A century of education : being the centenary history of the British & Foreign School Society, 1808-1908.
Binns, Henry Bryan, 1873-1923.
aft * Zloo 3?o Ik-T- ^<Jk 3UBHAIW « n&?s $y ilM8u A CENTURY OF EDUCATION [A U rights reserved] #► •' ■■mi- A CENTURY OF EDUCATION BEING THE CENTENARY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH & FOREIGN SCHOOL SOCIETY I 808 - I 908 BY HENRY BRYAN BINNS Author of " Abraham Lincoln," etc. etc. WITH APPENDICES BY T. J. MAC NAM A RA, M.P. SIDNEY WEBB, LL B. Prof. FOSTER WATSON GRAHAM WALLAS LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO. 29 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND MCMVIU " Dissenters call for one scheme of education, the Church objects; this party objects, and that ; there is endless objection, by him and by her and by it: a subject encumbered with difficulties on every side [ . . , la very truth, how can Religion be divorced from Education? An ir- reverent knowledge is no knowledge; may be a development of the logical or other handicraft faculty inward or outward; but is no culture of the soul of a man. . , , To 4 teach 1 religion, the first thing needful, and also the last and the only thing, is finding of a man who has religion. All else follows from this, church-building, church-extension, whatever else is needful follows; without this nothing will follow/’ Carlyle 1 s Chartism (1839)* PREFACE The story of the part played in the education of the people both at home and abroad by the British and Foreign School Society has never been told. Such references as are made to it in educational histories are usually quite Inadequate. This is unfortunate, for we have short memories, and even those who are now most intimately associated with the society’s work are already forgetting the great achievements and still greater hopes of its early days. Absorbed in work not less important* and cherishing hopes as high, they have had no available record of those who went before them, I have no wish to exaggerate the importance of the society’s work; I admit its limitations; but I am convinced that future historians will pay more attention to it than have such writers in the past. The records speak for themselves ; but few hear them speak, for such records are not read, and hitherto their main outlines have hardly been presented to the general public. Whatever their faults, and few can be more conscious of them than their writer, the following pages have at least this value: they publish for the hist time much information without which any accurate estimate of our progress during the last century is impossible. There seems to exist in some quarters a vague and most erroneous impression that the British Society was, and is, a body of well-meaning Nonconformists of mediocre intellectual ability and narrow horizon who represent the. opposition to the National Church. It may be presumed that those who hold this view do not realise that the society has counted on its council many of the ablest men of the last three genera- tions, men of the Anglican and every other religious view and denomination and of the highest distinction in every branch #• v vi PREFACE of public life. The name of Lancaster may sometimes raise a smile— yet he ranks above Dr. Bell if he stands below Pestalozzi as an educationalist — but we can hardly smile at the long and illustrious list of his fellow- workers and sup- porters, among whom were the Duke of Kent, Lord Byron, Sidney Smith, the elder Mill, and David Ricardo; nor at their successors in later time, men like Lord John Russell, William Edward Forster, A, J. Mundella, Sir Joshua Fitch, with many not less distinguished who are still among us. To the strong Quaker element which has always flavoured the society has, I believe, been due much of its freedom from that mere opposition to the Established Church which sometimes mars the public work of Dissenters. But the society has never for a moment been identified with Nonconformity. It has been truly unsectarian, truly national, in its aims and spirit, or rather, as its title implies, it has from the first been something more than national in aim, and its spirit has been universal. Special interest must belong at this juncture in educational affairs to the story of that society which alone has stood firmly and effectively for unsectarian religious education throughout its life* Here, again, I think the Quaker element has been a source of strength: the society has based its work upon the Bible, and it is well known that the Quaker view of the Bible is at once practical, reverent, and progressive. I am glad to have been able to bring to light some new materials establishing Lancaster’s membership in the Quaker body, and indicating the share taken by others of its members in the work; and I hope that the fascinating figure of Lancaster himself may emerge more clearly than heretofore from these pages. The relations between the society and the government are of special interest, and 1 have been able to show that these began m 1814 with an application for a government grant. They led to the formidable secession, in 1848, of Samuel Morley and his friends, but then they also led to the Education Act of 1870. PREFACE VII Among the most interesting passages in the early history of the society is that relating to the Duke of Kent* the grand- father of our king. His father, George III., had