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Chap. XIV.] Technical Education. |
195 |
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Sussex County Council, almost as soon as I was elected in 1889. I afterwards became, and was for 5 years (1898-1903) Chairman of that Committee until it was disestablished by the " Education Act, 1902." In applying the " Technical Instruction Act, 1889," to the circumstances of Sussex, we had to consider many subjects beyond what, say, a Lancashire Committee would have been called upon to handle. Our curriculum therefore embraced such very diverse subjects (some for male and some for female students), as brass-work, wood-carving, horse-shoeing, bee-keeping, fruit-growing, butter-making, cooking, house-cleaning, dress-cutting and so on, to say nothing of nursing and ambulance work.
We established at Lewes a training school for girls, and both there and at various centres in the County, we gave instruction by qualified travelling teachers in the above and other subjects. In the case of the Boroughs, including of course East-Bourne, we did not give the instruction by our own staff sent out from Lewes our head-quarters, but made grants of money to the Boroughs who appointed their own local Technical Instruction Committees which made their own arrangements for teachers and teaching. I was also Chairman of the Technical Instruction Committee of the East-Bourne Town Council during the last year or two before I relinquished my seat on the Council in 1893.
In my capacity of Chairman of the two bodies in turn, it fell to my lot to visit different centres in the County, give away prizes, and, of course, make speeches in so doing. These speeches not unfrequently involved me in correspondence, of which the following is a sample, not textual, but in effect: " Dear Sir,—I was very much interested in reading in our local paper your speech on the successful working of the Lewes Training School for young servants. Will you kindly procure for me the name and address of one of the young cooks you have trained there, as I should like to engage a servant from your school. With manv apologies, Yours truly, Mary Blank."
This was an addition to my duties of Chairman for |
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