網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

The grammar school is an endowed school, administered, as the report explains

under a scheme of the charity commissioners. It has a governing body, upon which the city council and other local bodies are represented. It has received a grant of £600 per annum from the city technical instruction committee. The scheme provides that religious opinions, or attendance or nonattendance at any particular form of religious worship, shall not in any way affect the qualification of any person for being a member of the governing body. There is a conscience clause. The scheme provides for not less than fifteen foundation scholarships, of which one-half must be awarded to boys who are, or for not less than three years have been, scholars in any of the public elementary schools in the school district of Sheffield. The head master is required by the provision of the scheme to be a graduate of some university in the United Kingdom or in some colony or dependency thereof, or to have such other qualification as inay be fixed by any regulation of the governors, approved by the charity commissioners (responsibility transferred to the board of education). By virtue of the scheme the head master has the sole power of appointing and may at pleasure dismiss all assistant masters. He receives a fixed yearly stipend, with a capitation fee, for each boy in the school, fixed on a scale appointed by the governors. The regulations can not be changed without the sanction of the board of edu cation, hence the school is to a certain extent under public supervision. The Wesley College is a proprietary institution with denominational affiliations. The two institutions are types of the best classes of secondary schools throughout the country.

The city has also a high school for girls, conforming very closely both in the subject-matter and the duration of its course to the second type of secondary schools. This is one of the schools established by the Girls' Public Day School Company (Limited). It accommodates 238 pupils. The fees, which are the same in all the schools of the company, are as follows: Entrance fee, 1 guinea; yearly fees, pupils 7 to 10 years of age, 9 guineas; 10 to 13 years, 12 guineas; 13 and upward, 15 guineas.

In the category of secondary schools in Sheffield Mr. Sadler includes also the "pupil teachers' center," which provides for the instruction of pupil teachers engaged in elementary schools,

The aim of the "center" is to secure for its pupils admission to a training college and to enable them to reach a standard of general attainment which will qualify them to profit by a normal course. The majority of the pupils are girls. Their ages range from about 15 upward. The classes are held in the evening as well as in the daytime, in order to meet the needs of the pupils who are working as pupil teachers in the elementary schools.

All other secondary schools in the city of Sheffield are strictly private schools, conducted for the profit and at the expense of the principal.

In view of the conditions so carefully investigated, Mr. Sadler declared that the most urgent demand for Sheffield was improvement in the secondary education provided for boys.

There is need [he says] for a secondary school, which should give the highest instruction in English, in classies, in mathematics, and in foreign languages, together with instruction in science. This school should train boys intended for professional careers and also for the higher posts in business. It should prepare for the universities. It should be able to give the best possible chance to boys of high mathematical or linguistic ability. The classes should be small. It should have a long course, extending from 10 (or 12) to 17. 18, or 19. It should be on the highest plane of intellectual efficiency, thoroughly well staffed, accommodated in a good building, well equipped with a library and apparatus, and carefully organized from the point of view of school games and those other forms of school activity which develop esprit de corps, give a good tone, and teach the virtues

of corporate life. Manual training should be encouraged throughout the school. The training of the hand helps to develop the brain. Great care should be taken to make the most of the average boy, but at least equal care is necessary to avoid sacrificing the interests of the specially clever pupils. With care these two objects can be successfully combined. The average boy can be helped forward and the brilliant boy can be given the special opportunities which he needs. But in order to combine these advantages the staff must be large and thoroughly efficient.

With help [he adds], either the grammar school or the Wesley College could be raised to the level of complete efficiency described above.

Among the recommendations made by Mr. Sadler was that of the consolidation of the Royal Grammar School and the Wesley College as the best means of securing for Sheffield a secondary school of the highest type. This was suggested as a mere possibility, but the education committee have since reported that

thanks to the unselfish and public-spirited attitude of the governors of the grammar school, as well as to the broad-minded policy pursued by the Wesleyan authorities, the committee have been enabled to frame a scheme, which has been submitted to the board of education, embracing in its scope the purchase of Wesley College and grounds, covering 5 acres, and also of the grammar-school buildings and surrounding land; the adaptation of the Wesley College buildings to modern requirements, and the establishment therein of one strong secondary school of the highest type, to be the property of the municipality, supported by public funds and under effective public control. The scheme as submitted contemplates leaving the endowment of the grammar school in the hands of the governors, to be used for the purposes of higher education. The carrying out of that portion of the scheme which relates to the purchase of Wesley College has already been tacitly approved by the board of education, but difficulties have arisen in regard to other portions of the scheme, which it is hoped may ere long be adjusted, so that the whole plan may be proceeded with. It is confidently believed that the expenditure involved will be fully justified by the extremely important and far-reaching advantages to be gained by the city.