wished that every poor child might be able to read the Bible; the duke in his turn declared he had always wished the poor should be instructed, “ conceiving knowledge to be equally the right of the poor man and the rich. * ' That was truly a liberal sentiment, far in advance of most of the cautious expressions of opinion made at that time. The duke undoubtedly took a warm and special personal interest in the work of the society both at home and abroad, using his powerful influence to further its objects in many quarters; and his early death was felt as a heavy blow, His interest was, however, continued both by his widow, who remained for many years the patroness of the society, and by his brother the Duke of Sussex. If some readers may feel that I have done less than justice to the great work of the National Society for elementary education, I must plead the limitations of my subject. If I had been writing a general instead of a particular history, that work would naturally have occupied a very different position in this volume. In reference to it I can hardly do better than quote here the acknowledgment recently made by the British Society in one of its annual reports:— 11 During three generations the societies did their best in generous rivalry as educational missionary agencies: in the first period without, and subsequently with, the help of government grants, aud it is univer- sally admitted that the National Society covered the larger part of the field. Both societies endeavoured, in the measure of the support they received, to provide schools for the people whom the state wholly or partially neglected: the National Society offering church care for the children with such general education as could be combined therewith, the British aud Foreign School Society making education the great con- cern and combining with it such Biblical instruction as could be given without trenching upon the province of the several churches or offending the consciences of any. Religious zeal outstripped educational zeal, and the National Society achieved great and glorious success— a success of which the country may well be proud,** 1 1 Report, 1906, PREFACE viii This book is based primarily upon the records preserved at the society's offices. There, in Temple Chambers, may be found the minute books of the general and other committees from the beginning, in t8o8, until now, with the annual reports, and the volumes of the Philanthropist and Educational Record. Besides these I have of course made freest use of (i) Lancaster's own writings and the published accounts by Corston, Dunn, Fitch, Urwick, and others, but especially the invaluable life by Principal Salmon, and his supplementary essays in the Record , which I have freely drawn upon in the early chapters; (2) the Life of William Allen (1846-47); (3) the reports of special con- ferences, records in the Congregational Library, and in the Unitarian magazines, with pamphlets by Dunn and others; (4) the text-books, etc., of the society. For the foreign part of the work, the principal source of information, beyond the reports and minutes, is a useful series of articles now appearing in the Record . Irish work is well described in Mr. H. K. Moore's A Chapter of Unwritten History. Among individual biographies I ought specially to mention Mr. Graham Wallas' s Life of Place and Mr. Bon wick's An Octogenarian's Reminiscences as throwing light on the earliest years. Most of the other books which I have quoted are referred to in the notes. Beyond these is the personal help and advice ungrudgingly given to me by the officers of the society. I owe especial thanks to Mr. W. Williams and Mr. E. N, Fallaize in London, and to Mr. David Salmon at Swansea, for most kindly reading the book in MS. and making a number of invaluable suggestions. There are many others who have helped me, to whom I offer sincere thanks; and I venture to hope that still others will make suggestions which may render more complete another edition of this history if such should be called for. Letchwokth, May 30, 08. H, B. B. CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTORY L Joseph Lancaster PART I. THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE CENTURY From the Founding of the Society to the Reform Bill II. Lancaster’s Committee III. The Loss of Lancaster IV. The British Society at Work , V, Work at Home an® Abroad. PART II. THE SECOND QUARTER From the First Government Grant to the Duke of Newcastle’s Commission VL State Aid VII. Conferences and Controversies VIII. A Period of Change . , *. PART III. THE THIRD QUARTER From the Founding of Bangor and Stockwell , to that of Saffron Walden College IX. National Education to the Act of 1S70. X. The Normal Colleges ..... XI. Agency Work ...... PAGE 1 31 58 77 97 121 134 157 *? 5 194 218 IX X CONTENTS PART IV. THE FOURTH QUARTER From Compulsory Education to the Incorporation of the Society CHAPTER XII* “ Schools for All n , XIIL A Fresh Beginning ( XIV* The Education of the Citizen APPENDICES Elementary Education By T* J . Macnamara^ M*P. Secondary Education By Sidney Webb, LL.B. The Training of Teachers By Professor Foster Watson The Future of English Education in the Light of the Past. By Graham Wallas INDEX , PAGE 229 239 256 263 284 297 308 319 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Joseph Lancaster { photogravure ) * . - Frontispiece PAGE William Allen ........ 