The Children: Some Educational Problems Part 5

But in the third cla.s.s of cases parental responsibility may be an active and willing force, yet the means available may be so limited in extent that the child is in the chronic condition of being underfed. No one who carefully considers the information recently supplied by the Board of Education as to the methods of feeding the children attending Public Elementary Schools in the great Continental cities and in America can arrive at any other conclusion than that here we are in the presence of an evil not local but general, and apparently incidental to the organisation of the modern industrial State. For whether by voluntary agencies, by munic.i.p.al grants, or by State aid, every great Continental city has found it necessary to organise and inst.i.tute some system of feeding school children.

The only inference to be drawn from such a condition of things is that in a large number of cases the normal wages of the labourer are insufficient to maintain himself and his family in anything like a decent standard of comfort. How large a proportion of the population of our great cities is in this condition it is difficult exactly to estimate, but there is no doubt that a very considerable number of cases of the chronic underfeeding of school children may be traced to the insufficiency of the home income to support the family. The moral obligation to provide the personal necessities of food and clothing for his children is active, but the means for the realisation of the obligation cannot be provided in many cases the endeavour fully to meet the needs of the child results in the lessened efficiency of the breadwinner of the family.

The real causes at work tending to keep the wages of the unskilled labourer ever hovering round a mere subsistence rate must be removed, if anything like a permanent cure of this social evil is to be effected. We must endeavour on the one hand to lessen the supply of unskilled labour.

By so doing the reward of such labour will tend to be increased materially. On the other hand, we must during the next decade or two endeavour by every means in our power to ensure that a larger and larger number of the children of the very poor shall in the next generation pa.s.s into the ranks of skilled labour.

But in the meantime something must be done. The children are there; they still suffer; and their wrongs cry aloud for redress. It is certainly true that any aid given to the child will tend meanwhile to keep the wages at bare subsistence rates. It is also true that the distribution of relief only tends to make the poor comfortable in their poverty, instead of helping them to rise out of it. All this and much more might be urged against the demand to inst.i.tute and organise the systematic public feeding of school children. But these evils are evils which fall upon the present adult population. Education has, however, to do with the future, with the next generation and not with this. Its aim is to secure that as large a number as possible of the children of the present generation will grow up to be economically and ethically efficient members of the community. To secure this end the problem of underfeeding is only one of the problems that must be solved. If we adopt some systematic plan for securing the full nutrition of the children of the present, this must go hand in hand with other remedies. During the stage of transition we shall have to take into account that for a time the wages of the poorest cla.s.s of labourer will tend to remain at their present low rate; we shall have to face the danger that by giving such aid we may in some cases still further weaken the sense of moral obligation of the parents of the present generation. If, on the other hand, we do nothing, or if we look to the present voluntary agencies to go on doing what they can to remedy the evil, what then? Will the evil be lessened in the next generation? a.s.suredly not, if the experience of the present and of the past are safe guides as to what we may expect in the future.

Hence we have no hesitation in urging that the feeding of children attending the Public Elementary Schools should be organised on lines similar to the recommendations laid down in the _Special Report from the Special Committee on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, 1906.[22]

But if we carry out these recommendations and do nothing else, then it may be that we shall partially remedy the evil in the next generation, but we shall to a large extent perpetuate the present condition of things. Side by side with this, we must inst.i.tute and set other agencies at work. By the inst.i.tution of Free Kindergarten Schools in the poorer districts of our large towns, by postponing the beginning of the formal education of the child to a later age, by a scientific course of physical education, by better trade and technical schools, and if need be by the compulsory attendance of children at evening continuation schools, we must bend our every effort to secure that the ranks of the casual, the unskilled, and the unemployable shall be lessened, and the ranks of the skilled and intelligent worker increased.

