destined to affect the fortunes of England so much as the recent report on "Attendance, compulsory or otherwise, at continuation schools." 2 This recent report is the outcome of an investigation made by the consultative committee during the past two years. It originated with a request from the Board of Education, which ran as follows: To consider Clause 8 of the Education Bill for Scotland recently introduced, and to advise as to its applicability to England and Wales; and, whether apart from or in addition to such legislative change, to consider and advise the Board of Education as to whether any means, and if so what, can be devised, in respect of rural areas and of urban areas respectively, for securing (1) that a much larger proportion of boys and girls should on leaving the Public Elementary School commence and continue attendance at Evening Schools than at present do so; and (2) that employers and other persons or bodies in a position to give effective help shall co-operate in arranging facilities for such attendance on the part of their employés, and in planning suitable courses and subjects for the schools and classes. Clause 8 of the bill mentioned above empowered school boards "to make, vary, and revoke by-laws for requiring the attendance at continuation classes until the age of seventeen of young persons who are not otherwise receiving a suitable education." The bill did not become law, so the clause, with some slight modifications, was embodied in the later Education Act for Scotland, 1908. The committee went about the task in an expeditious and thoroly systematic manner. They examined as witnesses representative employers; representatives of labor, of public services, and of local education authorities; teachers, inspectors, economists, sociologists, and others specially competent to give information or to express opinions. In addition, the committee visited the chief industrial districts of England to get into close touch with local employers, workpeople, teachers, members and officials of Local education authorities and others. Three questionnaires were also issued, dealing with (1) the problem of continuation schools in rural districts, (2) the suitable organization of continuation schools for girls, and (3) the effect of education upon employment. 'Board of Education, May, 1902, 2 vols. (Cd. 4757). The report, some 200 pages in length, bears testimony by internal evidence to the presence of Professor Sadler on the committee, for his work on continuation schools published in November, 1907, covered much of the same ground. The following is a very brief summary of the topics treated in the report: The opening pages are devoted to a carefully prepared statement as to the urgency and complexity of the problem. The extent of the problem is next presented in statistical form. Following this is a chapter dealing with the need for educational care during adolescence, wherein the lack of suitable physical training and the changing educational needs called for by changes in industrial methods and in social outlook are strongly emphasized. Because the members of the committee firmly believe that efforts for reform of continuation schools must be paralleled by efforts for reform of the elementary day schools, a chapter is devoted to the discussion of needed reforms in the day school. The moral and economic necessity of preventing educational neglect, the acquiring of loafing habits, and the entrance upon "blind-alley" occupations during adolescence is next considered. After an excellent chapter on the history of continuation schools, three chapters follow dealing with the voluntary system of attendance at such schools. The voluntary system is shown to be inadequate, and to prepare the way for the rather drastic proposals which follow, a chapter on the compulsory systems of Switzerland and Germany is inserted. The later chapters of the report deal fairly and honestly with the difficulties, educational, economic, and administrative, in the way of introducing compulsory attendance at continuation schools, and the methods of meeting them; with the special problem of rural districts; with the special needs of girls in urban districts; with an estimate of the expense which would be incurred if the committee's proposals were adopted; and with summaries of conclusions and recommendations. What, then, is the peculiar nature of the problem in England, and how do the committee propose to solve it? The problem may be stated as follows:-England has 170,000 children between twelve and fourteen years of age, who have left school and do not attend any continuation classes. She has also 2,000,000 boys and girls between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, of whom only 500,000 are receiving continued education. To these must be added the large numbers of pupils who, while still attending school, are nevertheless engaged in wage-earning occupations to the detriment both of their health and education. The special case of the half-timer, i.e., the boy or girl who attends school but half the day, and works in the factory or on the farm the other half, is receiving attention at the hands of an Inter-Departmental committee, who will probably advocate his total abolition. The majority of all these adolescent and child workers have had a sadly inadequate elementary education, and are now engaged for