been educated at good secondary schools. Especially gratifying, too, is the tendency to increased co-operation between parents and teachers, of which the reports give good illustrative examples. Best of all, the inspectors in every district find instances of enthusiastic and unselfish service on the part of the teachers.

Tis characteristic of the changed official attitude tion the central authority issued a document called instructions to inspectors," the document now issued, similar in scope,

Suggestions to

"

"

Teachers. though superior in quality, is called suggestions to teachers." In the old days "My Lords instructions" to their officials, not gave deigning to notice teachers directly; to-day the Board makes suggestions," and makes them directly to teachers and others concerned in the work of public elementary schools. These suggestions were first issued in 1905, and their tentative character was not merely admitted, but strongly emphasized. In 1909 a complete revision was begun, revised portions being published when ready and as instalments. The whole volume has been re-issued several times, and in the latest edition various changes have been made. Separate chapters are devoted to the subjects taught in elementary schools, and the headings "suggest" how hopeless it is to expect any one person to deal adequately with the whole curriculum still the normal arrangement, from which only progressive schools are effectively breaking away. By the way, most of the suggestions contained in the book are quite as good for lower-form teachers in secondary schools as for teachers in elementary schools. That they are addressed solely to the latter is an accident of the Board's system of administration.

The Educational Settlements Associations.

SHORT time ago there appeared in our columns A a notice of "The Way Out," a volume of essays on the meaning and purpose of adult education. A useful appendix to the volume gives a list of organizations concerned with adult education. Among these organizations appears the important Educational Settlements Association, of whose monthly Bulletin for November a copy has been sent us. Fifteen educational settlements and three colleges are affiliated to the National Association, which has its headquarters at 30 Bloomsbury Street. We find the Bulletin full of interest, both for its news of the adult education movement, and for its stimulating articles on various educational subjects. Among the latter we are inclined to single out for special mention an article on "The Drama in Adult Education," by Mr. John A. Hughes, which seems to us to put the case for the educational value of the drama clearly and strongly. We most cordially wish the utmost prosperity to the Association and to all that it stands for. Perhaps the wish is all the stronger because we write amid the hubbub of a General Election, with its attendant torrent of bad logic, resounding shibboleths, and personal abuse, emanating from all parties, and passing for fair argument. A General Election is no bad test of the education of the democracy, and who shall say that the democracy comes out of the test even decently well? More power to the elbow of the adult education

movement!

Teachers' Certifi

The Acting a number of persons who cannot cate Examination. afford a college training will hereafter be excluded from the ranks of certificated teachers. The really vital matter, what is best in the long run for the schools and the children, is ignored. We do not entrust our bodies to persons with no medical training, nor the making of our wills to persons with no legal training. Why should the teaching profession continue to be an exception, now that an adequate supply of trained men and women exists? The fact that in all professions an exceptional person here and there, who has not received the normal education and training, is better than many who have received it, is not a good argument. The authorities have to consider what is best on the whole and in the

cases.

long run. They cannot legislate for a few exceptional The protest that has reached us is accompanied by extracts from a large number of letters which are really ad misericordiam appeals to be let into the teaching profession on easy terms. At least one of the writers is convicted out of his own mouth. He says, " I am anxious to obtain the Certificate, as it is the last one, and I am quite unable to go to College, financially and otherwise." A person who writes this sort of English needs all the training that is available before being allowed to enter the ranks of fully qualified teachers.

IT has been known for some time past that the

numbers of candidates for the fighting services had been decreasing, and that consequently their standard of attainments was lower. The causes of this decrease are not difficult to comprehend. After every

Army Candidates.

great war there is a natural reluctance among those who have been through the agonies--mental and physical-of such a struggle to allow their sons to suffer the same fate. The Army was never in a worse state than between 1816 and 1854, as the mismanagement of the Crimean War proved. Again those families who were accustomed to send their boys into the Navy or Army are just those who have been most impoverished by post-war taxation. They cannot afford to send their sons to Woolwich, Sandhurst, or Cranwell. The new rich have not yet acquired the same traditions of public service. And so the Army suffers both in the quantity and quality of its recruits. It is a difficult problem to decide how better material can be, attracted to the Army. The state of our finances will hardly allow of an increase of pay, and it will take a long time to educate the new rich to the fact that their wealth brings with it obligations of public service.

