Fabian Tract No. ro6. 


THE EDUCATION MUDDLE 
AND THE WAY OUT. 


A Constructive Criticism of English Educational 
Machinery. 


PuBLISHED A:-<D SoLD BY 

THE FABIAN SOCIETY. 

PRICE ONE PENNY. 

LONDON: 

THE FABIAN SoCIETY, 3 CLD!E~T'S I NN, STRAND, vV.C. 

jA~UARY1901.

1 


T HE EDUCATI ON MUDDLE AND THE 

WAY OuT. 

OuR educational m::~chinery in England has got into a notable mess. 
Some places have two or three public authorities spendincr rates and 
taxes on different sorts of schools, whilst others have n"one at all. 
In one town the clever boy or girl finds in the infant school the 
lowest rung of an unbroken ladder to the university; whilst in the 
very next county there is no rescue for talented poverty from the 
shop or plough. Some school districts are too small to maintain a 
decent prcimary school ; others are large enough to run a university.
T he central organization is a chaotic as the local. The various 
educational institutions in the United Kingdom-taking only those 
supported out of the rates and taxes-are officially under the charge

of no fewer than ten separate Cabinet Ministers; and their several 
departments usually scorn to consult together.

The result is that, although we spend on education in the United 
Kingdom every year nearly twenty million pounds of public moneyof one sort or another, from rates, taxes or public endowments, 
we get a very inadequate return for it. In English education 
to-day, waste and want go hand in hand.':' 

I.-THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES. 

The Present Muddle. 

There are, in England to-day, two distinct sets of local educational 
authorities, acting in the same areas, and sharing the provisionof schools between them. These are (i) the School Boards, (ii) the 
County, Borough and Urban District Councils. . . 

The School Boards, of which there are now 2,527, have unhm1ted 
powers of rating, but are, in other respects, narrowly restricted in 
their scope. They can maintain only "elementary" schools, as 
defined by the Acts and by the Day and Evening "Codes" 
annually issued by the Education Department. But they do not 
maintain or control even all the elementary schools. More than 
half the children in elementary day schools, and more than one-
third of the young people in evening .con.tinuation schools, are 
in the so-called "voluntary" or denommatJOnal schools. \Vhere 
a School Board exists, it is responsible for enforcing attendance 
at school upon all the children of the district, whether they go 

* The proposals of this Tract relate exclusively to England. Scotland and 
Ireland have entirely distinct educational .machi.nery, wi~ely differing from that. of 
England, but in an equal muddle. \Vales, mcludmg for thts purpose Mon'!'outhshtre, 
is included \\ith England for elementary education, but has a sys~em of tts own for 
seconc.lary schools and uni\·ersities, and must be separately reorgamzed. 

to Board or voluntary schools. But 111 more than one-third or 
England (measured by population) no School Board exists. Over 
this large area, the children must attend denominational schools, and 
these are under no local public control. In these parishes the duty 
of enforcing sr.hool attendance is entrusted to the local sanitaryauthority-that is, in rural parts, the persons who are the Guardians 
of the Poor. Even in the two-thirds of England in which School 
Boards exist, they are not allowed to have schools of their own if 
there is already a sufficient supply of places in "voluntary" schools, 
however unsuitable such schools may be for the special educational 
needs or religious opinions of the locality. The effect of this is that 
in over Io,ooo parishes there is none but a denominational school. 
These "voluntary schools" (though four-fifths of their cost is provided 
from taxes) are nominally governed by "boards of managers,"
who are practically self-elected ; whilst the real work of administration 
is usually performed by the minister of religion (Anglican or 
Roman Catholic) to whom the school "belongs." The Go,·ernment 
puts the School Boards, the public educational Juthorities within 
their respective districts, exactly on the same footing as these little 
nominal committees of managers. Moreover, by a piece of official 
pedantry, every alteration in the Code intended to improve a village 
school under this irresponsible private management, is made to applyequally and identically to the largest and most efficient borough 
School Board. The School Boards were, in fact, established by Mr. 
Forster in 1870 merely to "fill up the gaps'' in the then existing 
system of "voluntary" schools, and they have been treated as stopgaps 
ever since. They a-:e dosely scrutinized by jealous eyes in 
order to prevent them from providing ''secondary" or " technical ,. 
education, however much their constituents may need or desire 
this. Nevertheless, so numerous are the children of school age that 
the English School Boards in 1899-1 900 spent about £9,soo,ooo, an 
amount which had increased in each of the two preceding years by 
about 4 per cent. The English voluntary schools in the same year 
spent about £s,3oo,ooo, which had increa~ed in each of the two 
preceding years by about IO per cent. Of the totals the Govern


ment found about £3,6oo,ooo and £4,1 so,ooo. 

