The work is set out in four main parts. In the first section, the
administrative history of the Department is chronologically detailed, by a
division into five periods which represent the origins, the formative years,
and the progress under three successive groups of chief officials. The
basic policy, of local "self-support" encouraged by a system of payments on
the results of examinations, is examined, and some reference is made to
institutions in which this policy was carried through. The extension of
the Department's fields of activity, later modifications to its system which
threw more responsibility on newly created local authorities, and the end of
the "results" system are recorded. These developments are set against the
industrial and political backgrounds of the era. Relations with the primary
Education Department are also considered.
In the second section, specific developments in Science and in Art
teaching are separately recorded. There is also a division between the
treatment of the developments in, and the machinery of, provincial and central
institutions, the latter of which were controlled by the Department and used
as "stimulating" influences. The section also deals with the organisation
of the Department's Inspectorate, the training and the remuneration of the
teachers who acted as its 'provincial agents'", and the encouragement, and the
responses, of the students who took its examinations.
The third section is concerned with the political and social setting.
The influence on, and responses toi Departmental policy, of politicians and
manufacturers, are recorded. The views of representative organs of the
contemporary press are examined. There is a consideration of the influence
of religious factors on development. The section concludes with a study of the
relationships of the Department with other bodies which worked in the same
fields.
The fourth and final section includes an attempt to summarise the
Departmentls development and its achievements, and its effects, including a
brief account of its influences in the field of tertiary education. A
biographical appendix, and tables of statistics to which references have been
made in the body of the work, are included in this section.