36 H.R.H. The Duke of Kent ...... 98 (6y kind permission of H.M * M* The Sixth Duke of Bedford . . . . .15$ {by kind permission of Lady Agatha Russell) Lord John Russell { photogravure ) . . . . .212 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY JOSEPH LANCASTER Scotch Education — Wordsworth on English Education — English Social Conditions— Sunday Schools — Charity Schools — Lancaster's Work — His Youth — His School in Borough Road— Free Scholars — His Improvements — Dr. Bell— Mrs. Trimmer — George III.’s Interest— Lancaster Marries — His Methods at Borough Road— Gets into Debt — Maiden Bradley — At the King's Bench — His Travels — Meets Fox, In an appendix to one of the reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor 1 is a brief survey of the Scotch laws relating to education, in which we may readily see one of the influences at work upon the minds of Englishmen of goodwill a hundred years ago, when they occupied them* selves about the condition of their poorer neighbours. A note to this appendix states that when the Act of 1696, recently re-enforced, first came into operation there were in Scotland some 100,000 mendicants, both men and women, perpetu- ally drunk, cursing, blaspheming, and fighting together rf ; but that “ in the course of a few passing years ” the Act produced so great a reform that now 11 there is no country in Europe in which, in proportion to its population, so small a number of crimes fall under the chastisement of the criminal law of Scot- land.” The language leaves much to be desired in perspicacity, but its general intention is obvious. As Sir Thomas Bernard, one of the founders, puts the matter in another of the society’s publications : 41 An example has been offered of a nation puri- 1 O / the Education o / the Poor t etc., I Bog, pp, 1163-4. A 2 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION fied and corrected by the single remedy of education* In- fested by mendicity, and by all the evils and vices which pertain to the association of thousands of mendicants, defying the laws of God and man, because hopeless of benefit under them — a single Act of the Parliament of Scotland, providing instruction for all the children of the poor , did, in the lapse of a few passing years, administer a perfect and lasting remedy for the greatest political evil by which a community can be afflicted* The national disease was not only cured, but, from the period of the operation of that Act, the peasantry in Scotland has stood on higher ground, and has possessed a more elevated scale of character, than in any other part of the world/’ 1 We are not now concerned with the precise accuracy ol these estimates. Their value for us lies in their existence. They go to prove that English philanthropists — I use the title in the best and original sense, and as such it is the highest that can be conferred — themselves convinced of the efficacy of popular education to remove certain crying social ills, were seeking at this time to convince all well-disposed persons by the evidence of contemporary experience across the border* It is interesting to observe the tone of Sir Thomas Bernard’s appeal. The poor are represented as having become evil through their despair — hopeless of benefit under the laws of God or man — and an Act of Parliament comes to them in the guise of an evangel* Ignorance is plainly regarded as the cause of their vice; and ignorance is also regarded as a political disorder, for which the remedy is to be sought in legislative action. But Bernard's appeal met with a retort which may best be taken from the pen of Wordsworth, although it was written by him before the publication of that appeal. It is as interesting in its point of view, and as typical of the earnest thought of the time* It is exactly a hundred years ago (June 5, 1808) that the 1 Of (he Education of (he Poor t etc., 1809, pp* 48-9, JOSEPH LANCASTER 3 poet, in considering the Scotch experience, laid emphasis on the extraordinary difficulties lying in the way of a similar reform in England. He saw that a national system “ would be comparatively easy ” “ anywhere but in England,” He surmised that it was an economic question, and that children really went to school in Scotland because it was un- profitable to send them anywhere else. As for his own coun- ties, where manufacture had not much affected the ancient simplicities and sanctions, “ we have, thank heaven, free schools, or schools with some endowment, almost everywhere; and almost every one can read.” 1 Not, he adds, because the schools are free, but because the dalesman, tilling the fields he owns, has more both of ability and inclination to send his children thither. The economic difficulty suggested by Words- worth was perfectly sound — it has always stood in the way of popular education in this country. But one feels at once that Wordsworth at Grasmere, although he might see the diffi- culties shrewdly enough, was very far removed from feeling the full burden of the necessity for some national effort as it was felt by those whose life was passed in the great new manufacturing centres. It would be difficult to exaggerate the sordid misery of the life of the poor in England at the beginning of the century. u The problem of pauperism came upon men in its most terrible form between 1775 and 1834,” wrote Arnold Toynbee. England was