"ALIEN'S" LETTERFROM ENGLAND. (Specially Written for tie Witness Ladies' Page.) A DEAD INSTITUTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 67

"ALIEN'S" LETTERFROM ENGLAND. (Specially Written for tie Witness Ladies' Page.) A DEAD INSTITUTION.

As I write, the funeral knell of the School Board for London is sounding; its last meeting is being held. Ichabod is being" written, over its portals, and busy pens are writing epitaphs more or less uncomplimentary. Whatever good it may shave- done, ite— shall we say indiscretions?— ifcave been many. Economy cannot be claimed as one of its virtues. In its thirtyfour years of existence, having been called snta being with, a great flourisn of trumpets in 1870, it is responsible for the expenditure of. £32,000,000 ; in round figures, one million per annum. Such a stupendous sum should, if rightly administered, have produced magnificent results. One million per ""annum for 30 odd years! What other city in the world can point to sucli a record, and what other city can show such -meagre results? Many of oxtrdeep thinkers have for months past been bewailing the shortcomings of the now defunct School Boar-d. David Christie Murray brings an awful indictment against it. It has produced, he says, a population, "unable to speak its own Sanguage." If the "joang idea" studies its finances, it is doubtful whether habits of commercial morality will be inculcated thereby, as it leaves a legacy of debt of £11.000,000 — a sum which would make the mnuth of a Chancellor of many a petty European State water. But half a dozen of tke original members of the board survive -c witness its- jbsequies. Many whose names were household words, and more "have long since joined the majority. Samuel •\forlev, SI. P., Professor Huxley. bir Francis Lycett, to wit— whole-souled educationalists. The year 1876 saw an unwholesome change. The political element forced its way hi, and economy became the last tiling thought of. Jerry buildings, were erected afterwards, to be repaired at ruinous cost and ma do sanitary : stores "shovelled" out without check cr inquiry, to be "shovelled" back again in one year to +he extent of 50 tons : these are some of the painful facts that a perusal of th« official history of the School Board for London disclose. The authority which succeeds to its heritage to-day will be watched by jealous eyes, made keen by experience. It is to be hoped that the shortcomings of its predecessor will have due effect, and that it may fulfil the high hopes and good intentions "of- those who have created -it. London cannot be charged with parsimony with regard to the education of its poor when tfese figures are scanned, and one looks around the vast area of the great sprawling city and sees the thickly-strewn imposing buildings, especially so in ths more sciualid districts, bearing the legend, carved "in stone, "School Board for London." Whatever may be said of the failure of the School Board to realise the high hopes of the pioneers of the "Education Act of 1870," ife was a step in the right direction. It did- undoubtedly bring order and method where chaos had previously reigned. The voluntary schools, supported as they were by the respective sects, did their best to aieet a great want, but the rapid growth of the population in the nineteenth century, contemporaneous with the introduction of steam to the mechanical arts, ja'odueed thousands and tens of thousands who were necessarily outside tnis influence, and whom it was the duty of the State to see were educated. The great difficulty has been feh& seeming utter want of appreciation of ■what education is. This is a question the newly-constituted authority will have to face, and upon its elucidation will its efforts < 'be judged. The sponsors maintain that it will, to say the least, make the wheels of the educational machine work moie harmoniously — a consummation devoutly to bs ] wished. Many are the complaints made of the manners — bad manners, of course — of the i children who have ccme under the influence j of the School Boa>rd. I have not seen it j suggested *hafc their bad manners are | learned' from thecr teachers, nor would anyone be likely to do so. therefore the com- | plaint that one hears on all sides that this decadence is due to the School Board, seems io be manifestly unjust to that much-abused j body, and may possibly be charged against its- successor. It would seem to most people .who have to deal with children that manners are more- within the province of the home than the day school. Discipline is closely allied to manners, and no one can visit a board school and not come away impressed with the marvellous discipline displayed. Then whence the bad manners? Clearly their source must be looked for elsewhere, and the remedy musi^ be applied in other spheres than the ■ schoolroom. As the matter stands, it is a looselyworded libel on a very hard-working, selfdenying- body of the community. ' — A Visit to a Board School. — At the invitation of one of the governors I visited, a few days before the decease of the board, one of the schools. Situated on that open stretch of common known as Wormwood Scrubs, over which the gaunt ■wafis of the prison rise, yet removed from sight of -that grim edifice, the school presented a cheerful and modern appearance, Bandsome after its characteristic architecture, designed more for usefulness than attraction. The door in the walled yard was i unfastened for our admission, and crossing i its clean asphalted playground, we were adjnitted into a spacious hall where at a desk was the mistress of the infants' department, who courteously undertook to conduct us through the various class rooms i of her department. These classroom* ! opened by swing doors either from the j ihall or passages leading from the hall, and ; "while we paused for the lead of our con- j ductress. the baby class filed in from the ' yard — a long line of hapj>3*-looking young- ] sters, holding on to one another's skirt- ' tails in the waddling march peculiar to : email ones. The first class of infants visited disclosed > them deep in the mysteries of clay-model- J

