by suppressing an
almshouse for poor sisters, and under Elizabeth made into a grammar
school ‘for educating the boys of the inhabitants of the said borough
and others in literature.’ Such schools were often placed under lay
control, but the clerical idea was still in the background. Not priests,
but ministers of the reformed religion, were needed, and learning became
even more essential for men who had to make knowledge take the place of
tradition.
The clerical purpose of most of these schools naturally tended to
exclude girls or make them of secondary importance. What place was
actually assigned to them in the 353 schools founded between the
accession of Henry VIII. and the death of James I. is a problem that
must be left to antiquarians. Certain it is that in the ensuing period
the education of both sexes was more on an equality, since the standard
was one of inferiority. An age of political disturbance was followed by
an epoch of frivolity. Learning fell into contempt. The foundations of
the eighteenth century were not grammar but charity schools, and though
girls were not forgotten, it was with the hope of training servants for
themselves that rich persons supported these schools. Not to give a
liberal training, but to teach the poor to ‘keep their proper station,’
was the aim of eighteenth century founders.
Thus it came about that the Schools’ Inquiry Commissioners found a
goodly number of girls in endowed schools of an elementary character,
which would hardly bear comparison with the poorest of our modern board
schools. While the King Edward Schools at Birmingham were giving 290
boys a classical and 300 a sound English education, none of these
benefits fell to girls. In the elementary schools of the same foundation
were 655 boys and 630 girls. At Christ’s Hospital, distinctly founded
for both sexes, there were but 18 girls as against 1192 boys. Perhaps
even the eighteen would have been better off elsewhere. They occupied a
part of the junior boys’ school at Hertford; they had one ward under the
charge of a nurse, their playground was a little over a quarter of an
acre, they took their walks abroad under care of the nurse, they had no
calisthenics or other physical training; their diet was bread and milk
for breakfast, bread, meat, potatoes, and porter for dinner, bread and
butter, milk and water for supper. There was no admission examination,
no leaving standard of attainment; they learned a little Scripture,
English (so-called), and History and Geography from abridgments. On
leaving, at about fifteen, most of them were apprenticed to business. It
did not prove easy to place them. No wonder!
A similar tale might be told of Bedford School. It was established in
1566 by Sir William Harpur and Dame Alice, his wife, ‘for the education,
institution, and instruction of children and youth in grammar and good
manners, to endure for ever.’ Did child mean ‘boy’ in the minds of the
founders? It seems uncertain; for, as the endowment increased in value
and some of it became available for purposes other than the free grammar
school, the interests of girls were also considered. At various periods
of the eighteenth century fresh uses were found for the surplus money,
and it is characteristic of the age that the feminine equivalent for a
sound education was a dowry. £800 a year was set aside for
marriage-portions for forty poor maids of the town of Bedford, to be
distributed by lot, provided that a successful candidate was married
within two calendar months of drawing the lot, and not to ‘a vagrant or
other person of bad fame or reputation.’ Naturally there was not much
difficulty about claiming the lot. Young men came from far and near to
woo the ‘maids of Bedford.’ Any residue was given to poor maid-servants
who had resided five years at Bedford and were married within a year.
The next addition was a hospital for boys and girls, an allotment of
£700 to apprentice fifteen boys and five girls, and almshouses for ten
old men and ten old women. Early in this century preparatory and
commercial schools were added; and girls were considered to the extent
of a foundation where the head-mistress received £80 per annum as
against the headmaster’s £1000. Which figures very eloquently sum up the
relative estimation in which girls’ and boys’ education was held before
1848.
