ABSTRACT
In his Report for 1873, HMI C.H.Alderson, inspecting the schools of the Marylebone District, aroused widespread metropolitan interest by a highly critical review of inspected voluntary schools, deficient in quality if not in quantity, in the parish of Hampstead:
In certain parts of my district a much higher standard of efficiency is attained than in others… A Paddington boy reads and spells more than twice as correctly than a St. Pancras boy; his arithmetic is nearly 17 per cent more accurate than that of a Hampstead boy… It is not so easy to understand why Hampstead, as a whole, falls far behind the rest of the district in efficiency of instruction; it is not for want of schools, for it is better supplied with schools than any other part… However it is to be explained, the fact remains that in writing, spelling and arithmetic, Hampstead contrasts very unfavourably with the rest of the district, even with St. Pancras… It is not, as I have said for want of schools, is it because of its many schools? Where schools of different denominations are plentiful, a mischievous canvass for scholars is apt to arise. Parents too, who have many schools within reach are apt to think they confer a benefit on the one they select; they show an independence which often leads them to withdraw their children upon very trivial offence… At all events, Hampstead seems to illustrate the truth of the observation…that you may multiply schools without creating efficient instruction.2