THE War Office recently appointed a departmental

committee to consider the conditions of entrance of officers. This committee, under the chairmanship of Lord Haldane, at first proposed that every candidate for the Army should, before presenting himself for

The New Proposals.

the competitive examination, have obtained the " School Certificate," which can be obtained only by boys at certain schools who remain there until 18 years of age. This struck at the great principle, introduced by Lord Cardwell in 1870, that all positions should be open

would be a reversion to the earlier tradition associated with the names of Robert Lowe, Sir John Lubbock, and Sir Michael Foster.

IN his article on the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges in the Edinburgh Review, Principal Barker reveals a personal view which has a bearing on the future of King's College, London, over which he presides. What, he asks, is the right

Size of Colleges.

size for an educational unit at the

university stage? The purpose is to secure the highest type of university instruction involving the free, personal and direct consorting of mind with mind. Principal Barker places the upper limit at 250, suggesting 200 students as perhaps the ideal number. As to the federation of colleges in a university, he suggests a maximum of twenty. Regarded as a protest against the thoughtless growth of colleges, we are disposed to sympathize with Principal Barker's view, only suggesting that further investigation is required on the statistical side. Thring threatened to resign if his governors forced him to increase the size of Uppingham above the limit which he thought desirable: we think the number was 400 boys. In a university college, the organization of the full gamut of athletic, social, and extra-academic activities, as well as considerations of economical staffing, would suggest a higher maximum than 250 students.

SALARY SCALES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

TH

By P. H. PRIDEAUX.

HE following remarks are not put forward as an authoritative contribution to the solution of the problems now before the Burnham Committee, but as common-sense observations arising out of the writer's twenty years' experience of work in many types of secondary schools. The present problem is the effecting of economies without loss of efficiency, which may be defined as the ratio between results and cost: the former is unfortunately incommensurable, the latter of very definitely known value. The Committee is asked to establish the maximum value of this ratio a task which makes one glad not to be one of its members. After this has been done, it has to establish the ratios between all sorts of other incommensurables, such as mental capacity, relative value of professional services rendered, rate of increase in that value, &c. Amongst these the first is apparently the only measurable thing, its index figure" being academic achievement. Upon this many teachers and most administrators will agree that the Committee originally placed undue reliance. Only experience of the working of the scales can lead to the constructive modifications necessary, and therein lies the excuse for offering the following detailed consideration of questions that must arise, whatever decision is reached on many other vexed questions.

I. The basic scale. This is commonly recognized by teachers to be just adequate, in the sense that it does make possible the culture necessary to the assertion of that higher influence which can be exerted only by men who regard knowledge, not as mere working capital, but as a precious possession enabling them to form just views of life. It is, however, barely sufficient to enable a man to give more than one child an education equal to his own. That is a fact which has a supremely important bearing on the future supply of teachers, unless we wish them to be recruited entirely from the homes of artisans.

The main object, the attraction of an adequate supply of suitable men, the scale has temporarily achieved. It must, however, be borne in mind that the conditions

have been abnormally favourable to that result: other employment has been hard to find during the period of its operation, and the supply has been artificially stimulated by the post-war grants to ex-service men. Even so, there has been no very considerable over-supply. Any reduction, therefore, would almost certainly check the supply, and possibly lead to an outflow of the younger men as conditions become more normal.

