Welsh Journals

SECONDARY EDUCATION IN WALES. REPORTS of Government Commissions and Committees are, fortunately, varied in type. Some, keeping strictly to their terms of refer- ence, issue an orderly, often useful survey of the problem; others daring not to cross the flood, give indications of great possibilities, and subside eventually into respectability; others again, alas, few in number, boldly seize the opportunity, create a policy, and give to the world something of the dignity and value of high ideal or inspired vision. Such an opportunity lay at the feet of the Departmental Committee on Secondary Education in Wales. Almost a half century of secondary education had spent its force, and a new generation, the product of this training, was looking for a re-adjustment if not for a new ideal. To fan the flame of this fresh enthusiasm came the Education Act of 1918, introducing a new spirit, and at least the possibility of a new conception of education and of its administration. The war also had broken down for the moment the conservatism of office, and resolution was not yet again sicklied o'er with the pale cast of timidity. Amid such promptings to action a Committee was appointed to enquire into the organisation of Secondary Education in Wales with a view to the establishment of a national system of public education in Wales. That Committee has now issued its report. It is a careful, well planned survey of the outward trappings and signs of education, and its recommendations will require careful consideration. In discussing these recommendations it is well to keep in mind certain basic principles upon which Welsh Education must be formed. It must obviously be true to the national spirit. And the first step to achieve this is that the nation should control its own education. But the control must be effective and real, and it must be representative of the nation as a whole. This desire to give opportunity for realising the national ideal prompts the universal demand for a Welsh National Council in Education. It is the wish for a representa- tive body which shall mould national policy and determine the general lines along which Welsh education should develop. It is also essential that some such body should exist to make itself respon- sible not only for the organisation of education on national lines, but also for assimilating all that is of worth in the educational world outside. For in grown and development the Welsh child is not essential different from children the world over. And it is necessary to effective work that our local authorities be kept in close touch with the progress of the general body of educational theory. It is unfortunate that the Report pays practically no attention to this important subject. When each Education Authority is busied with the preparation of new Schemes it would have been helpful if the Report had indicated some of the more important features of modern educational advance. For Secondary Education in Wales, as in other countries, has been largely regarded as a form of preparation for the professions, and elementary as a type of education fitted to keep the children of I. By Dr. Stanley H. Watkins. the poor out of mischief. So critics of the Central Welsh Board have condemned an examination system which forced schools to organise the curriculum for some twenty per cent. of the pupils in the school. But the same criticism might well be applied to the new municipal Secondary Schools. They also prepare for examinations and judge their success by results. We require in truth a new conception of adolescent education, which should be free, and which is really Secondary. The opportunity of re-fashioning our educational system was given by the passing of the Education Act of 1918. But the schemes of our Local Education Authorities seem in the majority of cases to be earnest attempts to continue in the old paths. For until it be realised that the adolescent from 12 years onwards requires a different type of training from that of the boy of 6-12 years, not because he is going to enter a profession, but because he is entering a new and secondary stage of growth, our educational system will ever be the prey of interests foreign to the natural development of the child. Under present conditions the local education authorities could scarcely be expected to survive the dead weight of ignorance on the one hand and the active opposition of vested interest on the other. Unfortunately, however, the Schemes now in course of preparation will stabilise our local education for many years, and the opportunity should not have been allowed to slip by unnoticed. A suspicion of hesitancy and compromise seems also to cloud the recommendations in regard to the National Council for Education. Our Secondary Education has in the past been organised partly on the model of the Endowed Schools and partly on the basis of the Local Government Act, 1888. In those early days, however, the duties of the County Councils were far simpler than they are now. The work then was routine and restricted, and to administer education, even as it was then regarded, did not mean much additional work. The same officials blithely exercised control over education as over sanitation, whilst the elected members solemnly acquiesced. To-day, however, local govern- ment is a vast complex machine developing more and more under the hands of expert administrators. Indeed, so complex are these duties that it is doubtful whether any County Councillor can really represent his consti- tuency in the manifold functions of local government. So, more and more, education has become forgotten; it is not a safe election cry, and it is itself too complex for ordinary treatment. It therefore becomes the one clear refuge for reduction of expenditure. It is re- ported of one worthy councillor, who, when any re- quest for apparatus came from the schools, invariably suggested, Well, give him half 1 Public educa- tional work in Wales is labouring under two disadvan- tages. There is no effective representation, no adequate means of expression for the educational mind of the community, and in consequence education always suffers from the ignorance of representatives, whose often fatal temptation is to keep down the rates.