BRITISH SCHOLARSHIPS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 13, 28 December 1911, Page 8

BRITISH SCHOLARSHIPS.

ALLEGED ABUSE

Bishop Welldon, formerly headmaster of Harrow, president ol the Eciueational Science section or the British Association, recently delivered a i igorons attack upon the modern abuses of scholarships, in his address upon the state of education in England. He said that the agencies by which children or comparatively poor parents had in the past been enabled to receive an education in the schools, and indeed in the universities, of the rich, were, ho was afraid, coming to be gravely abused. Scnolarships and exnibitious were designed to remedy tno disadvantage of the poor, not to accentuate the privilege of the rich. 'Jo confer pecuniary rewards upon boys and girls wiioso parents could well afford to dispense with them was to foster a douole abuse. It was ijh spend money where money was not needed, and to withhold money where it was needed. Yet in tlie public schools, and to soma extent in, the universities, scholarships and exhibitions tended to become the perquisites of the rich. In tlie hold of secondary education the competition for scholarships and exhibitions hud become so severe that scarcely any boy in the examination for them stood a chance of success except at the cost of tnrec or four years spent beforehand in an expensive preparatory school. But as rich boys wore the only boys whose parents could afford this preparatory expenditure, it followed that rick boys were generally the successful candidates tor scholarships and exhibitions, the evil was scarcely capable of exaggeration. It was bad enough tiiat a rich boy, if he competed on equal terms with poor boys, should obtain u pecuniary reward which they do, and ho does not, need for educational purposes. But when it was the rich alone who enjoyed the opportunity, or the most favourable opportunity, of winning the pecuniary rewards which were justly intended for the poof, a case for drastic reform seemed to be made out.