the most part in occupations which will fail them just at the time they begin to demand an adult's wage and sustenance. They, therefore, will become the easy prey of the demon unemployment, with all its attendant moral, social, and economic evils. The solution proposed by the committee is embodied in a series of recommendations, of which the following is a summary of the more important ones: (1) No child under sixteen years of age to be permitted to leave school unless beneficially occupied. (2) The minimum age for school exemption to be raised from twelve to thirteen, and after a short interval to fourteen. In country districts, however, the last year of schooling may be taken half-time from thirteen to fifteen, instead of whole-time from thirteen to fourteen. (3) Local education authorities to make suitable provision of continuation classes for the further education of all young persons, from the time they leave the day school up to their seventeenth birthday. (4) Local education authorities to be empowered to frame by-laws making attendance at continuation schools compulsory for young persons resident in the district up to an age to be fixt by the by-laws, but not exceeding seventeen years. (5) Employers to be obliged (a) to grant facilities for attendance at continuation schools to young employees; (b) to supply the names of all eligible young persons to the local education authority on demand; and (c) to discharge any young person who fails periodically to produce a card attesting his or her attendance at continuation classes in conformity with the terms of the local by-laws. (6) Street-traders to be granted lincenses which are only valid so long as accompanied by a card showing that satisfactory attendances at continuation classes have been made. It will thus be seen that the government of England is recommended to follow the time-honored custom, which has worked so well in the past, of passing permissive laws in order to secure subsequently legislation of a compulsory character. The details of the scheme, such as the inclusion of the elusive but ubiquitous street-trader, the protection of the young worker from over-strain, and the making of the employer responsible for the regular attendance of the young employee, are admirably worked out. As to the cost, the committee are only able to give estimates of the maximum costs, for it is impossible to ascertain how many local education authorities will adopt the compulsory attendance by-laws. The additional cost of raising the age of total exemption from twelve to thirteen years would be $263,950; and from thirteen to fourteen years, $2,181,975. The cost of making attendance of adolescents at continuation schools compulsory to seventeen years of age would be a maximum of $13,125,000, but as the increase would take place very gradually, no hardship on this score would be felt. England is beginning once more the old fight of the rights of the individual versus the rights of the state. Forty years ago she demanded, and in ten years she obtained, compulsory attendance of every child in the country. Pressing social and economic demands now necessitate the lengthening of the period of state control over education until mid-adolescence is reached. The new restrictions will undoubtedly be resisted at first, but the people will eventually acquiesce and learn that the real safety of England lies not in fleets of Dreadnoughts, but in a strong, enlightened, and intelligent population. TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PETER SANDIFORD VI THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION AS AN EDUCA TIONAL FACTOR1 When Mr. Carnegie made public his letter of April 16, 1905, stating that he had given $10,000,000 five per cent. first mortgage bonds of the United States Steel Corporation to constitute a fund "the revenue of which is to provide retiring pensions for the teachers of universities, colleges, and technical schools in our country, Canada, and Newfoundland," there was a chorus of praise and appreciation. A princely benefaction had been made for a highly meritorious purpose. Perhaps at that time not so many as a half dozen men realized, what is now growing steadily clearer to the universities and colleges and to the intelligent public, that the corporation organized to receive and to administer Mr. Carnegie's gift was certain to become an important factor in American higher education, with quite unprecedented power for good. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching for so the new corporation was named-might have dealt with its task in a manner wholly perfunctory, and it might have contented itself with the ordinary routine administration of a pension fund. Had it done so, the life of many a college professor would have been made easier, but American higher education would have gone on its disorganized, wasteful, repetitious, inefficient way, and the country would have been none the wiser. The trustees, however, conceived their task and their opportunity to be something quite different. They interpreted their trust not as a charity, but as an educational institution; an institution to define, to mediate, to conciliate, to upbuild, to bring order out of chaos in the higher education of the land, and to advance teaching by making more comfortable Reprinted by permission from the New York Times, September 18, 1909. |