The County, Borough and Urban District Councils, on the other 

hand, whilst narrowly limited in the amount they can spend on 

education, enjoy a large freedom as to its kind or scope. The 

Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 189 r, prohibit their teaching 

any child who is in the standards of an elementary school, but 

impose no upward limit of any kind. Hence the London County

Council, like the Town Councils of Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol, 

Iewcastle, etc., can help to maintain a university. The instruction 

must be confined to "technical education," but this has been so 

defined a legally to include every subject of study except "theology,

Greek and Shakespeare."* The result i that Town and County 

* E\·en these subjects may legally be taught in Tnwn or County Council schools, if 
" proportional part of the expense is covereJ, as it alway · may be, by sources of 
income (such a; fees or enJowments) other than the To\\ n or County Countil grant. 

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Councils now maintain and aid hundreds of schools (above the 
elementary standards) of every kind-grammar schools, science and 
art schools, commercial schools, cookery schools, trade schools, and 
what not. In most towns, the Town and County Councils do not 
in fact, confine themselves to anything that can properly be de~ 
scribed as technical education. They have, without express statutory 
warrant, assumed the position of secondary education, and even university 
.authorities; and in this they have been encouraged by the 
EducatiOn Department. But though they have thus stretched their 
powers, and enlarged their responsibilities, their funds are strictly 
limited. 

The County Councils (51 in England) and County Boroughs (6z) 
can spend on ''technical education" what is known as the "whiskev 
money" (the additional duties on beer and spirits imposed by th.e 
Local Taxation Act, 189o), and in 1899-1900 they did so spend 
£8o4,ooo out of £867,000. They can spend also up to a penny in 
the pound from the County or County Borough rates. In r 899rqoo, 
twenty-two County Boroughs added in this way £44,960 to 
their whiskey money expenditure. No County Council has yet 
levied a rate on the whole county for education, but in a few cases 
the Council levies a rate on a part of the county at the request and 
for the benefit of the rural districts concerned. The Non-CountyBoroughs and Urban District Councils can, in addition, levy a penny 
rate of their own for technical education, and z6z of them now do so, 
to the extent of £36,894 a year.* 

The total expenditure on education by these municipal bodies 
now amounts to about a million sterling, and it is increasing at 
the rate of about 5 per cent. a year. In addition, they exercise, by 
their inspection and grants, more or less control over about a 
million sterling a year of educational endowments devoted to 
secondary and higher education. 

Conflict and Overlapping. 

These two distinct sets of local authorities come everywhere into 
more or less acute rivalry and conflict. The School Boards were 
the earlier in the field , and they have frequently provided " higher 
grade schools'' and evening continuation schools of high type,
scarcely to be distinguished from those started by the Town and 
County Councils. But this occasional overlapping is not, of itself, 
a serious evil, and, moreoyer, it is one which mutual consultation 
and consideration might easily set right. Nor is the waste of public 
money owing to this overlapping at all large in amount. What is 
serious is the educational chaos caused by the arbitrary separationof one part of education from another; the total absence of any 

*There may also be expended under the Public Libraries Acts, 1892 and 1895,.a 
penny rate (in Manchester and 2 r other towns, enlarged by local Act to 2d:, and m 
four towns unlimited) on " public libraries, public museums, schools for science, art 
galleries and schools for art." ln addition, the Mus~ums and Gymnasiums Act, 1891, 
enables any Town or Urban District Councils to spend up to a halfpenny rate on 
museums, and another halfpenny rate on gymnasiums. 


6 

considered scheme for fulfilling the whole educational needs of any 
one district; the lack of any coherent system for the promotion of 
scholars from school to school; the stupendous inequality between 
·one district and another; and the deadening effect upon the primary 
schools of their confinement within rigid limits, and the exclusion 
of their teachers from the opportunity of being transferred to other 
branches of education. \iVhat is wanted, in the interests alike of 
the public, the children and the teachers, is 

Administrative Unity. 

There ought to be, in each district of convenient size, one public 
educational authority, and one only ; responsible for providing and 
controlling all the education maintained in the district out of public 
funds, whether it be literary, scientific, commercial, artistic or technological 
in type-whether it be, for any of these types, primary, 
secondary or university in grade. 

The Policy of Drift. 

But there is, as yet, apparently not much chance of our gettingthis administrative unity. Having" drifted" into the present muddle, 
the only easy course is to go on drifting; and this is what nearly everybody, 
statesman and schoolmaster alike, is vigorously doing. The 
last Liberal Government did nothing but "drift," so far as education 
was concerned, the short time it was in power ; and Mr. Acland, 
unable to gain the ear of the Cabinet for so dull a subject, was 
reduced to making untiring administrative attempts to patch up a 
crazy structure. 

