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Updated: May 23, 2025
And he would also write on the blackboard any exceptionally difficult but grant-earning words, such as "empyreumatic" or "botryoidal." Some words in constant use he rarely explained. I remember once sticking up my hand and asking him in the full flow of description, "Please, sir, what is flocculent?" "The precipitate is." "Yes, sir, but what does it mean?"
Individual teachers, no doubt, in many cases realised the partial error in this conception of the aims of the Primary School, but the demands of Government inspectors and of school authorities, with their rule-of-thumb methods of testing the success of the teacher's work by the percentage of passes gained, tended often to make the teacher, in spite of his better judgment, look upon the child mainly as a three-R grant-earning subject and to consider the chief aim of primary education to be the securing of a certain mechanical proficiency in the use of the three elementary arts.
As a result of this, in the course of a few years the recurrence and permutation of questions became almost calculable, and since the practical object of the teaching was to teach people not science, but how to write answers to these questions, the industry of Grant-earning assumed a form easily distinguished from any kind of genuine education whatever.
The interest and attention of the child having been thus mainly occupied in the overcoming of the mechanical difficulties involved in the learning of the three grant-earning subjects, and little attention having been paid to the use of these arts, it followed that upon the conclusion of the school period the child left the school without any real interests having been established as the result of the educative process.
If his efforts were to be at all successful it was incumbent upon him to discover as early as possible the range of the child's previous knowledge in the three grant-earning subjects and to find out in which of the three the power of acquisition of the child was naturally weak or naturally strong.
The new regulations of the Board of Education no longer allow children under five years of age to be included as "an integral part of a three-R grant-earning Elementary School." A special curriculum has been set forth for their education. They are to have opportunities provided "for the free development of their bodies and minds and for the formation of habits of obedience and attention."
Since the after-success of the child was measured by his attainments in the three R's, the sooner the infant mind was introduced to these subjects the better the after-result might be expected to be. Thus the grant-earning capacity of the child became the teacher's chief consideration.
"Well," said Blendershin, "your science may pull you through. But I tell you it's hard. Some grant-earning grammar school may want that. And that's about all, I think. Make a note of the address...." The assistant made a noise, something between a whistle and the word "Fee." Blendershin glanced at Lewisham and nodded doubtfully.
Every section of each book was written in the idiom found to be most satisfactory to the examiners, and test questions extracted from papers set in former years were appended to every chapter. By means of these last the teacher was able to train his class to the very highest level of grant-earning efficiency, and very naturally he cast all other methods of exposition aside.
In this way it was felt the Demand would be established that would, according to the beliefs of that time, inevitably ensure the Supply. An industry of "Grant earning" was created, and this would give education as a necessary by-product. In the end this belief was found to need qualification, but Grant-earning was still in full activity when I was a small boy.
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