London School Board

“ I replied: “town children differing only in degrees of dirt; school buildings which would not be tolerated outside the large towns; and managers who take a cab to Whitehall, if they don’t like their Report. And at the back, and using private and political influence at the Office, a Debating Society calling itself the London School Board. Here in Cheshire I get variety. ”

“ No item of the London School Board points to a more vivid picture of thoughtless extravagance, marking out the system under which this department has been conducted as radically wrong. A public body which can sanction such a gross waste of the ratepayers' money, stands convicted of being ignorant of the most elementary principles of business. ”

“ The London County Council, which had not regarded with favour the abolition of the school boards, showed no disposition to accept the aid of persons from outside who were not directly elected to represent the ratepayers, and although in 1903 an act was passed for the direction of education in London, the Board of Education reluctantly assented to a scheme prepared by the London County Council which vested The London Act of 1903. the control of education in the hands of a committee consisting exclusively of members of the council with the addition of some women. ”

“ The London School Board consists, one may suppose, of intelligent persons, genuinely interested in education, and representing the sense of the community, yet they refused to consider one of the most serious problems that the educator has to face. So true it is that every society has only the criminals that it deserves. ”

“ And, although the London School Board’s buildings and playgrounds are occupied only during a few hours in each week, there are schools which are used for meetings, for classes in higher education, and for Art Exhibitions, and there are playgrounds which are open all day and every day to all comers. The way in which Guardians have in some72 unions made the system of relief in the highest sense educational is now an old tale. ”

“ The foregoing statements of facts and figures, gleaned from the accounts of the School Board for London, have been put together with a view to show that there is room for far greater economy than it has hitherto displayed; that in the interests of the Metropolitan ratepayers, no less than of the cause of Elementary Education, a protest and a stand should be made against the present system of expenditure—a system which, if carried further on to its extreme, would cause the name of School Boards to be a bye-word and reproach. ”

“ So important a bearing on the home question has the schooling of the children who are to be the rent-payers of the next generation, that I propose to devote the next chapter to some sketches of School Board life and character; and I will take it in one of the worst districts in London, where the parents are sunk in a state of misery almost beyond belief.
I will show you the children at school who come daily to their work from the foulest and dirtiest dens in London—that awful network of hovels which lie about the Borough and the Mint. ”

“ There is, no doubt, just at present a dearth of good Teachers, rendered inevitable by the general establishment of School Boards, but it is a want which presses equally upon the Board Schools and upon Voluntary Schools, and any disposition on the part of the former to seek, by offering higher salaries to draw the Teachers from the latter schools, would be inconsistent with the spirit of the Education Act of 1870. ”

“ It was our duty to put into practice the scheme of instruction which Huxley was mainly instrumental in settling. We were thus able indirectly to improve both the means and methods of teaching. The subjects of instruction have all been retained in the Curriculum of the London School Board, except, perhaps, "mensuration" and "social economy." The most important developments and additions have been in the direction of educating the hand and eye. Kindergarten methods have been promoted. ”

“ He was a member of the first London school board, and took an active part in its work, both as chairman of the statistical committee and as a firm though moderate supporter of voluntary schools and religious instruction. ”

“ The Whitehall system, which deals with the larger amount of public money, is extremely inefficient. The Elementary Education Inspectors have before their eyes the fear, first of all, of the managers of the schools which they visit. The managers of the schools are often important School Boards like the [Pg 321] School Board of London, which is not a body to be trifled with, which has very great influence, both in Parliament and in the Education Department, and which the Inspectors are very much afraid of offending. ”

“ Schools in the London District—"Boarding Round"—American Books.—The Board of Education cannot abstain from remarking upon a system commonly practiced by teachers and generally encouraged by the employers in the country, of receiving the teachers as members or lodgers with each family who are subscribers to the school in succession for the period of engagement, which in its influence and consequence has not hitherto been productive of good ”

“ He therefore proposed to create an entirely new local authority called the School Board. The board was to have the power of providing necessary school accommodation, and of directing its own schools, subject to the ultimate control of the education department. At first Forster proposed that school boards should be chosen by popular election in London, and elsewhere by town councils and vestries, but he soon adopted direct popular election in all cases. ”

“ When the School Board extended the Cripples’ Schools to other parts of London they were careful to copy this development of ours, by insisting that local committees of managers, half of whom should be women, must be attached to each school. Here, surely, in this simple but effective institution, may be seen the germ of the Care Committee of future days! ”

“ 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. ”

“ The children of to-day are, it is confessed even by opponents to the policy of the School Board, in every respect better than those of twenty years ago, and this although, despite laws and inspectors, there are still many children who escape the meshes of the school net. ”

“ The First Nights at the Lyceum will be amongst the features of the Season.
There will be several failures at the Theatres, and also a success or two.
There will be half a dozen full-dress debates in the House of Commons, and as many important divisions.
The "Popular Budget" is sure, with some people, to be exceedingly unpopular.
The London County Council and the School Board will be censured by the Press. ”