In 1896 the Conservati-. e Government half-heartedly attempted 
to unify local educational administration by forming "education 
authorities" from the Councils of Counties and County Boroughs.
They did not believe it possible to abolish the School Boards, and 
preferred, on the line of least resistance, to subordinate them to the 
new authorities. The Bill passed its second reading by an immense 
majority, but was lost owing to the revolt of the smaller or non-
county boroughs, who objected to the surrender of their independence, 
and joined the opponents of the clauses intended to strengthendenominational education. Since then the chiefs of the Departmenthave announced their intention of securing the objects of the defeated 
Bill, by a combination of administrative action and small Bills. This 
means that they have given up any serious attempt to think out 
the problem as a whole, and that the policy of least resistance has 
slipped back into a policy of drift. The School Boards are weak ; 
therefore bit by bit their power is being taken from them-but they 
are still retained in existence. The County Councils are strong;
therefore bit by bit their powers are being increased, but there is no 
suggestion that they should receive that unrestricted rating powerand that control of all educational grades which alone would make 
them efficient educational authorities. The Church is powerful and 
the Church schools are in want of money. Therefore a new source of 
confusion is introduced by the creation of "associations of voluntary 


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schools," which secure the control of an important section of education 
to the official hierarchy of the various denominations. 

Year after year we are promised a Secondary Education Bill, 
and it is safe to assume that it too will follow the line of least 
resistance and least thought. The School Boards may unfortunatelystill further be restricted both in their day and in their evening 
schools, and the Councils may be given increased power, but will 
still be subject to a narrow rating limitation, and still confined to 
special educational grades. But just as easy writing makes bad 
reading, so easy legislation makes bad administration. The School 
Boards and the denominational school managers would still be in 
charge of the education of nearly three million children, and an expenditure 
of over twelve millions sterling annually, whilst every 
year the educational results of that expenditure would be endangered 
or even gravely impaired. Already it is difficult to create public 
interest in School Board elections. Already it is common to find 
only one-fifth of the electorate taking the trouble to vote, and as the 
School Boards are elbowed out by their stronger municipal rivals, 
this decay of public interest must increase. A body elected on a 
small poll is always in peril. The Board schools have bitter enemies. 
In all sections of the community there are to be found many who 
think that to provide anything beyond the ''Three R 's " for the 
manual laborers is illegitimate and absurd, whilst they dismiss with 
contempt the claim of elementary teachers to be or to become an 
educated class. As long as the County and Town Councils are kept 
without responsibility for or knowledge of the primary schools, theywill tend to believe that the only real education is to be found in 
the technical schools which they maintain, or in endowed secondaryschools which they inspect and aid, and which are open to all who 
can afford to pay the fees, and to a selected few of those who cannot. 
Their natural partizanship for their own schools inevitably tends 
(even if unconsciously) to reinforce that powerful social prejudice 
which resists any development of "primary" education beyond the 
preparation for a life of hewing wood and drawing water. It has 
been suggested that this might be prevented by giving the School 
Boards the statutory rights to a few representatives on the education 
committees of the Councils. But such representatives would be in 
a permanent and helpless minority, and their presence would do 
little except increase friction; while the division of the responsibilty 
of the Councils might tend to produce that decreased interest which 
is the result of indirect election. 

One method, however, of connecting the Councils with primary 
education is so perfectly consistent with the policy of drift that it 
has been already foreshadowed, and may be adopted at any moment. 
The Councils while still separated from the Board schools, may be 
empowered o~ required to assist efficient "voluntary," that is denominational 
schools in their district. This would make the positionof the Board schools absolutely impossible. The Councils would 
tend to become panizans not only of the socia~ !nter~sts of the 
technical and secondary schools, but also of the rehg1ous mterests of 


8 

the denominational schools, and religious tolerance for teachers would, 
like the teaching of French or algebra to children without fee or 
scholarship, seem to be one of the "fads'' of an unreasonable and 
discredited faction. 

Thus, whilst reform is difficult, delay is dangerous. The "policy 
of drift" will not save the School Boards, and will probably destroyall chance of an enlightened development of elementary education 
for the mass of the people.* Every year the Town and County 
Councils become stronger and more grasping ; every year the importunities 
of the Anglicans and the Roman Catholics for increased 
grants of public money for their denominational schools become 
more pressing; every year the muddle increases. 

The Claim of the School Boards to be the Sole 
Educational Authorities. 

If the "policy of drift" is thus so dangerous to elementaryeducation, and if eyerything poiqts to unification as the remedy, 
why should we not adopt the Liberal and Nonconformist cry of 
"School Boards everywhere and for everything?" This proposal-
to place the whole of public education in each district under the 
control of the body already elected by the citizens to manage the 
greater part of it-seems at first sight irresistible. Closer consideration 
proves, however, that it is impracticable as a solution of the 
present difficulties, and that even if it were possible, it would not be 
desirable. We simply camzot make the School Board the uniyersal 
authority for secondary and technical education, because:


(r) In one-third of England School Boards do not exist. 1t 
was exactly for this reason that the School Board was ignored 
in the Technical Instruction Act of I 889, and the new powers 
were given to the County, Borough and Urban District Councils, 
which together cover all England. 
(2) School Boards are so fiercely hated by large sections of 
the people, so little desired by the ordinary man, and so energetically 
opposed by positive majorities of the local electors, 
that their compulsory establishment in places where they are 
not petitioned for, and where they are not absolutely required 
to provide new schools, is politically impossible-even if it 
could be defended on principles of Democracy and Loc:1l Self 
Government. 
(3) Even where School Boards exist, their districts are, in the 
vast majority of cases, absolutely unsuitable for anything beyondelementary education. Out of 2,527 existing School Boards, 
z,o8 5 govern populations of le~s than s,ooo. It will certainly be 
• In December, Igoo, this peril was made both imminent and apparent. The 
Court of Queen's Bench decided (in R. v. Cockerton) that the London School Board 
could not, out of the School Board rate, conduct classes for the examinations and 
grants of the old Science and Art Department, or go beyond the Code of the Education 
Department, or gi,·e instruction of any kind to adults, whether in day or evening 
schools. This decision may perhaps be appealed against, but it will certainly be 
accepted by the Go,·ernment as definitely limiting the powers of the School Boards. 

