Hadow (1931)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Analysis, Preface, Introduction
Chapter 1 The history of the development of the conception of primary education
Chapter 2 The physical development of children between the ages of 7 and 11
Chapter 3 The mental development of children between the ages of 7 and 11
Chapter 4 The age limits for the upper stage of primary education
Chapter 5 The internal organisation of primary schools
Chapter 6 Retarded children in the primary school
Chapter 7 The curriculum of the primary school
Chapter 8 The staffing of primary schools and the training of teachers
Chapter 9 The premises and equipment of primary schools
Chapter 10 Examinations in primary schools
Chapter 11 Summary of principal conclusions and recommendations
Chapter 12 Suggestions on the curriculum of primary schools
Appendix I List of witnesses
Appendix II Physical development of 7-11 year olds (Harris)
Appendix III Mental development of 7-11 year olds (Burt)
Index

London: HM Stationery Office

Chapter 1 The history of the development of the conception of primary education above the infant stage from the beginning of the 19th century to the present time
[pages 1 - 21]

1. The Junior School or Department (1) for pupils between the ages of 7 or 8 and 11 or 12, as it is understood today, is due to at least three distinct trains of causation:
(i) The lengthening of school life effected by the Education Act of 1870 and later Acts.
(ii) The gradual organisation and grading of education, with a view to securing efficiency and economy. (iii) The growth in the understanding of the needs of children at successive stages of their development.

Up to 1870, apart from certain educational provisions in the Factory Acts and in the Mines Acts, (2) which only applied to children workings in factories and mines, there was no general legal compulsion on parents to send their children to school. The Education Act of 1870 conferred on the newly established School Boards power to make by-laws requiring the attendance of children between the ages of 5 to 10 with power to retain them at school to the ages of 11, 12 or 13, subject to the provision that such by-laws must grant exemptions on certain conditions to pupils over the age of 10. The Education Act of 1880 turned this power into a duty. As before 1870 the provision of Primary Schools was left wholly to the voluntary efforts of different bodies, mostly denominational, aided by grants from the Treasury between 1833 and 1839 and from the Education Department as from 1839, it is not surprising to find that there was little attempt in practice to differentiate between junior or primary instruction on the one hand and senior or post-primary instruction on the other hand, since the number of pupils who remained over the age of 10 in most primary schools was comparatively small. It is, however, interesting to find that from the very inception of the movement for the provision of popular elementary education on a large scale there was a noticeable tendency to differentiate the provision made for infants under the age of 6 from that for children over that age.

2. The British and Foreign School Society, founded in 1808, and the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, founded in 1811, supported the monitorial systems of Joseph Lancaster and Dr Andrew Bell respectively. The principal aim of these systems was to impart to children of 6 years of age and upwards the rudiments of religious knowledge and of the three R's, with a little needlework for the girls. For instance, one of the rules of the British and Foreign School Society was that no child under the age of 6 should be admitted to a British School, and that when there was serious pressure on the school accommodation, the minimum age of entrance should be 8. (3) At a stage in the development of primary education, when two years was regarded as sufficient for a child to acquire a knowledge of reading, writing and cyphering, and when mass instruction by means of monitors was in vogue, it could not be expected that much attention would be given to the educational needs of children of different ages. (4)

3. In tracing the development of Primary Schools for children above the infant stage, it is impossible to ignore the influence of the Infants' Schools which gradually came into existence in the early decades of the last century, partly as 'minding schools' for young children in industrial areas, whose parents were at work during the day, partly as a means of promoting their physical well-being and furnishing opportunities for their moral and social training and partly to provide some elementary instruction in the three R's, which would render it possible for the children to make more rapid progress when they entered the monitorial school. Even before 1805 Joseph Lancaster had drawn attention to the necessity for improving the 'initiatory', i.e. the dame schools and the minding schools, (5) if children on entering the monitorial school at the age of 6 were to derive full benefit from it. The Infant School established in 1816 by Robert Owen (1771-1858) at New Lanark in Scotland had a great influence on the development of infant education. Children were admitted to the school at the age of 2 and cared for while their parents were at work in the local cotton mills. The instruction of children under 6 was to consist of 'whatever might be supposed useful that they could understand, and much attention was devoted to singing, dancing, and playing.' In 1818 a group of Radicals and advanced Whigs comprising Brougham, James Mill and others, combined to establish an Infant School on Owen's lines in London, and imported a teacher from New Lanark. Owen's ideas were popularised and at the same time given a new direction by Samuel Wilderspin (1792-1866) who worked out a system of infant education which left its mark for many years on the curriculum and the buildings of Elementary Schools. To him these schools owed the infant 'gallery', and a mistaken zeal for the initiation of children at too early an age to formal instruction. The training of teachers for infant schools was first seriously begun by the Home and Colonial Institution (later known as the Home and Colonial Society) which was founded in 1836 to establish Infant Schools and to train teachers for work in them. The principal promoter of this Society, Revd Charles Mayo (1792-1846) was definitely influenced by Pestalozzi.