As the freeing of elementary education can be justified on the ground that the education of the child is necessary for the future protection of the State, so on similar grounds it may be urged that the nutrition of the child is also necessary. Without this our merely educational agencies can never adequately secure the social efficiency of the coming generation. At the same time, unless in the future the need for free education and free food becomes less and less, and unless by the means sketched above we rear up a generation economically and morally independent, then truly we have not discovered the method by which man can be raised to independence and rationality.

APPENDIX

_Recommendations of the Select Committee on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, 1906.

"The evidence, verbal and doc.u.mentary, placed before the Committee has led them to arrive at the following general conclusions:--

"1. That it is expedient that the Local Education Authority should be empowered to organise and direct the provision of a midday meal for children attending Public Elementary Schools, and that statutory powers should be given to Local Authorities to establish Committees to deal with school canteens.

"2. That such Committees should be composed of representatives of the Local Education Authority, representatives of the Voluntary Subscribers, and where thought desirable a representative of the Board of Guardians, and of the local branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, where such exists. That the Head Teacher, the School Attendance Officer, and the Relieving Officer should work in a.s.sociation with such Committee.

"3. That power should be given for the Local Education Authorities, when they deem it desirable, to raise loans and spend money on the provision of suitable accommodation and officials, and for the preparation, cooking, and serving of meals to the children attending Public Elementary Schools.

"4. That only in extreme and exceptional cases, where it can be shown that neither the parents' resources nor Local Voluntary Funds are sufficient to cover the cost, and after the consent of the Board of Education as to the necessity for such expenditure has been obtained, a Local Authority may have recourse to the rates for the provision of the cost of the actual food; the local rate for this purpose to in no case exceed d. in the .

"5. That the Local Education Authority should, as far as possible, a.s.sociate with itself, and encourage the continuance of, voluntary agencies in connection with the work of feeding of children.

"6. That whatever steps may be necessary, by way of extension of the Industrial Schools and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Acts or otherwise, should be taken to secure that parents able to do so and neglecting to make proper provision for the feeding of their children shall be proceeded against for the recovery of the cost; and that the Guardians, or where available the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and not the Local Education Authority, be empowered to prosecute in any cases coming under the law in respect to the neglect of parents to make proper provision for the feeding of their children.

"7. That payment for meals, prior to the meal, whenever possible, should be insisted upon from the parents.

"8. That it is undesirable that meals should be served in rooms habitually used for teaching purposes, and that the Regulations of the Board of Education should carry this recommendation into effect.

"9. That whilst strong testimony has been placed before the Committee to the effect that the teachers have given and are giving admirable service in the way of supervising the provision of meals to the children, it is the opinion of the Committee that it ought not to be made part of the conditions attaching to the appointment of any teacher that he (or she) shall or shall not take part in dispensing meals provided for the children, and that the Board of Education should carry this recommendation into effect."

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Cf. Underfed Children in Continental and American Cities (presented to Parliament, April 1906).

[21] Cf. _Report on Education_ (_Provision of Meals_) _Bill_, especially Recommendation 6, Appendix, p. 75.

[22] Cf. Appendix, p. 75.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ORGANISATION OF THE MEANS OF EDUCATION

Throughout we have a.s.sumed that it is the duty of the State to see to the adequate provision, to the due distribution, and to the proper co-ordination of all the agencies of education, and we have taken up this position mainly on the ground that neither the adequate provision nor the proper co-ordination of the means of education can be safely left to the self-interest of the individual or any group of individuals.

If left to be accomplished by purely voluntary agencies, both the provision and the co-ordination will remain imperfect, and as a nation we can no longer neglect the systematic organisation and grading of the means of education.