“ For the encouragement of the lads who have left school and are willing to carry on their work the continuation classes were formed. The Technical Board has established a system of scholarships by which a ladder is placed in readiness for any boy or girl who can climb it. There are six hundred small scholarships given every year by examination to boys and girls who have passed the sixth standard in the elementary schools ”

“ The time in schools and the ground in education are all occupied, and new subjects are resisted instinctively by those in control of existing schools. The London advocates of the cooking-schools made a strong point by representing that, while the school board was spending a great deal of money for ornamental studies, the knowledge of the arts and interests of common life was dying out among young people. ”

“ On Monday I had a town school of 400 boys in a black hole: on Tuesday a suburban school of 150 girls in a beautiful building with a lavish supply of teachers: on Wednesday I drove 10 miles to a country village, where the whole 45 lambs of the flock were collected in what an esteemed inspector called ‘a third class waiting-room and a jam cupboard.’ I am going to get Monday’s school shut up in 12 months: in London it would take 12 years. London! I had rather be a country dog, and bay the moon.”
He admitted that the School Board was as bad as the fog. H.M.I. is all but powerless in Board Schools ”

“ Because, Sir Richard, the school-boards cannot reach them. There are upwards of 150,000 people in London who have never lived more than three months in one place. No law reaches this class, because they do not stay long enough in any neighbourhood for the school-board authorities to put the law into operation. ”

“ There is no desire by partial statements or unfair criticisms to hinder the work of Education so ably inaugurated by the Act of 1870. But this Act was essentially a compromise between those who, while holding very divergent views, were equally desirous for the general interests of Elementary Education, and one general understanding, which more than any other influenced the mutual agreement, was the representation of the responsible Minister of the Crown, that the Act would not entail a rate exceeding threepence in the £. ”

“ The lives of teachers at our Board and Church schools 62 would not be tolerable were it not for the wisdom and common-sense of our London magistrates. Many are the irate and voluble women that rush into our courts applying for summonses against school-teachers, very few of which are granted. It is not an edifying spectacle to see a worthy magistrate inspecting some young urchin to ascertain whether undue chastisement has been given, but it is not an uncommon sight. ”

“ The Helping Hand in education is of such great importance that one may dwell a little upon the machinery by which a clever and persevering lad may rise from the very lowest levels to any honor or distinction which the country has to offer. It is chiefly the Technical Education Board, a body which has been in existence for some ten years, which supplies the ladders. This Board is empowered by the London County Council to assist in supplying technical instruction to schools and institutions which are not conducted for private profit. ”

“ More positive reasons are not wanting which have been urged in favour of retaining the School upon its present site. If less frequented than of old by the sons of old Westminsters, it has met the wants of an increasing number of London parents, and in their behalf it is pleaded that the schools at present existing in London are not more than are required, and that they ought to be retained for the benefit of the resident population. ”

“ Nothing in section 80 (1) (a) , (2) or (3) above shall operate to disqualify any person for being elected or being—
(a) the chairman, vice-chairman, deputy chairman or an alderman of the Greater London Council; (b) a councillor of the Greater London Council for an electoral area in an outer London borough; (c) a member of the council of an inner London borough; by reason of his being a teacher in, or being otherwise employed in, any school, college or other educational institution maintained or assisted by the Inner London Education authority. ”

“ Of the charitable donations and subscriptions of the Corporation it is needless to speak, for their fame has gone forth throughout the world. The City of London School was built at a cost of 20,000 pounds, and year by year receives substantial support and encouragement. The education and maintenance of a hundred orphan children are provided for at another establishment; nor is there any charitable institution worthy of support that is not assisted with ungrudging liberality. ”

“ During the year an increasing number of the elementary schools in London have taken advantage of the article in the code of regulations which provides that, under certain conditions, organised games may, if conducted under competent supervision and instruction, be played during school hours. ”

“ While there is no room to extend the boarding-house system further at Westminster, the existence of the present houses is quite compatible with the presence of a large day-boy element, and may satisfy some needs which are felt even in London. To some parents in the country it is an attraction that their sons should be brought up within the neighbourhood of such historic associations. Other parents again, resident in or near London, are attracted by the possibility of having their sons home for the Saturday afternoon and Sunday, which is an especial feature of the School. ”

“ That was not my business, but the schools were my business, and I never ceased to protest against the tortures inflicted on teachers and children in those places.
My particular bugbear was a Board School in the Pandemonium Road, a still noisier street than the one chosen for the hospital patients. During school hours there is seldom a lull in the infernal din. And there was no conceivable reason why the school should not have been built at the back, except that the School Board wanted to shine before men, and to allow the passer-by to see the magnificence of a Manchester Board School. ”

“ With the forty Queen's Scholars, the boys in these boarding-houses would form a valuable nucleus, of sufficient permanence in itself, round which might cluster an addition of some 150 or 200 more day-boys, whether half-boarders or 'home-boarders'—the class of boys which it is anticipated the throwing open of the competition for Christ Church and Trinity, the definite liberation of the School from the long-pending uncertainty of removal, and the advantages expected to accrue from the final passing of the Public Schools Bill will draw. ”