9 

impossible for manv years to come in England to maintain even 
one good secondary school for boys and girls in a population as 
small as 20,000. Only about 300 out of the 2,527 existing School 
Boards deal with such a population. Higher education, and 
more specialized education would, of course be outside the 
possibilities of many even of these larger B~ards. To make 
the School Board the sole authority for all education within 
its district would necessarily involve abolishing nine-tenths of 
the existing School Boards, and creating new bodies for much 
larger districts than single parishes, or even than small boroughs.
There would still remain the difficulty of providing for the 
purely rural areas di\'orced from their urban centres. But even 
if it were possible to adopt the existing School Boards as the 
authorities for secondary and technical education, it would not 
be desirable, because School Boards have inevitably become the 
scene of religious quarrels, and experience shows that their 
election is almost always made the occasion for a strugglebetween religious denominations. No one would wish to infect 
secondary and technical education-hitherto mainly free from 
sectarian squabbles-with this deplorable strife. 

The Case for a New Educational Authority. 

Many defenders of School Boards now admit with regret that it 
is politically and geographically impossible to make the existingSchool Boards the sole educational authorities for their respective 
districts. They urge that the best way to secure administrati\·e 
unity in education is to create a brand-new body; Lo divest the 
County, Borough and Urban District Councils of all their present 
educational powers ; to abolish all School Boards; to divide England 
up afresh into suitable districts ; and to make each district elect an 
Education Council, to which should be entrusted all the education 
within its area. But this too, on examination, is found to be both 
impracticable and undesirable, because, 

I. It would involve the maximum of disturbance of local 
property, finances and vested interests, and would combine in 
one irresistible opposition (i) the 2,527 School Boards and the 
I ,200 County, Borough and Urban District Councils, all obje~t· 
ing to have their freehold schools taken away from them. (u)
all their officials whose salaries would be disturbed and their 
very places jeopardized, (iii) all the members of Parliament, not 
understanding what it was about, but desperately wirepulled bythe aforesaid local bodies and their officials, and (iv) all the ratepayers 
who would expect their rates to be raised by the change.
No House of Commons would look twice at such a Bill ; and no 
Cabinet would propose it. . 
2. It would almost certainly transfer to the elections of the 
new bodies, and so enlarge and perpetuate, the religious animosities 
and sectarian strife that now dominate Schoql Board 
elections and obstruct educational progress. All exp~rience 

10 

indicates that, at any rate in the England of this generation, 
public bodies direct y e:ected to m:111age schnols will he elected 
largely on theological grounds. The prnpnsed new Educational 
Councils, though e:ected for wider educational functions, and 
often for larger areas, would tend to be merely the existing 
School Boards under a new name. 

We come thus iuto direct conflict with those who, so far as 
matters education<>! are concemed, still ch, rish a belief in the 
necessity of an ad hoc body. This demauds separate consideration. 


The Story of the "Ad Hoc" Body. 
It IS now orten urged, in support of the School Boards, or of the 
proposal to create elected Educational Councils, th;Jt the business of 
prm·iJiug and managi ng schoo:s is of so special a nature that it is 
best entrw·tt'd to a ~eparate public body e!.:cted ad hoc (that is to 
say, for this special hminess only). This is not the reason why 
School Boards were ill\·ented. WhateYer good arguments there 
may be for an ad hoc bo,ly for scrool management, the School 
Board, as we know it, is merely one of the few surYivors of what 
was once a large cla~s. A hundred years ago most of the local 
govemment of the English towns was carried on hy ad hoc bodies, 
chosen in all sorts of ways, for all sorts of different functions. 
During the eighteenth century, as the urban population increased, 
it became absolutely necessary to proYide for more local gm·ernment. 
No statesman thought out any general ~ystem. What happened 
was that one bit after an •ther was stuck upon the structure of the 
old towns!1ip goYemment-in one place a special board of commissioners 
was appointed to drain the marshes; in another a separate 
body of go,·ernors and directors of the poor was elected to provide 
a workhouse; ebewhere a board of trustees was set to keep a road 
in repair; or a special "lamp board" would be constituted to paveand light the streets. It was the age of nd l10c bodies, elected, 
co-opted, appointed or constituted in eYery concei ,·able way. and 
literally thousands of them came into existence. fn 1834, when the 
Poor Law wJs refvrm~c!, there was no pub.ic body either in the 
rural districts, or in the unorganized urban district-, to which the 
new work could po sibly h:~,·e be~n gi,·en. A new n'i hfJc body had 
therefore to be cre:~ted. The resu.t of this historical accident is 
that there are people to-day who have come hon estlv to believe 
that the management of a workhouse ami the administration of 
relief is a matter of so special a nature that it must be entrusted to 
an ad hoc body. \Vhen, in 187o, Mr. Forster carried the Education 
Act, efficient town councils exi-ted in tbe be roughs, and it was at 
.first proposed that the School Bo:~rd should he nomi nated by these 
Town Councils, of which they would virtually ha\'e been statutory 
committees, with independent powers. But in the rural di tricts 
no responsible local authority could be found, and the great population 
of London was in the hands of the \'e~tries. Indirect 
election was objected to by the Radica:s, and the \'arious de



