History Of Education In England Research Articles

Practical Education in Secondary Schools, Trade Schools, and Central Schools 1

ONE of the most striking features of English education at the present time is the attempt which is being made to give a more practical or vocational bias to the training of boys and girls between the ages of twelve and sixteen years—that is, after the cfimpletion of the ordinary primary-school curriculum. So far as day work is concerned, this tendency is operating along two main lines, (a) the modification of the traditional secondary-school course by the introduction in some schools of elementary engineering, agriculture, shorthand, typewriting, or of subjects grouped under the general name of “educational handwork” (e.g. woodwork, metal-work, domestic subjects for girls); (b) the development of schools (central schools, junior technical schools, trade schools) with a pronounced vocational object.

Education in England and Abroad 1

FROM the eighth century to the time of the Reformation the history of education in England, France, and Germany was in many respects similar. The one champion of learning was the Church; and in the religious houses we find an organised and established system of education, of which not only the lower rank of people, who could not pay for their learning, but noblemen and gentlemen's sons might take advantage. In England the system was particularly successful; as early as the year 1201 there are said to have been more than 3000 scholars at the University of Oxford, and Roger Bacon tells us that there never had been so great an appearance of learning and so great an application to study as at that time, when schools were erected in every city, town, and borough. The learning of Englishmen compared favourably at this early date with that of scholars on the Continent. We are told that in 1169 there was a “colony” of English students at the University of Paris, belonging to the faculty of arts, of which it is said that they “in particular were so numerous that they occupied several schools or colleges, and made so distinguished a figure by their genius and learning, as well as by their generous manner of living, that they attracted the notice of all strangers.”

Memoirs of Frederick A. P. Barnard, D.D., LL.D., &c, Tenth President of Columbia College in the City of New York

THE name of Barnard is honourably associated with A the history of education in the United States. To English readers, the best-known bearer of the name is the Hon. Henry Barnard, formerly United States Commissioner of Education, and now living in retirement at Hartford, Connecticut. As the author of numerous local and special reports, and the compiler of valuable statistics and monographs on the various aspects of public instruction; and particularly, as the editor of four or five massive volumes containing reprints of standard treatises on the philosophy and history of education in England and Germany, he has done more than any man in the American Union to promote the study of pedagogical literature.