Quiet Revolution

The drab British factory towns dominated so long by "dark, Satanic mills" have a striking new landmark: the government-maintained school. More than 4,000 new buildings have risen in the last decade. They are telling symptoms of a quiet revolution wrought by the historic Education Act of 1944. Under the act, British schooling ceased to be an upper-class privilege. Today any child mentally able to make the grade is entitled to a free secondary and university education, a situation unthinkable in caste-bound Britain before World War II.

One out of two Britons still ends his formal schooling at 15, when compulsory attendance stops. But so many more are staying on that university enrollment has doubled since 1939, with a 19% rise since 1954 alone. "At least 20% of my students have some real ambition for a profession," says a London primary school headmistress. "Before the war, hardly a single one would have presumed to think so far above his station." Says a London milkman: "If I'd 'ad chances wot my son 'as, I wouldn't be just a milkman, not bleedin' likely."

Eleven Plus. But the lofty dream is still far from perfection. Last week, as 7,000,000 children trooped back to classes, flaws in the system loomed as a talking point in Britain's impending election. Both Conservatives and Laborites promise to build more schools, provide more teachers; the Conservatives talk in terms of a $960 million program. The school system can use that much and more. One out of ten rural schools in England is still lit by gas lamps; science facilities are woefully inadequate. After 15 years of work, teachers get a maximum salary of $2,800. Even more vexing is that unexpected injustice, the dreaded "eleven-plus" exam, which was set up in 1944 as the fairest way to channel children into secondary schools geared to their abilities.

The exam is mandatory for every child just past the age of eleven, except for those headed for the public schools such as Eton or Harrow. The exam (English composition, arithmetic, an IQ test) ruthlessly splits youngsters into three groups. The top 20% go to respected pre-university grammar schools; the mechanically minded 4% go to good technical schools. The rest are packed off to low-status secondary modern schools, many convinced that they are failures. The effect is to demoralize the whole system.

Rather than see their children marked as second-rate material, many middle-class parents rush to the prestigious public schools (costing up to one-third of their incomes). In turn, standards in the secondary modern schools are falling, which makes it even tougher on the children of less prosperous parents. Noted the London Times recently: "A mood of disquiet, and even of neurosis, runs wide and deep across the country."

U.S. Pattern. With discontent so widespread, many a community has set up comprehensive schools that lump grammar, technical and secondary modern schools under one roof with as many as 1,000 students. The new schools (about 90 so far) remodeled on a familiar U.S. pattern: the big, inclusive high school. They have headaches also familiar to Americans, including Teddy boys who carry flick knives to class, smash windows, abuse masters. But they do solve the basic problem: how to give late starters a chance to switch from one track to another. Says Headmaster George Rogers of London's Walworth Secondary School: "This year I shall have a sixth form of 20 students all studying for certificates at university-entrance levels. Not bad for eleven-plus failures."

Britain's famed public schools are flourishing as before. The class-conscious Englishman still feels compelled to give his children a distinctive U (upper-class) accent, recoils in horror from the non-U patois prevalent in many state schools. Yet public schools are also so costly ($1,200 yearly at Harrow) that many U parents are switching over to state schools, particularly at the primary level. At one brand-new school near London's fashionable South Kensington, the curb is lined with Bentleys, Jaguars and nannies when classes let out each afternoon. Says one U mother: "If I can get this school's facilities for nothing, why should I pay to send my child to some school in a stuffy converted mansion?"

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