II 

nominJtion:tl bodies imisted on "a representation of all parties 
and all rdi~i m;." S > Mr. Forster g tve way, anj directly elected 
SchoJl Bo1rJ; wae cre:tted. N >w mmy people have come to feel 
th:tt there is so n _· thing inherently rea,onab:e and n:ttural in having 
a sep:trate electe,l b >Jy to look arter scho •Is. This is not the 
opinion of G~rmllly or Austria, France or Switzerbnd; where theyknow something about cduc:ttion. In all these countries the public 
body that nnnages llther local aff1irs also manages the schools. The 
hesitation to carry the a:i /zoe theory to its logical conclusion shows 
an inherent duubt i11 its v:tlit.lity. Mr. Clnplin's proposal to create a 
special auth"rity ror defecti\·e poor law childen met with uni\·ersal 
condemnation, and durtng the debates on the London Government 
Bill, 18q9, the ~ugge;tion that Boards of Guardians should be 
abolished and their duties handed over to municipal authorities, met 
with general acceptance, especially from txperts like Canon Barnett. 
We ha\·e, in f.tct, ceased to believe in the need for ad hoc authorities. 
During the last sixty ye:trs they have been as far as possible absorbed 
and abolished.* 

The success of Town and County Councils, with their varied 
functions, is evidence that separate bodies for separate services are 
superfluo•Js. There is at kast as much difference between main 
drains and lunatic asyiums, between street sweeping and technical 
education, between prc:vetJtion of infectious disease and providingmusic in the p:trks as thae is betwe::: n "purely municipal," poor law, 
and educational fun..:tions-problems no less difficu:t, duties no less 
important, are in\·olvc:d in the actual work of a mudc:rn municipality 
as in any of the three separate services. 

The Way Out. 

If, then, it is impracticable and undesirable, either to make the 
School Boards the snle educational authorities, or to supersede them 
and all other existing eJucational bodies by brand-new Educational 
Councils, how are we to get administrative unity? \Vhat we have 
to work towards is the concentration in a single elected budy for 
each locality of all the public business entrusted to that locality. 
Leaving Poor Law aside, as outside the purpose of the present 
Tract, let us consider how, on this principle, we can get out of the 
Education muddle. 

First, as to the unit of area. It is at once clear that the large 
towns must be kept as distinct educational units. Birmingham and 
Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, can neither be broken up nor 
me~ged. Outside the large towns, seeing that we w:mt unity of all 
grades of education, the unit of area must, it is clear, be much 
larger th:.~n the parish; and as a large part of the educational 
machinery is already organized by the County, it does not seem 
either practic:tble or t.lesirable to adopt any other area. 

Leavin<T out of accuunt for a moment London and the CountyBoroughs, 0 we propo;e that, in the 50 Administrati\·e Counties 

• The one case in which such authorities have been approved and multiplied-
that of Purl and Harbor Trusts-is not really an exception. 

12 

which make up the rest of England, the County Council should be 
made responsible for the provision and maintenance of every kind 
and grade of education within its area. All School Boards existingwithin the County should be abolished, and their schools transferred 
to the County C0uncil. The annual cost of maintaining these and 
other public schools should become an equal charge throughout the 
County, levied in the ordinary County rate. The first duty of the 
County Council should be to prepare and submit to the Board of 
Education for criticism (but not for control) a complete survey ot 
the existing educational provision for the whole County, from the 
elementary school to the university, coupled with a plan for its 
completion and improvement. The Council should have full and 
free powers to experiment in schools and subjects, and of initiation 
in new forms of instruction, subject only to the consent of the 
Board of Education. Finally, it should control any public educational 
endowments belonging to the locality, administer the" whi5keymoney," and have unlimited powers to levy rates for the aiding and 
supplying of every description of education within its district." 

We have here the basis of a complete and systematic organizationof education (outside London and the 62 County Boroughs), based 
on the principle of administratiYe unity. But there are diffi::ulties 
in the way, and objections to be oyercome, with which we must deal 
one by one. 

