The Educational Bill From an Educational Standpoint.
by H. A. Nesbitt, M.A.
Volume 14, 1903, pgs. 241-247
[Henry Arthur Nesbitt wrote poetry and translated books, such as The Victoria Nyanza, and Adolf Sonnenschein's ABC of Arithmetic, from German to English.]
When I was first asked to suggest a subject for the present paper, I was suffering from recent bereavement, and I trusted to be able to work out afterwards the details of the treatment I should give to it. I had not at the time studied the Education Bill closely, and I only gathered from the descriptions of its objects in the Government journals that it was intended to benefit education, and that it contained provisions which would have a direct bearing upon the improvement of our educational methods, upon the training of teachers, the choice of school books, &c. When I came to study the Bill, or rather the Act, as it now is, I feared that my paper would resemble the celebrated chapter on Icelandic snakes: "There are no snakes in Iceland." It is difficult to see at first what effect on education itself would be produced by the taking over of the Voluntary Schools and the substitution of County and Borough Councils for School Boards. There is, however, one point in the Act which, if properly worked, may bring about a revolution in our educational methods. The Councils are to delegate their powers to committees, with power to add as members (a) persons who have had experience in education, and (b) persons representing various educational interests. As to the second of these I am to a great extent indifferent, as there is seldom any difficulty in this country in protecting class interests--the greater danger is always lest class interests should interfere with the interest of the community at large--but the first point, that of placing educational experts on education committees is really, strange as it may seem, a new departure in our national system of education. The education of the masses has been since 1870 in the hands of the Education Department and the School Boards.
Let us begin with the Department. This is an ordinary administrative branch of the Government, conducted by Government clerks who have risen from the lower ranks to which they were admitted by means of fairly difficult competitive examinations, assisted by Government Inspectors, generally appointed by reason of their having distinguished themselves at the University. Even when, as in the case of Sir Joshua Fitch, an educational expert was chosen, it was too often found that the administrative spirit became too strong for educational instincts, so that men of real culture and knowledge of what education ought to be, as evinced in their writings, were found defending Payment by Results and the Pupil Teacher System, until the pressure of outside opinion forced the Department to abandon the former. Sir John Gorst, who really studied the subject of education after his appointment, made gallant attempts to act from an educational standpoint, but he was not supported by his Government and had to retire. Again and again it has been found that the Department, with the best will in the world, was unable to do any good owing to the want of practical acquaintance with the difficulties to be grappled with on the part of its personnel, though there has been of late a marked improvement.
Let us turn to the School Boards. One great benefit of the Act is the abolition of the Cumulative Vote. The result of this method of voting was to make each member the representative of some sect or clique. If a candidate presented himself on the ground that he had had experience in education and had studied the subject scientifically, it was found that he was never elected. If the addresses of candidates are examined, it will be found that they generally asked for election in order that they might support Voluntary Schools, or oppose the claims of Voluntary Schools, or that they promised to give only Trades Union wages to the Board's employees, or anything but that the candidate had studied the subject of education and hoped to do something towards the improvement in methods of teaching, in the choice of school books, &c.
I may be allowed to relate my own experience. A vacancy occurring on a School Board, I was co-opted to fill it, and served for two years. I have reason to think that I was a useful member. I went round the schools whenever I could spare time, listened to the teaching, and was able to give assistance and advice to the school teachers, whom I must say I found most anxious to grasp at any improvement suggested.
Now there was a carpenter in the place who had a quarrel with one of the mistresses, who he considered had punished one of his children unjustly. The Board supported the mistress, and our friend announced his intention of getting on the Board himself at the next election. When the election came, I came forward on the ground that I had made a study of the subject and had had long experience as a teacher. I had neither time nor inclination to canvass, my work on the Board took a great deal of my time, which I was willing to give if wanted. I did not put myself forward in connection with any particular party or sect, and I need hardly say that the carpenter who went round and brought his voters to the poll himself got in, and that I was rejected. I am bound to say that the successful candidate proved a useful member. He did not molest the mistress, and he gave useful assistance in respect of the woodwork of some new schools we were building, showing the advantage of having an expert on the Board. In fact, everyone will see in the case of carpentering or the like, that a skilled carpenter is more likely to be able to superintend carpentering than a University graduate, however enthusiastic and Episcopalian, Methodist or Catholic he may be. It is strange that people will not recognise that the same holds in the art of teaching as in the art of carpentering. We are told that popular control should accompany expenditure. It is quite right, but the expenditure is to be in the hands of the Councils--at least so I understand the Act--and not of the Committees. How does the case stand in the government of the country? The executive is distinctly not elected. The electors, it is true, decide which of the two great parties shall be in power, but the Prime Minister is appointed nominally by the Sovereign, actually by natural selection, as being the man most trusted by the dominant party. The electors have no say whatever as to the distribution of the offices among the members of the Cabinet. In some cases they may decide whether anyone is to be made a minister, but this is not selection, and in many cases, as when the man in question is a peer, there is no popular election at all. The officers of the Army and Navy, the Judges, the dignitaries of the Church, the Ambassadors, are not elected. All that the nation decides is whether the power of selection shall belong to one party or the other. We may compare the Council to the House of Commons and the Education Committee to the Cabinet, consisting as it does partly of elected members and partly of co-opted members, viz., such Cabinet Ministers as are peers. Similarly, the Education Committees will consist partly of members of the Council, partly of added members. As in the case of Parliament their expenditure will be subject to the control of the representative body. The advocates of the retention of School Boards praise the principle of election ad hoc. May I say that it is a principle otherwise almost unknown to our constitution? The County Councils are elected--but for what? For general management, not specially for lighting, nor for police, nor for public spaces; they are elected as being men of influence and ability. If a lighting committee were elected it would not be elected ad hoc. The man in the street would not examine the certificates of efficiency, discuss whether this candidate or the other best understood the comparative advantages of electric or incandescent lighting. No, they would be chosen as being well-known men as being prominent advocates of labour, as munificent supporters of local charities; they would not be chosen ad hoc. And so with education. It is notorious that the members are not elected ad hoc, that is, ad efficient education; but ad the support of this or that sect or ad the maintenance of a certain rate of wages, etc.
