Chapter Four: The Impacts of the Great World Wars on the Progress of a National Education System in England (1918-1945)

CHAPTER FOUR

The Impacts of the Great World Wars on the Progress of a National Education System in England

(1918-1945)

The First World War involved combative nations from every continent. It was fought on all the oceans of the world and can justifiably be termed a ‘World War’. Although it was certainly not the first huge fighting between the European powers during the past 300 years, those who experienced it called this bloody confrontation ‘the Great War’. The major reasons of this war were the same as its predecessors; it began with a clash between Europeans, arising from conflict of interest and mutual fears of the European powers. The process of the war was terrible, and its consequences were catastrophic. The impacts of the war led to a radical change on the socio-educational basis. The major changes that were brought about by the First World War could be classified under two aspects: the first one was related to the disaster brought about by the War on education and the second one was the role of the State to the domain of education and the creation of a new vision that corresponded to this hard period.

This chapter attempts to study the impacts ensued by the Great War on the evolution of education in England and to analyze the political reactions of the State, which were expressed in the form of educational Acts proposed by Parliament during that period and beyond .

  1. The Major Legislations in Education, 1918-45

The period before the First World War was characterised by a huge enthusiasm for education. In addition, after the war, such spirit grew even higher among the English people. The new geopolitical circumstances that were brought about by the war led to the emergence of new forms of education. The changes, which were needed, were typically related to the policy of education and to the curriculum used. Thus, the English Parliament asked for new legislations such as: the Fisher Act of 1918, the Hadow Reports of 1923-33, Spens Report of 1938 and the Butler Act of 1944.[1]

I.1. The Fisher Act, 1918

All the educational Acts that preceded the Forster of 1870 paved the way to the enactment of the Fisher Act in 1918.[2] After the war, everything was difficult and the air was electric with educational reform. Many proposals were passed such as: the National Union of Teachers, for elementary education, the Assistant Masters’ Association, representing secondary education and the Workers’ Educational Association, in defence of the interests of labour. A score of other organizations appeared in quick succession.

In spite of all the difficulties in which people lived, there were clear suggestions common to all. These suggestions were caught and counterpointed into a constructive program. Herbert Fisher[3] (1916 to 1922) who was new in politics, proved to be an astute politician. His success was remarkable and influencial.[4]

The period of Fisher witnessed a splendid step forward in the national awakening. The reforming of education was one of the greatest step in the progress of education in England. The specific proposals of Fisher’s Bill of 1918 were formulated under six heads:

  1. To improve the administrative organization of education
  2. To ensure that every school-age boy and girl up to the age of fourteen be unimpeded by the claims of industry
  3. To establish part-time day continuation schools, which every young person shall be compelled to attend, unless he or she be undergoing some suitable form of alternative instruction
  4. To make a series of proposals for the development of the higher forms of elementary education and for the improvement of the physical condition of the children under instruction
  5. To consolidate elementary school grants
  6. To make an effective survey of the whole educational provision of the country, and to bring private educational institutions into closer and more convenient relations to the national system.[5]

New measures such as enlarging and enriching opportunities of education for the children of the poor did not affect the government of the universities, or those institutions of secondary, technical, and other forms of higher education. Nor could the bill of 1918 deal with training colleges, libraries, or the scholarship and pension systems. The reason was because these places were dedicated to the children of the rich.

On the other hand, and for the sake of improving the existing elementary education, the bill of 1918 encouraged the establishment of nursery schools for children under five. This was to amend the law of school attendance and hence abolish all exemptions between the ages of five and fourteen. It also aimed at abolishing the half-time system and placing further restrictions on the employment of children during the elementary school period. In particular, its main purpose was forbidding the employment for profit of any child under twelve. The most important provision in the bill was that, with certain exceptions, every young person no longer under any obligation to attend a public elementary school should attend a continuation school[6] for a period of three hundred and twenty hours a year, or the equivalent of eight hours a week for forty weeks.