The Society originally set out to train teachers for children under the age of seven, but later extended its scope to prepare teachers to deal with children up to the age of 10. The reason for this was that the tendency in parishes, where only one school could be established, was to organise a school for older children, and leave the education of the infants to the Dame Schools. On the other hand, in many places Infant Schools (6) preceded the Elementary Schools. It is impossible not to be struck by the contrast between the rather arid and narrow conception of education as conducted in the monitorial schools, in which the instruction was almost limited to the three R's, with needlework for girls, and in some instances a little gardening and other occupation for the boys, and the comparatively rich tradition underlying the curriculum provided in the better Infant Schools, which was largely based on ideas deriving from Oberlin, Owen and Pestalozzi. (7)

4. In the actual organisation of Elementary Schools up to 1870 there is little trace of the emergence of the idea of a school or group of classes designed to follow the Infants' School and terminate at the age of 10 or 11, though this was implied both in the teaching of the Home and Colonial Society (8) and of David Stow (see Section 6). Before the passing of the Education Act of 1870 it was very difficult to keep children at school even up to the age of 10. The more subtle idea of a stage more or less definite, which should complete primary education and form the basis for an advanced stage of post-primary education, hardly emerges. The idea had, indeed, occurred to some of the early Inspectors of the Education Department. For instance, the Revd FC Cook writes in his Report for 1846:

'It seems highly desirable to establish within an easy distance of small parishes good district schools, conducted by masters of reputation and talent, where as is the case in Scotland, well disposed youths may continue and complete the studies begun in childhood.'

He develops this view in his Report for 1847:

'I adhere, however, to the opinion which I formerly expressed, and which I now repeat, having had the advantage of conversing with many of the most experienced supporters of education upon the subject, that in most country districts it would be advisable to have a preparatory school in each village, and a completely organised school, under the charge of able teachers, in a central locality.' (9)

However, these and like suggestions made from other quarters produced little effect at the time, (10) as the provision of 'elementary' schools was envisaged as a parochial matter, and as the state of public opinion respecting primary education and its relation to the high education given in the existing Grammar Schools and Middle Schools was confused and undefined.

5. The conception of a separate department or group for younger pupils above the infant stage, though seldom put into practice in 'elementary' Schools in England and Wales before 1870, was developed in the first half of the last century as an integral part of educational theory. It was recognised as a device of the organisation of a primary school by many educational administrators and schoolmasters in countries such as France and Prussia, where the problem of primary education above the infant stage had to some extent been faced by the State. For instance, M. Willm (11), an Inspector of the Academy of Strasburg, in a book entitled The Education of the People, which appeared in an English translation in 1847, pointed out that the ages of the pupils in 'Primary Elementary Schools' constituted a principle of division, as the procedures in respect alike of education and instruction were not the same for children from 6 to 9 years of age as for those more advanced. 'Every school, in obedience to this principle, should be divided into two great classes - the one including children from 6 to 9 or 10, the other those from 10 to 14; and it would much subserve many important purposes, if these could be taught in separate rooms.'

6. The best known advocate of such a system in Great Britain was David Stow (1793-1864), who began his work in Glasgow about 1824, some 20 to 30 years after the movement for a widespread provision of primary education through voluntary agencies had begun.

Stow, who was the founder of the Glasgow Normal School, fully realised that effective education largely depends on the influence of the cultured mind of the teacher on the comparatively unformed minds of the children. This constituted a contribution of permanent value to educational theory and practice. Too little significance had hitherto been attached in primary education to the living voice and too much to the printed page. Stow laid great stress on oral class reaching on the ground that it stimulated thought and that the teaching might then be adapted to particular circumstances. He pointed out that the number of children who could be entrusted to the care of a single teacher was limited, and that it was desirable that they should be of approximately equal ability. A new method of school organisation was required to carry out these ideas.

Stow conceived a graded system of elementary education - an initiatory department for children of 2 or 3 to 6 years of age, and a juvenile department for children between the ages of 6 and 14. This latter was again divided into junior and senior divisions; the former for children of 6 to 8 or 9 years of age and the latter for those of 9 years and upwards. These so-called schools, as described in Stow's Training System of Education for the Moral and Intellectual Elevation of Youth, especially in large Towns and Manufacturing Villages, 1836, were really departments or classes under trained adult teachers. In the junior school, for children between the ages of 6 and 12, one master might take charge of 80 pupils. If the school contained more than this number, an assistant was required.

