Mixed There has been a certain amount of experiment in this direction, and Prejudice has to a large extent been dispelled, but on the whole the best English opinion seems inclined to the view that, other things being equal, it is preferable to educate girls and boys in separate schools. There are, how ever, many places unable to support two separate schools, and in these co-education is being tried with some success. But there is no likelihood of its ever being tried in the older public schools, where the school age does not end before 18 or 19, and this precedent will probably always militate against it in smaller schools.
Curriculum of Secondary So far as boys' schools are concerned, not very much liberty is really left to initiate startling reforms. Pupils are prepared for the universi ties, for civil service, or for army and pro fessional examinations, and it is these which really prescribe the subjects. In addition to the actual university courses most of the universi ties have followed the example of Oxford and Cambridge in establishing "Local Examinations' and the "Examinations of the Joint Board' for the benefit of pupils still at school. These tests, especially when joined with inspection, have done most valuable service.
Other Secondary and Technical Education. — The science and art department, already mentioned, held various examinations and gave grants to classes and prizes to pupils. But it was the Technical Instruction Act of 1889, and still more the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of 1890 which encouraged local au thorities to spend money on so-called "technical' subjects. The list of these subjects finally in cluded, I believe, everything secondary except the classics. Even Shakespeare is said to have been taught under the head of "Commercial English." These powers brought the councils of counties and boroughs and urban districts into the field as education authorities, and in addition to their grants to secondary schools and their scholarship schemes, they did much to prepare for their future work in secondary education proper. The chief effect of the limi tation to instruction was to encour age the teaching of science subjects, which had never before received proper recognition. This limitation to "technical' instruction was en tirely swept away in 1902, when the local au thorities received power to administer all higher education as well as elementary. In
the last 25 years a large number of "Institutes, "Schools of Art,' and "Technical Schools" have been built or enlarged. Marked progress has been made in the education of those persons who during the day are engaged in trades and professions. The quality and scope of the teaching have been considerably improved, and the chief need at present is to secure the at tendance of lads and girls who are leaving the elementary schools and to induce them to com plete well-arranged courses of not less than three or four years' duration. In 1916 there were 6,097 of these schools.
English These may perhaps most conveniently be divided into two classes, the old and the new. In no branch of educa tion has there been a more rapid or startling development than here. In 1826 there were only Oxford and Cambridge, the traces of whose origin are lost in the early Middle Ages_ In 1916 no less than seven new universities en joy a prosperous existence, while there are other university colleges which may hereafer develop into universities themselves.
The Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds, federated in 1880 as Victoria University, have recently acquired separate charters. Bir mingham, established in 1880 as Mason College, became a university in 1900. Durham, founded in 1832, has been constituted more on the lines of Oxford and Cambridge, except for its asso ciation with the college at Newcastle. London, which received its first charter in 1836, was afterward for many years merely an examining body, but at last in 1898 received a new constitu tion enabling it to embrace all the chief institu tions for higher teaching situated in and near the capital, and to distinguish between its in ternal (or taught) and external (or merely ex amined) students. Sheffield University received its charter in 1905. It is difficult to do justice to the splendid energy and the magnificent gen erosity which has founded and worked most of these institutions — qualities which can be more easily paralleled among the universities of America. These institutions are new, they are efficient, they do well a work which needed do ing. But as the object of educational study, they are less interesting than the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.