Every young person who had not received a full-time education up to the age of sixteen, was to receive a part-time education up to eighteen either in schools provided by the local education authority or in schools. Furthermore, the bill provided that such part-time instruction must be during the day, and must be taken out of the employer’s time. The bill forbade any young person to work unduly long hours during the days in which the continuation classes were held.[7]

The bill offered many opportunities for better physical education and social training. It gave physical training a place in the continuation schools and empowered the local education authority to establish nursery schools and to maintain playing fields, school baths, game centres, and equipment for physical training. The bill even enforced regulations with respect to medical inspection. Finally, Fisher defended, in particular, three administrative provisions of the bill, namely those relating to the inspection of public and private schools, the collection of educational information, and the consolidation of all grants for elementary education.[8]

In Parliament, the more purely educational provisions of the measure were cordially received; but the administrative clauses encountered considerable opposition, which became so formidable that in December of 1917, the bill was allowed to lapse under the condition that a revised form would be introduced later. The opposition was mainly due to the possible interpretation of certain of the administrative provisions as establishing bureaucratic control under central authority, thus imperilling the freedom and autonomy of the local authorities, which the English educational tradition had long been opposed to. Fears had also been expressed that “one of the effects of the original bill might be to prejudice the position of the voluntary schools and religious education in those schools.”[9]

So far successfully guided by wisdom, the bill on its new course was shortly threatened by serious disturbance from an old storm centre. A group of child labour employers, led by the Federation of British Industries, induced determined opposition to the proposed compulsory continuation education. Eventually, after political adventures against adverse currents, in almost exactly a twelve-month episode, the Fisher bill realized the bon voyage waved by Lord Crewe on its first days out.[10]

Fisher Act was not the only legislation that contributed to the development of national education in England. The reports that followed were very important and more influencial. Thus, it is convenient to deal with the Hadow Reports of 1926.[11]

I.2. The Hadow Reports, 1926

As England began to develop its state system of schools towards the end of the nineteenth century, education became a matter for serious enquiry and debate and government-appointed consultative committees were set up to report on many aspects of the project. In 1896, for example, a committee was asked to look into the question of the registration of teachers. Ten years later, in 1906, another committee reported 'upon questions affecting higher elementary schools'. From then on, reports came thick and fast.[12]

The 1908 Report of the Consultative Committee upon school attendance of children below the age of five was followed by reports on attendance at continuation schools examinations in secondary schools. After that, with the First World War dragging on into its third year, the operations of the Consultative Committee were suspended. The committee was reconstituted by Order in Council dated 22 July 1920. Shortly afterwards, the Board of Education referred two subjects to them for 'inquiry and advice':

1. Whether greater differentiation is desirable in the curriculum for boys and girls respectively in secondary schools?

2. What effort can be made in the public system of education?

The report on the differentiation of the curriculum for boys and girls, published in 1923, was to be the first of six reports spanning a decade by consultative committees under the chairmanship of Sir William Henry Hadow.[13] These reports, totalling 1,500 pages, around 650,000 words, covered issues at all stages of schooling from the nursery to the school leaving age. The six reports which were produced by the government's Consultative Committee were chaired by Sir William Henry Hadow.

The importance of the Hadow reports to the development of the education system during the 20th century is hard to estimate. The Education of the Adolescent, for example, proposed the division of the elementary school system into two stages, junior and senior, with a break at eleven for all. It was argued that the motivation for this fundamental change did not arise from any serious consideration of the needs and character of children aged seven to eleven (or five to eleven).

The 1931 and 1933 reports demonstrated a considerable concern for the education and welfare of younger pupils and contained some surprisingly progressive ideas. The 1931 report suggested, for example, that a good school is not a place of compulsory instruction, but a community of old and young, engaged in learning by co-operative experiment' and that the curriculum of the primary school is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored'.[14]

After the Hadow Reports, an important report was introduced in 1938. This report was named the Spens Report. This later was considered as one of the most important legislations that participated in the progress of a national education in England.

I.3. Spens Report, 1938

Sir William Spens was educated at Rugby[15] and read natural sciences at King's College, Cambridge. He was elected a Fellow of Corpus Christi College Cambridge in 1907, and spent most of his life working in Cambridge: he was elected Master of Corpus in 1927 and became Vice Chancellor of the University in 1931.[16]

The 19 members of the Corpus Christi College Cambridge committee also included William Brockington (Director of Education for Leicestershire) and Albert Mansbridge (one of the founders of the Workers' Educational Association), who had both served on the Consultative Committee for several of the Hadow reports. The full committee sat on 74 days between October 1933 and September 1938 and examined 150 witnesses.