(a) THE No~-CouNT\" BoROUGH. 
The first difficulty that confronts us is the claim of the Non-
County Borough and the large Urban District to escape from the 
County, and to be made, like the County Borough, a completelyindependent educational unit. On the one hand it is undesirable 
even to appear to limit the activity of an energetic and growing 
town. On the other, we haYe the practical impossibility of disturbing 
the "whiskey money" distribution, which now goes to the 
Counties and County Boroughs; and cutting off from the Counties 
nearly all their schools and institutes, which have naturally been 
placed in the urban centres. The solution must be found in a 
proper organization of functions and powers. The educational 
system of the County must be organized as a whole, the little 
market towns taking in it their proper place as educational centres 
for the adjacent districts. But, in this system, the local administration, 
including the whole management of the institutions in the 
towns, should be delegated by the County Council to a responsiblelocal committee for each Non-County Borough or Urban District. 
This local committee might consist, in the main, of persons nomin


* The six Engli•h Universities would remain, as at present, independent of the 
local authorities, except in EO far as these might aid them by grants, in which event 
conditions would naturally be mutually agreed. But the universities, no less than 
other educational bodies, should be subject to inspection, criticism and public repon 
by the Board of Education itself. Such endowed, " non-local" schoob as Eton and 
Harrow, and the various unattached colleges and specialized educational in titutions, 
would occupy a similar position. 

13 

ated by the Borough or Urban District Council, together with the 
County Counc.illors for the district, at least two women, and possiblyother persons mterested in education. These committees could be 
allowed, subject to the ultimate control of the County Council, to 
spend a definite sum annually allotted to them by the Council, plus 
any special rate in their own area that the Borouah or Urban 
District Council could be induced to levy. "' 

(b) THE ABSE:XCE OF Wo;-.IEC\' 1 AND OFTE:'i OF PERSONS WITH 
EnucATIO:'IAL ExPERLE:'ICE, FROM Cour\TY A:XD BoROUGH CoUC\'CILS. 

It.is said that County and Borough Councils, though they usually 
contam some experienced administrators, are unfit to manage schools, 
~ecause (i) they often include no men of educational experience or 
mterested in the subject, and (ii) women are not eligible to sit uponthem.* To get over this real difficulty, and also to facilitate efficient 
administration, the County and Borough Councils should be required 
by statute to appoint special educational committees. Under the 
Technical Instruction Acts the Town and County Councils haYe 
spontaneously developed this organization for educational purposes, 
entrusting the execution of their powers to committees on which 
are co-opted persons whose presence and advice may be, for one 
reason or another, desired. This system has worked so well that it 
ought to be continued. The local authorities for education would 
then be the Town and County Councils acting each through a 
statutory committee consisting of a majority of councillors and of 
certain co-opted individuals. In order to preserve unity of control, 
no other authority or body of persons should have a statutory claim 
to representation thereon; but, if only (pending an alteration of 
the law) to ensure the presence of women, the Town or CountyCouncil should be required to submit for the approval of the Board 
of Education the proposed composition of its committees. These 
committees, like other committees, should not haYe the power to 
levy a rate, otherwise all the simplification of finance would be lost. 
At the beginning of the financial year the committee would present 
its budget, and after getting it passed would administer the allotted 
funds without further interference by the Council. 

(c) THE NEED FOR LocAL SuPF.RnsroN. 
But the County is a large area, and it is rightly urged that no 
County Council can properly undertake the actual management of 
the schools in all its parishes. It is not suggested that it should d? 
so. The work of the Education Committee of the County Counctl 
would be to frame a scheme for providing and maintaining such 
schools, of such grades and types, and in such localities as the circumstances 
of the County require. It should provide both the 
capital cost and the annual maintenance of these schools ; frame 
regulations for their government ; inspect them by its officials; and 

• The law should, of course, be changed, so a to make women eligible for 
election to both Town and County Councils. See Fabian Tract, No. 93· 

appoint all the head-masters. But the detailed administration of the 
several in titutions, the selection of a sistant-masters, and as much 
else as possible should be delegated to a local committee, appointed 
by the County Council for each parish or for each institution. For 
this local committee, two alternatives present themselves. Either 
the County Council might be required to appoint the local Parish 
Council, or the County Council might be left to appoint whom it 
chose among the local residents, with the addition of two or more 
members nominated by the Parish Council. 

(d) How To DEAL wiTH THE VoLUNTARY ScHooLs. 
Every County Council would find the greater part of the 
elementary education in its district in the hands of voluntary 
schools, owning no allegiance to it or to any other local authority;
but often starving for lack of funds, and grossly below any reasonable 
standard of educational efficiency. It is politically impossible 
to abolish these voluntary schools; and whatever we may think of 
the theological reasons for their establishment, their separate and 
practically individual management does incidentally afford what 
ought to be, in any public system of education, most jealouslysafeguarded, namely, variety, and the opportunity of experiment. 
\Vhat we have to do with the voluntary schools is to put them 
under the control of the local educational authority; to improveand strengthen their committees of management; to raise their 
efficiency ; and especially to provide better salaries for their 
teachers; to make impossible the tyrannical vagaries of foolish 
clergymen in the village schools; and to bring these into coordination 
with the rest of the educational system. 