7. The practical objections to such a system in the first half of the last century were that it was costly, that the school life of most of the children in primary schools was short, and that adult teachers could not be obtained in adequate numbers. In consequence, few schools were established in England and Wales on Stow's system, except with extensive modifications. (12) The usual arrangement was to establish a school consisting of an Infant Department for children up to the age of 6, and a Senior Department for children between the ages of 6 and 12, the master or mistress in each case being assisted by monitors. (13)

Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, the first Permanent Secretary of the Education Department established in 1839, recognised the shortcomings of the monitorial schools and made an important contribution to the general development of primary education by introducing a modified form of the Pupil Teacher System which he had seen in Holland (14), and so preparing the way for a large supply of adult teachers. The small 'all-age' school for children between 6 and 12 often developed into a school with three or more classes, in which one teacher took a section for an oral lesson, while assistant teachers took other sections for written work in arithmetic and for exercises in reading, dictation and composition. (15) This system became common after about 1856, and was in vogue alongside the conventional Pupil Teacher system, where children were divided into classes in a long narrow room, each class being in charge of a pupil teacher, while the master took one class at a time for oral instruction.

8. An examination of works on school method published during the last century indicates that before 1870 almost the only clear conception of junior classes (16) was that put forward by Stow. Even up to about 1900 most of the works on School Method which were in common use in the training colleges contain few traces of the idea that separate treatment was desirable for the younger pupils above the infant stage. Probably one of the first books of this type which drew attention to the significance of the junior stage in education was Professor JJ Findlay's Principles of Class Teaching first published in 1902. In it the whole problem of school organisation is considered, not so much from the point of view of expediency, but as an attempt to provide for the physical and mental development of children. The life of the ordinary child is shown to fall more or less naturally into several stages, the stage of infancy up to the age of about four, the stage of early childhood from four to six, the stage of later childhood from seven to nine, and the stage of boyhood or girlhood after ten. Professor Findlay urged the desirability of a break at the age of eleven, with primary education for children under that age and secondary or post-primary education for pupils of the age of eleven plus and beyond. It is worth mentioning that a somewhat similar system of training was proposed in 1841 by William Lovett (1800-1877), the Chartist, as part of a general scheme. Lovett provided for infant schools or departments for children between the ages of three and six, preparatory schools for children between the ages of six and nine, High Schools for those above the age of nine. (17)

9. An important stage in the development of both infant and so-called elementary education is marked by the Report of the Royal Commission appointed in 1858 under the chairmanship of the Duke of Newcastle 'To inquire into the state of public education in England and to consider and report what measures, if any, are required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction to all classes of the people.'

In their Report, published in 1861, the Commissioners classified the institutions for the education of the independent poor in reference to their objects, as: Infants' Schools, Day Schools, Evening Schools, and Sunday Schools. It is thus evident that Infants' Schools were definitely regarded at that period as being in a separate class from the Day or Elementary Schools.

On page 31 of the Report attention is drawn to the importance of Infants' Schools in the progress of Day Schools:

'Mr Shields, a schoolmaster of experience in London, who was examined before us, gave it as his opinion that the improvement and extension of infants' schools was the way in which the extension of popular education must next be attempted, and he also thought that the quality of the schools depends principally on the care with which the teachers are trained. By careful management of the infant schools he thought that children might be so prepared for the day schools as to learn thoroughly well all the absolute essentials of education by 11 years of age, but he said, "If you leave out the infant school you wreck my plan entirely".'

The Commissioners expressed the opinion that infants' schools formed a most important part of the machinery required for a national system of education.

10. The Report of the Newcastle Commission was the first real survey of the extent and quality of Elementary Education in England and Wales. The Commissioners reported that even the best of the existing elementary schools had a serious defect. They taught tolerably well those children who by steady attendance could reach the comparatively small class or group at the top of the school, but below this top group the great mass of children received only a very imperfect education, being placed in charge of pupil teachers and left, in many instances, to struggle as best they could. Even in the best schools only about one quarter of the boys reached the highest class and were considered by the inspectors to be successfully educated. The Commissioners held that the time had come when a further attempt should be made to influence the instruction of the large body of inferior schools which had hitherto been little affected. They proposed to do this by offering distinct inducements to the masters of all schools to bring their pupils, junior as well as senior, to a certain mark.

11. It devolved on Mr Lowe, as Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, to make administrative changes to meet the criticisms of the Royal Commission on existing arrangements. The Revised Code of 1862 accordingly instituted a system of six standards corresponding to the six years of school life between the end of the infant stage and the age of 12. Grants could not be earned by children above that age. This arrangement had the effect of leading teachers to devote most of their attention to pupils below the age of 12 and to concentrate on the teaching of the three rudimentary subjects, together with needlework for girls. As the first standard examination was for children of 6 to 7, the younger children or infants were not officially brought under the drastic conditions of the Code. The Code, however, had an indirect effect on Infant Departments, since the strain of preparing children of the age of 6 to pass into Standard I reacted on the teaching of children under that age. This fixed for a long time the definition of Infants - they were children below Standard I. Even in schools where for reasons of organisation and economical use of space the children in Standard I were retained in the Infant Section, Standard I was still subject to the Code requirements, and it was only later that teachers ventured to apply to children in that Standard some of the more apposite methods which were in use on Infant Classes. Thus in a sense the Infant School was more free to develop than the school for older pupils. This freedom, however, was within narrow limits, since the children had to be prepared for the Standard I examination, and since most of the teachers still held the traditional view that their principal duty was to teach the three R's even to the youngest children. A further effect of the Lowe Code was to impress on the minds of teachers the idea that primary education was embraced by the curriculum prescribed for the six Standards. (18) To do the scheme of Standards justice it was skilfully graded. (19) Impossibilities were not demanded of the teachers, and when the mass of young illiterate children that formed the body of most schools had been passed through the first two Standards, the remaining requirements of the Code could be fulfilled at the cost of reasonably hard work, except in schools with inadequate staffs, bad attendance, or a very poor class of children.

