ABSTRACT
The ‘vexatious Regulations’ imposed by the Board of Education and mentioned by Magnus in his Jubilee Book applied, of course, to all secondary schools and caused general resentment, not least in the direct grant schools which prided themselves on their freedom of action. As far as the Trust schools were concerned, officials of the Board were often too rigid in their endeavour to fit them neatly into the educational pattern. The Council and the headmistresses, on the other hand, were sometimes suspicious and arrogant in their determination to preserve their standards and the right to admit girls of all types. As Maclean wrote to Phipps at the Board in 1923: ‘Of course we are aware that we do not pass whole battalions of girls through Matriculation in the wonderful way that some of the best County Schools do; but their girls live mainly for that, and our girls essentially do not. Moreover, their Schools consist chiefly of picked girls from the Elementary Schools, whereas we take in the backward and stupid, in order to give them a chance in life which they deserve as much as any one else.’ 123
