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nothing that was printed-his care for producing lyrics, never very diligent, seeming utterly gone. Matters soon reached the worst, and he would cry as a heart-broken man, and talk miserably of the prospects of his children. London at last had nothing in it to detain him, and he disappeared back into the Scottish weaving-world, and was heard of no more. Yes, it was known that he had gone to Dundee ; and, some time in 1850, a notice ran through the newspapers that Thom, the Inverury Poet, had died and was buried in that town. The moral of his fate seems to be-But

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PART II.

A FRENCH ETON.

But,

FEBRUARY is beginning; in a day or two Parliament will assemble; the report of the Public School Commissioners will, it is said, be presented almost immediately; and then all the world will have before them Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and the rest of the dissected nine. The probable results of that autopsy I am not going to discuss here. I am sure the exhibition will be very interesting; I hope it will prove very useful. for the champions of the true cause of secondary instruction, for those interested in the thorough improvement of this most important concern, the centre of interest is, I repeat it, not there. At this last hour, before the English mind, always prone to throw itself upon details, has completely thrown itself upon what, after all, in this great concern of secondary instruction, is only a detail, I return to the subject, in order to show, with all the clearness and insistance I can, where the centre of interest really lies.

Let me take for granted that the reader has still in his mind the account which I gave of the Toulouse Lyceum and of the Sorèze College; or that, if he has not, he will do me the honour to cast his eye over it. Then I say, for

the serious thinker, for the real student of the question of secondary instruction, the knot of that question is here:-Why cannot we have throughout England, as the French have throughout France, as the Germans have throughout Germany, as the Swiss have throughout Switzerland, as the Dutch have throughout Holland, schools where the children of our middle and professional classes may obtain, at the rate of from 20l. to 50l. a year, if they are boarders, at the rate of from 51. to 15l. a year, if they are day-scholars, an education of as good quality, with as good guarantees, social character, and advantages for a future career in the world, as the education which French children of the corresponding class can obtain from institutions like that of Toulouse or Sorêze?

There is the really important question. It is vain to meet it by propositions which may, very likely, be true, but which are quite irrelevant. "Your French Etons," I am told, " are no Etons at all; there is nothing like an Eton in France." I know that. Very likely France is to be pitied for having no Etons, but I want to call attention to the substitute, to the compensation. The English public school produces the finest boys in the world; the Toulouse Lyceum boy, the Sorèze College boy, is

not to be compared with them. Well, let me grant all that too. But then there are only some five or six schools in England to produce this specimenboy; and they cannot produce him cheap. Rugby and Winchester produce him at about 1207. a year; Eton and Harrow (and the Eton school-boy is perhaps justly taken as the most perfect type of this highly-extolled class) cannot produce him for much less than 2007. a year. Tanta molis erat Romanam condere gentem-such a business is it to produce an article so superior. But for the common wear and tear of middling life, and at rates tolerable for middling people, what do we produce? What do we produce at 30l. a year? What is the character of the schools which undertake for us this humbler, but far more widely-interesting production? Are they as good as the Toulouse Lyceum and the Sorèze College? That is the question.

Suppose that the recommendations of the Public School Commissioners bring about in the great public schools all the reforms which a judicious reformer could desire;-suppose that they produce the best possible application of endowments, the best possible mode of election to masterships; that they lead to a wise revision of the books and subjects of study, to a reinforcing of the mathematics and of the modern languages, where these are found weak; to a perfecting, finally, of all boarding arrangements and discipline ;-nothing will yet have been done towards providing for the great want-the want of a secondary instruction at once reasonably cheap and reasonably good. Suppose that the recommendations of the Commissioners accomplish something even in this direction-suppose that the cost of educating a boy at Rugby is reduced to about 1007. a year, and the cost of educating a boy at Eton to about 150l. a year-no one acquainted with the subject will think it practicable, or even, under present circumstances, desirable, to effect in the cost of education in these two schools a greater reduction than this. And what will

this reduction amount to? A boon-in some cases a very considerable boon-to those who now frequent these schools. But what will it do for the great class now in want of proper secondary instruction? Nothing: for in the first place these schools are but two, and are full, or, at least, sufficiently full, already; in the second place, if they were able to hold all the boys in England, the class I speak of would still be excluded from themexcluded by a cost of 100%. or 150%, just as much as by a cost of 120. or 2007. A certain number of the professional class, with incomes quite inadequate to such a charge, will, for the sake of the future establishment of their children, make a brave effort, and send them to Eton or Rugby at a cost of 150l. or 1001. a year. But they send them there already, even at the existing higher rate. The great mass of middling people, with middling incomes, not having for their children's future establishment in life plans which make a public school training indispensable, will not make this effort, will not pay for their children's schooling a price quite disproportionate to their means. They demand a lower school-charge a school-charge like that of Toulouse or Sorèze.

