Besides these eight chief endowments, there are many others of which girls have now received a share. There are now in England and Wales over eighty girls’ endowed schools of a secondary type, though the distribution is curiously uneven; _e.g._ the West Riding of Yorkshire has nine, while Surrey has only one. Much has been done, and much remains to be done, but it is well that every kind of experiment should be tried, so that the newer schemes may be improved by the experience of the older ones.
Endowed schools are technically supposed to be of three grades, according to the age at which the pupils usually leave. For the first the limit is eighteen or nineteen; for the second, sixteen or seventeen; for the third, fourteen or fifteen. All admit them at seven or eight. There is something peculiarly English about this arrangement, which, on paper at any rate, appears needlessly wasteful. The natural division seems the American one. Here there are three successive grades, organically connected, by which a child may go through his whole school career, passing, as it were, from the kindergarten at one end to the university at the other. This arrangement of schools, all free, and meant for all the children of the community, is in harmony with the American democratic idea, but would be impossible in the midst of English class prejudice. Still even our social exclusiveness does not require such extreme differentiation, and experience shows that a system of three parallel lines, distinguished chiefly by breaking off at different points, is not altogether necessary. The problem, as it presents itself for girls, is not, however, the same as for boys. Boys’ schools of the highest grade naturally prepare their pupils for the university, and as most of them are boarding-schools, they are exempt from considering local needs. The first public schools for girls were day schools. At the time of the first Endowed Schools Act, university education for girls had hardly made any way. Girton was just struggling into existence, the other colleges were but a dream of the future. London still withheld its degrees. What girls needed most was a sound general education given cheaply in day schools. Hence the low fees fixed by the Girls’ Public Day School Company, and the still lower ones charged at the endowed schools of the second and third grades, which at that time met the most crying want. By 1883 ten of these third grade schools in London were educating over two thousand girls. Among them were the Greycoat Hospital at Westminster, and the Roan School, Greenwich, and others that have since extended their sphere of work up to the second grade limit.