12. Up to 1870, the general development of Infants' Schools and so-called Elementary Schools, with their Higher Classes where such existed, had been uneven and irregular. The passing of the Act of 1870, which mapped out England and Wales into School Districts, each of which might have a School Board with the duty of providing Elementary Education within its own borders, directed attention for the first time to the problems involved in providing suitable schooling for large numbers of children up to the age of 13.

Section 5 of the Act ordered that for every School District there should be school places in Public Elementary Schools for all children resident in the district for whose elementary education efficient and suitable provision was not otherwise made. Section 74 authorised the School Boards to frame by-laws making attendance at school compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 13. This provision was only permissive, and the by-laws when made were subject to many exceptions. The problem for the larger School Board in the early seventies was to provide economical and effective schooling for great numbers of children. A new system of school organisation was outlined by the Committee appointed by the first London School Board in 1871, with Professor TH Huxley as Chairman. The Committee pointed out that Public Elementary Day Schools might conveniently be classified into Infants' Schools for children below 7 years of age; Junior Schools for children between 7 and 10 years of age; and Senior Schools for older children. The Committee recommended that Infants' Schools should be mixed, but laid down no general rule with respect to Junior Schools. It was recommended that Senior Schools in the London area should be separate, and that a Board School should contain under one management an Infant School or Schools, a Junior School, a Senior Boys' School, and a Senior Girls' School. (20) These recommendations appear to have had little effect in practice.

The Committee insisted strongly on the importance of schools for children under the age of 7, as in a properly conducted Infant School children were not only withdrawn from evil and corrupt influences and disciplined in proper habits, but received such an amount of positive instruction as greatly facilitated their progress in the more advanced schools. It may be noted that one important effect of the Act of 1870 was to make Infant Schools or Departments a permanent part of the new Public Elementary Schools. As a consequence, most of the Dame Schools, which had survived in large numbers up to 1870, disappeared in the early seventies. (21)

13. This general scheme of organisation for Public Elementary Schools as accepted in principle by the London School Board was copied with modifications by various School Boards, especially those in urban areas. On the whole, however, Junior Schools did not at the outset come much into vogue even in the large towns. As a rule, the arrangement was preferred of providing Infant Schools, and so-called 'Senior' Schools for pupils between the ages of 7 and 12 or upwards. In fact, Junior Schools of the type contemplated by the London School Board in 1871 represented a type of organisation which was immediately convenient only in densely populated areas. A Junior School for children between the ages of 7 and 10 generally consisted of the children in Standards I and II, or of those in Standards I, II, and III, while the higher standards were accommodated in the Senior School. This grouping was found convenient at a period when the Code provided for instruction in the three R's and in 'class' subjects for the first three Standards, and only sanctioned the addition of 'specific' subjects for the pupils in Standard IV and upwards. (22) It enabled the Head Teacher to concentrate on part of the Elementary School Syllabus.

The Building Regulations issued by the Education Department after 1870, and the contemporary books on school architecture, throw considerable light on the ideas on organisation current in the last three decades of the 19th century. The existing distinction between the infants' school and 'the graded school' with its six standards is accepted as axiomatic. For example, the Rules to be observed in planning and fitting up schools, issued by the Committee of Council on Education in 1871, state that infants should never be taught in the same room with older children, 'as the noise and the training of the infants disturb and injuriously affect the discipline and instruction of the older children.' (23)

14. The gradual lengthening of compulsory school life effected by the Education Acts of 1870, 1876 and 1880, forced the Education Department, the School Boards and the teachers to try to devise better modes of classifying children of different ages, (24) and was directly responsible for the demand for improved forms of education for older pupils, which was met to some extent by the Higher Grade Schools established by some of the larger School Boards from about 1876 (25). These in turn pointed to the need for a clearer demarcation of the junior stage of education. There are various passages in the Reports of the Cross Commission (1886-1888), and particularly in the Final Report (1888) (26) which indicate that the idea of separate Senior and Junior Departments was gradually becoming more explicit, largely owing to the development of Higher Grade Schools. For example, one of the questions considered by the Commissioners was whether Public Elementary Schools generally should be graded in such a way as to bring about a complete break at the age of 11 or 12.