The Schools’ Inquiry Commission had made it abundantly clear that the
educational endowments of the country needed overhauling. Not only had
many of them increased greatly in value, but the establishment of public
elementary schools was making the appropriation of endowments for
elementary schools unnecessary. Again, many free schools were giving a
liberal education to the sons of rich men. By the institution of even a
low fee considerable sums would become available for the improvement of
existing schools and the establishment of new ones. Then there were the
various charitable endowments left for special purposes which no longer
existed. In some cases money had been bequeathed to the poor in a
parish, and was simply used for the relief of the rates. In London alone
there were sums of £1500 a year given for the relief of poor prisoners
from debt. Among other out-of-date purposes were the ransom of Barbary
captives, the destruction of lady-birds in Cornhill, etc. In a certain
part of Worcestershire money had been left in 1620 for distributing
bread among the poor of seven parishes and, as a secondary purpose,
supporting a free grammar school, the surplus to be applied to repairing
the church and bridges, and increasing, if expedient, the salary of the
schoolmaster. By 1867 the total income had increased to £657, and was
applied to elementary schools and a free grammar school for fourteen
boys. In other cases money was left for doles; with the result that in a
certain parish, too richly endowed, extra waiters had to be put on at
the gin-shops for two weeks before and after the distribution. In fact
it was a case of money in the wrong place; education starving for want
of funds that were only doing mischief. The regulation of the
educational charities, and appropriation of those others which were
doing more harm than good, was becoming an urgent necessity. Some
changes had already been made under the Charitable Trusts Acts, but
these were a good deal limited in their operations, and a more
systematic reorganisation was undertaken under the Endowed Schools Act
of 1869. This appointed three commissioners for four years to inquire
into the endowments of England and Wales, and the first to hold this
office were Lord Lyttelton, Canon Robinson, and Arthur Hobhouse, Q.C. In
1874 this Commission was merged in the Board of Charity Commissioners
for England and Wales.
‘In framing schemes under this Act, provision shall be made as far as
conveniently may be for extending to girls the benefits of endowments.’
This clause is the Magna Charta of girls’ education, the first
acknowledgment by the State of their claim to a liberal education. This
result was in great part due to those same men and women who had brought
about the opening of the local examinations, and induced the Commission
to take cognisance of girls’ schools, and were striving, in face of all
opposition, to win something like a university education for girls. As
early as 1860 at the Social Science Congress Madame Bodichon had entered
a strong protest against the theory that boys’ education must be
assisted and girls’ self-supporting. ‘Magnificent colleges and schools,
beautiful architectural buildings costing thousands and thousands of
pounds, rich endowments all over England, have been bestowed by past
generations as gifts to the boys of the higher and middle class, and
they are not the less independent and not a whit pauperised.’ At first
this was but a voice crying in the wilderness, but the cry was taken up
first by a few supporters, then by the whole country, and at last the
_Times_, certainly not a revolutionary organ, declared that, ‘This
country is most abundantly and redundantly endowed for men and boys, as
if they were unable to take care of themselves, whereas there is
little—indeed nothing, we may almost say—for that which is
contemptuously called the weaker sex.’
An Association for Promoting the Application of Endowments to the
Education of Women was formed, and offered to assist trustees of schools
and other persons interested in education by supplying information and
suggesting plans whereby available funds might best be applied to the
education of women. It had a strong committee, which numbered among its
members Miss Davies, Miss Clough, and Miss Bostock, as well as Mr. Bryce
and Mr. Fitch, those constant and helpful supporters of all efforts to
improve the education of girls. At this time the needs of the middle
class seemed most urgent, since the State-aided schools were coming to
the aid of the very poor, and the rich could pay the high terms that
were then demanded by the better private schools. The immediate need
seemed to be for schools of the second or third grade, _i.e._ those
meant for girls who would leave school some time between fourteen and
seventeen, and might be expected to pay fees ranging from £4 to £10 per
annum.
Of such schools the first were founded out of the surplus revenues of
King Edward’s Schools at Birmingham. Here four schools of the second
grade were opened, each to accommodate about 160 pupils. These not only
filled at once, but had to refuse admission to 500 candidates. In 1870
the Grey Coat Hospital at Westminster was opened; but on the whole
progress was slow, and Mr. Roundell’s estimate in 1871 that there were
in England and Wales 225,000 girls waiting for secondary education was
probably not wide of the mark.