But a misapprehension must first be removed. In declaring that all the agencies of formal education should be under control of the State, it is not to be inferred that this control should be bureaucratic. In many minds State control is synonymous with government by inspectors and other officials of the central authority. But bureaucratic control in a nation whose government is founded on a representative basis is a disease rather than a normal condition of such government. In a country where the sovereign power is vested in an individual or in a limited number of individuals, bureaucratic control is and must be an essential feature of its government. On the other hand, where the government is founded upon the representative principle, the appearance of bureaucracy is an indication of some imperfection in the organisation of the State itself. The introduction of the representative principle may have been too premature or its extension too rapid, and as a consequence the government of the people by themselves is ineffective through the general want of an enlightened self-interest amongst the majority of the nation. In such a condition of affairs, if progress is to be made, it can only be accomplished effectively through an enlightened minority forcing its will upon the unenlightened and ignorant majority, and as a result we may have the creation of an army of official inspectors whose chief duty becomes to secure that the will of the central authority is realised. In such a condition of things the tendency ever is for more and more power to fall into the hands of the permanent officials.

But this condition of things may arise in a government founded upon the representative principle in another way. The organs through which the will of the people makes itself known may be imperfect, so that as a consequence it fails to find adequate expression, or its expression is felt only at infrequent intervals. If, for example, the central authority is so overburdened with work that little or insufficient attention is given to many matters of supreme importance for the welfare of the nation, then it follows that more and more power will pa.s.s into the hands of its executive and advisory officers. This condition of things will be further intensified if the governing bodies charged with the local control of national affairs are too weak or too unenlightened to make their voice effective. Now, the tendency to the bureaucratic control of the educational affairs of our own country may be traced to all three causes. The want of an enlightened self-interest in the matter of education amongst a large number of the people, the ineffectiveness of Parliament to deal thoroughly with purely educational questions, and the weakness in many cases of the local governing bodies have all contributed to the gradual creation of the bureaucratic control of education in Great Britain. But this form of control is not entirely evil, and in certain cases it may be a necessary stage in the development of a democracy pa.s.sing from unenlightenment to enlightenment. The remedies for this imperfection, this disease of representative government in the matter of educational control, are (1) the spread of a more enlightened self-interest as to the value of education as a means of securing the social efficiency of the nation and of the individual, (2) the effective control of education by the central authority, and (3) the strengthening of the local authorities by devolving upon them more and more important educational duties. By this means the control of education by the State will become more and more the control of the people by themselves and for themselves, and the chief function of officials and inspectors will then be to advise central and local authorities how best to realise the educational aims desired by the common will of the people.

Let us now consider the main principles which should guide the State in her organisation of the means of education.

In the first place, and upon this all are agreed, the control of all grades of education, primary, secondary, and technical, should be entrusted to one body in each area or district. For there can be no co-ordination established between the work of the various school agencies, and there can be no differentiation of the functions to be undertaken by the various types of school, until there has been established unity of control.

In England, by the Act of 1902, a great step was taken towards the unification of all the agencies of education. According to its provisions, the School Board system was abolished. "Every County Council and County Borough Council, and the Borough Councils of every non-county borough with a population of over 10,000, and the District Council of every urban district with a population over 20,000, became the local education authority for elementary education, while the County Council and the County Borough Council became the authorities for higher education, _with the supplementary aid of the Councils of all non-county boroughs and urban districts_." By this means the unification of educational control has been realised, and already in many districts of England much has been done to further the means of higher education and to co-ordinate this stage with the preceding primary stage.

In Scotland the question of the extension of the area of educational control and of the unification of the various agencies directing education still awaits solution. Several plans have been put forward to effect these ends.[23]

In the first place, it has been proposed to retain the present parish School Boards for the purpose of elementary education, and to combine two or more School Boards for the purposes of providing secondary and technical education. This plan, however, meets with little favour. It would be difficult to carry into practice, and if realised would imperfectly fulfil the end of co-ordinating the work of the various school agencies. Its only recommendations are its apparent simplicity, and the fact that it could be carried out with the least possible change in the existing conditions.

In the second place, it is proposed to retain the School Board system, but to extend the area over which any particular educational authority exerts its control, and to place under its direction all grades of education. In the practical carrying out of this plan the present district areas of counties selected for other purposes have been proposed as educational units. On the other hand, it has been declared that in many cases these areas are unsuitable for educational purposes, and it has been proposed that new areas should be delimited for this purpose.