A number of School Boards had by 1890 already adopted in some of their schools a plan of organisation involving Infants' Departments; Junior Departments, composed of children in Standards I, II and III; ordinary Senior Departments composed of children in Standards IV, V and VI, and Higher Grade Departments for exceptional children in Standard V and upwards. Other School Boards had some schools organised as Infant Departments, Juniors' Departments for children in Standards I and II, and Seniors' Departments for pupils in Standards III to VII. During the period from 1888 to 1900 there was no great increase in the number of Higher Grade Schools, but a distinct rise took place in the general level of elementary education. A system which was coming into vogue in the areas of many School Boards of grading Elementary Schools into Junior, Middle, and Senior Departments, enabled improvements to be made in the courses of instruction for young children.

15. Increasing knowledge regarding the mental and physical development, the tastes, aptitudes, and interests of young children, and the great improvements which from about 1875 had been taking place in infants' education, gradually directed public attention more and more to the need for improved methods of teaching during the transitional years 6 to 9. This trend of thought found partial expression in the Instruction issued by the Education Department to the Inspectorate in 1894, (27) and reproduced in successive Instructions up to 1900, in which special attention was called to the fact that the organisation and work of the lower Standards in Public Elementary Schools was the least satisfactory part of the existing educational system. Efforts for improvement were facilitated in the early nineties by the gradual relaxation of the more rigid provisions of the Lowe Code of 1862 and subsequent Codes. Among the devices suggested by the Education Department and the School Boards for improving the teaching of the lower Standards were the introduction of occupations of various kinds, an amended system of object and observation lessons, and greater elasticity in the school work generally.

16. From about 1895 Mixed Departments (28) became more popular, and in new schools the arrangement was often adopted of a horizontal division into Junior Mixed and Senior Mixed, rather than a vertical division into boys and girls. The latter type of organisation was popular in urban areas as it avoided the need for making separate provision for Senior pupils. Sometimes Board Schools were organised as Junior Mixed Departments with Senior Boys' and Senior Girls' Departments above them. The Junior Mixed Department usually included Standards I, II and III, but in some areas it consisted of Standards I and II only. This arrangement was largely dictated by convenience of organisation, since it facilitated the separation of the gifted children from the slower children. It was also defended on the ground that the establishment of district Junior Schools or Departments gave to the junior children the benefits of the improved methods of teaching, which had been adopted with satisfactory results in Infants' Schools. At this stage there would seem to have been no clear concept of a full primary course complete in itself.

Junior Schools or Departments consisting of Standards I and II, or of Standards I, II and III, of the type described above, were criticised on the ground that head teachers of such schools saw neither the beginning nor the ending of a child's school life. Also the abolition of annual examinations in 1895 left head teachers free to set up their own standards of attainment, and a pupil might spend three years in passing through Standards called IIc IIb, IIa and II. Such drawbacks led many teachers and administrators to revert to the older idea of a vertical division into Boys' Departments and Girls' Departments for all children above the infant stage.

17. Towards the end of the 19th century some of the larger School Boards developed a type of Junior School which had some of the characteristics of a Primary School for pupils up to the age of 12. These Junior Schools formed, in effect, the Junior Departments of the Higher Grade Board Schools. A Junior Department attached to a Higher Grade School often became an important feeder of the main school. As a rule these Junior Schools and Departments took pupils up to the age of 11 or 12 and were generally organised as Junior Schools for boys and girls respectively.

18. The control of the Board of Education over Secondary Schools was increased by the Education Act of 1902, which empowered the newly established Local Education Authorities for Counties and County Boroughs to aid higher education and to provide new Secondary Schools. Even before the passing of that Act, the position of the Higher Grade Schools had been seriously affected by the decision of the Court of Queen's Bench (1901) against the London School Board (upheld by the Court of Appeal), on the point raised by Mr Cockerton, the Auditor of the Local Government Board, that the London School Board had spent the rates illegally on educating children on lines not provided for in the Code. (29) After the passing of the Act of 1902, many of the Higher Grade Schools were converted into Secondary Schools, receiving grant under the Board's Regulations for Secondary Schools. A modified type of Higher Elementary School was established by the Board's Minute of 6 April 1900, but for various reasons the number of schools recognised officially as Higher Elementary Schools was small.