In that same year an event occurred of far-reaching importance. The
admirable institution so long associated with the name of Miss Frances
Buss was transformed into a public school for girls. Readers of her
interesting biography now realise, what had long been known to her
friends, with what a single mind and earnest devotion she had worked for
the cause nearest her heart—the establishment of public schools for
girls. As early as 1850, her own private school had been reconstituted
on public lines, with the help of the Rev. David Laing, one of the
promoters of Queen’s College, but her ambition was to make it public in
fact as well as in its methods. Attention had been drawn to her work by
her evidence before the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, and now some of its
members themselves came forward to help her. If ever a school could lay
claim to public aid, it was this one; and as soon as the enabling act
was passed, active measures were taken to secure for it an endowment.
With rare clear sight Miss Buss realised that a fully equipped school
can only be self-supporting by the sacrifice of either suitable
buildings, adequate salaries, or a scale of fees suited to the
neighbourhood. She wanted to organise a pioneer school in which none of
these good things should be lacking; nothing less than the best seemed
good enough. Her enthusiasm and confidence were not to go unrewarded. In
December 1870, a public meeting was held in the St. Pancras Vestry Hall,
to announce the formation of a trust for carrying on the existing
school, and starting another of a lower grade in connection with it. The
upper school thus constituted took the name of the North London
Collegiate, and in January 1871 removed with its two hundred pupils to
202 Camden Street, and at the same time the Lower or Camden School came
into existence. According to Miss Buss’s principle, the fees under the
new trust were calculated to meet current expenses only. The building
was to be provided from other funds, as was done in boys’ public
schools. A subscription list was opened, and every possible endeavour
made to win public support. These were anxious years for Miss Buss;
money came in slowly, and rather than abandon her principle she chose to
sacrifice her salary. Nor did she wait in vain; the excellent work of
the school won it recognition, and when in 1874 the Charity
Commissioners were called upon to dispose of the Platt Charity derivable
from property in St. Pancras, belonging to the Brewers’ Company, they
recommended that £20,000 be given to the North London Collegiate and
Camden Schools. Thus building funds were secured, afterwards
supplemented by a generous donation from the Clothworkers’ Company. The
scheme became law in 1875, and the two schools have continued since then
to work side by side as endowed schools of the first and second grade,
with different principals, but both under the superintendence of the
head-mistress of the upper school. This arrangement has proved most
valuable, as it promotes co-ordination instead of rivalry between the
two schools. In other places where two grades exist side by side, it is
not uncommon to find the lower one attempting with inadequate means to
imitate the upper. The special needs of the class attending it are then
neglected, and undue attention given to a few clever girls, for whom
leave is sometimes obtained to stay beyond the appointed age. At the
Frances Mary Buss Schools (as the two are now called in memory of their
founder), this danger is obviated by a good system of scholarships from
the lower to the upper.
At the Camden School girls may attend from seven to seventeen. The fees
range from £5, 2s. to £8 per annum. The subjects taught are the usual
English ones, with Class-Singing, Needlework, Drawing, and Book-keeping,
and the elements of Science. Special attention is given to theoretical
and practical Domestic Economy, and these classes receive assistance
from the London County Council. French is the only foreign language
taught. At the North London Collegiate, girls may attend between eight
and nineteen, the list of subjects is much wider, and selections have to
be made under the direction of the head-mistress. French, German, Latin
and Greek, are included in the curriculum, and the practical subjects
either omitted or reduced to a minimum. Since the work of the school is
directed to the London University Examinations and the Cambridge Higher
Locals, the course is necessarily laid out for girls who can stay long
enough to enter the upper forms, and perhaps proceed to college. The
fees range from £17, 11s. to £19, 14s. But girls over sixteen proceeding
from the lower to the upper school pay only £14, 8s. Many pass up by
means of scholarships.