II. The extra allowances. These have proved unsatisfactory, mainly because most of them have little connexion

with the value of services rendered. But each must be considered separately :

(a) For training: This is equitable in principle, and generally in practice. The year's training involves the loss of a possible year of service, thus retarding progress on the scale, and necessitating an extra year to qualify for full pension rights. Moreover the work done is definitely professional, and useless for any other purpose. The question of concurrent degree and training courses is dealt with later.

(b) For good honours degree": Approval of these is limited mainly to recipients, or possibly eligible recipients. In the schools we look in vain for evidence that the work of the first class graduate is any better, on the average, than that of other men. There are, of course, many men of outstanding academic and professional ability among them, but the proportion is no greater than the proportion among men of any other class. Yet the latter can never equalize," whilst quite a large number of honours men of very mediocre professional ability receive an allowance for nearly twenty years. That the allowances are inequitable in their present form is borne out by the following considerations :

"

I. The standard required for a First Class Honours degree varies from one university to another, and the degree, therefore, is not a reliable index even of the promise of youth," itself a very insecure basis for a permanent reward.

2. A "First" is often obtained by undue concentration upon work which leads to narrow specialization; this, if not subsequently corrected, frequently results in a distorted scale of values, the very worst state of mind that can develop in a schoolmaster.

3. University honours courses are specialized in the interests of research, and not in the interest of the requirements of secondary school teachers.

"

In dealing with this question we must remember that the best teacher is not an examination crammer; that he is not valuable as a mere compendium of information on a narrowly defined group of subjects. Teaching requires persons who embody and exemplify the benefits of a cultured mind; men or women who, by the creation of that impalpable thing called atmosphere will induce the desire for "good learning," and possess the capacity to grasp all the factors of a given situation and the power of envisaging those factors in their proper relationscapacity which is the mark of the "able," as distinct from the merely clever person, and which alone can lead to the wise ordering of our lives. If teachers such as these are to be obtained and retained, the members of the school staffs must be differentiated on surer grounds than the academic achievements of youth.

"

Let there be no misunderstanding: it is not asserted that the honours man is not a man of first-rate mentality, but rather that he is not necessarily so, and that the nonhonours man may be. Each has to prove his case. Since the honours man is provided with a "first class testimonial" from the university, it is fitting that he should have temporary recognition of the fact. But the assumption in the present scale that a man's mental grasp, and life achievement, is measured by what he has done in very early manhood is ridiculous in the extreme. Every observation of the life around us contradicts it. The fact is that, quite independently of early promise, the knowledge and professional value of men of like mental capacity tend to the same level; and this fact, recognized in every other walk of life, should be recognized in our own profession.

(c) For posts of special responsibility.

1. In respect of second masterships. In principle these are entirely justified, but the discrimination in practice between large and small schools is open to serious criticism. Possibly it is thought that there is much more extra work attached to the post in a large school. Experience, however, shows that the second master in a small school is very much harder worked than his more fortunate fellow master in the large school.

2. In respect of responsible heads of departments (subjects). This is the most unsatisfactory of all the allowances. If the drawing up of a subject syllabus entitles a man to extra payment, then every man who does this is equally entitled to the payment: an impossible proposition. Moreover, the men in small schools, who frequently arrange the syllabuses of two subjects, receive no allowance. Yet the work involved is the same, differing only in the numbers of its "victims."

But, even in the large schools, only a small number of the subject heads are paid; the others do equal work as a routine duty-or for the honour. Thus the question of selection arises, and, without any desire to impugn the good faith of headmasters, it must be said that in many cases choices have been made for which there is no very obvious explanation. This, perhaps, is a minor consideration. The really important thing is that a mere subject head, paid or unpaid, is in practice not in any real sense fully

responsible," (whatever that may mean), either for the syllabus or anything else : the syllabus embodies the collective wisdom of the subject teachers, and, in the actual teaching, each largely follows his own devices. The syllabus indicates the general lines of development, and there, in practice, the matter ends. Indeed, there it must in most cases end: for a mere subject expert can rarely be, and still more rarely is, a man who carries enough weight to influence the teaching of other experts, or to be welcomed in their class-rooms. So that, in fact, these allowances are often reduced to the recognition of a dignity acquired by seniority of service, or in some other irrelevant way. They should be drastically dealt with.