In addition to a secondary school of the highest type, Mr. Sadler noted, further, the need of a secondary school "to feed the technical school with a steady stream of well-educated lads of 16 years of age" and of a secondary school for girls "which will feed the pupil teachers' center with a steady stream of welleducated girls of 16 years of age." These two wants he believed might be met by a single secondary school of purely modern type, situated in a central part of the city.

The general character of the school is outlined as follows:

It should be a school with low fees-1s. a week, which (allowing for holidays) would be about £2 a year. It should be very well staffed with highly competent and well-trained teachers. No class should be allowed to contain more than 30 pupils. Individual work should be encouraged. The school should be in two divisions, one for boys and one for girls, with a different curriculum in each division, though many of the teachers might do work in both divisions, and, if the head master of the school thought well, both boys and girls might work together in some of the classes. There should be a large number of scholarships tenable at this school. These scholarships should give free education and be awarded for merit. The education committee would also, I think, do well to keep in hand a fund out of which further remission of fees could be privately made in deserving cases. From this fund small maintenance allowances should also be made when such addition to the scholarships was thought expedient, in view of special difficulty experienced by any parent in keeping without such aid his child at school throughout the course. Such a school would be mainly recruited from the public elementary schools. Pupils should be drafted to it from the elementary schools at or near their twelfth birthday. Earlier transference would injure the tone and intellectual standard of the elementary schools, would be incompatible with judicious selection for scholarships, and in the case of girls would involve the inconvenience, and even danger, of sending little children to school through crowded streets, often at

some considerable distance from their homes. Later transference, on the other hand, would throw the boys and girls too late in taking up the more advanced work of the secondary-school curriculum, especially the mathematics and the foreign languages. A very sharp boy will be at the top of the elementary school by his twelfth birthday, and should then be moved forward to further opportunities than the elementary school can offer him. To have sent forward a succession of well-grounded and clever pupils to the secondary school would be a public service deserving cordial recognition, and would become an honor of which the head master or head mistress in question would be justly proud.

In discussing the course of study for the boys' department of this school, Mr. Sadler bears in mind the preparation of candidates for admission to the technical school of Sheffield. His idea as to this preparatory work is of special interest to all persons concerned with the problems of technical education.

A boy [he says] should enter the technical school at 16, and not before. He should enter the technical school with the following level of attainment: (1) He should have had, to start with, a good English education-that is to say, he should have a good command over his mother tongue (a power in which English boys, as at present trained, are sadly and needlessly deficient) and should have gained an interest in the broad outlines of history, with a closer knowledge of the lives and deeds of some well-chosen national and other heroes, and have read and learnt by heart a good deal of first-rate English poetry and some English prose. Most of this foundation should have been laid in the primary school; but the secondary school should aim at sustaining and developing, so far as time allows, the boy's interest in history and good literature, and at practicing him in power of fit expression in his mother tongue. In this respect we have much leeway to make up. Through our clumsy methods of teaching English we waste much interest and much power.

(2) Next the boy should come to the technical school with a sound grasp of elementary mathematics. This is a matter of the highest importance. The methods of teaching mathematics should be made as practical as possible. The boys should be made to see the practical value and application of what they learn; and there should be close and friendly conference steadily sustained between the mathematical teachers at the central secondary school and at the technical school, so that the work of the former may dovetail into that of the latter, and that the same spirit of teaching may prevail in both institutions. Very great care should, I think, be taken to insure that the mathematical teaching in the Sheffield schools is, from top to bottom, first-rate of its kind. This remark applies to elementary and preparatory schools as well as to the schools of higher grade. Mathematics are the foundation of applied science. Sheffield depends, in large measure, on applied science. Good mathematical teaching all through the Sheffield schools is a necessity of the situation. It should be on the best modern lines. Much harm can be done by having mediocre mathematical teaching in the early stages of a boy's educational career, and it would be a grave error to run the risk of this mischief in Sheffield, when so much depends on mathematical ability and where (so far as one can judge from an examination of the roll of Sheffield worthies) mathematical and scientific ability are especially likely to make their appearance and to find stimulus from their environment.

