A letter to N.W. Senior, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the state of public education, explanatory of communications and of evidence on half school time teaching; on the military drill, and physical training; and on the administration of funds applicable to popular education / by Edwin Chadwick.

Edwin Chadwick

Date:: 1861?]

Credit: A letter to N.W. Senior, Esq., one of Her Majesty's Commissioners for inquiring into the state of public education, explanatory of communications and of evidence on half school time teaching; on the military drill, and physical training; and on the administration of funds applicable to popular education / by Edwin Chadwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$when the parents had no alternative but to avail themselves of the district schools. They were, however, encouraged to pay sixpence per week instead of a penny, for which charge two extra hours, before and after school, were devoted to their children alone. On this principle everything worked and harmonised well; but the school became so over-crowded, that the committee found it necessary to apply to the Trustees of Public Charities for addi- tional buildings. Hence originated the commercial school, which is contiguous, and in which the poorer boys promote! from the National school are mixed indiscriminately with the children of professional persons, shopkeepers, &c. The girls' school consists chiefly of children of the lower classes. Supposing a child to commence at the infant school, and afterwards to go into the National school, how many years will it take to complete its education, so as to read well, w^rite a fair hand, and work arithmetic to decimal fractions; and what will have been the total expense of the educational power? What would have been the time and expense of obtaining the like amount of instruction in small and separate schools on the old system?—A child entering the infant school at five years of age would complete such an education in seven years. The expense of the teaching power, according to the present average cost per child, including books and stationery, would be 61. ]Ss,, of vvhich sum the parents would pay about 1/. Ss. In small and separate schools on the old system the time would, I should think, be in- creased by three years, and the cost per child, not including books and stationery, as nearly as I can ascertain, about 21/. *^ In what time, on the average, will a pupil be fairly got through the course of instruction given in the second class or commercial school, and at what expense?—A pupil with average ability will complete the course of instruction in the commercial school in six years, at a total expense, including all books, &c., of 19/. In w^hat time, on the average, and at what expense, might a shopkeeper or middle-class person obtain for his son the like description and amount of instruction at private or separate schools on the old system ?—I believe in eight years, at about an expense for school fees of 61, 6s. per annum, and 1/. for books, stationery, and extras. If the grammar school were put on the like footing as a high school, in what time and at what expense might the additional course of insti'uction there given be completed ?—I should say, in two or three years, at an expense of 30/. The next point, as it appeared to me, was to ascertain the actual results of the improved education gained, to the lowest as well as the other classes of the children of the town, by the principle of administrative con* solidation, or of aggregation, for the purpose of classi- fication, so far as it had been carried in this instance. The relieving officer of the Poor Law Union, w^ho had been 27 years in office, three of which were under$

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