By the late 1930s, about ten per cent of elementary school pupils were being selected to go on to secondary schools. The rest either remained in 'all-age' schools or went on to senior schools. Twice as many students were going on to higher education in Germany, more than twice as many in France, over three times as many in Switzerland, and almost ten times as many in the US. Scotland's education system was also doing much better than England's.[17]

Yet arguments were still put forward in support of the system. In 1938, Spens Report on Secondary Education with Special Reference to Grammar Schools and Technical High Schools recommended that there should be three types of secondary schools:

  • Grammar schools for the academically able;
  • Technical schools for those with a practical bent; and
  • New 'modern' secondary schools for the rest.

Spens also recommended that the school leaving age should be raised to 16. He warned that failure in the domain of education would weaken the power of Britain to co-operate with the other countries of the world and would intensify social conflict at home. In 1942 several local government chief executives asked for an end to plans for differentiated secondary education. But their pleas fell on deaf ears .[18]

In 1944, a very important and influencial Act was introduced. This Act was named the Butler Act. In order to understand more about the origin and the development of a national education in England, it is convenient to understand this Act and what brought to education.

I.4. The Educational Reconstruction from the White Paper to the Butler Education Act, 1943-1944

In July 1943, Mr. Butler, issued the White Paper on Educational Reconstruction, in which he made explicit the Government’s policy for the post-war reform of the public service of education in England. The White Paper was eagerly received and discussed, and the general approval with which it was accepted encouraged Mr. Butler to go ahead in preparing his Bill.

The Bill suggested a number of proposals, which were hoped to give effect to the principles set by the Government demanding legislative changes such as: The improvement of the facilities for the training of children below compulsory school age by the provision of nursery schools wherever they were needed. The reorganization of public elementary schools, in order to have well-designed and well-equipped primary schools available for all children up to the age of 11, and secondary schools with varied facilities for advanced work for all children over that age. The raising of the school-leaving age to 15, without any exemptions for” beneficial” employment, as soon as possible after the end of the war, with provision in the Act for a further raising of the age to 16 as soon as practicable.

The introduction of a system of compulsory part-time education, within the hours of employment as regulated by existing law, or by any subsequent industrial legislation. Attendance for one day a week was required as minimum. Residential courses in rural areas were desirable. Provisions of adequate and properly co-coordinated facilities were advocated for technical and adult education. Local Education Authorities were required to submit schemes for the provision of such facilities, and to put them into effect, again on a time schedule.

The extension of these facilities helped to secure the health and physical well-being of children. The introduction of a system of inspection and registration of all independent schools, which cater for children of compulsory school age. An amendment of the existing law so as
to emphasize the position of religious instruction as an essential element of education and enable the schools provided by voluntary bodies to play their part in the proposed developments, and to adjust the present system of local educational administration to the new educational layout. [19]

The chief suggestions of the Bill, which were expected to give effect to the principles set by the Government and could be affected by administrative action were:

  1. Progressive decrease in the size of classes in primary schools.
  2. Abolition of the Special Place examination and adoption of other arrangements for the classification of children when they pass from primary to secondary schools.
  3. Introduction of a common code of Regulations applicable to secondary schools of all types, so framed as to secure that standards of accommodation and amenities generally are raised to the level of those of grammar schools.
  4. Remodelling of the curriculum of secondary schools.
  5. Expansion of the Youth Service.
  6. Improvement of the facilities for enabling poor students to proceed to the universities.
  7. Reform of the present methods of recruiting and training teachers. [20]

In 1944, the Committee on Public Schools under the chairmanship of Lord David Pinkerton Fleming issued a report. This Report aimed at unifying the Public Schools and the general educational system. The purpose of the Report was to develop and extend the Public Schools either for boys or for girls.[21]

In this context, the Fleming Committee recommended that the opportunities of education in public schools should be made available to boys and girls capable of profiting thereby, regardless of the income, of their parents. It suggested that two lists of schools should be drawn up working under conditions, which were referred to as Scheme A and Scheme B. Schools admitted to the Scheme A list, would be mainly those which were known as "direct-grant schools. The Fleming Committee proposed that under Scheme A these schools should be accepted by the Board of Education as 'associated schools. The local education authorities should have the right to reserve places at such schools and would pay tuition fees for their pupils, and part or the entire boarding fee also according to the parents' means. Direct grant would continue to be paid in respect of the other pupils. At least a third of the Governing bodies of schools in scheme A would be nominated by L.E.A.s sending pupils.