These two schools with their thousand pupils, fine buildings, and noble
roll of honours won by old pupils stand pre-eminent among girls’
endowments. The principle that with a scale of fees adapted to meet
current expenses the endowment should provide buildings and scholarships
has been triumphantly vindicated by the Frances Mary Buss Schools.
Almost simultaneous with the endowment of these schools was the
appropriation of some part of the funds of the Bradford Grammar School,
‘to supply a liberal education for girls by means of a school or schools
within the borough of Bradford.’ Public opinion was, however, hardly
ripe for such a diversion of any large part of an old endowment, and
although, as Mr. Forster pointed out at the inaugural meeting, a charter
of Charles II. had assigned the land ‘for the better teaching,
instructing, and bringing up of children and youth,’ ‘which terms are of
common gender,’ the money assigned to the girls would not have been
sufficient to start the school, but for the generosity of the Ladies’
Educational Committee, which raised a sum of £5000 for purchasing the
buildings. Thus the Bradford Girls’ Grammar School came into being. The
fees are £12 to £15, 15s., and girls may stay till eighteen or nineteen.
It is thus technically of the first grade, and as such prepares the
pupils in the highest class for the university. Many, however, leave
school long before attaining this stage, and this appears to constitute
one of the special difficulties of North of England schools. There is,
however, a wide list of subjects which may be taught, and from these the
head-mistress arranges each pupil’s curriculum. As the fees are the same
as those of a high school, the endowment fund helps to supply better
salaries, apparatus, etc. and thus to increase efficiency. A scholarship
fund of £1000 has been provided by the generosity of two private donors,
and forty-one scholars have by its help already proceeded to the
university.
Manchester also has a first-grade endowed school, which originated like
so many others in those active years that followed 1870. Here too the
initiative was taken by an association for promoting the higher
education of women. The school was started in 1873 by subscription, and
in 1876 the present site in Dover Street was secured for building, and
over £5000 raised for the purpose. A few years later, an opportunity
occurred of securing some public money, as the wealthy foundation of
Hulme’s Charity was to be reorganised. The school secured a share,
receiving a capital grant of £1500, and £1000 a year on condition that
the governing body should be reconstituted to give it a more
representative character. Under the new arrangement, there are
representatives of the Hulme Trustees, Oxford, Cambridge, Victoria, and
London, Owens College, and the Manchester School Board, as well as other
co-opted members. This representative character has proved of the
greatest value to the school, which takes rank as one of the first in
the country. The buildings are admirable in convenience and arrangement,
and the scholarship fund amounts to £640 a year. Two smaller schools
lately established by the governors at Pendleton and North Manchester
have somewhat diminished the numbers of the parent school, but prove a
boon to girls in those parts, since the means of communication at
Manchester are somewhat inadequate. Only Manchester girls are received
in the High School, or those residing with near relations. There are no
boarding-houses; it is a purely local school. The fees are nine to
fifteen guineas per annum. Manchester has been specially successful in
‘assimilating’ those girls that enter the high school from the
elementary schools, several of whom have passed on to the university
with scholarships, and been very successful in their after careers. Its
chief want is a system of scholarships from the elementary schools, to
enable it to extend its useful work, and take a place in a national
system of education.
The most complete schemes of endowed schools for girls are at Birmingham
and Bedford, and they are typical of two different systems. The King
Edward’s endowment, one of the largest in England, had been so
mismanaged that in 1828 only 115 boys were being educated on it, and the
school building was in ruins. In 1831 by a Chancery scheme, two new
schools, Classical and English, were established, and twenty years later
there were sufficient funds to maintain eight elementary schools as
well. Immediately after the passing of the ‘Endowed Schools Act’ further
changes were made. The schools were reorganised in three grades (high,
middle, lower middle), and four grammar schools founded for girls. When
the spread of State-aided elementary schools made the third class
unnecessary, these were abolished, and a girl’s High School substituted.
