87

General Report by Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, H. G. BOWYER, Esq., on the Schools of Parochial Unions in the Counties of Bedford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Leicester, Lincoln, Norfolk, Northampton, Nottingham, Stafford, Suffolk, and Warwick, and also in portions of Essex and Hertfordshire; for the year 1852.

MY LORDS,

IN the last General Report which I had the honor of addressing to your Lordships, I expressed an opinion that the improvement in the education of the children in the workhouse schools comprised within my district which might be anticipated from the effect of annual inspection alone would probably be found to have attained its culminating point in the year 1851; that the conditions of progress offered by the present organization of pauper education had been already exhausted; and that nothing but an enlargement of those conditions would remove the barrier that obstructs the onward movement which has been impressed upon this section of national education by the scheme agreed upon between your Lordships and the Poor Law Board. The result of last year's tour of inspection has convinced me that this anticipation was correct; and, if the tabular statement of individual schools at the end of this report be compared with the similar statement for 1851, it will be found in the majority of the schools, though an improvement may have taken place in some of the details of instruction, yet that the general character of the education has remained stationary, and that, in a large proportion, the two reports are almost verbally identical. To some, no doubt, the changes which have taken place in the teachers have been advantageous, by the accidental substitution of a better for a worse; but to others that lottery has not been so favourable; and the general result of these changes has been to leave things pretty much as they were.

Indeed, the result of the comparison of the certificates awarded to new teachers with those held by their predecessors in the same school shows a decided deterioration in the character of the teaching body. Out of the 29 new masters, 3 were similar to their predecessors, 8 were better, and 18 worse; showing a balance of 10 on the side of deterioration. Out of the 30 new mistresses, 7 were similar, 10 better, and 13 worse;

so that the female teachers may be considered as neither improved nor deteriorated by new appointments.

The certificates awarded to the same teachers give a rather more favourable result. Out of the 67 masters' certificates, 50 were similar, 14 better, and only 2 worse. Out of the 107 mistresses' certificates, 95 were similar, 9 better, and only

2 worse.

In order, however, that these results may not be rated above their real value, I must repeat the observation which I made in my last General Report with reference to a similar statement, namely, that even an advance of one single section in the lowest of the four kinds of certificates is reckoned as an improvement. I have also placed, among the similar certificates, all the cases of worse certificates in which I felt any doubt whether another visit might not enable me to form a more favourable opinion of the teacher's qualifications. So that I have given them in every case the benefit of the doubt.

The period of improvement extends from October 1847, when I commenced my first tour of inspection, to the end of the year 1850. The progress was at first rapid. Incompetent teachers were got rid of; indolent or careless teachers were stimulated; and meritorious teachers were encouraged by praise, and rewarded by an honourable certificate and an increase of salary. Bibles and testaments, copybooks, slates, and blackboards were supplied wherever they were deficient; and the secular books of the Irish Education Board were introduced in many schools in which previously the Holy Scriptures alone had been used for reading. The methods of instruction were considerably improved, and a more practical tone was given to them, especially in regard to geography, arithmetic, and writing, considered as an instrument for expressing thoughts, instead of a mere manual mere manual exercise. Lastly, a new and most beneficial direction was given to pauper education, by the introduction of agricultural training for the boys wherever it was practicable, (in some places, substituted for shoemaking and tailoring, in most, for total idleness), and, also by the introduction, though necessarily to a less extent,—of washing, ironing, and dairy-work for the girls. This last movement, the result of joint exertions on the part of the officers of the Committee of Council and of the Poor Law Board, may, indeed, be viewed as the most important result of inspection; as it has not only taught the moral worth of labour to a class who are mostly the offspring of idleness, but likewise has extended its influence over the wide field of the education of our labouring classes, the reclaiming of criminal children, and the employment, if not the reformation, of the more hardened adult criminals.

