The early schools

From 1840 we have in the inspectors' reports their first hasty, and horrified views of the schools as they had grown up without regulation or supervision. The two fundamental difficulties were bad buildings and bad teachers. The reports for the first few years at least are full of examples of both. It would be nauseating to quote more than a few. Baptist Noel's thumbnail sketches of Birmingham have a certain vividness. ¹

Present 170 boys; the room will hold 400. Since Jan. I there have been 66 boys admitted. The average time during which the scholars stay is about 1 year. There was not one boy in the school 12 years old. The only book in use for the upper classes was the Bible, nor were there Bibles or Testaments enough to afford one to each of the boys who were reading them. There were no maps in the school. The children were taught nothing either of History or Geography. Indeed the master, occupied with the superintendence of 170 little boys, one-third of whom had been admitted within six months, could scarcely find time to give any direct instruction to the school, but was obliged to depend on his little monitors, not one of whom was 12 years old. Three out of the six classes into which the school is divided, were sitting, when I entered, without books in their hands, and doing nothing, and so continued for above half an hour.