TO THE EDITOR OF THE WINDSOR AND ETON EXPRESS

Sir. – In fulfilment of my promise given last week, I have filled up the outline to which I then alluded, and now submit it for the information of your readers.

For the sake of convenience I shall arrange my observations under three heads. I propose to enquire, First, what the character of Schools for the working classes should be; Secondly, how far the existing Church Schools in Windsor satisfy the requirements; and then, Thirdly, I shall point out the changes which are in contemplation. In justification of the length to which I fear the statement will run, I can only say that I think it necessary the town should know not only the facts, but the principles, on which the proposed changes will be based.

First. What the Schools for the Working Classes should be. Education, to be worthy of the name, must be framed with a view to the child’s whole future existence – his future character the first essential, his future calling the second.

For the future character the requisites are the same in every rank of life. Beneath all the outward accidents of condition, the man still makes himself felt; carrying into his occupation, whatever it may be, his individual attributes of power or weakness. He is the upright, self-controlling, industrious man, or the untrustworthy, idle undisciplined one: he is the intelligent, thoughtful man, or the reverse. No matter where his place of training then may be – at the Royal Foundation of Eton, or the more humble Free School of Windsor – there are the same principles to be formed, the same faculties to be unfolded and strengthened; the foundations are to be laid as broad and deep in one case as the other, though destined hereafter to carry different superstructures. For the moral training, it is needless to add, the promises and precepts of the Gospel have to be brought to bear on the child; for the intellectual, the powers of observation, memory, and reflection have to be awakened; and the mechanical arts of reading and writing, the basis of all further acquisition, to be taught.

It is as we come to future calling that all that is distinctive in education begins to appear. For the working classes, who have to gain their livelihood in the several fields of manual labour, intellectual acquirements become of secondary importance. You can but lay the foundation, and leave it to each man, in the afterwork of self-culture, to determine how far intellectual pursuits shall enter into his daily life. Of far more importance is the formation, at an early period, of the industrial habit. I use the word “habit,” because it is not the teaching of a trade, which is needed at our schools; this is sooner and far better learnt under the master to whom the boy is apprenticed. It is the early practice of hand and eye that is needed; the familiarity with labour, and the love of it. No doubt it is the want of this that has been felt by parents, and has contributed to the evil which we are all now deploring – the very early removal of their children from school.

This necessity becomes a paramount one in the case of girls. It is not only that their future livelihood for many years may be dependent on their industry, in domestic service; that as nurses, cooks, housemaids, therefore they must carry with them an aptitude for work and a delight in it, or a disposition to regard it as a drudgery, and to escape from it at the earliest possible period; nor is it, merely, that with some knowledge of the first principles of their calling, they may safely be entrusted with the various domestic interests of the family; and that, wanting this knowledge they will involve in a impartial and disastrous destruction, as opportunity is given them, the health and tempers of the children of the family, the crockery, household furniture, cooking, and, not improbably, the patients of their employers. But it is that a graver question lies beyond all this. They are to be the wives of workingmen, the mothers of workingmen and women – in the next generation. They are to be the careful orderers of their husbands’ home, or the untidy disturbers of it. They are to economize his hard-earned wages; to lay his money out to the best advantage, to give variety to his frugal meal; or to dissipate the one, and make distasteful the other. They are, above all, to be the intelligent trainers of their children; or, through ignorance, to become their worst foes. The working man’s “dwelling,” no doubt, is a social difficulty of the present day, which we have all to try and surmount; it is a question if the working man’s “wife” does not lie a step deeper in the order of social amelioration.

But whatever the kind of training – industrial or not – which we give our schools, the working man has a right to demand that it shall be the best of its kind. His time for schooling is but short, under the most favourable circumstances; it ought, therefore to be turned to the best account. He has to compete with others in his own town and elsewhere; he ought not to enter on this competition at a disadvantage. We can, most of us, select our schools from the country or tied to those of his own town. If, therefore, unable, as he is, to establish schools for himself, we come forward in the true spirit of Christian brotherhood to help him, we violate our principles if we do not help him to the best within our reach. If the whole science of education has been investigated within the last quarter of a century to a degree unknown before, and the whole machinery of it, therefore, has undergone a change, he ought to have the full benefit of this change. And if there are ancient foundations, the whole letter and spirit of which declare that they are left for “the education” of the working classes of a town, the trustees, I cannot but think, betray their trust, if, from any sentimental feeling – however natural and, in its place, deserving of all respect – they leave them in a condition, respectable and something more in a past age, but wholly below the level and requirement of this. I proceed to apply these remarks to the two existing Church Schools in Windsor;* and 1^st, The Free School. *I do not overlook the very excellent schools established by Mr. S Hawtrey in an adjoining parish; aiming, however, at a higher standard, and recruiting chiefly from a higher class than our own.