stricken by a combination of calamities. The loss of America, the Napoleonic wars, a series of ruinous harvests, and a vicious method of administering the poor laws, served together terribly to undermine the resources of the country / 2 Whatever the principal cause, no one now will call in question the misery of the poor, their sanitary neglect, demoralisation, acute want, and terrible ignorance, 3 at the time of which we are speaking, 1 Knight’s Life of Wordsworth, 11. pp. 5S0-I, * Marshall’s Principles of Economies, p. 44 - * Lecky, Eighteenth Century, vol. vi. p, 221, 4 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION But by far the worst of all was the condition of the children; it was upon these, as yet unprotected even by public opinion or any effective factory legislation, that the evils of that transi- tion period of social disorder most tragically fell. Not only the evils of vicious example, of dram drinking, the absence of family life, and all those “ evil communications that corrupt good manners iT ; but the evils of ignorance, disease, and ex- cessive hours of labour. Under these circumstances it was but natural that thought- ful men and women should be everywhere discussing the problem of elementary education. For England was not at this time a callous-hearted and indifferent nation. This was an age of philanthropy, following upon one of religious revival : an age which felt the influences of a quickened religious sense, together with that of the more liberal and humane social out- look of the revolutionary period. 1 A widespread desire was felt that every child should be taught to read the Bible for himself, and this, while general, would appear to have been particularly strong among Dis- senters. In 1781, Robert Raikes inaugurated the Sunday school movement which extended so rapidly that twenty-two years later some 800,000 children were numbered in the schools of the union. Here they were taught to read the Bible, and as much else as time, convention, and the talents of the teachers might permit. There were also in the country perhaps 1000 endowed and 1600 charity schools, into which a certain number of the cleverer or more fortunate children would find their way. It was calculated in 1792 2 that some 40,000 were annually educated in the latter. The majority of the charity schools were founded by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge; and in most of them education seems to have gone no further than 1 It is difficult to say which of those influences really preponderated in the slow beginnings of our national education. * By Mrs. Trimmer. JOSEPH LANCASTER 5 instruction in reading the Bible, with knowledge of the Prayer- book and, perhaps, writing. The actual purpose of these schools was indeed to impart a certain attitude towards life, and that not the upright inde- pendent attitude of a freeman. They were to prepare the poor to appreciate the social conditions which in the existing order they were designed to fill. As Bishop Butler said to the charity children at St. Paul’s, the purpose of such institutions “ was not in any sort to remove poor children out of the rank in which they were bom, but, keeping them in it, to give them the assistance which their circumstances plainly called for, by educating them in the principles of religion as well as of civil life,” They were to be constantly reminded of their position by their uniform—lest they might suppose themselves to be such as the scholars of some grammar or public school ; though these had been founded in the first instance for precisely such as they, and had been endowed to that end. Besides such schools as these, and those dependent entirely upon the pay of scholars, there were certain “ schools of industry ” established in various parts of the country. It was estimated in 1804 1 that while 188,794 children between the ages of five and fourteen, in England and Wales, were in receipt of out-relief, only 20,336 had even the scanty benefit of these schools of industry, in which they were made to be more or less self-supporting by some industrial occupation. Such scanty and incomplete statements as these may serve to indicate the general condition of public elementary educa- tion in this country during the years when Joseph Lancaster was beginning his now famous work in the Borough Road, The story of that work is the romance of one man’s effort spreading out into a great national movement. The romance is heightened by the man’s character. He was of the people, with no obvious advantages of birth or intellect, but with 1 Education of the Poor, p. 307, n. 6 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION that genius for perceiving the practicable which marks the successful reformer. Bom in one of the poorer districts of South London, and growing up when national poverty was yearly becoming more unbearable, he was specially familiar with the needs of those who, having seen better days, were anxious above all things about the education of their children. They were not yet become so broken or degraded in their poverty as to be in- different. He felt within him, from early youth, the desire to teach, the calling of the schoolmaster-missionary or evangelical pedagogue. Having attempted his self-imposed task within modest compass and with satisfying results — at least to him- self and to the people he served” he found so