Since contemporary opinion about the Charity Commissioners varied so much it is no easy task to form a balanced judgement of their work .sx They thought that they had done well .sx They paid little regard to the arguments of their opponents , though the difficulties which they faced must not be underestimated .sx Once again the best method is to study some actual cases .sx The select committee of 1886-7 was set up to examine the administration of the Endowed Schools Acts after an earlier committee of 1884 had looked at the Charitable Trusts Acts ( PP 1884 IX :sx 3-11) .sx The 1886-7 committee heard evidence in particular on six endowments .sx Of these Kendal , Sutton Coldfield , and Norwich , which was a hospital endowment , raised matters which have already been fully discussed .sx The fourth case , the removal of the grammar school from Hemsworth to Barnsley in the West Riding , had been a keenly fought battle , and is the only major example of the transfer of an endowment from one place to another ( PP 1886 IX :sx 90 :sx 856-9 ( Sir George Young)) .sx The other two cases , Scarning in Norfolk and West Lavington , deserve fuller study .sx They were both villages , and thus far the impact of educational change on rural communities has not been studied .sx They attracted the attention of Radicals like Jesse Collings and Joseph Chamberlain , who were campaigning to raise the status of the rural labourer .sx They throw some interesting light on the ideas of the commissioners and on the ways in which they sought to carry them out .sx The commissioners became involved with both Scarning and West Lavington in the 1870s .sx Scarning Free School was an elementary school which had remained under the jurisdiction of the commissioners because its endowment was above the limit set by the act of 1873 ( Ed .sx 21 :sx 12996 , 14 December 1872 , " land let for pounds210 " ) .sx A scheme for the school was finally confirmed in May 1882 , though it had met with strong opposition from all sections of local opinion ( Ed .sx 21 :sx 12996 ; Simon 1960 :sx 329-31) .sx The scheme provided that the school was to be maintained as a public elementary school under the Act of 1870 for children of both sexes .sx Fees " suitable for an elementary school " were to be fixed by the governors .sx Small scholarships were to be held in the school , covering the payment of fees and the provision of clothing , and there were to be three 'Secker' exhibitions of not less than pounds25 a year , each " tenable for three years at any place of higher education or professional or technical training or study approved by the Governors " .sx These were to be open both to boys and to girls with a first preference to those educated in the school , followed by children from six neighbouring parishes .sx The scheme bore all the hallmarks of commissioners' orthodoxy .sx Fees were to be charged , whereas the school had previously been free .sx A large part of the endowment was to be spent on scholarships and exhibitions for further education .sx These awards , the trustees had been told , represented the appropriate charge on the foundation for purposes of higher education ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , 31 May 1880) .sx The scheme had been opposed by the trustees , by the vestry , by the rector , and by a meeting of the inhabitants .sx The trustees claimed that , by tradition and in the memory of those who had been educated there , Scarning Free School " was originally an elementary school and that far beyond the memory of man charges were made for teaching Latin and Greek while Reading , Writing and Arithmetic were taught free of charge " .sx Because there was an urgent need to spend money on the school building and on the farm which formed the endowment , money was not available for the exhibitions which might be provided when there was a surplus ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , trustees' memorial 5 July 1880) .sx A petition , signed by 276 inhabitants , both men and women , concentrated on the fact that under the new arrangements free education would be abolished .sx The exhibitions , which had been made the first charge on the endowment , would be useless to the village children , who would not be able to compete for them successfully ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , 9 July 1880) .sx The rector , Augustus Jessopp , who had been headmaster of Norwich School and had therefore considerable experience of education , took a moderate but critical line .sx He argued that from the trustees' point of view the scheme was acceptable in principle , but that in practice it would be impossible both to fund the exhibitions and to improve the building .sx The exhibitions ought to be deferred until the property had been improved and its value allowed to increase ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , 12 August 1880) .sx Both the trustees and the ratepayers petitioned Parliament that the scheme should be laid before Parliament .sx It duly 'lay on the table' for two months , but no member was found to take the matter up and it became law .sx Subsequent events were described by Jessopp and by an inhabitant , William Taylor , a ganger on the railway ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , 20 January 1883 ; PP 1887 IX :sx 275-91 ( Jessopp ) ; 292-4 ( Taylor)) .sx When the governors introduced a fee of 1d a week in January 1883 , a large number of children , accompanied by many adults including some substantial farmers , presented themselves at the school without their fee money and were not allowed to attend .sx " The " , Jessopp wrote , " have since then formed themselves into a League or Union to resist the payment of the Fee & to intimidate parents & children who still persist in attending the School & paying the Fee .sx " William Taylor described to the select committee how the villagers had started their own school and maintained it for 12-15 months .sx When Jessopp gave evidence to the select committee in February 1887 he was examined by Jesse Collings .sx Jessopp did not think that the penny fee was regarded as a great grievance , but in William Taylor's view feelings still ran very strongly over the matter ( PP 1887 