'Ve propose that the County Council should be allowed to offer 
a grant in aiel up to, say, five or even ten shillings per head per 
annum to all the voluntary schools in the County, to be spent in 
increa ing the alaries of the teaching staff, or otherwise raising the 
efficiency of the schools; and in all ca es subject to the following

conditions, viz. :


(a) The County Council to be allowed to inspect the schools, 
frame regulation for their administration, and audit their 
accounts. 

(b) All future appointments and dismissals of teachers to be 
~ubject to its confirmation. 
(c) The appointment, subject to its approval, of a committee 
of managers, which should invariably include two members to 
be annually nominated by the Parish (or Urban District or 
Borough) Council; meet at least once in every term, appointib own chairman and clerk, and ha,·e brought before it all 
chool business (including the appointment, u pen ion, or dismis~
al of teachers, the school log, and the ~chool account.);
be re ponsible for the whole management of the school; and 
tran mit copie~ of its minutes annually to the County Council. 


The Education Committee of the County Council should be 
empowered to provide additional school places when in its opinion 
the existing denominational school accommodation, though sufficient, 
was unsuitable to the demands of the district. In this way 
the Church schools would remain strong where the' Church was 
strong, but a sufficient remedy would be provided for substantial 
Nonconformist grievances. A right of appeal to the Board of 
Education should also be reserved to the managers of any "voluntary" 
school in any case of complaint against the local authority. 
With this freer system of grants the "special aid grant" should 
be merged in'the other Government grants in aid and the voluntaryassociations for its administration should be abolished as unnecessaryand inconsistent with County districts. 

London and the County Boroughs. 
We have reserved the c:~se of London and the 62 CountyBoroughs, where the need for educational improvement is less 
crying than in the rural districts, and the problem of unification 
more difficult. The administrative unity of all grades of education 
is, however, no less desirable in London and the large towns than 
in the country, and the malign influence of sectarian quarrels at 
School Board elections is apt to be even more severely felt. On 
the other hand the School Boards in these large towns are usually 
at least as efficient as the municipal authorities; the work to be 
done is large-in London colossal; and there would be some danger 
that unification would lead not, as in the Counties, to an increased 
expenditure on education, but to some slackening in the present 
rate of increase, if not to a positive limit. The School Boards in 
London and the County Boroughs should therefore for the most 
part be left untouched. The County Council in London and the 
Town Councils in the County Boroughs would become the authorities 
for all education outside the powers of the School Boards, with 
spending powers in this department of their work as unlimited as 
in drainage or water supply. They should, of course, retain all 
their existing powers, and they should, moreover, have the same 
enlarged powers of providing new school as are given to the 
rural County Councils. 
These considerations do not applv to such County Boroughs as 
Bury, Chester, Lincoln, Preston, St: Helens and Stockport, which 
have no School Board. Nor need they apply to County Boroughslike Wigan, where the School Board has no school; or like Blackburn, 
Oxford or Worcester, where only five to ten per cent. of the 
children are in Board Schools; or like Bath or Exeter, where the 
Board Schools contain fewer than z,ooo children. In all these cases 
the School Board should be abolished, and the Town Council at 
once made responsible for all grades of education. This would 
leave about 47 County Borourrhs in which, as in London, the School 
Board system may be deemelto have so firr~ly established. itself, as 
to be entitled to·be untouched. But eyen 111 these cases 1t should 
be open to the School Board, if it should come to think it desirable, 


to terminate its own existence, and transfer its schools and pmYers 
to the municipality."' Meanwhile the School Board should be strongly 
represented on the education committee of the municipal body; and 
the manager!lent of the proposed grant in aid of voluntary schools 
should be dealt with by a statutory sub-committee, of which the 
School Board members should form one half. 

II.-THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY. 

The Present Drift. 

The Board of Education Act of 1899 has substituted the Board 
of Education for the Education Department, the Department of 
Science and Art, the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Agriculture, 
but no provision has so far been made for the rearrangement 
of their overlapping powers or for the internal organization of the 
new Department. The powers of the Treasury over university 
colleges, of the Local Government Board over poor law schools, of 
the Home Office over industrial schools and reformatories, and 
through the Prisons Commissioners, over prison schools, of the India 
Office over the Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, of the Board 
of Agriculture over the agricultural colleges, and of the War Office 
and Admiralty over their own primary schools in garrison towns, 
and over military and naval schools, are still continued to these 
departments. A consultative committee has been created, but 
without specific powers beyond the framing of a register of teachers. 
So far as can be seen, the present intention is to organize the 
Board of Education solely into primary and secondary divisions, 
the latter being illogically sub-divided into "technical education'' 
and "secondary schools." Such a plan may easily reduce the 
whole "reform" to a merely mechanical concentration of existing 
departments under a single roof. This is of no use if no real 
unity and no organic relation between the various kinds and 
grades of education is created. Failure to secure this would be 
particularly bad for elementary education, which it is the fashion 
to regard as mechanical and suitable for assignment to lower-grade 
minds. The education of the great mass of the people must not be 
isolated from the general intellectual movement either locally or at 
the centre. 

