204 EDUCATION AND THE COURT OF CHANCERY. a time, and then passed on to another centre, "thus making a continuous circuit of the whole Country." The funds for the support of the schools were at first chiefly drawn from England, while the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge gave the movement a general support and supplied the schools with books. By 1737, 37 schools with 2400 scholars had been opened. By 1740 there were more than 100 schools at work. Before Griffith Jones's death over 3000 schools had been opened, and 150,000 scholars had been taught in the day schools alone. In the year 1760 10,000 children were in these schools. Mrs Bevan, a Welsh lady, was a warm supporter of the undertaking, and on the death of Jones in 1761 the schools were carried on by her. The popularity of the movement and the public desire for education may be gauged by the manner in which additional schools were set up. The minister and parishioners of a parish would petition the manager of the movement for a school, upon which a Welsh master would be appointed and sent to take up the work. An inspector was subsequently sent to examine the scholars as to their proficiency, and to see that the master attended to his duty. Mrs Bevan died in 1779, and bequeathed her large property for the carrying on of the work. Her relations disputed the will, and in consequence her estate was thrown into Chancery, and the schools ceased to exist for lack of funds. Here we have another instance where the administration of the law blocked the way of education. It was not until July 9th, 1804, that the will was upheld by the Court of Chancery, after it had been under consideration for a quarter of a century, and a scheme for the administration of the charity was drawn up in July, 1807, in accordance with which schoolmasters were appointed. The scheme of the Court of Chancery came into operation in 1809, and was administered with useful results1. This instance shows how practically impossible it was 1 See vol. XXXII. Part III. of Report of the Charity Commissioners, 1838. There were 34 schools in 1836. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL SYSTEM, 1780. 205 The to endeavour to reform abuses in educational charities. Court of Chancery suspended indefinitely even such little education as there was to be had as soon as the foundation was before the Court. In the case of the Bevan Trust incalculable harm was done. In 1779 education was in full swing in Wales; but when the Bevan schools resumed their work, the people of the Principality had forgotten once more the meaning of popular education, and so we find that in 1820 popular education in Wales was less effective than in any part of England. During the thirty years' suspension of the Welsh Piety Schools, as they were called, four other influences had arisen to develop a national system of elementary education. As these influences are within the immediate knowledge of all persons interested in the general history of education in England, it will suffice to merely indicate three of them, and refer them to their proper place among the beginnings of a national system. The first was the system of Sunday schools, which has played such an important part in the organisation of the education of the masses. As early as 1737, John Wesley, during his sojourn in Savannah, had started Sunday classes, and it is interesting to note that these schools should have had their origin in a period when the movement for the education of the people had, for the first time since the Reformation, attained national proportions. Sunday schools were not, however, started in England until 1763, and it was not until 1780 that Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, consolidated the Sunday school system'. It is perhaps a matter of comment 1 Sunday schools did not reach London for some time after 1780 (see evidence of Mr Francis Place before the Select Committee on Education of 1835). The Sunday School Society was founded in London in 1785. Mr W. F. Lloyd in his evidence before the Select Committee on Education of 1834 estimated that the total number of Sunday scholars in England and Wales was 1,500,000 with 160,000 teachers. No payment was made by the parents and the expenses were met by private subscriptions or congregational collections (Q. 1311-12). The Sunday School Teacher's Magazine and Journal of Education was started in 1813. 206 ANDREW BELL AND JOSEPH LANCASTER. for the curious to notice that Sunday schools should have had their origin in a town, the grammar school of which supplied the law case which laid down the principles of freedom of teaching in the early fifteenth century. One valuable aspect of the Sunday school must not be forgotten. The secular instruction given in these schools was, especially in the manufacturing districts, of the highest social importance. In Manchester we find, according to evidence given before Parliament in 1834, that Sunday schools were open for secular instruction for five and a half hours on Sunday and for two evenings in the week and that the ages of the scholars varied from five to twenty-five years1. The second influence was the movement started by Andrew Bell (1753-1832). Bell, a clergyman of the Established Church, became Superintendent of the Madras Male Orphan Asylum in 1789, and in that school he started what was known as the Madras method of the mutual instruction of Influence of Bell and children. On his return to England he introduced his method in 1798 into the Protestant charity school of St Botolph's, Aldgate, and in 1799 into certain industrial schools at Kendal. The Established Church, disliking the methods of Lancaster, supported Bell, who claimed to have introduced a new principle into education. The Church party formed in 1811 the "National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales"-an offshoot, we are told, of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge'. This Society was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1817. Its schools during Bell's lifetime increased in number to about 12,000; but a subsequent inspection showed that in every part of England they were 1 See the evidence of Mr Benjamin Braidley before the Select Committee of 1834 (pp. 174-187). Mr Braidley's school had 2,700 scholars who were taught by 120 unsalaried teachers, all, save two or three, former scholars. 2 See the Speech of Mr W. P. Wood referred to on p. 202, supra. POLITICS AND EDUCATION. 207 in a deplorable state, with ignorant teachers and with monitors who merely taught by rote. The merit of Bell's system was that it made education of a kind cheap, and created a demand for elementary education throughout the country. It is also claimed as a merit of the method that it led up to the system of pupil teachers. Modern educationalists, however, differ on this point. Bell's claim to be the founder of the modern elementary education system is untenable; he was preceded by the Chevalier Paulet in Paris in 1790, and by others. Joseph Lancaster (1778-1838) has perhaps as much claim to the gratitude of posterity as Andrew Bell, since that gratitude depends on their joint work as the popularisers. of a new form of elementary education. In 1801 Lancaster took a room in the Borough Road, and placed above the entrance the legend "All who will may send their children and have them educated freely, and those who do not wish to have education for nothing may pay for it if they please." The want of funds to pay for masters compelled him to employ the elder scholars to teach the younger, and from this almost accident, combined with some knowledge of Bell's method, he evolved his monitorial system, which he described in his pamphlet on Improvements in Education, published in 1803. In 1805 King George III. gave his patronage to Lancaster, and expressed the wish "that every poor child in my dominions should be taught to read the Bible." From this beginning an important movement arose, and in 1808 the Royal Lancasterian Institution' was founded, and this induced the Church party to show increased hostility to Lancaster's undenominational methods. He desired all children to have Christian but not denominational teaching, while Bell wished all poor schools to be under the direct control of the Estab 1 On May 21st, 1814, the executive committee adopted the title "The British and Foreign School Society," but the Society had "existed in one state or another since 1808." See Lord Brougham's evidence before the Select Committee on Education of 1834; and The Report of the British and Foreign School Society: 1814.. 208 PARLIAMENT AND EDUCATION. lished Church. Brougham and the Whigs, with the aid of the Edinburgh Review, supported Lancaster, while the clergy invoked the help of the Tories and the Quarterly Review. The dispute between the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society-formerly the Lancasterian Society— awakened general interest among thinking men and women, and created a volume of conflicting popular opinion on the subject of national education. Therein lies probably the real good that Bell and Lancaster did for England, though it is impossible not to regret that they and their societies should have begun that bitter dispute between denominational and undenominational teaching which is still vigorous. Their schools were of temporary service to the country; but their disputes, by creating popular interest, were of lasting service to the cause of education. The noise of their quarrel for a precedence that neither could claim penetrated to the Houses of Parliament, and awakened the Legislature to the necessity of action. The entrance of the question of elementary education into Parliament is the fourth influence referred to above. It will be dealt with in the succeeding chapter. From the date of Mr Whitbread's Parochial School Bill of 1807 the question has gone steadily forward, and to-day we can look back with gratitude to that long period of slow development which at last brought elementary education before the Legislature. It has been necessary here, in order to understand subsequent history, to draw attention to the obscure causes and events that lie behind modern elementary education in England, and to indicate in outline some of the earlier and less familiar aspects of a national movement that became perhaps the most important product of the nineteenth century, |