This forms the last link in the chain; and a close connection between
different grades by means of scholarships, leading gradually upward from
the elementary school to the university, gives the necessary cohesion to
the system. The High School can accommodate 260 girls, and the four
grammar schools 780. Fees are charged in all, but not so high as to
cover the cost of education. At the High School it is calculated that
the expense of each pupil is £20 per annum, while the fee is £9. The
endowment makes up the deficiency, and permits the reservation of
one-third of the places for foundation scholars. Further, it enables the
governors to offer their teachers good salaries, and to conduct the
whole on those generous lines without which it is impossible to provide
a liberal education for either girls or boys. In educational
organisation as in municipal matters, Birmingham is a model to the rest
of the country. It shows how an old endowment, sufficiently large and
carefully distributed, can be made to meet the needs of all classes of a
community. ‘We cannot reform our ancestors,’ as George Eliot so
pertinently remarks, nor can we set down rich old endowments in the
midst of places that have never known such benefactions. But fresh money
is coming in from new sources, and we want object lessons in its
application. Birmingham teaches the value of co-ordination, and
incidentally the use to which public funds may be put in bringing a good
education within the reach of the largest possible number.
The position of Bedford is different. A small town with no special
industry happens, through the munificence of one of its ancient
citizens, to be possessed of one of the largest endowments in the
kingdom. For many years its benefits were confined to the inhabitants of
Bedford, and as a result the population was constantly increased by
persons who were glad to get free education for their sons. Many, no
doubt, were well able to pay for it, but preferred, naturally enough, to
get it for nothing. At the time of the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, the
endowment was maintaining:—(1) A grammar school with 204 boys. (2) A
commercial school with 358 boys. (3) A preparatory commercial school
with 237 boys; as well as elementary schools for nearly 1200 children
and a hospital for 13 boys and 13 girls, almshouses, etc. Considerable
as were these numbers, they fell far short of the possibilities of the
endowment. The institution of a fee, even a low one, would at once set
free a goodly sum, and something, if only as compensation for the
marriage portions, was due to the girls. A new scheme providing for a
fresh distribution of the funds was drawn up in 1873, but the girls’
schools did not come into existence till 1882. Under the present
arrangement one-eleventh of the available funds is used for eleemosynary
purposes, two-elevenths go to the elementary schools, which until quite
lately have served all the needs of the town and rendered a schoolboard
unnecessary. The remainder is divided equally between the two higher
schools—boys’ Grammar and girls’ High—and the two Modern schools. This
looks very much like putting girls and boys on an equality, but a clause
in the scheme explains that three boys are to be considered equal to
five girls. In other respects the money is evenly divided; it is shared
out annually ‘in proportion to the average number of scholars attending
the said schools respectively during the preceding year,’ a curious
application of a Scriptural doctrine, by which a rise in numbers in the
boys’ school entails a corresponding deficit in the exchequer of the
girls’ school and _vice versa_. Still, rightly managed, there is enough
for all.
At Bedford no attempt is made to co-ordinate the work of the two
schools, or to establish any but the very slightest connection—by means
of a few scholarships—between the elementary and modern schools. Hence
the benefit of co-operation is lost. The great difference between the
fees—£9 to £12 at the High, £4 at the Modern school—makes active rivalry
impossible. It is the state of the home exchequer that settles the
choice of a school, far more than the preference for one system of
education or a girl’s probable after-career. It is curious that, in
spite of the general outcry for cheap schools, the low fee of the Modern
School has not proved as great an attraction as was expected; it has
filled but slowly, and is only now approaching 200, while the High
School averages an attendance of 600. To some extent the curriculum of
both schools is the same, but the greater economy requisite in the
Modern school necessitates larger classes, less complete equipment, and
lower salaries for the teachers. To families in straitened
circumstances, local shopkeepers, and small farmers within a short train
journey of the town, the school is a great boon; but it seems certain
that at Bedford, whatever may be the case elsewhere, all who can afford
the higher fee are willing to pay it for the sake of the greater social
prestige of the High School. Prejudice of this kind must always be
reckoned with, however carefully Parliament or Royal Commissioners may
provide on paper for the needs of each class of the population.