These developments had important effects on the incipient development of Junior Schools and Junior Departments described above. It is not possible, from the available official statistics for this period, to show the distribution and extent of the various types of organisation for children above the infants' stage, such as Boys' Departments, Girls' Departments, and Mixed Departments; Junior Mixed Departments and Senior Mixed Departments; Junior Boys' and Junior Girls' Departments, and Senior Boys' and Senior Girls' Departments. (30) It is interesting, however, to observe that in official statistics down to the passing of the Education Act of 1918, the old distinction between 'infants' and 'older' scholars survives. For instance, an explanatory note on the term 'Department' on page 149 of the Statistics of Public Education in England for 1912-13 states that 'A Department is a portion of a school which normally has a separate Head Teacher. "Departments for Infants only" may be taken to be Departments for younger scholars between the ages of 3 and about 9. Other Departments are described as "Departments for older scholars (with or without Infants)".'

It should, however, be borne in mind that the terms 'infants' and 'older scholars' in official language in the early years of this century refer primarily to the classification of children for purposes of payment of grants, and not to classification for purposes of instruction. On page 30 of the Report of the Board of Education for the year 1903-04 it is stated that the ordinary age for promotion from the Infants' Department or Class was between 7 and 8, but that there had been a steady tendency to lower this age.

19. In 1903 the Board adopted a new policy in respect of the training of Pupil Teachers, and the Regulations for the Instruction and Training of Pupil Teachers, issued in the year provided that, as from 1 August 1905, intending Pupil Teachers should, as a rule, receive instruction in a Secondary School up to the age of 16. The attention of Local Education Authorities was thus directed, even more than before, to the pressing need for a more generous provision of scholarships and bursaries to enable pupils from Public Elementary Schools to proceed to Secondary Schools: In the Prefatory Memorandum to the Regulations in question for 1903, the Board urged Authorities to arrange, by means of an adequate scholarship system or otherwise, that all the cleverest candidates for Pupil-Teacherships in their area, whether boys or girls, should receive a sound general education in a Secondary School for three or four years with schoolfellows intended for other careers, before they began service in any capacity in an Elementary School. The development of a system of scholarships of this kind, which had been in progress since 1902, was greatly advanced in 1907, when the so-called free place provisions were for the first time inserted in the Regulations for Secondary Schools. The effect of these Regulations was to require Secondary Schools to open a proportion of Free Places which was ordinarily 25 per cent of the scholars admitted, without payment of fee to pupils from Elementary Schools who applied for admission, subject to the applicants passing an entrance test of attainments and efficiency such as could be approved by the Board for the school in question. (31) The general result of these arrangements for the education of Pupil Teachers and for the examination of Candidates for Free Places was that teachers began to devote more attention to the instruction of the children under the age of 11. In fact, these arrangements, though primarily designed to further secondary education, indirectly helped the general trend of development on Public Elementary Schools, which was in the direction of introducing a definite break in education at the age of 11 or 12.

20. Another manifestation of this tendency was the development of so-called Central Schools, providing an improved general education of a practical character, sometimes with a slight industrial or commercial bias, for pupils between the ages of 11 and 14 or 15. A considerable number of Central Schools of this type, both selective and non-selective, were established in London, Manchester and elsewhere after 1911 (32). These schools, which were in some respects analogous to the Higher Grade Schools of the eighties or nineties, afford another example of the general tendency of the national system of elementary education since 1870 to throw up experiments in post-primary education. The development of such schools side by side with the Secondary Schools further accentuated the tendency in the larger urban areas to introduce a break in school life at the age of about 11.

21. The Education Act of 1918 enforced compulsory attendance at school up to the age of 14 (33) and gave a new direction to post-primary education by providing that it should be the duty of the Local Education Authority responsible for Elementary Education to make adequate and suitable provision by means of Central Schools, Central or Special Classes, or otherwise for organising courses of advanced instruction for the older or more intelligent children, including those who remained at school beyond the age of 14. The Statute also required the Authorities to submit to the Board schemes showing their plans for developing education of various types in their areas, in future years. These and other provisions in the Act of 1918 did much indirectly to emphasise the need for a thorough reorganisation of the arrangements for the education of young children below the age of 11.

22. From 1919 rapid progress was made with the development of elementary education on the lines contemplated in the Act of 1918. Several Authorities, in the schemes for the development of education in their areas, made explicit provision for Junior Schools and Departments for children between the ages of 6-7 and 11-12. The rapid growth of Central Schools and Classes for pupils above the age of 11 or 12 directed public attention more and more to the desirability of making suitable provision for the education of children below that age. It is significant that in Circular 1350 issued on 28 January 1925, the Board of Education pointed out that the age of 11 was increasingly recognised as 'the most suitable dividing line between what may be called "Junior" and "Senior" Education'. The logical outcome of the whole trend of development was clearly shown in the Consultative Committee's Report on The Education of the Adolescent, 1926, which set out a general scheme for post-primary education for pupils from the age of 11+. The Report pointed out that primary education should be regarded as ending at about the age of 11+, and that a second stage should then begin ending for many pupils at 16+, for some at the age of 18 or 19, but for the majority at the age of 14+ or 15+. The principal recommendations of this Report were accepted by the Board, (34) and are now being carried out by the Local Education Authorities. Under the schemes of reorganisation drawn up by Education Authorities on the lines indicated in the Report on The Education of the Adolescent, arrangements are being made for the provision of post-primary education for children above the age of 11, and in many instances the older children over the age of 11 have been taken from the former 'all-age' schools to selective or non-selective modern schools.

