[590] In his Report for 1898, the inspector of Poor Law schools for the six northern counties describes the changes of the preceding thirty-seven years. In 1871-5 there were seventy-four unions, having considerable numbers of children, which educated them all in schools within the workhouse walls. Four had distinct schools, but on the workhouse premises; and four only had entirely separate schools. In 1898, only one union had workhouse schools for girls and two for boys; three had distinct schools, but on the workhouse premises; with half-a-dozen others with similar arrangements for part of the children, or for the children awaiting transfer only. Elsewhere the children were in entirely separate schools or cottage homes, or removed to certified schools; or in scattered homes or boarded out (Mr. Mozley's Report, in Twenty-eighth Annual Report, 1898-9, p. 183). [591] The last in the published documents seems to be the incidental reference in the Circular of 4th August 1900 as to the aged and deserving poor (Thirtieth Annual Report, 1900-1, p. 18). [592] Mr. Corbett's Report of 10th August 1871. [593] _Hansard_, 1st February 1897, vol. 45, p. 904. [594] _Ibid._ 2nd June 1899, vol. 72, p. 258. The process of discovery of the evils of these large schools may be interestingly traced in the annual reports of the L.G.B. Inspectors of Poor Law Schools from 1871 to 1895; the _Report on the Health of Metropolitan Pauper Schools_, by J. H. Bridges, 1890; and Report of the Committee on Poor Law Schools, 1896. A "separate school" belonging to a single union or separate parish would naturally be much smaller than a district school, but nothing is said as to the merits or demerits of an aggregated school of moderate size. The method which seems to have won the approval of the Central Authority is that of "cottage homes," or the "block system," under which children are grouped in bodies of not more than twenty-five or thirty in separate houses on a common ground of considerable acreage, and with suitable common buildings, such as baths, chapels, etc., under the supervision, not only of "house-mothers," but also of a superintendent of the whole. Since 1894 the Board have constantly approved the erection of schools on this plan; they always require that the cottage homes should be entirely separated from the workhouse. The outstanding feature of this system is the great expense.[595] [595] The "cottage homes" required special orders widely differing from those for the "barrack schools"; _see_, for instance, that for the Marston Green Cottage Homes of the Birmingham Union of 8th November 1879.