The Daily News. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1903 EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 47, 23 February 1903, Page 2

The Daily News. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1903 EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

I —„— il Tdk annual report of the JSnglisb Board of Education is of special inj, terest a l , this time. The Education 7 Act just passed has divided the country more p3rhaps than any othe,r measure » has dune sicca Mr Gladstone's Home , Rule Bill. The contest which raged so keenly was due undoubtedly to the . objectiens ef the great non-confor-mist party who felt that the great principles of their creed were beintr < njdangered. Although certain modifications were m*de and the untied suppoit of the Government got the measure through, there is still a good deal of feeling on the question. This lends additional interest to the annual report under notice. It Ins oft<?n been i; said that the English people do not realise the value of educition, but the Act just passed although not by aoy means a perfect measure, will go a loog 3 way to remove this reproach, as it is undoubtedly a big step in advance. For the first time it has become possibles co ordinate the various branches of educational work and the advantages of this will go a long way to reconcile the opponents of the meaeurp. The difficulties of educational reform in England are abundantly exemplified in the repoi t in question. Up to January Ist, 1902, echool boards had been estab I lished in London and io 59 county and 140 non-county boroughs, In 57 of these boroughs, the election was com-' pu'sory, to supply a deficiency which could not be met without the aid of j rates. In the remaining 142 boroughs' the election was ordered on the volar-1 . tary application of the municipal! authorities. Of the 2360 school boards in urb-n and rural parishes, 1099 had been elected under compulsory orders from the board and 209 to meet deficicucifs caused by the closing of schools by the managers ; while the remaining 1052 had been called into existence by the voluntary application of the ratepayers. The schools in England and Wales visited by the inspectors for the purpose of annual grant?, which in 1870 provided for 1,878,584 scholar?, or for 8.75 per cent, of the population, were in 1901 sufficientfor 6,610,416 scholars, cr 20.27 per cent, of the population! Additional accommodation has been provided since 1870, to the extent of 1,850,677 seats by voluntary effort, being an increase of 98.5 per cent, whilo ths average attendai.ee has risui 116.4 per cent., and to the ex'ent of 2,881,155 seats in board schools. Id the past year the accommodation in voluntary schools hasincrca&erl by 5451, and in board schools by 95,354 places! It is pointed out that fcr ev;ryloo children on the school regis'ers the «V(>rage attendance was 82.17. The percentage of average attendance was 87.36 amor.g the older scholars and I 72.51 among the infants. In board' seh.-ols the grant earned by each poholr.r ■ in actual average attendance was £1 Is I showing an increase for the year! of 3d, and in voluntary schools ths grant wis £1 Is 2J<], showing an increase of 6d. It is added that the general efficiency of public ele-riflntary I schools throughout the country i& niain- | teined at a bigh level, while the cost of

maintenarce Ims ag»in ri o'i, twth in board and voluntary scheols. The total of the contributions from rates for "maintenance" in Board schools has risen in the year from £2,809,666 to £3,185,925, an increase of £376,259. This total is equiviknt to a payment per child of £1 8* 2d, showing an increase of 2s 8d for the year. The voluntary contributions hu;e incressed in the year from £801,202 to £834,123, or by £32,921. I This represenis a payment per child in I average attendarce in voluntary schools of Gs B', an increase of 3|d for the year. The report do is not, of course, deal wif.h the voluntary schools, excep f in s) far as they receive Government aid or are subject to insp-ction. From j a recently published work we obtain j some figures, which are very remarkable. The tremendous growth of tta i voluntary schools sinca 1870 is shown by the fact that whereis in that yeir there were 8281 voluntary schools, there are now 14,359, made up as f0110w5:—11,777 connected with the Church of England, 458 Wesleyan (schools, 1045 Catholic schools, 1079 Bri ish and other schools. There are ' being educated in the Ohurch schools '2,300,150 children, 156,666 in the , Wesl yan, 316,759 in the Catholic, ! and 269,421 in the British schools. In 1 5640 parishes the Ohurch of England school offers the only education available, and in 1800 othtr districts some other voluntary school stands aloEe. [These figures enable us to realise the j magnitude of the task which would jawa't the Government if it undertook jto do what some of its critics demand j and took over the voluntary school . i Sir William Harcourt recently valued these buildings at £15,000,000. The average cost par seat of the board tchocls as given in tho Blue Book is £l4 18i 7d. This includes the coitly sites and buildings of the London Board. Probably the cost of the country schools is not more than £l2 10a a head. To provide accommodation for three millions more children would cost tho nation at least £4,000,000 and might cost very much more E iglan 1 is better p vr vid d with scboals than j Anio ic . No les-t than 95 per cent of the chil .ren in England are on the regis* or. Out of ne*rly sir millions attending the schools not more than 80,000 are half-timer*, although 140,000 are still employed out of school hours, In Germany this evil is far worse. There are three-quarters of a million children between six and fourt- en years of age working for wages in that country. It is clear that all that is wanted is better organi-a'ion and more public interest in education There are not warning signs happily that in both respects matters are improving.