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II.

THE  FOUNDATION  1886

QUINTIN HOGG'S intention to start a Day School was announced in the Polytechnic Magazine (then called Home Tidings) on 14th November, 1885. The announcement was in a characteristically down-to-earth style: -

"They say," he wrote. "nature abhors a vacuum and I confess to having a strong dislike to seeing so many rooms at the Poly. lying empty during the daytime, when there are so many useful purposes to which they may be put. I have determined, therefore, both with the view of promoting artisan education, and for other reasons, to start a Day School at the Poly. on the 1st January, 1886."

          It is a prosaic utterance. He would start a Day School because he had some empty rooms, and because the school fees paid by the parents of the boys who filled the empty rooms would help to reduce the Polytechnic's heavy annual financial losses.[7]  Here is a shrewd businessman's approach to education; a man with a careful eye for ways and means. But not exclusively so. The phrase "promoting artisan education" is deceivingly unassuming. Behind it was a whole theory of education, and a revolutionary one at that. The announcement continues: -

"The School will have three sections, viz., (1) Professional, (2) Commercial, (3) Industrial. Division No. 1 will afford preparation for professional life, and will prepare boys for matriculation, preliminary medical, legal, Cambridge local, and similar exams., and it will include a course of instruction in Greek, Latin, arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, grammar, literature, and composition, history, geography (political and physical), German, French, chemistry (theoretical and practical), and natural philosophy. The second, or Commercial Division will prepare boys for the Civil Service exams., and other general office and mercantile requirements. The subjects will be writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, French, shorthand, German, drawing, grammar, history, geography, mathematics, chemistry, experimental physics. 3. The Industrial Division will be for the special benefit of those who desire to have the option at any rate of pursuing some handicraft.  In addition to a thoroughly good English education, including chemistry, experimental physics, mechanical drawing, and applied art, we shall make use of the workshops for the purpose of teaching the boys carpentry, metal-turning, and other trades, our wish being to turn out boys qualified either to take a place as an improver in a workshop or else as a clerk in an office."

          It must be understood that this scheme of education was quite novel and one which it would probably have been impossible to provide anywhere in England at this time, except at the Polytechnic. In 1886 the state neither provided secondary schools, nor gave financial assistance to the existing secondary schools. Secondary education was obtainable at this time only in the small day grammar schools or the well established public schools. The former were few in number, the latter were not only expensive but designed, in the main, for transmitting a traditional aristocratic culture to the children of the wealthier upper middle class. There was thus a considerable gap in our educational system between the state controlled elementary schools on one hand and the public schools on the other. Quintin Hogg's "Middle Class School" was an attempt to fill this gap: to provide a fee-paying school which served a class and a purpose intermediate between board school and public school.

          It must be remembered too, that the neighbourhood of Upper Regent Street was still at that date partly residential. Many of the prosperous businesses in the West End were still family concerns thriving under men who rejoiced at once at the opportunity of sending their boys to a school which appealed to them in part because of the reputation of its founder, and in part because of the common-sense character of its curriculum.

          For lack of schools was not the only deficiency in the educational system of the time. The existing grammar schools and public schools were still dominated by that veneration for the language and literature of Greece and Rome which had been a source of liberation to the minds of the men of the Renaissance but was fast becoming a prison for the minds of Quintin Hogg's educated contemporaries. When he began his Day School modern language teaching in schools was in its infancy, English literature was regarded as something rather frivolously recreational, and history was not a Queen of subjects but a Cinderella; and if these had to give first place to the classics, then science, technical training and workshop practice were simply ignored. They were devoid of educational value. In declaring that for his 'middle class' schoolboys these things would be of equal status with the traditional subjects of study, Quintin Hogg was admittedly doing what educationalists were already saying ought to be done: but in that he did it, Quintin Hogg was once again a pioneer.

"I believe," he wrote (Home Tidings, 28th Nov. 1885) that the School is the first definite move in the direction which education will take during the next generation. I am persuaded that the lines laid down will be equally beneficial to clerk and mechanic. The boy who ultimately becomes a clerk will be none the worse for having learned the rudiments of a trade, while those who become mechanics will have the immense advantage of . . . having spent from three to four more years at school than their competitors, and being able therefore to bring vastly better trained intellectual powers to their handicraft. Is it too sanguine to hope that on such lines England may find one potent weapon with which to uphold and increase her industrial supremacy.

          There should be, he thought, a whole system of "Middle Class Schools" like the one he was starting at the Poly. That was 1886. Not till the Education Act of 1902 did the State begin such a system, with the development of the County maintained and aided secondary schools which have played so vital a part in education in this country ever since. Even so, these new, state-fostered, secondary schools rarely offered the facilities for scientific and technical instruction that were found in the Polytechnic Day School.

          The original Prospectus was publicised in Home Tidings on 21st November, 1885.

"The school will be open for boys between the ages of 8 and 17 . . . the fees . . . are, for scholars under 10 years of age, £1 11s. 6d.; over 10 and under 13, £2 2s.; above 13, £2 12s. 6d. per-term. These fees include the use of drawing boards, T-squares, slates, technical apparatus, etc. . . . the use of tools and other requisites for the workshop instruction."

          There was, apparently, only one "extra" - an important consideration in an age when 'extras' loomed large on school bills.[8]

"Instruction in the pianoforte and organ (will be) given to pupils requiring same at an extra fee of 21s. per term, the school possessing a first-class organ[9] for the use of scholars. As swimming, drilling and gymnastics are so essential to a boy's health and education, no extra fee for these subjects will be charged."

          In outlining the "advantages of the school", the Prospectus has the following to say, and although School Prospectuses always put everything in the best possible light, there was rather more substance in this one than usual: -

"Attached to the school is one of the finest gymnasiums in London, fitted with all the modern appliances and apparatus, and under the special direction of Colour-Sergeant Elliot (late Sergeant Instructor, Scots Guards, and 1st Class Certificated Instructor).

"The school also possesses one of the handsomest swimming baths in the kingdom, and during the summer months pupils will receive special instruction in swimming, under the direction of Professor Oakes . . . [10]

"A cricket field and recreation ground of 27 acres, close to Wimbledon Station, is kept up for the use of boys and young men belonging to the various branches of the Polytechnic . .

"The school possesses a first class chemical laboratory . . . also an electrical laboratory . . .

" . . . the spacious workshops of the school . . . are well fitted with machinery, benches, tools and other requirements . . .

" . . . the exceptional advantage of the spacious and extensive accommodation which the building affords, and also the reputation which the Institute itself possesses of being the largest and most successful technical and educational institute in the kingdom, should commend the school to parents desirous of placing their sons at an establishment where they will receive a healthy, moral, and thoroughly practical education."

          Whatever the uncertainty about what to call the school, there was none about its instant popularity. Term began, apparently, on 11th January, 1886, with 130 boys, thirty more than were expected. By the end of the first week, the numbers had risen to 150. By the end of the first academic year the figure was around 260. It began its second year's work with nearly 300 boys, and within a few years was regularly accommodating over 500 - almost as many as attend the Quintin School of today.