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And they find it. They have only to open the Times. There they read advertisement upon advertisement, offering them, "conscientiously offering them, in almost any part of England which suits their convenience, "Educa"tion, 207. per annum, no extras. Diet "unlimited, and of the best description. "The education comprises Greek, Latin, "and German, French by a resident native, mathematics, algebra, mapping,

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globes, and all the essentials of a first"rate commercial education." Physical, moral, mental, and spiritual, all the wants of their children will be sedulously cared for. They are invited to an "Educational Home," where "discipline is based upon moral influence and

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emulation, and every effort is made to "combine home-comforts with school"training. Terms inclusive and mode"rate." If they have a child with an awkward temper, and needing special

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management, even for this particular child the wonderful operation of the laws of supply and demand, in this great commercial country, will be found to have made perfect provision. "Un"manageable boys or youths (up to twenty years) are made perfectly "tractable and gentlemanly in one year "by a clergyman near town, whose peculiarly persuasive high moral and religious training at once elevates," &c. And all this, as I have said, is provided by the simple, natural operation of the laws of supply and demand, without, as the Times beautifully says, "the fetters of endowment and the interference of the executive." Happy country! happy middle classes! Well may the Times congratulate them with such fervency; well may it produce dithyrambs, while the newspapers of less-favoured countries produce only leading articles; well may it declare that the fabled life of the Happy Islands is already beginning amongst us.

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But I have no heart for satire, though the occasion invites it. No one, who knows anything of the subject, will venture to affirm that these "educational homes" give, or can give, that which they "conscientiously offer." No one, who knows anything of the subject, will seriously affirm that they give, or can give, an education comparable to that given by the Toulouse and Sorèze schools. And why? Because they want the securities which, to make them duce even half of what they offer, are indispensable the securities of supervision and publicity. By this time we know pretty well that to trust to the principle of supply and demand to do for us all that we want in providing education, is to lean upon a broken reed. We trusted to it to give us fit elementary schools till its impotence became conspicuous; we have thrown it aside, and called upon State-aid, with the securities accompanying this, to give us elementary schools more like what they should be; we have thus founded in elementary education a system still, indeed, far from perfect, but and living fruitful-a system which will

probably survive the most strenuous efforts for its destruction. In secondary education the impotence of this principle of supply and demand is as signal as in elementary education. The mass of mankind know good butter from bad, and tainted meat from fresh, and the principle of supply and demand may, perhaps, be relied on to give us sound meat and butter. But the mass of mankind do not so well know what distinguishes good teaching and training from bad; they do not here know what they ought to demand, and, therefore, the demand cannot be relied on to give us the right supply. Even if they knew what they ought to demand, they have no sufficient means of testing whether or no this is really supplied to them. Securities, therefore, are needed. The great public schools of England offer securities by their very publicity; by their wealth, importance, and connexions, which attract general attention to them; by their old reputation, which they cannot forfeit without disgrace and danger. The existence of the Royal Commission now sitting is a proof, that to these moral securities for the efficiency of the great public schools may be added the material security of occasional competent supervision. will grant that the great schools of the Continent do not offer the same moral securities to the public as Eton or Harrow. They offer them in a certain measure, but certainly not in so large measure they have not by any means so much importance, by any means so much reputation. Therefore they offer, in far larger measure, the other securitythe security of competent supervision. With them this supervision is not occasional and extraordinary, but periodic and regular; it is not explorative only; it is also, to a considerable extent, authoritative.

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It will be said that between the "educational home" and Eton there is a long series of schools, with many gradations; and that in this series are to be found schools far less expensive than Eton, yet offering moral securities as Eton offers them, and as the "educa