On the other hand, the High School has more than fulfilled
anticipations. Not only does it provide a first-class education for the
sisters of grammar school boys, it has won a position and prestige of
its own which attract considerable numbers from a distance. There are
now several flourishing boarding-houses, all working in close connection
with the school, and under the superintendence of the head-mistress. In
this way Bedford High School, like the Cheltenham Ladies’ College, St.
Leonard’s School at St. Andrews, and a very few others, has taken a
position somewhat analogous to that of a boys’ public school, sought for
its own sake, and not merely on account of its nearness or cheapness.
The large numbers, ample staff, and sufficient funds enable the
head-mistress to consider the needs of individual pupils more carefully
than could be done in a small school. Forms are joined and subdivided
lengthwise and crosswise, so as to bring together in small groups girls
who are to give a good deal of time to Classics, Modern Languages,
English, Drawing or Science, or any other special subject, thus avoiding
the scrappiness with which the modern curriculum is sometimes charged.
The girl who aims at the university is prepared for it, the girl who has
a real taste for accomplishments receives first-rate instruction in
music, drawing, etc. and at the same time is encouraged to give special
attention to English. There is no attempt to force all through the same
mill. The school is most fortunate in its buildings, which are beautiful
as well as convenient. Hall, gymnasium, studio, laboratory, padded rooms
for practising, nothing seems wanting to the equipment. It is pleasant
to wander through the airy and tasteful class-rooms and realise that
this is one of the many good things which the redistribution of
endowments has given to girls. At Bedford there is not much risk of
forgetting whence the money comes. The Harpur Trust seems to give its
character to the town. The numerous schools, the Harpur Trust offices,
the rows of almshouses, the ‘Harpur’ and ‘Dame Alice’ streets are
suggestive of a town that has grown up about its schools, almost as
Oxford and Cambridge have about their colleges. In the old church close
by the founders lie buried; ever succeeding generations of boys and
girls are entering into their inheritance.
Among the eight largest endowments of which the Commissioners had to
take cognisance was that of Dulwich. In few places was the reformer’s
hand more needed than in the assignment of those large sums which had
accumulated under the charity of Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift. At the
time of the Schools’ Inquiry Commission—that date which marks a new
starting-point in educational chronology, it maintained only an upper
school with 130 boys, and a lower school with 90. In 1895 when some of
the results of twenty-five years were summarised, it was supporting:—(1)
A first-grade boys’ school—Dulwich College—with 630 scholars. (2) A
second grade boys’ school—Alleyn’s School—with 540 boys; and
contributing, (3) To James Allen’s Girls’ School a capital sum of £6000,
and £650 a year. (4) To the Central Foundation Schools—boys and girls—a
capital sum of £11,000 and £2300 a year. (5) To St. Saviour’s Grammar
School, Southwark, a capital sum of £20,000 and £500 a year.
This is a result that should please all parties. In spite of the
additional advantages given to boys, the girls gain two schools; for
although the James Allen school had been founded as early as 1741 by
James Allen, master of Dulwich College, it was really nothing more than
an elementary school until its reconstruction in 1882 with a part of the
Dulwich endowment. It can accommodate 300 girls, has eight class-rooms,
laboratory, assembly hall, dining-room, recreation ground of two and a
half acres, and a completely equipped gymnasium where lessons are given
by an expert teacher. With a £6 fee it is always full, and admirably
serves its purpose of ‘supplying to girls of the middle class a sound
practical education.’
The fourth of the large endowments belongs to St. Olave’s Grammar
School, and a school for girls is in course of establishment here.
The Tonbridge endowment, administered by the Skinners’ Company, now
supports a school for girls at Stamford Hill.
The Manchester Grammar School fund has of late decreased in value, and
has nothing to offer girls; but here they have had help from another
quarter.
