Manchester School

“ Mr. John Morley uses the term "Manchester School," as embodying the personal convictions of the great Free Trade leaders. Manchester did a great thing in adopting, adhering to, and enforcing Free Trade. That itself is a noble distinction.
The advocacy of Thomasson, Cobden, and Bright included principles loftier and wider than Manchester. The "Manchester School" is but a term of courtesy used for convenience of reference, far less definite than the "School of Bentham." The "School of Cobden" is intelligible, as covering a larger area of thought than Manchester. ”

“ In 1883 the Manchester School Mill was acquired by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, in order to make a new road from Long Millgate to Victoria Station. With the destruction of the School Mill there passed away a curious relic of ancient custom, and a link that connected modern Manchester with the quaint old town that stood by Irk and Irwell in the fourteenth century. In the very home of Free Trade there existed a monopoly at least six centuries old. The School Mill claimed the right to grind all the malt that is brewed within the limits of the old town of Manchester. ”

“ They come voluntarily, of course, and in their own time, and pay a shilling for each class they attend. Some of the boys are still attending day school. Others are at work. For some of the classes, there are more applicants than vacancies, and in view of this fact, the Manchester City Council have lately decided to hold similar classes in a different part of the city—for one school for handy-men is proving quite insufficient for Manchester's needs. ”

“ From May 1849 till 31 Dec. 1862 he was head-master of the Manchester School of Design. On the formation of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, in which he took an active part, he was elected its first president, 28 May 1857. This office he resigned on 30 Dec. 1861. A landscape of large size and considerable merit, exhibited at the autumn exhibition of 1850, 'Mountain and Clouds, a scene from the top of Loughrigg Fell, Westmoreland,' he presented to the Royal Manchester Institution. This now hangs in the Corporation of Manchester Art Gallery, and is a good example of his work in oil. ”

“ The people of Manchester had begun to take the subject into serious consideration, and had come to the conclusion that there might at once be adopted a simple system of education by which, as in the United States, every one should receive in the people’s school practical and moral instruction, and that religious instruction should be left for the home or for the Sunday teaching. ”

“ It was proposed in this measure that any elementary school should be admitted to this control and reap its manifold benefits on the application of the school managers for such admission. Admitted schools were to be inspected. Expenditure under the act was to be met out of the borough fund to the extent of sixpence on the pound. The bill was coldly received and withdrawn. About the same time were introduced education bills emanating from Manchester school societies. One advocated free secular rate-paid education ”

“ 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. ”

“ They want a man (some of them being willing to allow him a small salary, though others think that it does not pay) to preach to the masses, and tell them not to steal, and to be content with their wages; that is their idea of the church. We do not think, however, that the tone of thought prevalent among the Manchester school is destined yet to lead the mind of England. ”

“ Notwithstanding the fact that the movement for the improvement of female education has now been for some time set on foot, this populous neighbourhood is still very destitute in this respect. I have two girls, 12 and 13 years of age, and after making enquiries in very competent quarters, I have been told that there is only one Ladies’ School ‘worth a farthing’ in or near Manchester, and that is the Ladies’ College on the north side of the city at Higher Broughton. ”

“ That the Church has taken her full share in the secular education of the people is evidenced by the establishment of day schools in connection with every parish. Some, comparatively few, have been obliged to transfer the use of their buildings to the School Board. And no wonder, for in some parts of Manchester where working people most do congregate, it has proved impossible for the clergy of the parish to maintain the day schools as well as the other institutions of which they have charge. ”

“ In 1783 he read a paper before the society, wherein he strenuously advocated the extension of liberal education in Manchester. He anticipated the higher grade schools of our time—that is, a provision for the instruction of youths of the town between their leaving a grammar school and entering into business. His plan was approved; a seminary, called ‘The College of Arts and Sciences,’ was established, and various men of special qualifications were placed on its staff of instructors. Barnes threw his whole strength into this scheme. ”

“ In a Manchester Sunday School, in 1834, there were 2700 scholars and 120 unsalaried teachers, all but two or three of whom were former pupils in the Sunday Schools, now teaching others, free of charge, in return for the advantages once given them.
[12] "The amount of instruction rarely, if ever, exceeds the first four rules of arithmetic, with reading and writing. The class of children instructed is presumed to be of the very poorest, living in the most crowded districts. ”

“ The municipality have also established a jewelry school, so as to associate the practical study of art with local industry. Manchester and other cities are also equipped with well-organized art schools. ”

“ Most of the provincial colleges may indeed be regarded as technical schools with a literary side. In order that they may provide university education in addition to sound technical instruction, it is necessary that they should be placed on a sound and satisfactory footing by means of state endowment. Of the more recently erected English colleges, the Owens College at Manchester is the most important, combining the faculties of a German university with those of a polytechnic school. The Yorkshire College, Leeds, possesses a special school for the teaching of weaving and dyeing. ”

“ The Model School at New Britain, Connecticut, is preserved strictly as a Model School. After observing teacher and class for some time, the student usually gives one trial lesson in the school, but there is no systematic teaching by the student. For the actual independent practice, the student must go to a practising school outside New Britain, and be entirely responsible for a class for four months. At the large practising school in connection with the New Britain Normal School, at South Manchester, I saw students dealing with the actual difficulties of discipline and class-management. ”