23. Reorganisation on the lines recommended in the Consultative Committee's Report on the Education of the Adolescent (1926), and in the Board's Pamphlet entitled The New Prospect in Education (1928) is being carried out rapidly at the present time. Thus, during the year ended March 31st, 1930, 1186 departments were affected by reorganisation schemes, as compared with 1103 departments in the year 1928-29, 742 departments in the year 1927-28, and 552 departments in the year 1926-27.

The main statistical facts of the present position are summarised below.

Table 1 The distribution of pupils in public elementary schools between the ages of eight and twelve on 31 March 1927, 31 March 1929, and 31 March 1930.

Table 2 The numbers of Departments classified as 'Junior' in 1927, 1929 and 1930, respectively, were as follows:

Table 3 Ages of the 665,999 pupils in the 3,212 departments classified as 'Junior' on 31 March 1930.

One effect of the schemes of reorganisation has been to bring into clear relief the necessity for reconsidering the general aims and curriculum of schools for young children. It will be observed that the number of departments classified as 'Junior' has increased from 1776 on 31 March 1927 to 3212 on 31 March 1930, and that on 31 March 1930 about 16.5 per cent of the total number of children in public elementary schools in England and Wales between the ages of 8 and 12 were being educated in these 'Junior' Departments.

24. It will be seen from the preceding sketch of the general development of so-called Elementary Education that the conception of primary education as covering the period up to the age of 11 or 12 and comprising within it two stages - the infant stage up to the age of 6 or 7, and the upper stage of primary education between the ages of 7 and 11 or 12, only emerged very slowly, and in a rather blurred form. The idea of a Junior School or Upper Primary School for children between the ages of 6-7 and 11-12 was gradually defined by the growth, on the one hand, of Infant Schools, which can be traced back to the early decades of the last century, and on the other hand, by the various developments of post-primary education thrown up by the Public Elementary Schools after 1870, which are described in some detail in Chapter 1 of the Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926). In general, it may be said that in the evolution of educational theory and practice in England and Wales since the beginning of the last century, the conception of the primary school for children between the ages of five and eleven, with separate organisation where possible, for those between the ages of seven and eleven, marks a new departure and brings with it new problems. Today primary education is generally recognised as ending at about the age of eleven; secondary education of various types is that which follows, and the importance of considering the education of children in primary schools as something which must have a character of its own, arises from these facts.

Footnotes

(1) Throughout this historical chapter we use the expression Junior School or Department as meaning a separate section or group of classes for younger children, other than infants, up to the age of 9, 10 or 11 within an Elementary or Primary School.

(2) Factory Acts 1833 to 1867; Mines Act 1860.

(3) In practice, children of the age of 4 were admitted in many districts to the monitorial schools associated with the National Society, and children under the age of 6 were also admitted to many British Schools. It would appear that the actual age of admission depended largely on local circumstances. As time went on, and as the monitorial system failed to realise its first promise, there was a marked tendency for the average age of children in attendance at these monitorial schools to fall. For instance, in 1850 approximately 50 per cent of the children in attendance at Elementary Schools were under 8 years of age. Cf. Reports by Mr Cook and Mr Moseley in Minutes of Committee of Council on Education 1851-52 ii, 5 and 34.

Cf. also Gill's School Management 3rd Edition (1858) p. 110, Section 4: 'The admission of infants to the elementary school is a disadvantage to the infants themselves and to the other scholars.'

(4) One of the earliest systematic attempts to organise an Elementary School with careful classification of pupils according to age was made in the Barrington School at Bishop Auckland, opened in 1810 by the Bishop of Durham (Dr Shute Barrington). The School was divided into six classes, each containing about 30 children. The lowest class consisted of children of the age of about 5 (Sir T Bernard The Barrington School 3rd Edition (1815) p. 100).

(5) Cf. G Crabbe The Borough (1810), Letter XXIV, for a description of a dame school.

(6) The following passage from Brougham's dedicatory preface to George Birkbeck of his essay Practical Observations upon the Education of the People (1825) shows the important position which Infant Schools as distinct from Primary Schools had attained at that date: 'You are aware that the observations contain a portion of a larger discourse ... upon the important subject of Popular Education, in its three branches: Infant Schools, Elementary Schools (for reading and writing), and Adult Schools. It is only with the second of these branches that the Legislature can safely interfere. Any meddling on the part of Government with the first would be inexpedient; with the last, perilous to civil and religious liberty.'

(7) The influence of Froebel was not felt in Infant Schools in England till about 1851. Cf. J and B Ronge A Practical Guide to the English Kindergarten (1855) Preface, and B Ronge Kindergarten (1854) p. 3.