ling with a loaf for their model. Whether or not there were any future sculptors among them, they were certainly having a good time, and the same in the art class, where the youngsters were painting a wall- • flower from the natural blossom. Seme of the work— considering the age of the artists — was particularly well done ; in other instances there was nothing perceptible save a daub, and an agonised expression of countenance that indicated nothing of the rapture of genius. Tho walls were decorated with specimens of past work, wliich the children were evidently proud of. for they smiled in satisfaction as these were under inspection. What struck me particularly was the j happy interested look of the children : they 1 were mostly of the lower middle class of a healthy suburb — a different class altogether t to that of the East End Board Schools, j where the poverty of the children is the ' despair oi the master?, especially in the , winter, when, their half-starved 1 bodies nnd brains are incapable of continuous effort, j QTrom the infants' departments we went ! on to the higher grade class rooms, and in one heard a recitation, in another the girls sang to us, and here also we inspected the drawings and paintings of the girls from about 13 to 15 yeais of age, which in some cases showed decided talent. j A diversion was caused by the head • master sounding the fire alarm. In an incredibly short, fpa^e of time the steady tramp of boys' feet was heard along the passages as the scholars filed out of th© class rooms in perfect order, and were 1 presently joined by these from the upper room". In one minute the school was cleared, and without hurry or confusion the boys drawn up in a double line round the walls of the yard, each master in charge of his class. ! The workshop where the- wood-working and de.-igning were done was an interesting department : each boy had a bench of his own. and. in clean white apron, was busily engaged in carving brackets, etc., from his own .scientifically-drawn, plan*. The interest which the master of this d-e-paitment took in his pupils was evident ■ here, "as in oth-er departments, and the boys ' were not half-hearted in their work, some of them showing more cleverness in the t mechanical' construction than in artistic work. \ A history lesson was in progress in one , room as we entered, and the difficulty was ' not to get answer.< but to select the boy from the many whose uplifted hand proclaimed his readiness to reply. . The lesson indr.tlsd the Gr-eat Fire of London, which ' began at Pudding- Lane and ended 1 at Pye j Corner. The former lies hard by the ' Axiddlesex side of London Bridge: its narrow boundaries — it is merely a lane still m character, as well as name — are much the same as when its old houses first set London in flames, as most of the inhabitants insisted upon building up their properties on the same old lines. The latter— Pye Cor1 nar — is in close proximity to Smithfield, j celebrated in other sorts" of fires, which I have burned themselves deep into the history of our race. ' An interesting and pleasant afternoon was brought to a close by a lesson in physical geography, where a very small boy in- j btructed us how to blast and quarry and to dam a stream. Then we descended into . the main hall, where the head master showed its his photographs of the P^rimminoClub and the Football Club and various • other groupings- of the boys, of which he ' was evidently, and with reason, proud. j A large card was exhibited on the wall, ' showing the relative time of all nations. I , I took particular notice of the time in New ' Zealand, and as it registered 4.20 a.m. L ' sent tht? wish of '' pleasant dreams ' to old j friends. i