The Free School was established in the year 1705. The proposal for the establishment are still extant, and run thus: “Whereas there is a considerable number of children in the town and parish of New Windsor, who have little or no education given them, through the poverty of their parents; tis now agreed and resolved upon by chief inhabitants (with whom the Dean and Canons have likewise expressed their readiness to concur) in setting up a Charity School for that purpose,” Then follow the names of annual subscriptions to the amount of £200. The children were to be taught “to read, write, and cast accounts; to be well instructed in the principles of religion; to be furnished with bibles and common prayer books; to be clothed on some sort or other; and to be placed out in the world afterwards.” If the subscriptions would allow, there were to be 40 boys and 30 girls. To the Charity School, so constituted, donations and bequests soon began to be made, and in 1724 Theodore Randue gave, by his will, £500 to buy or build a house. The present schoolhouse was erected in 1725. Bequests continued to be made till they reached the present amount of £5603, producing, with rents, a yearly sum of £18: 19s: 9d. There are also other fixed annual payments amounting to £66. The Trustees (Committee?) for the school were declared in 1735 to be as follows: “The Dean of Windsor for the time being, or in his absence the locum tenens; the two senior Canons that appear at the meeting appointed; the Mayor of Windsor for the time being, or in his absence the senior Alderman; the two senior Alderman that appear at the meeting; every person that contributes to the Charity School to the value of 20 shillings per annum.”

In 1817, the year, if I mistake not, from which, under the active exertion of Mr. Locker, so much that was good in Windsor took its rise, it was proposed in the Committee, and resolved, “That the establishment of the School be extended, so as to give education to 100 boys and 100 girls.” The National system was to be introduced; a subscription opened for the construction of a building, either in addition to the present school, in some other situation; and plans in accordance with the resolution to be prepared. Those resolutions were never rescinded. They stand in the minute book of the Free School a witness that, in the estimates of the then trustees, or a majority of them, the spirit of the original foundation required that the school should be made commensurate with educational wants of the town. From what cause they failed to be acted upon does not appear. Probably the cumbrous and tedious process of the Court of Chancery, at that day, made it impracticable. Be this as it may two years later, the Free School having now failed to supply the want, the only available alternative was had resource to. A National School was established, and thrown foe its support on annual subscription, as the Free School had originally been, and still partially was. The results, which might have been anticipated, followed. The subscriptions flowed away from the old school into the channel of the new one, and the year 1857 found the Free School with an annual excess of expenditure over income of from ten to twelve pounds, and a balance due to the treasurer of £89. The number of children, already reduced to 36 boys and 30 girls, was obliged to be still further reduced to 32 boys and 30 girls, as the only means of meeting the difficulty.

The declining income of the school has found only too close a parallel in its decaying life and usefulness. I approach this part of the subject with very considerable reluctance. I am aware of the great good to which the school has been instrumental in past times, and of the place which it must justly hold, therefore, in the affections of many of my parishioners. I fear, too lest (even by implication) I should seem to detract from the credit of those who have taken part in the management for some years past, and more especially of one who as treasurer has watched over its interests with unremitting solitude. But the decay has not been the fault of individuals; it has been inherent to an institution – itself, from the necessities of its position and income, stationary; while the educational life of the country has been rapidly flowing by it. To speak, then, of its actual condition – and taking first the boy’s school – I would say, shortly, that it is inefficient in itself, painfully inefficient when tested by the great opportunities which its clothing endowment gives. It has been constantly pressing difficulty of myself, and every curate who has worked in it, for the last three years. We have expected to see in its place for the foundation of solid Christian character; we have been so far as the present is concerned, utterly disappointed. We have hoped that as the boys have been deafted into it from the National School they would go from the inferior to the superior school; it has been the reverse. We have seen in the clothing fund, if it could be brought palpably before the eyes of the children, an incentive to good conduct in every child (of poor parents) that entered our schools; it has been removed into a corner, and has failed of its objective; while, for the same reason, the inducement it would offer to the parents to keep their children at school to the age of 14 has been confined to a few, instead of, as would be the case in a larger school, telling indirectly upon the mass. That the inefficiency is in some measure due to the existing arrangement of teachers there is no doubt. The nominal master has ceased to be the real one. Having been appointed some time since to other offices, which occupy his whole time, he has been allowed to do the duty of the school by deputy. The boys fall into the hands of assistants, therefore, – foe the most part young men, and so constantly changing their situations, that there have been three during the past three years. It has been proposed, by those who object to a more comprehensive plan, to remedy this by appointing at once an actual and efficient master. The appointment, under the existing circumstances of the school would be simply impossible. The trained and certificated master (and under the operation of the Minutes of Council the race of untrained masters is rapidly becoming extinct) can always command a salary equal in amount to the combined one, which we now give to master and mistress. In addition to his salary he also receives an augmentation from Government to the amount of from £20 to £30 a year. But this is only available when his school is under Government inspection. Now, no Government inspector would thing of certifying to our present schoolrooms as fit place for the education of working classes. They are close, ill-arranged, ill-ventilated; so much so, that on three several occasions when I have been there, boys have been obliged to leave the room in fainting condition. The efficient master, therefore, without a still further reduction of the number of children, would not be forthcoming; we should have to fall back on inferior teaching power, and with this perpetuate the inferiority of the school.