many others interested in his success, and they of so large influence, that he determined, under their patronage, to extend his efforts. This extension, which was facilitated by methods suggested about the same time by Dr. Andrew Bell, became in a few years very considerable, but was then endangered by certain defects in his own character. Having inaugurated popular education both by his own efforts and by quickening those of his clerical opponents — for as he punningly said he had put a clapper into their “ Bell ” — he was unable himself to continue it, and the work, begun by him, passed to those who had faithfully co-operated with and supported him. Finally, as we know, it has passed, in large measure, into the hands of the representatives of the people for whom it had been inaugur- ated, and by whose favour it had so far succeeded. The man's early history may be briefly told as follows : — Joseph Lancaster was bom November 25, 177S, in Kent (now Tabard) Street, Southwark, where his father Richard augmented his soldier's pension 1 by a small business of cane- sieve making. He was one of a large, poor family, Calvinistic and upright, and grew up with scanty education. He early developed a passion for reading, little calculated to encourage 1 He had served in America during the revolutionary wars. 7 JOSEPH LANCASTER him in attention to his father's “ mechanical ” business; and as, forthwith, he showed a precocious talent for preaching he was marked out for the Dissenting ministry. Fired by Clarkson's Essay on the Stave Trade , he ran away from home to make the journey to Jamaica and teach the blacks to read. At Bristol he volunteered for the navy, and was already establishing a reputation on board his ship as a “ parson ” when friends obtained his release from the vessel and brought him back. He was now fourteen years of age. With the ministry still in mind, he seems after this to have found his way to a boarding school, while at sixteen he was apparently an assistant in a day school; not, it may be pre- sumed, with any idea of becoming a schoolmaster himself, but simply in order to continue his own education by eking out such payments as his parents could afford with earnings of his own* What prospects he may have had of a successful career as a Nonconformist preacher it is hard to say; but his subse- quent history indicates a considerable talent in that direction. He had something of the powers of the great itinerant evangel- ists* But professional preaching became a closed career for young Lancaster when he began to come under convincement of the principles of the Society of Friends, a change which probably took place about the same time as his decision to set up school. At about eighteen or twenty, his account is not very clear, finding the humdrum occupation of a cane-sieve manufacturer little suited to his unsystematic, sanguine, and romantic tem- perament, and discovering that he had a real talent for teach- ing, he induced his father to lend him a room in the house, where he might commence to teach a school of his own, charging his scholars such small fees as their parents could afford. The worthy man was his enthusiastic son's first con- vert* He seems to have believed in Joseph and his dreams, for he would say, perhaps with a sort of pathetic patience, u There is something behind the cloud*” 8 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION It rapidly became dear that Lancaster had found his voca- tion, not indeed that the school proved profitable — he seems hardly even to have considered that aspect of his enterprise — but that it was almost immediately overcrowded by eager scholars* Unable to afford a paid assistant, the young dominie promptly made use of his more intelligent p upils, and thus a monitorial system grew up out of sheer necessity* This system he perfected with a veritable enthusiasm, until, as he subsequently declared , 1 it “ could be instead of wisdom, judg- ment, and discretion ” to his young assistants. Of the system we shall have further occasion to speak; but it was, of course, something much more potent than this mechanical device upon which Lancaster's success was founded* It was his love of, and devotion to, the lads under his charge, and his passion for imparting to them the spirit, as well as the mere rudiments, of education* Every Sunday evening he would invite a number of the older ones to tea, the lads bringing their own bread-and-butter; the opportunity would close w r ith Bible reading, and was calculated to bring an esprit de corps of real fellowship and good understanding into his school. In this way he early began to regard the leaders among the boys as his “ family/’ a term which he used for many years in this enlarged sense. The following is from one of his own narratives : — II My father gave the schoolroom (a mere shed behind the dwelling) rent free, and after fitting up the forms and desks myself, I had the pleasure, before I was eighteen, of having near ninety children under instruction, many of whom* I educated free of expense, ' As the number of scholars continued to increase, I soon had occasion to rent larger premises/* [Report of Joseph Lancaster's Progress from the year 1798.) In Mr. Salmon's Lancaster, p. 6, Dr. Rendle is quoted as saying that Lancaster's first school was probably in Kent Street; the second in a sort of shed in Newington Causeway