The Jones foundation at Monmouth now provides for 500 boys, and 100
girls, besides 50 elementary scholars, in place of 180 boys at the date
of the Commission.
Of the eight endowments, by far the largest was that of Christ’s
Hospital, and here there was no question as to the original intentions.
The treatment of girls had been so unfair as to arouse general
indignation. But the whole foundation really needed overhauling. After
long delays an elaborate scheme was drawn up, providing for the removal
into the country of the boys’ school, proper boarding-school provision
for girls, and large day-schools in London for both sexes. Of all this,
now nearly twenty years after the passing of the Endowed Schools Act,
very little has been done, though the removal of the boys’ school from
London to Horsham is now definitely settled. At Hertford the girls’
school has been reformed in its methods, and additional ward
accommodation provided, but by a perverse system of election it is made
very difficult to fill even that space. Girls can only be admitted on
presentation of a governor—very difficult to obtain—or by a competition,
to which only three classes are admitted. They must come either from—(1)
Certain endowed schools in England and Wales, or (2) Public elementary
schools in the London School Board district, or (3) Certain parishes
which have hitherto exercised the right of presentation. As (1) and (2)
represent the classes which are best provided, and least in need of the
benefits of a cheap boarding-school, and (3) is, by its nature, very
restricted, it is not strange that it has hitherto proved impossible to
fill even the 140 available places, though there are thousands of girls
in rural districts to whom a school of this kind would prove a priceless
boon. There seems a curious irony about offering such nominations to the
Bedford Modern School where girls are receiving an excellent education
for £4 a year, and taking no thought for those less favoured places,
which, because they have no endowment of their own, are therefore shut
out from one that they could use. Of course all this is only temporary,
but the transition stage seems a very long one. As far as girls are
concerned, the chief needs seem to be the establishment of several cheap
boarding-schools, the election of some women on the council of almoners,
and a change in the present system of electing scholars. Let us hope
that when the reforms come at last, they may prove to have been worth
the waiting.
Besides these eight chief endowments, there are many others of which
girls have now received a share. There are now in England and Wales over
eighty girls’ endowed schools of a secondary type, though the
distribution is curiously uneven; _e.g._ the West Riding of Yorkshire
has nine, while Surrey has only one. Much has been done, and much
remains to be done, but it is well that every kind of experiment should
be tried, so that the newer schemes may be improved by the experience of
the older ones.
Endowed schools are technically supposed to be of three grades,
according to the age at which the pupils usually leave. For the first
the limit is eighteen or nineteen; for the second, sixteen or seventeen;
for the third, fourteen or fifteen. All admit them at seven or eight.
There is something peculiarly English about this arrangement, which, on
paper at any rate, appears needlessly wasteful. The natural division
seems the American one. Here there are three successive grades,
organically connected, by which a child may go through his whole school
career, passing, as it were, from the kindergarten at one end to the
university at the other. This arrangement of schools, all free, and
meant for all the children of the community, is in harmony with the
American democratic idea, but would be impossible in the midst of
English class prejudice. Still even our social exclusiveness does not
require such extreme differentiation, and experience shows that a system
of three parallel lines, distinguished chiefly by breaking off at
different points, is not altogether necessary. The problem, as it
presents itself for girls, is not, however, the same as for boys. Boys’
schools of the highest grade naturally prepare their pupils for the
university, and as most of them are boarding-schools, they are exempt
from considering local needs. The first public schools for girls were
day schools. At the time of the first Endowed Schools Act, university
education for girls had hardly made any way. Girton was just struggling
into existence, the other colleges were but a dream of the future.
London still withheld its degrees. What girls needed most was a sound
general education given cheaply in day schools. Hence the low fees fixed
by the Girls’ Public Day School Company, and the still lower ones
charged at the endowed schools of the second and third grades, which at
that time met the most crying want. By 1883 ten of these third grade
schools in London were educating over two thousand girls. Among them
were the Greycoat Hospital at Westminster, and the Roan School,
Greenwich, and others that have since extended their sphere of work up
to the second grade limit.