There was once brought forward a Bill for the better government of India, and it proposed that a council should be formed of eighteen persons, nine nominated by the crown, others elected in various manners. Of these, five were to be elected by London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Belfast! This was absurdly out of tune with the principle of popular election, which is that every man knows best what manner of representative is best calculated to look after his interests in the body to which he is elected. But how could these five cities be qualified to decide as to the class of men who could best care for the interests of Bengal, Bombay, or the Punjab? In the same way the Borough and County Councils are chosen to represent the interests of the constituents, but they only represent the interests that the people understand and are anxious about. Now, judging from the talk at election time, good education is not a subject that the working classes understand or care about much, and consequently this interest is not likely to be well represented by means of direct popular representation. I am passing no judgment on the Act as a whole. Whether too much or too little has been given to the Voluntary Schools is a question which I do not even desire to express an opinion upon, but in this one point at least the Act is good, in that it recognizes the principle that Boards of Management should contain educational experts.
The next question that arises is, in what principle directions could such a committee exercise beneficent influence.
First there is the Training of Teachers. It is not necessary to insist before this society that teaching is an art, and that it no more follows that a highly cultured person should be able to teach than it does that a master of harmony should be able to play the piano, or a great mathematician be able to build a bridge. This, which to us is a truism, is by no means recognized even in the educational world. Inspectors are chosen from among young University men who have taken a good degree. In the great public schools, the idea of a necessary training in teaching is altogether ignored, and with the exception of the Ambleside House of Education, the Maria Grey Institute, and the College at Cambridge, no training colleges for schools other than elementary are in existence.* Even in elementary schools, much remains to be done in enforcing the necessity of regular training. In Germany a pupil is specially trained for five years in the subject matter, and then for two years in the art of teaching it. If any action comes to be taken about secondary schools, this is the direction to which the influence of experts on the committees should be specially directed, as it is just the point that would probably be neglected by the other members.
* I ought to have added the Ladies' College at Cheltenham.
Secondly, and closely connected with the first, there is the Pupil Teacher System. There is only one improvement of any value, and that is improving it off the face of the earth. The idea of setting a child to teach a class is an utterly absurd one. To anyone who knows what teaching ought to be--the effort and the skill required to maintain the interest of the class in order that every hour spent should be an hour of improvement and progress, the idea that an untrained immature mind is capable of anything beyond the merest mechanical work, deadening to the intellect and productive only of distaste for learning generally, seems too absurd for discussion. You would not trust a child's body to a medical student, but you intrust its mind, no less delicate an organization, to someone who has no idea what harm may be done by the clumsy treatment of a 'prentice hand. It may be said that it is necessary to begin somewhere. Yes, but in training colleges the earliest teaching is given under close supervision, and after the teacher has gone through some training in the principles of the subject.
I have heard two arguments for the retention of the system. First, that it is only by early practice that the teachers can become good disciplinarians. Secondly, that it would cost much more to use none but trained teachers.
To the first I would answer that too much attention is paid to the strictness of discipline, as compared with the interest and delight felt by the children in the subject of the lessons. These poor pupil teachers have to work in school during the day, and then prepare for examination in the evening. It is altogether too great a strain on the physical and mental organization. They get to look upon absolute discipline as the chief aim of their lives, and never learn the true joy of teaching, which can only come to one who is able to keep up the attention of the class by means of the interest in the subject taught--a joy that only comes to a trained and competent teacher. And this leads us to the question, whence the need of this martinet-like discipline, so far more rigid than any to be found in secondary schools? The cause lies in the excessive size of the classes. I maintain that it is an impossibility to teach properly a class of 50 or 60 children. The difficulty of doing any good with such a class becomes necessarily much more one of discipline than of teaching. When the inspector comes round, the points which attract his attention are, in the ratio of five to one, points of discipline, and not the subject matter of the lessons. I maintain that no class of younger children should exceed 25, and no class of older children should exceed 30 in number, and this brings me to the second plea, that of expense. As to this, I would say that bad work is in the long run always dearer than good work, and that it ill becomes a nation that can spend 70 millions in one year on its army, and 30 millions on its fleet, to begrudge an increase of the 12 or 13 millions for education. It is true that this sum only represents about half the actual cost of national education, but even that gives the cost of the Army and Navy as four times the cost of education. To grudge money for the education of the people is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, for the earning power of the nation will be in direct proportion to uts intelligence and culture.
When will our authorities learn that the process is more valuable than the results, and that it is not the actual amount of knowledge or attainment, but the mode in which the knowledge is acquired that makes the difference between a man of culture and a half-educated man. Payment by Results is swept away, but it has left its ghost behind. The inspectors think a great deal more of what the children have learned than of how they have learned it, and hence the small attention given by the inspectors to the intelligence and formative character of the teaching given, as compared with the attention to minor points, such as neatness and uniformity of writing, sitting straight, keeping the eyes on the teacher, &c.
(To be continued.)
Proofread by LNL, Dec. 2008