Roe Head School in Mirfield, Yorkshire. Charlotte Brontë attended as a pupil in 1831, and returned as a teacher in 1835-38. Her headmistress was Miss Wooler, “Good, kind Miss W---!” as Elizabeth Gaskell called her, “a genial and thoughtful friend watching over her,” who gave Charlotte away at her wedding in 1854. It was a far cry from the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire that ruined her own health and, Charlotte firmly believed, claimed the life of her sisters Mary and Elizabeth in 1825. Roe Head is now owned by the Hollybank Trust and used as a Special School.
Introduction
The Newcastle Commission of 1859 was in large measure a response to allegations of educational malpractice in Charles Dickens’s novel ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ (1838). The Assistant Commissioner for Yorkshire, Mr J. G. Fitch, submitted a wide-ranging and often critical report, but he could not let Dickens’s allegations pass without comment.
THERE is a visible improvement in the character of private schools. Bad as many of them are, charlatanry is on the decline.
For example, I have wholly failed to discover any examples of the typical Yorkshire boarding-school with which Nicholas Nickleby has made us familiar.* I have seen schools in which board and education were furnished for 20l, and even 18l per annum,* but have been unable to find evidences of bad feeding or physical neglect.
As a rule, the children in the cheap boarding-schools are in good health, and are sufficiently though coarsely fed.* The accommodations in the houses are mean, and the sleeping arrangements often bad; but the domestic comfort obtainable is little, if at all, inferior to that which the boys would probably enjoy in the homes from which they come.
Abridged from ‘Schools Inquiry Commission, Vol. IX’ (1868), by J. G. Fitch Esq..
See Brimstone and Treacle. Fitch proposed many changes to the way schools were run, but had no enthusiasm for one-size-fits-all State intervention. “Nothing has become clearer to me during this investigation,” he wrote, “than the fact that any sweeping or Procrustean measure will do great injustice.” On Procrustes, see .
According to the calculators used at Measuring Worth, the equivalent value today in terms of income or wealth would be £1,839 and £1,655 respectively. Fitch wrote that “it is in the education that the pinching is felt. The starvation of the mind is less likely to be detected at home than that of the body, and good food is often paid for at the price of insufficient teaching.”
Fitch described the meals as “monotonous and unsavoury, and yet wasteful”, a criticism later made of Government workhouses by Emmeline Pankhurst: see A Woman’s Logic. He also added that the survey forms asking teachers about school meals too often came back blank or with evasive replies like “Good Yorkshire cheer” scrawled into the box.
Questions for Critics
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Archive
Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 If. School. There.
2 Arrangement. Bad. Probable.
3 Character. Good. Obtainable.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homonyms Find in Think and Speak
Each of the words below has more than one possible meaning. Compose your own sentences to show what those different meanings are.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1. Saw. 2. Board. 3. See. 4. Found. 5. Private. 6. Even. 7. Mean.
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1.
Hole.
Whole.
2.
Boy.
Buoy.
3.
Sees.
Seas.
Seize.
4.
There.
Their.
They’re.
5.
Board.
Bored.
6.
Coarse.
Course.
7.
But.
Butt.
8.
Scene.
Seen.
9.
Cheap.
Cheep.
High Tiles Find in Think and Speak
Make words (three letters or more) from the seven letters showing below, using any letter once only. Each letter carries a score. What is the highest-scoring word you can make?
x
0
Add
Your Words ()
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