The course of events during the last few years has necessitated these
and many other changes. The Elementary Schools Act of 1870, and the
spread of Higher Grade schools, while largely removing the need for the
third grade, have necessitated some means of transition from the primary
to the secondary school. On the other hand, the rise of women’s
colleges, technical institutes, etc. and the increasing number of girls
who, whether from choice or necessity, expect to earn their own living,
necessitates a levelling-up of schools, and a closer connection with
places of higher education. Direct connection with the primary schools
on the one hand, and the women’s colleges on the other, is now a
necessity. Many of the Charity Commissioners’ schemes have attempted to
supply this. The Roan School at Greenwich is a good instance. It was
founded in 1643 out of money left by John Roan to clothe and educate
poor children, and reorganised in 1873, the income of £2000 being
divided between 350 boys and 320 girls. There is a special fund for
foundation exhibitions for elementary scholars, and others are admitted
on passing an examination, at half-fees—£3 instead of £6. Of the total
number of pupils, about two-fifths come from the elementary schools.
Thus the work of the two is brought into very close connection, and the
Roan School includes in itself both second and third grade functions. It
provides for the upward passage by exhibitions, many of which are held
at Bedford College, or in Wales.
Scholarships of both kinds are also given by the Skinners’ School at
Stamford Hill. Some of the entrance exhibitions are restricted to pupils
from elementary schools, others are awarded by open competition. The two
leaving exhibitions, of the value of thirty-three and thirty guineas
respectively, are tenable for four years, at any place of advanced
education approved by the governors. The school fees range from £6 to
£10. The work of the Sixth Form leads to the higher certificate of the
Joint Board or the London Matriculation, both of which serve the
purposes of a leaving and entrance examination. This school might
therefore be regarded as a combination of the three grades. Similar work
is done by the Mary Datchelor School at Camberwell, the Aske’s School,
Hatcham, and several others. Such schools, with a definite connection
upward and downward, are among the chief educational needs of the day.
Those now at work seem to be always full, and they draw their pupils
from a class that look forward to a career of steady work. Clerks, civil
servants, teachers, typists, telegraphists, milliners, nurses; these,
and many others, occur in the lists of old pupils’ occupations. A useful
general education, either as an end in itself or as a basis for higher
or technical education, is given, and these schools have taken the place
of the third rate private schools, which was all that had previously
been offered to middle class girls. The expression of opinion by the
Royal Commissioners, in 1895, that ‘a second grade school, which
prepares for the local University College is often more suitable for a
certain section of the population than a first grade school linked to
Oxford and Cambridge,’ applies, _mutatis mutandis_, to girls as well as
boys. For both, a part of the highest work must be supplied by
boarding-schools.
But when all the endowments hitherto made available are considered, the
share of the girls is still far too small. In some counties there is
hardly anything available for them. Against this disparity must be set
the benefactions of recent years, many of which are specially meant for
girls and women. The foundation of the City of London Girls’ School, by
William Ward, in 1881, with an endowment of £20,000; the Pfeiffer
Charity of £59,000, for the benefit of women’s education, the numerous
scholarships given by city companies, the establishment of Holloway and
Westfield Colleges, and of many other foundations for both sexes, belong
to the twenty years between 1875 and 1895. If girls have lacked much in
the past, they are inheriting the present. As the Charity Commissioners
remarked, when reviewing a record of a quarter a century: ‘As to one
particular branch of educational endowments, viz. that for the
advancement of the secondary and superior education of girls and women,
it may be anticipated that future generations will look back to the
period immediately following upon the Schools’ Inquiry Commission, and
the consequent passing of the Endowed Schools Act, as marking an epoch
in the creation and application of endowments for that branch of
education, similar to that which is marked for the education of boys and
men by the Reformation.’