opposite Brandon Row; the third (1803) in James Street, Borough Road; while a fourth {1 1804) was in Belvedere Place, opposite the present site." {Notes and Queries, 6th series* iv. 35s.) It does not appear that there is sufftcent ground for supposing that the school was ever on the Polytechnic site, which was " City land, 1 * before 1816. ID A CENTURY OF EDUCATION till in 1S04 he acquired a plot of land in Belvedere Place, where he built a school for a thousand pupils. After attending the meetings of Friends for some three or four years, Lancaster applied for membership in the Society at the end of 1799; he was duly “ visited upon his applica- tion/' but the actual admission into the Society as a member did not take place till January’ 13, 1801, as the minutes of Horsleydown Monthly Meeting testify. Already there were evidences in the young man of a certain self-satisfaction with his success, which the wiser among his friends were not slow to perceive with forebodings. Thus Elizabeth Fry, going to see him at this time— January 1801 — made an apposite note in her journal on the difficulty of remaining in a spirit of humility when we have the apparent admiration of many, and more particularly of those whom we esteem/' 1 That he himself was not without some sense of his besetting sin may be seen in the hrst of his published writings, which appeared in 1803. For toward the close of his Im- provements in Education as it respects the industrious classes of the community 3 containing a short account of its present staie i hints towards its improvement , and a detail of some practical experiments conducive to that end , he remarked, 2 “ Vanity seems insensibly entwined about our nature, and mingling with our best performances often debases their sterling value/ 1 Lancaster’s Improvements is worthy of our attention, since it describes his general educational outlook. Commencing by declaring that the education of the poor ought to be a national concern, and would have become so but for a “ mere Phari- saical sect-making spirit preventing it in every party/’ he invokes a more catholic spirit. He is not discouraged by the quarrels of the past. “ The common ground of humanity is adapted to all,” and he will take his stand on that. u Above all things, education ought not to be made sub- 1 Memoirs f vol. i p, 103, * p. 44. JOSEPH LANCASTER n servient to the propagation of the tenets of any sect, beyond its own number ; . . . and yet, a reverence for the sacred name of God and the Scriptures of Truth, a detestation of vice, a love of veracity, a due attention to duties to parents, relations, and to society; carefulness to avoid bad company, civility without flattery, and a peaceable demeanour, may be inculcated in every seminary for youth, without violating the sanctuary of private religious opinion in any mind.” After describing existent schools for the poor, their “ dis- gusting scenes,” and wholly inefficient and unsuitable teachers — so indeed that the “ drunkenness of a schoolmaster is almost proverbial ”—he indicates his remedy. He decries the mere mention of coercion of any kind, as “ the most disgusting, uncouth word in the British vocabulary,” and declares that any society which would help the poor must approach them as upon an equal footing, and act upon general Christian principles, and on them only.” He enumerates the following as the princ ipal evils in existent schools: — bad teachers; their po% r erty and lack of due social status ; parents* uncertain ty as to their character ; bad accom- modation for children ; lack of system and stimulus in teaching ; want of any standard method. The objects he sets before his readers are the training of teachers, and their stimulation to greater exertion. He advo- cates the formation of a friendly society for them; the pre- sentation of medals ; establishment of a library of educational works; the supply of materials at cost price, and the publica- tion of information as to school-methods, etc. His idea is to encourage the teacher, but to leave him free; enforcing proper sanitary conditions, regular and punctual attendance, and a measure of discipline. And he imagines that with £1500 a year the whole national work indicated could be set a-going. So inexpensive did the task then appear. Finally, he describes his own work at Borough Road, its system of small prizes by which thousands were distributed. 12 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION and of leather badges bearing numbers whose repeated award was to have a certain definite money value; its monitors* who made their daily* weekly* and monthly reports of progress, receiving also their own special badges and rewards ; its spell- ing lessons with slates, and other novel introductions both in writing and arithmetic, though these are only hinted at. He enumerates among the books in use beside the Bible and New Testament* Turners Introduction to the Arts and Sciences j Mrs. Trimmer's Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature and Reading the Scriptures t Martinet's Catechism of Nature } and Watts' Hymns for Ckildreti , He also acknowledges the aid derived from Dr. BelPs pamphlet, and regrets that it had not come earlier under his notice. This mention of Dr. Bell and of a work by Mrs. Trimmer introduces us to the religious struggle which was so soon to rage about the Lancasterian experiment. Dr. Bell