IX :sx 284 :sx 6612 ; 292 :sx 6764 ; 294 :sx 6840) .sx Jessopp's general assessment was highly unfavourable to what the commissioners had done .sx He had advised the parishioners not to adopt a plan of out-and-out resistance , but he had seen the crucial difficulty as being the priority claim on the endowment given to the Secker exhibitions .sx In fact these had never been awarded , and there was no school within walking distance of the village at which they could be held .sx The real objection to the commissioners' plans was , Jessopp thought , that they had kept to their rules and had not made any exceptions for Scarning .sx When he was asked whether the commissioners would listen to requests for change , he replied :sx " Judging from the tenacity of purpose which the Commissioners have exhibited in their intercourse with me in the past , I should be very sorry indeed to trust to their willingness to listen to reason " ( PP 1887 IX :sx 289 :sx 6710) .sx It is difficult to understand why the commissioners should have acted as they did in the Scarning case .sx When Richmond was examined on the subject by the select committee , he used the familiar argument that , if resources were not devoted to purposes like the exhibitions , the money spent on the school would simply save the ratepayers from the education rate , which they would otherwise have to pay ( ibid .sx : 301 :sx 6095 ; 302 :sx 6913) .sx The commissioners seem to have been obsessed by the argument that the income of an endowed school should benefit people of all classes , and not simply those who needed an elementary education .sx The priority given to the exhibitions reflects the very reasonable view that able children should have the opportunity to advance to higher studies .sx Yet they do not seem to have considered what was practicable under the circumstances of a Norfolk village .sx Jessopp had said that there was no suitable higher school near at hand .sx Richmond himself admitted that an exhibition of pounds25 on its own was not " enough to take the child of a working man to a boarding school " ( ibid .sx : 300 :sx 6888) .sx So even if the money for the exhibitions could have been found , there were not likely to be any candidates who wanted or could afford higher education .sx In an earlier age Scarning School , like many others , had attracted pupils to read classics .sx By 1880 it was simply a village elementary school .sx The commissioners seem to have devoted their main effort to providing what these children did not want or were not able to take advantage of .sx Even if there had been a local demand for the exhibitions , was it possible to find the money for them ?sx Informed local opinion thought that , at the time when the scheme was made , this was not possible .sx No more attention seems to have been paid to that point than to any of the others made by the inhabitants .sx Well might Jessopp say that he would be sorry to trust to the commissioners' willingness to listen to reason .sx The end of the story is a pure anti-climax .sx In 1888-9 the commissioners considered revising the arrangements , and in March 1889 a new scheme was made , which made some money available to pay the fees of poor children with the best attendance records , set aside funds for scholarships , and provided for the instruction of boys in practical mechanics and agricultural chemistry and of girls in cookery ( cl .sx 35) .sx Eight years later a note in the file written to Sir George Young explained that the scholarships were not awarded , that the exhibitions " seem to have been swept away " , that the school was now free , and that nothing appeared in the accounts under cl .sx 35 for technical education .sx " The ratepayers seem to have got the whole , now , for maintenance " ( Ed .sx 49 :sx 5526 , 22 December 1897) .sx Such were the practical results of the commissioners' efforts to impose a scheme that no one in the locality had wanted .sx The story of Dauntsey's School at West Lavington in Wiltshire brings up some similar problems of rural life .sx It shows much more determined and long-continued resistance by local people , which achieved a large measure of success , largely because their cause was taken up by Jesse Collings and Joseph Chamberlain .sx The position of the school was a strange one .sx There was no independent endowment .sx Under the will of Alderman Dauntsey , who died in 1553 , the Mercers Company of London as beneficiaries had an obligation to make certain payments to the schoolmaster and to the almspeople and to keep the school in repair .sx They were neither trustees nor visitors , and they did not appoint the master , who was chosen by a local landowner , Lord Churchill ( Ed .sx 27 :sx 5291 , 21 June 1878 ( from the clerk to the company)) .sx The Mercers claimed that they had always spent more money on the school and almshouses than they were legally obliged to do , but the value of the Dauntsey property had greatly increased , and most of that increment went into their coffers .sx All through the lengthy negotiations one central point was the amount of money which the company could be persuaded to pay out of the Dauntsey funds .sx In March 1878 a group of twenty inhabitants wrote to the Mercers , asking that the schoolmaster , who was also vicar of the parish and so had little time to attend to the school , should be replaced , and that in future the master should be resident in the schoolhouse .sx Of the twenty signatories to this memorial two described themselves as gentlemen ; the others were farmers , millers , bakers , coopers - what might be called the middle ranks of village society ( Ed .sx 27 :sx 5291 , 22 March 1878) .sx People of this kind , though they were sometimes divided among themselves about the proper policies to pursue , formed the core of local opposition to any efforts to deprive the village of the benefits of the endowment .sx They were supported from time to time by some of the local gentry , and more steadily by the labourers who were keenly concerned about the fate of the school .sx This move by the local groups seems to have led to action by the Charity Commissioners , who sent Assistant Commissioner Stanton to hold a local enquiry in March 1879 .sx