“ Manchester, almost alone among our great towns of the present day, has not only a musical, but a pictorial life of its own; its young artists dub themselves ‘a school,’ study in Paris, and when they come home scout the Academy and its methods, and pine to set up a rival art-centre, skilled in all the methods of the Salon, in the murky north. Rose’s uncle, originally a clerk in a warehouse, and a rough diamond enough, had more or less moved with the times, like his brother Richard ”

“ A boy once placed on the foundation of Humphrey Chetham has a successful career assured to him, unless he forfeits his chances by subsequent folly on his own part. The boys who show the greatest intellectual power can be passed on to the Manchester Grammar School, and thence to Owens College, while the feoffees of the hospital have no difficulty in finding good places in the business houses of Manchester for the rest. To have been educated at Chetham's Hospital is a great recommendation to any boy. ”

“ The primary schools of great industrial towns, such as Fall River, the Manchester of America, are filled, to quite as great an extent as similar schools in Europe, with ignorant, ragged, and bare-footed urchins. These children are, indeed, no less well cared for and taught than their Yankee fellows, and one cannot sufficiently admire the energy and enthusiasm with which school-teachers generally endeavor to "make Americans" of their stolid and ragged little alien charges. ”

“ During Walker's tenure of office the school was completely reorganised in every direction; a change in the constitution of the governing body enlisted the help of the wealthy and able nonconformists of Manchester; the admission of fee-paying scholars, vehemently opposed by those who clung to the idea of a free school, put the finances of the school upon a secure basis; bequests and gifts to the amount of about 150,000l provided new buildings and scholarships. By the time that Walker left, the numbers of the school were second only to those of Eton ”

“ In the summer of 1838, in order to raise funds for medical study, he gave a course of six lectures on geology in various towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Durham; he studied one winter at the Pine Street medical school, Manchester, and entered in the autumn of 1839 at University College, London. In 1840 he attended a second course of lectures there; but before the close of the year had obtained the diplomas of M.R.C.S. and L.S.A., and in January 1841 commenced practice in Manchester with the generous guarantee of two wealthy friends. ”

“ He was one of the founders of the British School and the Dukinfield village library, where, in spite of his abhorrence of publicity, he often lectured, especially on educational subjects, and he was among the original organisers of the Manchester Statistical Society. ”

“ Manchester (505) , on the Irwell, in the SE. of Lancashire, 30 m. E. of Liverpool, the centre of the English cotton manufacturing district, with many other textile and related industries, is an ancient, rich, and prosperous city; it has many fine buildings, including a Gothic Town Hall and Assize Court-House by Waterhouse; there is a picture-gallery, philosophic and other institutions, and technical school; Owens College is the nucleus of Victoria University ”

“ Manchester grammar school was in 1859 a free school, with no power to charge fees, and with a decaying revenue derived partly from fishing rights in the Irk and partly from a monopoly in grinding corn, attached to a soke mill belonging to the school. ”

“ Many of the institutions in Manchester are intended for the service also of Salford, which, however, has resisted all attempts at municipal amalgamation. The chief public buildings are the museum and art gallery at Peel Park, the technical school, the education offices and the Salford Hospital. The town hall, built in 1825, is no longer adequate for municipal needs. Broughton and Pendleton have each a separate town hall. The large and flourishing technical school was developed from a mechanics’ institution. ”

“ Education.—The total school population of the State is about 80,000. It has an enrolment of about 75,000. In the elementary schools there are about 2,500 teachers and about 600 in the secondary schools. The average yearly salary of male teachers in the secondary schools is about $1,400 and the women teachers about $650. For higher education there were 52 public high schools; 31 private secondary schools; the State Normal School, at Plymouth; Dartmouth College, at Hanover; St. Anselm's College, at Manchester; and the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, at Durham. ”

“ The master was a clever artist, but not up, perhaps he would have said not down, to his work. A School of Design at Manchester is meant, not to breed artists in high art, but to have art applied to the trades of the city. ”

“ Paul's in 1876— the only other school in England whose head bears the title of high master — was in some respects not unlike what Manchester grammar school had been in 1859; but its constitution had just been remodelled by the charity commissioners, and it possessed ample and increasing revenues. One hundred and fifty-three foundation scholars [see Colet, John] and a few paying pupils were educated at the school; the foundationers were generally chosen by patronage, and the traditions were not favourable to educational efficiency. ”

“ In 1869 he again accepted a mastership of classics and modern languages at the Manchester grammar school, and at the same date was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Manchester, and became curate of All Saints Church, Manchester. ”

“ In 1515, having founded the Grammar School of Manchester, he endowed it with the corn-mills situate on the river Irk, which he purchased from Lord de la Warre, as well as with other messuages and lands in Manchester. ”

“ After passing through his father's school, he studied at Manchester New College (then at Manchester, now Manchester College, Oxford) from 1843 to 1848, graduating B.A. at London University in 1847. He aided his father in compiling the Latin dictionary issued by Messrs. ”

“ In fact, the training afforded by the College was beyond the desires of the people. Higher education was not considered by Manchester as requisite for the accumulation of wealth. In those days lack of education had little or no effect on the social position of its moneyed men. They were inclined to think that a highly educated youth was unfitted for the routine work of a counting-house and was of little use as a salesman on the floor of the Exchange. ”