The chief merit, if it be a merit, of this plan is the retention in educational control of the _ad hoc_ principle--_i.e._, of the principle of entrusting one single national interest to a body charged with the sole duty of conserving and furthering the interest. The only reasons advanced are the great importance of the educational interest and the fear that if it is entrusted to bodies charged with other duties this interest may tend to be neglected. But although both sentiment and the interests of political parties are involved in the advocacy of the _ad hoc_ principle, it must be kept in mind that the School Board system in Scotland is universal and that the difficulties of the system which prevailed in England before its abolition do not exist in Scotland. As a consequence, it has been much more effective in Scotland than in England, and has a much firmer hold on the sentiments of the people.

In the third place, it has been proposed to hand over the educational duties of the country to the County Councils and to the Burgh Councils of the more important towns, to adopt, in principle, a system of educational control similar to that established in England by the Act of 1902.

Many reasons may be urged for the adoption of the last-named plan, and we shall briefly state the more important.

1. An _ad hoc_ authority by its very nature is necessarily weaker than an authority entrusted not merely with the care of a single interest but with the care of the public interests as a whole. If there is to be decentralisation of any part of the functions of the central authority, then any form of decentralisation which consists in the handing over of particular interests to different local bodies, however it may be for the advantage of the particular interest is radically bad for the general interests of the community. The calling into existence of a number of local authorities each having the care of one particular interest, each pursuing its own aim independently and without consideration of the differing and often conflicting aims of the other bodies, each having the power of rating for its own particular purpose without any regard for the general interest of the taxpayer, is radically an unsound form of decentralisation.

2. The establishment of such a form of control fails, and must necessarily fail, in the local authorities securing the maximum of freedom and the minimum of interference from the executive officers of the central legislative authority. So long as the separate interests of the community are entrusted to different local authorities, so long must there remain to the central authority and to its executive officers the power of regulating and harmonising the various and often contending interests so as to secure that the general interest of the individual does not suffer, and the more keenly each particular body furthers the particular interest entrusted to its care the greater is the necessity for this central control and interference, and that the central control should be effective.

3. The separation of the so-called educational interests from the other interests of the community is not for the good of education itself. The real educational interests which have to be determined by the adult portion of the community are the exact nature of the services which a nation such as ours requires of its future members. This determined, the method of their attainment is best entrusted to the educational expert.

The first-named end will be better realised by a body composed of men of diverse interests than by one which is made up of men with one intense but often narrow interest.

4. The larger the powers entrusted to any body and the more freedom possessed by it in devising and working out its schemes, the better chance there is of attracting the best men in the community to undertake the work.

5. It is questionable whether the interests of the teacher would not be better furthered by a local authority entrusted with the care of the interests of the community as a whole than by a body having charge of education alone. Men entrusted with the larger interests of the community are usually more ready to take wider views than the man who is narrowed down to one interest. As a rule, they know the value of good work done, and are ready and willing to pay for it wherever they find it.

6. Lastly, we may urge the test of practical experience. In England, and especially in London, since the control of education has pa.s.sed into the hands of the County Councils a great advance has been made both in the furthering and in the co-ordination of the means of education.

Whether ultimately the control of education be vested in District School Boards or in the County and Burgh Councils, one reform is urgently needed in Scotland, and this is the extension of the area of educational control, under a strong local authority, and with the entire control of elementary, secondary, and technical education.

In the second place, whatever the area of control chosen it should be of such a nature as to admit within its bounds of schools of different grades and of different types, so that children may pa.s.s not only from the Elementary School to the Secondary, but may pa.s.s to the particular type of Secondary or Higher School which is best fitted to prepare them for their future life's work. In many cases, in Scotland, we cannot make the same clear distinction between the various types of school as they do in Germany, but must remain content with the division of a school into departments; yet in our large towns and in our most populous centres of industry we must establish schools of different types and with differing particular ends in view.