ABSTRACT
Once general opinion, even in the Labour Party, turned against comprehensive schools, it became possible to concentrate upon the most fundamental of reforms, that is, upon the all-round improvement of grammar schools. Above all they needed more money, more money to retain their best scholars, and more money for the teachers. Full employment and larger wages, fostering higher aspirations, made lower-class parents able and anxious to get better education for their children, and the 1944 Act helped by making secondary schools free. The learning wage and the universalization of university scholarships followed upon a change in the attitude of the State to spending on education, which itself reflected growing recognition that investment in brains is much more rewarding than investment in property. The movement for comprehensive schools did more than threaten standards in the grammar schools. The success of the education reforms depended upon continuous growth in the efficiency of selection methods.