But there is another objection to this last arrangement. In putting the house under fresh occupancy it would necessarily deprive the institution of the invaluable services of the present mistress. I have said nothing, thus far of the Girls School: I will only say this – that so high a value do I set on the mistress’s powers in forming the character of children that my constant regret has been to see those powers circumscribed by the defective character of the school arrangements and the small number of children over whom her influence extends. The industrial training, which she is so admirably qualified to superintend, is restricted, with the exception of the house cleaning to needlework. I earnestly long to see it ranging over that wide field described above, without which the duties of servant, wife, or mother, will be at best but imperfectly discharged.

To recapitulate, then: The Free School was intended, so far as the Church is concerned, to meet the educational requirements of the working classes. It has done so in times past; it fails to do so now – partly through defective premises, partly from defective funds; and this in the face of the very large assistance, which it might derive from government grants, if it were to become the educational establishment for the parish.

A few words must be given here – very few, lest I exhaust the limits of your columns and the patients of your readers – to the National School. It was established in the year 1819, when the Free School had been on the point of opening its doors to the children of the parish generally, and had then unexpectedly kept them closed. Whenever the doors shall be really opened the necessity for it will cease to exist. It has done its work as well as was to be expected, while labouring under great disadvantages. The boy’s school has been able to offer no inducements to the children to remain at school: it has seen some of its most promising boys from time to time drafted into the Free School; it has suffered therefore, under the usual difficulty of our schools – early withdrawal; and it has been carried on in premises, adapted to the educational status of forty years ago, but very unequal to that of the present day. The girl’s school, more fortunate in having a smaller clothing endowment placed at its disposal, retains its children to a more advanced age, but only to carry them on to a higher degree of intellectual proficiency than perhaps is needed, and to confine their industrial training to needlework. Alterations in the premises, whether for the purpose of providing industrial work for the girls, or better arrangements for the boys, are rendered unadvisable, if not impracticable, from the nature of the tenure. The property is leasehold and the lease expires in about 20 years. The Government assistance, indispensable for alterations on so large a scale, is not given unless the property is freehold.

It is after careful review of the above circumstances that the Trustees of the Free School have thought it better for the town that there should be one strong school than two weak ones. That School would be the Free School, transferred to another site, and with capabilities of giving instruction, in addition to the foundation scholars, to some 400 children The National School would be closed, and its subscription list transferred to the new school.

In detail, the arrangements proposed are these the foundation children would receive a free education and be clothed as now. They would be elected yearly under the same conditions from the children already in the school, and be taught on those same principles. The boys would receive much of their industrial training by going out to work, as now, for an hour or two in the morning. Other industrial work would be provided for them in the school. The girls would spend their two years almost entirely in the industrial school. There would be an Infant Nursery, where children too young for the Infant School, and whose mothers are compelled to go out to work, would be received. Here the girls would be taught the first principles of the management of children. The District Kitchens would be removed to the school; they would learn the elements of plain cooking and household economy. There would be a laundry for the teaching of washing and ironing. Children not on the foundation would pay for their schooling. The official trustees would be the same as now, with the addition, for the purpose of management, of the committee of seven, chosen from the annual subscribers.

It only remains to point out the resources available, or which might be expected for carrying out the improvements:

For the building of the new school (estimated cost) £4000

Towards this: –

Grant form the Committee of Council at 6s the square foot £1700

Sale of the old Free School (from £500 to £600) £500

Grants from the National and other Societies £250

Sale of Lease of National School and Premises (uncertain) £250

£2700

Leaving to be raised from private sources (part already promised £1300

A site in a very eligible situation, has been offered by the Crown.

Towards the annual maintenance there would be:

Income of the present Free School (about) £257

Annual Subscriptions (now given to the National School) £166

Old Educational Charities (also given to the National School) £25

Payments of children not on foundation £80

£528

And in addition to the above, under the minutes of the Committee of Council:

Augmentation to Master and Assistant-masters Salary £50

Ditto to Mistress and Assistant–mistress £40

Grants to Pupils Teachers (about) £100

Ditto for Industrial Teachers, rent of Garden Ground & Implements £40

Capital Grant (on Pay Children) £25

£255

Total Annual Income (about) £783

I may add that the present stage of the matter is this: The Charity Commissioners have certified that it is a case in which “applications for a scheme” may be made. If the Trustees at their next meeting confirm their previous minutes the scheme will be drawn up, and submitted to the judge in Chambers named in the notice. The opponents will then have the opportunity of stating their objections in full. If, upon hearing these, the Judge should determine that the proposed alteration would not be for the permanent interest of the charity and the education of the working classes generally, no one will more cheerfully acquiesce in his verdict than myself.

I am, Sir, your faithful servant

Windsor, Jan 18^th, 1859. Henry J. Ellison (Vicar)