was a quarter of a century Lancaster's senior. The son of a St. Andrew's barber, he had led a wandering life in Virginia and in India* whence, in 1796* he returned with a small fortune, having succeeded in holding as many as eight army- chaplaincies at one time. The year after his return he pub- lished a pamphlet entitled An Experiment in Education made at the Male \Orphan\ Asylum of Madras ; suggesting a system by which a school or family may teach itself under the superin- tendence of the master or parent This was the outcome of several years' experience as super- intendent of the said asylum, which had been founded by the East India Company. After the publication of his pamphlet the monitorial system therein expounded was introduced into the Protestant Charity Schools, St Botolph's* Aidgate (1798), and the Kendal Industrial Schools {1799). In xSoi* Dr, Beil settled down to a living at Swanage, and it was only the success of Lancaster's experiments* so closely resembling his own, that drew him presently out of his comfortable seclusion, wherein* about Christmas* 1804, the latter seems to have visited him. *3 JOSEPH LANCASTER Nor perhaps, even then, would Dr. Bell have been impelled to controversial or constructive activity, had it not been for the determination of that person of great importance in her day, to whom I have had occasion to refer. Mrs, Trimmer was now some sixty years of age, had been for about twenty years an active promoter of Sunday schools, and was the author of a number of works of instruction for children, notably the Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature (1782) and works on Scripture history. From 1802-6 she issued a magazine under the title of The Guardian of Education , Though at first she was interested in Lancaster** work, she soon took alarm at its unsectarian character, and still more at its success. She felt that it was a serious trespass on the educational preserves of the Established Church, and forth- with roused up Dr, Bell to reassert himself. And it was high time, for in a few years things had moved rapidly. Mrs. Trimmer had been suspicious of Lancaster even in 1803, when he was a comparatively obscure young schoolmaster in Southwark; but in the summer of 1805 he became a figure of almost national prominence. For now, through the interest of a Mr. William Corston, who had recently established a school of industry at Fincham, Norfolk, where the children were being taught to make Leghorn straw-plait under royal patronage, Lancaster received a com- mand to attend upon old King George III. at Weymouth. 1 The king had already been interested in Lancaster’s free school, through the accounts he had heard of it from Lord Somerville, one of his Lords of the Bedchamber. Somerville had first visited the school some three years earlier, and had also induced his friend the Duke of Bedford to follow his example. It was to these two generous noblemen that Lancaster dedicated the new edition of his Improvements published in this year. Of Lancaster’s visit to " the farmer king,” then sixty-seven 1 The visit of June 1805 was a second interview. i 4 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION years old, Mr. Corston has preserved the following naive record : “ On entering the royal presence, the king said, 4 Lancaster, I have sent for you to give me an account of your system of education, which, I hear, has met with opposition. One master teach five hundred children at the same time? How do you keep them in order, Lancaster ? * 44 Lancaster replied, * Please thy Majesty, by the same prin- ciple thy Majesty’s army is kept in order — by the word of command.’ 1 44 His Majesty replied, 4 Good, good, it does not require an aged general to give the command — one of younger years can do it.’ Lancaster observed that in his schools the teaching branch was performed by youths who acted as young monitors. The king assented and said, 4 Good.’ 44 Lancaster then described his system; and he informed me that they all paid great attention, and were highly delighted; and as soon as he had finished, his Majesty said, 4 Lancaster, I highly approve of your system, and it is my wish that every poor child in my dominions should be taught to read the Bible; I will do anything you wish to promote this object/ 44 4 Please, thy Majesty,’ said Lancaster, 4 if the system meets thy Majesty’s approbation, I can go through the country and lecture on the system, and have no doubt but in a few months I shall be able to give thy Majesty an account where ten thou- sand poor children are being educated, and some of my youths instructing them.’ 4 4 His Majesty immediately replied, 4 Lancaster, I will sub- scribe £ioo annually,’ and, addressing the Queen, 4 You shall subscribe £50, Charlotte, and the Princesses, £25 each,’ and then added, 4 Lancaster, you may have the money directly.’ 44 Lancaster observed, 4 Please, thy Majesty, that will be [setting thy nobles a good example.’ The royal party appeared 1 It will be remembered that, though he had become a Quaker, Lancaster was a soldier’s son. JOSEPH LANCASTER 15 to smile at this observation; but the Queen observed to his Majesty, * How cruel it is that enemies should be found who endeavour to hinder his progress in so good a work.’ To which the king replied, ‘ Charlotte, a good man seeks his reward in the world to come.’ Joseph then withdrew.” 