Our Plan. 

The Board of Education should have, subject to the authority of 
Parliament, powers of inspection, criticism, and audit of all education 
of every kind and grade, which is maintained or aided out of monies 
provided by Parliament, or from endowments or trust funds derived 
from persons deceased; and the Board should therefore take cognizance, 
not only of such primary and secondary education as it con


* In rgoo-r the Nottingham To\\n Council put a clause in a bill which it was 
promoting, for the complete merging of the School Board in the Town Council. The 
School Board passed a resolution (January rgor) that the Bill was "premature," and 
desired its withdrawal "for the present." But the Board is understood to be not 
unfavorable to the principle. 

17 

trois, but also of universities and university colleges, non-local 
schools, an~ ~ther endowed educational institutions, army and navy 
schools, trammg colleges, poor law schools, and industrial and reformatory 
schools and school-ships. 

The official staff should be unified and divided primarily into 
departments on a geographical basis, so that the section of the office 
dealing with each area should take within its purview all the o-rades 
of education, whether elementary, secondary or university, a~1d all 
subjects of study, whether literary, scientific, technological or commercial, 
carried on in the day or in the evening, under public 
authorities or bodies of managers or trustees. Only in this way can 
we ensure a complete view of all the needs of the district, the 
organic unity of education within that district, and a differentiation 
of the requirements of different districts. This fundamental organization 
of the central department should be into ten or twelve 
"provinces," each including all public education within a well-
defined geographical area, such as London, Lancashire and Cheshire, 
Devon and Cornwall, the South-Eastern Counties and so on. 

Each of these ten or twelve geographical sections should be 
under an official of high standing and varied experience, who might 
be called Provincial Superintendent. Through his hands should 
pass all the reports and other papers relating to any part of the 
education of his district, which should have its own staff of inspectors 
for different kinds of schools and different subjects of 
study. Each province \vould have its own pecial needs, and special 
difficulties, which should be treated without any striving after rigid 
uniformity.

But in order to secure the highest specialist efficiency, no less 
than national unity, all important proposals should pass from the 
heads of the geographical departments to one of three or four staff 
officers, of the rank of Assistant Under-Secretary of State, who 
should devote themselves each to one kind of education, and should 
deal with that kind of education all oyer the country. From him 
the papers would go, through the permanent Under Secretary of 
State to the Board, that is the Minister for Education, for final 
decision. 

The Board of Education should require (a) the provision of at 

least a prescribed minimum supply of all grades of education by 

each local authority separately or in conjunction with other local 

authorities; and (b) the provision of an adequate educational and 

administrative staff. 

The Board of Education should make the following grants:


(a) a fixed grant based upon a calculation of two-thirds of_ the 
necessary minimum expenditure on each grade; and (b) a Yanable 
grant based upon one-half of the additional expenditure on anygrade up to a fixed maximum. In this way efficiency and enterprisewould be promoted, and at the same time extraYaganc_e _checke~L 
If any educational authority expended less than the m1mmu_m m 
orcer to save the rates, that is, raised by rate less than o~e-th1rd of 
the minimum expenditure, the Board should have power, 111 the first 

18 


instance, to fine the locality by reducing or withholding all or part 
of its grant, aud ofsupplyzizg the dcjicz(mcy tlms caused by orderzizg a 
special local1'ate to be levzed. If this failed to ensure the provision 
of the ''National Minimum" of education in the particular locality,
the Board should have power, in the last resort, to remove the 
defaulting local authority from office, and appoint, for a short term 
of years, Government Commissioners in its stead, with power to rate. 
But such a drastic course would never be necessary. Meanwhile the 
Board's inspector should have the right to attend at all full meetingsof the authority. 

Conclusion. 

The democratic ideal in education is not merely that a ladder 
should be provided, whereby a few students may climb unimpeded 
from the elementary school to the university; though even this ideal 
has little chance of realization so long as some rungs of the ladder 
are under no one's care, and competing guardians squabble for the 
right to look after others. What the national well-being demands, 
and what we must insist upon, is that every child, dull or cleYer, rich 
or poor, should receive all the education requisite for the full development 
of its faculties. For every child, in eYery part of the 
country, at least a "national minimum" of education must be compulsorily 
provided. Above and beyond that minimum we must ee 
that ample provision is made for varying faculties and divergent 
tastes. Our plan is to extend popular control and popular as istance 
to every branch of education; to combine all the scattered and overlapping 
authorities; and to Lnk together the municipal life of our 
local authorities with the intellectual life of the schools by the concentration 
of all local services under one local body. This plan, it 
is true, requires the surrender of some cherished illusions, and involves 
some delicate adjustments to suit tran itory forms of organization, but 
if these difficulties are faced and met on the lines sketched out in this 
Tract, we shall bring the schools into intimate connection with the 
everyday life of the country and secure o far as official machineryis concerned a sound and efficient educational system. 

The still more important and more difficult problems of what to 
teach and how to educate, remain for separate consideration. 


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