Figure 1.--
|
Figure 1.-- |
HBC on this page addresses the types of schools in modern England. Until the turn of the 20th century, however, there were a much wider range of schools. Scools were mostly a private matter as the Government did not play a major role in education until the late 19th century. Amazingly, the English Giverment did not build a state system of secondary schools until after World War II (1939-45). As aresult there was a wide range of schools. Some of these schools like grammar schools retained the names of early schools, but were different. Others like the public schools have continued many of their centuries old traditions. Other schools like dame schools, national schools, ragged schools and others have long disappeared from the national educational landscape.
Some monastaries set up almonry schools for the poor.
A borstal is a reformatory for delinquent boys. (I don't know of any girls' borstals.) The borstal was a residential facility with very strict discipline. The name comes from the village of Borstal where the first facility was established, I think about 1900. Theoretically the boys were given therepy. The educational program was cetered on vovational training.
The earliest schools we know of are song schools at cathedrals and monestaries. Song schools served not only to provide coral singers to add to church services, but also to train priests. At first most of the boys in early song schools were preparing for a religious vocation. Thus the St. Albans Chour School is sometimes looked on as the first English school tracing its origins to the monestary sing school in the 6th century.
Chantry schools were also church schools. A chantry is an endowment for singing or saying mass for that person's soul or a designated person.
The dame school was a school that very young children learned how to read, do math, and write. They were small schools run by women of often basic education if any at all. This was the way that English children learned to read and write before the Government founded a state educatiion system with the Educational Reform Act of 1870.
The modern English grammar school has evolved from the grammar schools which begun to appear in the 16th century as England emerged from the Middle Ages. The grammar schools were the first important English schools to adopt humanist education, moving away from a curiculum fully devoted to religion. One of the most renowned of the early grammar schools was St. Paul's, but there were many others. Many made provision for boys from poor families.
The first secular schools which appeared were the schools founded by the guilds which were organized in medieval cities.
Some of England's most well known schools are the hospital schools. Many are also known as te blue coat schools because of the blue tunics many of these schools as an early school uniforms. Early school uniforms in Enhland were first and inicator of poverty rather than a bage of attending an exclusive private school. They are some of the earliest English schools still operating. Unlike the name suggests these schools had nothing to do with medicine. The term hospital in the 13th century was used to mean a charitable institution for the needy. Hospital schools were charity schools for boys whose parents could not afford to educate them. There are several different hospital schools in England. The Lincoln Christ's Hospital School traces its origins to the 11t century. The Royal Hospital School in East Anglia is one of the newest hospital schools. It was founded nearly 300 years ago as part of the Crown charity, Greenwich Hospital, to educate the sons of seafarers.
I am not sure yet precisely what an industrial school was. A British reader tells us, "I think the word Industrial School did not have the current meaning of vocational school. I think that an industrial school was another word for a school that was a reformatory. The students who attended were sent to these schools by the courts. They came from very poor families. In Richard's story he went to this type of school because he played truant. He never left the school he was sent to until he was 14. By then the other pupils could not believe that the reason he was at their industrial school was because he had been a truant. This implies that many boys had committed more serious crimes but where not serious enough for prison! They were supposed to be were bad children where made into good law abidding citizens who had been given vocational training.
Gardening and farm work maybe carpentry - chopping up wood were the occupations that the student's were taught." A British researcher has prepared a useful list of industrial and reformatory school.
The list includes schools in England and Wales because the Welsh school system is so similar to that in England. We note a fascinating acoount of Richard Charles who attended an industrial school.
The early primary schools established by the Educatiion Reform Act of 1870 were often called infants schools.
Some parish churches set up informal schools.
Most English grammar schools recruited their students from a certain definite area, represented by the parish or the county in which they had been founded, according to the conditions prescribed in their respective charters. Public schools generally did not have limitation as to where the students came from, although most schools did and continue to draw their students from the surronding area. The term is often confusing to foreigners because "public" in most cointries is used to mean state schools where attendance is free. Early public schools had very loose age limits. Modern public schools generally are secondary schools for children from about 13-18 years of age. The first public schools were only for boys. Girls' pubkic schools appeared in the 19th century. Many modern public schools have shifted to coeducation.
Ragged schools were free schools for poor children. The schools were supported by a group of benefactors and subscriptions from the town's inhabitants. It was run by a committee whose aim it was, to remove as many waifs and strays from the streets of the town as finances would allow and to educate them in the "4 R's". Reading, writing, arithmetic and religion. That well known author of the day, Charles Dickens, said of a Ragged School in Lambeth: "They who are too ragged, wretched, filthy and forlorn to enter any other place...are invited to come here." The Elementary Education Act
became law in 1870 and a state system of compulsory education was instituted. This gave rise to truan schools discussed below. In subsequent years many charity schools like ragged schools were taken over bylocal school boards. A boy particularly associated with ragged schools is Jim Jarvis.
We note a number of reformatory schools in England. Not all of these schools were called reformatory schools. We note that some were called borstals. We are not sure if there was a difference between reformatory schools in general and borstals. A British researcher has prepared a useful list of industrial and reformatory school. The list includes schools in England and Wales because the Welsh school system is so similar to that in England.
These were boarding schools set up for truant street children. We do not know how common they were. We do note one in Southport at the turn of the 20th century. We have some information about a Liverpool Truant School. Some of the schools were known as truant's industrial schools. An example here is the Plymouth Truants' Industrial School estanlished in 1882. The school was opened on the basis of the Industrial Schools Act of 1866.
Related Chronolgy Pages in the Boys' Historical Web Site
[The 1880s]
[The 1930s]
[The 1940s]
[The 1950s]
[The 1960s]
[The 1970s]
[The 1980s]