The foregoing remarks are suggestive of lines along which economies might be effected without in any degree impairing efficiency, namely:

1. If the profession is to receive a steady flow of recruits of good average quality, it is reasonably apparent that the present basic scale must continue. After all, the rank and file are the measure of the school: if they are not to a certain extent scholars, and wholly gentlemen, the school must in the long run suffer. Theirs is the insistent, day by day influence, exercised hour by hour in the comparative intimacy of the present-day classroom; and if men of the right stamp are not attracted to the profession

the traditions of English secondary school life will decay,

however fine the aristocrats of the staff may be. In re-drafting the scales the most ample provision possible must first be made for the majority who may never become heads of departments, so that men who are scholars and gentlemen may be reasonably content to hold positions as teachers.

2. On grounds previously stated, the allowance for training should be continued, as being in principle an increment for service.

regulations concerning membership of Convocation. No distinction is made between one degree or class, and another. Ripeness is all." For this reason it is suggested that the allowance should be limited to at most four years. Thus, assuming the continuance of the basic scale, a beginner with a first class degree would receive £265, proceed by his fourth year to £310, remain at that figure until his sixth year, when he would receive £315, and proceed thereafter on the basic scale.

A similar arrangement would meet the case for recognition of post graduate achievement, and of the training received by those who have taken degree and training courses concurrently.

4. The posts of special responsibility should be of an entirely different nature from those now so called, held only by men of outstanding ability and wide scholarship,

and reduced in number. The staff of a modern school is normally composed of a number of specialists, upon whom the head relies for the subject syllabuses. Consequently each syllabus is drawn up on independent lines, which may often lead to waste of time and effort by the scholars. Now it is surely not too much to expect the profession to provide a sufficient number of able men with a good all-round knowledge of, and insight into, the work of a group of allied subjects, who could organize the work of the whole group with due regard to mutually helpful lines of development in each. Very little thought will show that the ordinary school subjects fall naturally into three groups: English (with history and geography); foreign languages (Latin, French, German); science (mathematics, chemistry, physics, with geography and woodwork on the border); all groups dominated and permeated alike by the mother tongue. This grouping suggests the recognition of three departmental heads, who would act as a sub-committee to assist the headmaster in the final organization of the academic work of the school, whilst each would be responsible for the uniformity of the lines of development in his group. These posts would be very attractive to the best type of man, and would be excellent training for those most likely to become head

masters.

One of these posts should be held by the second master as part of the extra duties of his office and the emolument merged in his allowance as second master. As English is of dominating importance, and involves more in the way of annual revision, the person responsible should receive a slightly larger allowance. The extras might then work out as follows: English Department, £30 per annum (or £50 if held by the senior); Language Department, £20 per annum (or £40 if held by the senior); Science Department, £20 per annum (or £40 if held by the senior). The total extra allowances would, by this plan, never exceed £90 per annum in any school.

I have advocated what many may consider a somewhat drastic reduction of all the extra allowances, partly because it is so generally felt that economies must and will be made, but mainly because I am convinced that those allowances, whilst costing much, have done little to

improve the work of the schools. I also deprecate very strongly the tendency to commercialize the profession by making monetary reward the only motive for service.

THE Times Educational Supplement announces that Mr. M. J. Rendall, who has been headmaster of Winchester since 1911, is retiring next August. He has maintained, and even enhanced, the reputation of the school, where he has won the affection of generations of Wykehamists. The son of an Oxfordshire rector, he was born in 1862, and was educated at Elstree, Harrow, and Trinity, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a classic. He played in the University Association football eleven in 1884 and 1885, and also for the Corinthians. In 1887 he became a master at Winchester, and in 1899 second master.