(3) In the third place, when the boy enters the technical school he should, if possible, be able to read, to speak, and to write simple French with intelligence and accuracy. He will find French very helpful to him in his technical studies. In later years he is not unlikely to have to travel on business, and the power of speaking French is a valuable possession, and by no means without its bearing on business success: And, further, a boy understands his own language much more thoroughly when he has learnt another to compare with it. A well organized and really well-staffed modern secondary school can give a boy fair command over one foreign language in the course of a curriculum extending over the four years from 12 to 16. But it is indispensable that the teaching should be on modern lines; that the classes should be small (never more than thirty), and that not less than one lesson a day should be devoted to the subject. (4) What remains of the boy's curriculum at such a modern secondary school as might be established at the central school should be made up of physical science (not forgetting first-hand study of nature), drawing, some manual training (this is essential), geography, physical training, and vocal music. This, with care and with provision for religious instruction, can just be got

into 31 lessons per week. It would mean hard work for the boys, but they would be there to work, and the burden would not be unreasonably great. There should be good holidays. If really hard work is done in term times both boys and masters need them.

In Mr. Sadler's opinion the course of study for the girls' department of the secondary school should be different from that of the boys' department.

I would suggest [he says] that this course, like the boys', extend over four years. But I would strongly recommend that their burden of work be far less. It is a grievous mistake to overwork girls at this critical period of their growth. And girls often show themselves more unsparing of their strength in school studies than boys usually are. An important aim of this division should be to produce a fine type of women teachers for the Sheffield elementary schools. But, of course many of the girls would go into business, and a much larger number would devote themselves to the duties of home life. These girls should all have a thoroughly good training in English; they should have a sound training in mathematics; their foreign language, taught on modern lines but with great stress on grammatical accuracy, should be French (or, if thought well, German); and probably the best choice of scientific subjects would be botany and hygiene. Vocal music, drawing, and the arts of home life should receive special attention. In girls' education there should be a strong artistic element. They should be taught to love and admire beautiful things, beautiful characters, and beautiful literature.

The nucleus of the school, whose character is thus defined, existed already in the Central School, of Sheffield, belonging to the class of higher elementary schools. Mr. Sadler's recommendation that steps should be taken to convert this institution into a secondary school of the type indicated has been approved, and the education committee reported in March, 1904, that the work of transforming and reorganizing the school in accordance with the suggestions of Mr. Sadler would at once be begun. It should be observed that the scheme for the reorganized school includes a system of scholarships and bursaries on a scale so liberal as "to insure that no child of ability and general fitness shall be debarred from the privileges of the school for want of means."

Peculiar difficulty will be encountered everywhere in England in the endeavor to transfer pupils from the public elementary to secondary schools on account of the long-standing distinctions between the two classes of schools. Heretofore pupils of the social classes reached by the secondary schools have entered at about 10 years of age, and have at once begun the study of ancient languages. Pupils transferred from the elementary schools at the age of 12 years, as proposed, will thus be at least two years behind their classmates of the secondary schools. Mr. Sadler suggests that this difficulty may be met either by providing special instruction for such pupils on their admission to the secondary school or by postponing the commencement of Latin in the secondary school till the 12th year of age. "Ultimately," he says, "I believe we shall incline to the second solution."

The evening schools, which are also now included in the category of secondary schools, complete the provision in Sheffield for continuing the education of the people beyond the elements.

The entire scheme of education, as provided for under the new conditions, is shown in the accompanying diagram, which presents very clearly the dual conception of secondary education that has the sanction of the ablest minds of England and the purposes to which each type of education is directed.

Secondary education in Liverpool. The report of Mr. Sadler's investigations in Liverpool is more voluminous and of wider scope than the corresponding report for Sheffield. This was inevitable, as the task committed to him included secondary education in all its relations, and, further, the whole subject of the training of teachers for the public elementary schools. Moreover, the conditions to be dealt with in Liverpool were much more complicated than those which

(a) THE EVENING CONTINUATION CLASSES.

OUTLINE PLAN OF PROPOSED ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATION IN SHEFFIELD.

[blocks in formation]

BOYS', GIRLS', and MIXED DEPARTMENTS of PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
giving course of instruction complete in itself up to the age of 14.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic]

Advanced practical instruction in the Domestic
Arts at the SCHOOL OF COOKERY AND DOMESTIC
TRAINING.

At 17 years of age. or, earlier if duly qualified, students may enter the
EVENING CLASSES OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.

« 上一頁繼續 »