(8) The effect of the training given at the Home and Colonial Society's Normal Seminary was to promote the organisation of infant schools into: (i) 'babies' under three years of age; (ii) infant children from the age of three to that of six or seven; and (iii) 'juveniles' from the age of seven to that of 9 or 10, where there was such a class. Cf. Minutes of Committee of Council on Education (1845) II. 230.

(9) Minutes of Committee of Council on Education (1846) p. 280; ditto for 1847-48, p. 53. A similar suggestion was made by Revd HW Bellairs in 1847, op. cit. (1847-48) p. 109.

(10) Some National Schools, and a number of Wesleyan Schools, retained a considerable proportion of children over the age of 11 and provided post-primary instruction for them. Cf. The Consultative Committee's Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926) pp. 6-7.

(11) J Willm The Education of the People, Glasgow, 1847. Cf. The Essay on Elementary Schools in Prussia, by W Wittich, on pages 145-171 of Papers of the Central Society of Education, London, 1837, in which he explains that the course in the Prussian primary schools for children between the ages of 6 and 14 is divided into four periods, each comprehending two years.

(12) Cf. J Gill School Management (ed. 1876) p. 68. Gill, who had been trained at the Glasgow Normal College under Stow's influence, was professor of Education at Cheltenham Normal College.

(13) See Birchenough History of Elementary Education (2nd Ed.) pp. 338-40.

(14) Kay-Shuttleworth Four Periods in Public Education (1862) p. 394.

(15) The tripartite system of organisation is described by Mr Moseley in Minutes of Committee on Education 1845 p. 249-56.

(16) T Morrison's Manual of School Management (1859), adopted for Wesleyan schools, recognised the need for an infant class and for junior classes. In the Preface he acknowledges his debt to Stow.

(17) W Lovett and J Collins Chartism, a new organisation for the People London, 1840, pp. 37-40.

(18) A Seventh Standard was added in the Code of 1882 and marked the incipient tendency to develop some form of post-primary education.

(19) See the Consultative Committee's Report on Psychological Tests of Educable Capacity 1924, pp. 43-4.

(20) Minutes of School Board for London Vol. I, pp. 155-61. A similar plan of organisation for very large public elementary schools was suggested by the Revd. JH Rigg in his book National Education (1873) pp. 424-425.

(21) Rigg, op. cit. appendix C: ER Robson School Architecture (1874) p. 294 and appendix C.

(22) The curriculum of an Elementary School from 1875 to the later nineties consisted of three main parts: (i) the obligatory subjects, i.e. the three R's, which were often called the 'elementary subjects,' together with needlework for girls; (ii) Optional subjects, viz. (a) the class subjects first introduced in the Code of 1875, which were optional for the whole school above Standard I; (b) the specific subjects first introduced in the Code of 1867, which might be taught to individual scholars in Standards IV to VI.

(23) This provision reappears in a more emphatic form in Rule 18 of the Rules to be observed in planning and fitting up Public Elementary Schools for 1904, which runs: ' Infants should not, except in very small schools, be taught in the same room with older children, as the methods of instruction suitable for infants necessarily disturb the discipline and instruction of the older scholars. Access to the infants' room should never be through the older children's schoolroom.'

(24) The Revd James Fraser (afterwards Bishop of Manchester) in his Report on the Common School System of the United States (1866) prepared for the Schools Inquiry Commission (1864-1868), had called attention to the importance of grading schools (see especially p. 319).

(25) Cf. Consultative Committee's Report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926) pp. 17-25.

(26) Final Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Elementary Education Acts, England and Wales. C.-5485.

(27) Revised Instructions (1894) pages 56-57 (Circular 322).

(28) There had always been a certain prejudice against combined schools (and departments) for boys and girls, even when the numbers were small. Thus Matthew Arnold in 1852 urged in the interests of education efficiency the advantage of establishing an Infant Department and a Mixed Department, instead of separate boys' and girls' departments, which left the young children to be dealt with as best they could, and constituted a permanent drag on the work of the older scholars. M Arnold Reports on Elementary Schools 1852-1882. HM Stationery Office 1920 pp. 14-15.

(29) R. v. Cockerton (1901) IQB 322, and Rex v. Cockerton, CA (1901) IKB 726.

(30) The type of organisation actually adopted in specific cases was largely determined by the numbers of children in each age group and the character of the available accommodation.

(31) See Report of the Board of Education for the year 1911-12, pp. 10-13.

(32) Report of the Board of Education for 1911-12, p. 32 and p. 43. Ditto 1912-13, pp. 60-62.

(33) The Elementary Education Act of 1900 had empowered Local Authorities to compel attendance (subject to numerous exemptions) up to the age of 14. The Education Act of 1918 abolished all existing forms of exemption from school attendance below the age of 14.

(34) Cf. The New Prospect in Education issued by the Board of Education in 1928.