Abstract
ONE of the chief ways in which Technical Education Committees all over the country spend the funds entrusted to them is in the award of scholarships; and if this branch of their work is wisely organised and carried out, there is no better method of securing the proper education of promising boys and girls. The scholarships awarded can be divided into four classes, namely, those tenable at (1) Technical Schools and Science and Art Schools; (2) Secondary Schools; (3) Universities or institutions of University rank; (4) short courses of instruction. Full information with reference to these scholarships has appeared at various times in the Record of Technical and Secondary Education. An examination of the particulars there given reveals several interesting facts, not the least among which is the diversity of opinion as to what the candidates for such exhibitions and scholarships should be examined in. At Plymouth, boys are expected only to have a knowledge of sixth and seventh standard work when they enter for scholarships of the first of the above divisions, while those of Bristol are set papers not only in elementary subjects, but also in algebra, Euclid, French, German, chemistry, botany, &c. Candidates in Blackburn and Stock-port, amongst numerous other places, are set papers in the subjects of the “Science and Art Directory,” though in the former place any commercial knowledge proves useful, and at Stockport boys may enter themselves for any branch of technology mentioned in the City and Guilds' programme. Such facts as these show that we are yet far removed from any definite and uniform course of education graduating from the elementary school upwards. The complaints, which are published in most of the County Council reports, of the hopelessness of looking for any satisfactory progress in technical instruction until the students entering technical or science and art schools are better prepared to benefit by their teaching, are likely to be often repeated unless it is made compulsory upon all scholarship holders to give satisfactory evidence of their acquaintance with, at least, the work of the elementary schools. In some cases, authorities have tried to avoid this difficulty by stipulating that candidates shall have been pupils in elementary schools; but it is notorious that a year or two after leaving school most boys have completely lost any knowledge they may have had. Means by which the continuity of a boy's education may be ensured have yet to be taken. No permanent gain can result if technical work is built on insecure foundations, and we imagine that the foundations of scientific knowledge can be very properly begun in the elementary school. This knowledge should be carried on in evening continuation schools, and attendance at such schools should be made compulsory, as it is in Germany. If that were done, a boy at the age of seventeen would be in fit condition to enter the true technical school, whereas, under the present system of elementary education, he is not. The want of agreement to which we have referred obtains also when we come to consider the conditions under which scholarships to secondary schools are awarded. The most striking feature here is perhaps the countenance which is given to dabbling in all sorts of subjects. Since the secondary school is, as a rule, intended for boys from about thirteen to sixteen or seventeen years, and is, or should be, entered at, or about, the lower age, it seems unreasonable to expect any candidate to have done anything of importance at such subjects as botany and physiology, and yet such subjects are continually asked for. At every point one is struck with the want of coordination in the various grades of English education. If we could once get something like a consensus of opinion as to the proper work of the elementary, the secondary, the technical school, and finally of the college, this continual difficulty of what to examine in would not arise. When we come to look into the regulations affecting the scholarships offered by the technical instruction committees at universities or institutions of university rank, it becomes painfully evident that such committees are by no means clear what their work properly is. Several county authorities consider a knowledge of Latin, and one at least recognises familiarity with Greek, as being desirable for technical students. It is not our desire to decry the study of the classics, but we maintain that neither Greek nor Latin gives any claim to a technical scholarship, and, further, that the grant for technical education is being wrongly used if it is awarded for proficiency in such subjects. It cannot be too much insisted upon that one of the points which the advisers and directors of the various committees need yet to consider, refers to the requirements and capacities of the different classes of the community, and how these can best be met.
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Scholarship Schemes of Technical Education Committees. Nature 53, 332–333 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/053332b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053332b0