The industrial movement, however, was soon brought to a conclusion by the impossibility of carrying out any system of industrial training in the smaller workhouse schools; and the improvement of the schools, even at the period of its most rapid progress, betrayed the germ of those causes which have arrested it. Many of the teachers who had, by their exertions in self-instruction and by the improvement of their schools, obtained certificates of competency or efficiency, instead of attaching themselves to the department of education in which they had won their promotion, used their certificates as a passport to a school unconnected with the workhouse; and their places were seldom supplied by persons of equal qualifications the increasing demand for teachers of elementary schools, occasioned by the educational movement now in progress throughout the country, affording them a means of more congenial employment. This tendency of the superior workhouse teachers to desert that department of public instruction was naturally much increased by the alteration in the mode of apportioning the payments from the sum granted by Parliament for defraying the expense of the teachers' salaries, as introduced by the Circular of the 6th of May 1850, by which their salaries were made dependent upon the average yearly attendance in their schools, concurring as it did with a great diminution in the number of children in the workhouses. Of the operation of this cause I speak, not merely from logical inference but, from personal knowledge; and I, consequently anticipate a highly beneficial effect from the increase of the capitation fee for certificates of competency, and efficiency to 58. and 10s. respectively, which will come into operation in the parochial year commencing at Lady Day 1853. It will probably induce many of the superior teachers to remain, and, when more generally known, may also diminish the difficulty, at present experienced, of procuring trained teachers for workhouse schools. For reasons, however, to which I have adverted in my previous reports, I do not expect that it will produce any improvement in the great body of these schools, which are too small to afford scope for the praiseworthy professional aspirations of a good teacher, or to render the increase of the capitation fee a consideration of any importance. For these I can see no prospect of improvement except in their consolidation, either by uniting several of them into one, according to the provisions of the Act 14 and 15 Vict., cap. 105, sect. 6, or by forming them into district schools.

Of these two methods of consolidation the latter presents by far the greatest advantages, and can indeed alone be viewed as a permanent measure; as it would be unsafe to conclude, because any particular workhouse happens to be at

present empty enough to admit an additional number of children from neighbouring workhouses, that it will permanently continue so for a series of years. Notwithstanding the general indications of a durable prosperity presented by the condition of the country, causes of a local nature will frequently occasion an unexpected influx of pauperism into that workhouse, which will render it necessary to break up the united school, and to send the children belonging to other Unions back to their respective workhouses. Nor does the Act contain any provisions enabling the Unions which send their children to the united school to effect, at their own expense, such enlargements in the dormitories and schoolrooms as would be necessary in order to obviate this inconvenience. Although, for these reasons, I do not apprehend that that Act will be the means of effecting any permanent consolidation of workhouse schools (for which it probably was not designed), yet I anticipate that it will be extremely useful as a temporary expedient during the period which must elapse before a district school can be brought into operation.

In the last General Report which I had the honor to submit to your Lordships, I expressed an opinion that some further measures would be required in order to carry out the objects of the Act relative to district schools. These were- -that a compulsory power should be lodged in Her Majesty's Government, to be exercised in case of necessity; and that the grants in aid of the erection of school buildings, under your Lordships' Minutes, should be extended to district schools. These two alterations would probably be sufficient to overcome the obstacles which have hitherto prevented, except to a very limited extent, the carrying out of the objects of the Act; but, in order that it may produce all the benefit that is expected from it, I venture to express a further opinion that it will be necessary to repeal the proviso which requires the consent of the parents and guardians of the children not comprised in the classes of orphans or deserted.

I am not aware to what extent this proviso has operated to the disadvantage of the London district schools, but the large number of children in them would seem to indicate that no great inconvenience has been experienced from it. But if it has operated to their disadvantage, the result may be accounted for by circumstances not existing in country districts. In the vast and thickly congregated populations of the London parishes there is a distance between the large and shifting pauperized class and the Guardians, or other administrators of relief, wider than that existing in agricultural districts, where the population is thinner, and where all the habitual recipients of relief are personally known to the Guardians