1 Lancaster himself 2 describes the interview as having lasted for an hour and a half “ with the same freedom of speech, the same anxious solicitude to carry his [Joseph Lancaster’s] design into execution as on all other (sic) occasions. His Majesty, in the fulness of his heart, expressed his readiness to promote the plan 4 for an hundred years to come.’ ” It is evident from Corston’s record that Lancaster’s success had already raised enemies against him. And Mrs. Trimmer, in her account of the royal interview, indignantly describes the young Quaker as standing with his hat upon his head making a long oration, while King George “ remained condescendingly uncovered or at least holding his hat above his head.” The hat-wearing was of course a part of that Quaker ritual with its uncompromising symbolism of human equality, which was still practised in those days, to the mortification of some, and the indignation of others. William Allen often had occasion to experience the former in his visits to great personages, but he still quaintly regarded it as a witness to the pure simplicity of the Gospel. One suspects that this is the kind of arrogance which belongs most of all to the most humble. For it was not Lancaster so much as his Quakerism to which good Mrs. Trimmer took violent objection — “ that humbly supercilious sect,” she calls the Society of Friends— and she unkindly sus- pects that he had joined himself thereto either “ for the love of a pretty Quaker,” or because the broad-brim provided the best of covers for his scheme . 3 The first allusion reminds us that just a year before, on June 1 Life of Lancaster , pp. 15-16. * The Cambrian, December 26, 1807. * Life of Bell , p. 140. i6 A CENTURY OF EDUCATION 5, 1804, Lancaster had been married at the Quaker Meeting House in Red Cross Street, afterwards known as the New Park/ 7 to Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Bonner, corn-chandler of Red Cross Street, and Abigail his wife, 1 He always wrote affectionately of his wife; but after giving birth to a daughter, their only child, she seems to have fallen under a mental cloud, so that, some time about 1805-7, she was removed much against his wishes, but at the instance of his friends, to an asylum. With a few pathetic intervals of partial clearness she seems to have remained under care till the time of her death. But we must return to the Royal Free School in the Borough Road, now become the centre of a fusilade of letters and articles, both pro and contra , in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews and elsewhere. And first, as to the u plan 31 of which we are to hear so much during the early years of our history, it is time that something explicit should be said. We have spoken of Lancaster's monitors, a term applied specially by him to his young assis- tants, These were the basis of his plan. There tas one in cha rge of ten-pupils, wearing a leather badge with gilt lettering to denote his office; 2 while others had general duties as signed to them, such as the ruling of paper, making of quill pens, and distribution of slates and books. Over them all was a monitor-general. These boys had control of the school and gave both instruction, rewards, and punishment, according to the prescribed regulations. Everything was reduced to drill with the object of saving the teacher's time and thought; and every possible economy, except in the matter of prizes, was 1 Quaker Register of Marriages, Devonshire House, E.C.; and Friends' Book of Meetings. In the Quakers* records of the period I find that Thomas Sturge, a worthy shopkeeper of the Walworth Road, and subse- quently one of Lancaster's trustees, who had been a very early visitor and supporter of the school, visited him on behalf of the Monthly Meeting on his application for membership, while Anthony Sterry, also an early friend and a subsequent member of the committee of the B.F.S. 3 ., was one of those appointed to inquire into his proposals for marriage (April 1 a. 1804), and appears to have been present at the ceremony. * Or the silver medals preserved at Borough Road. JOSEPH LANCASTER 17 made in order to reduce expenses. Slates were introduced instead of copy-books, and the system of writing with sticks or pointed pieces of wire in sand, was borrowed from Dr. Bell, who had seen it practised in India, 1 and introduced it into his Madras school. Sheets of texts were hung up 00 the walls to save the cost of reading-books; and six or seven hundred boys might be heard consentaneously singing, M 1-e-a-p, leap , to jump.” 2 Lancaster and his Quaker friends were naturally averse to corporal punishment, relying rather on a constant activity affording interest to the children, accentuated by a system of profuse rewards. At Midsummer, 1 803, for example, Lancaster spent £26 in prizes for his 217 pupils, or nearly 2s. 6d - per head, when he was at the same time boasting the extreme cheapness of his method. As these prizes were distributed with befitting pomp and ceremony, so offences were punished with corresponding humiliation. A dirty boy had his face washed by a girl before the school ; a truant w r as tied in a blanket and left so for the night; others were tied up in a sack and hung from a beam in view of all the children, or their legs or arms were shackled, or they were fixed into a wooden yoke, and made to parade the school walking backwards. 