338

THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

within the respective school board districts. School boards must also see that all children of school age residing within their districts receive at least elementary educa­tion, even if it be necessary to use compulsion to secure their attendance at school.

The number of ordinary public schools under the Glasgow Board is sixty-seven (67), with a staff of 780 teachers fully qualified (342 masters and 438 mistresses), and 595 assistants, besides pupil teachers and monitors. Under the Govan Board there are nineteen (19) schools. A child beginning her education enters first the infant department, receiving kindergarten instruction and lessons in elementary reading and spelling, class singing, arithmetic and drawing; efforts are made to train the senses and the memory, to form in the child habits of attention, and to cultivate her intelli­gence and physical powers, besides preparing her for more advanced work. She then passes on through the six successive “standards” or grades of work, which constitute the primary school, and at the end of this course she is expected to be proficient in read­ing and writing, in composition, and in arithmetic as far as compound proportion, vul­gar and decimal fractions, and simple interest. In the upper standards special sub­jects are added, such as geography, history, needlework, drawing and elementary science. After the fifth standard is passed the choice of specific subjects is enlarged, and a girl can receive instruction in domestic economy, including cookery; French and Latin and Greek and German; mathematics, physical geography, physiology, etc., taking such of them as her teacher may consider advisable. Some, but not all, of the schools under the board (Glasgow) give secondary education, and at the end of a course given there, a pupil may be examined for the Leaving Certificate, either in the lower or the higher grade, or in honors. The subjects included in this examination are English, with modern history; geography, French, German, Latin, Greek, mathe­matics and bookkeeping with commercial arithmetic, from which the pupil can choose. The examinations are general and not on prescribed books. The Leaving Certificate has been hitherto accepted by some universities (including Oxford, Cam­bridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrews), and also by the general Medical Council and some other bodies, in lieu of such preliminary examinations as are held under their directions.

Should a girl attending the public schools not be able to take the full course of instruction in the usual classes on account of being obliged to discontinue her attendance during the day in order to engage in business pursuits, she can take even­ing classes after she has passed the sixth standard. These are held in twenty-four of the Glasgow Board schools, and include ordinary commercial art and science subjects. In these the courses are. arranged to extend over four years, but the scholars may spread their classes over a longer period, if they find it necessary to do so. The school board awards special certificates to the students who complete these courses. For evening instruction, as well as for the special subjects taught in day schools after the sixth standard, a small fee is payable; but so very ample provision of bursaries is made by the Educational Endowment Board that no child of average intelligence need have any difficulty in obtaining such a bursary as will practically assure for her a free education.

If a girl requires to be trained as a teacher under the school board, the usual course is to begin as a pupil teacher or monitor? There are employed in the schools of the Glasgow Board three hundred and eighty-eight pupil teachers. They have to be apprenticed as pupil teachers, and to take a course of instruction lasting over four years (or it may be less, if they have taken the Leaving Certificate) in the Pupil Teachers’ Institute, receiving at least twelve hours’ instruction per week during the first three years. The subjects taught are most of those taken up in the higher school classes, but given with a view to teaching purposes; also instruction in school management. At the same time they serve as teachers in the board schools, giving instruction to the younger children, for, on an average, of about twenty-two hours per week during their four years’ apprenticeship, receiving payment for their services at the rate of from forty to one hundred dollars for from the first to the fourth year.