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tional home" does not. Cheltenham, Bradfield, Marlborough, are instances which will occur to every one. true that these schools offer securities; it is true that the mere presence, at the head of a school, of a distinguished master like Mr. Bradley, is, perhaps, the best moral security which can be offered. But, in the first place, these schools are thinly scattered over the country; we have no provision for planting such schools where they are most wanted, or for insuring a due supply of them. Cheltenham, Bradfield, and Marlborough are no more a due provision for the Northumberland boy than the Bordeaux Lyceum is a due provision for the little Alsatian. In the second place, Are these schools cheap! Even if they were cheap once, does not their very excellence, in a country where schools at once good and cheap are rare, tend to deprive them of their cheapness? Marlborough was, I believe-perhaps it still is-the cheapest of them; Marlborough is probably just now the best-taught school in England; and Marlborough, therefore, has raised its school-charge. Marlborough was quite right in so doing, for Marlborough is an individual institution, bound to guard its own interests and to profit by its own successes, and not bound to provide for the general educational wants of the country. But what makes the school-charge of the Toulouse Lyceum remain moderate, however eminent may be the merits of the Toulouse masters, or the successes of the Toulouse pupils It is that the Toulouse Lyceum is a public institution, administered in view of the general educational wants of France, and not of its own individual preponderance. And what makes (or made, alas!) the school-charge of the Sorèze College remain moderate, even with a most distinguished and attractive director, like Lacordaire, at its head? It was the organization of a complete system of secondary schools throughout France, the abundant supply of institutions with at once respectable guarantees and reasonable charges, fixing a general mean of school-cost which even the most

successful private school cannot venture much to exceed.

After all, it is the "educational home," and not Bradfield or Marlborough, which supplies us with the nearest approach to that rate of charges which secondary instruction, if it is ever to be organized on a great scale, and to reach those who are in need of it, must inevitably adopt. People talk of the greater cheapness of foreign countries, and of the dearness of this; everything costs more here, they say, than it does abroad; good education like everything else. I do not wish to dispute, I am willing to make some allowance for this plea; one must be careful not to make too much, however, or we shall find ourselves to the end of the chapter with a secondary instruction failing just where our present secondary instruction fails-a secondary instruction which, out of the multitude needing it, a few, and only a few, make sacrifices to get; the many, who do not like sacrifices, go without it. If we fix a school-charge varying from 251. to 50l. a year, I am sure we have fixed the outside rate which the great body of those needing secondary instruction will ever pay. Sir John Coleridge analyses this body into "the clergy of moderate or "contracted incomes (and that means the immense majority of the clergy), "officers of the army and navy, medical "men, solicitors, and gentry of large "families and small means." Many more elements might be enumerated. Why are the manufacturers left out? The very rich, among these, are to be counted by ones, the middling sort by hundreds. And when Sir John Coleridge separates "tenant-farmers, small landholders, and "retail tradesmen," into a class by themselves, and proposes to appropriate a separate class of schools for them, he carries the process of distinction and demarcation further than I can think quite desirable. But taking the constituent parts of the class requiring a liberal education as he assigns them, it seems to me certain that a sum ranging from 251. to 50l. a year, is as much as those whom he enumerates can in general be expected to pay for a son's

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education, and as much as they need be called upon to pay for a sound and valuable education, if secondary instruction were organized as it might be. It must be remembered, however, that a reduced rate of charge for boarders, at a good boarding-school, is not by any means the only benefit to the class of parents in question-perhaps not even the principal benefit-which the organization of secondary instruction brings. with it. It brings with it also, by establishing its schools in proper numbers, and all over the country, facilities for bringing up many boys as dayscholars who are now brought up as boarders. At present many people send their sons to a boarding-school when they would much rather keep them at home, because they have no suitable school within reach. Opinions differ as to whether it is best for a boy to live at home or to go away to school, but there can be no doubt which of the two modes of bringing him up is the cheapest for his parents; and those (and they are many) who think that the continuation of homelife along with his schooling is far best for the boy himself, would enjoy a double benefit in having suitable schools made accessible to them.

But I must not forget that an institution, or rather a group of institutions, exists, offering to the middle classes, at a charge scarcely higher than that of the 207. "educational home," an education affording considerable guarantees for its sound character. I mean the College of St. Nicholas, Lancing, and its affiliated schools. This institution certainly demands a word of notice here, and no word of mine, regarding Mr. Woodard and his labours, shall be wanting in unfeigned interest and respect for them. Still, I must confess that, as I read Mr. Woodard's programme, as I listened to an excellent sermon from the Dean of Chichester in recommendation of it, that programme and that sermon seemed to me irresistibly to lead to conclusions which they did not reach, and that the conclusions which they did reach were far from satisfying. Mr.

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our well-to-do people resort. Witness "our national schools supported by State "grants, and by parochial and national "subscriptions. On the other hand, the "lower middle class" (Mr. Woodard might quite properly have said the middle class in general), "politically a "very important one, is dependent to a

great extent for its education on pri"vate desultory enterprise. This class, "in this land of education, gets nothing "out of the millions given annually for "this purpose to every class except themselves." In his sermon Dr. Hook spoke, in his cordial, manly way, much to the same effect.

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This was the grievance ; what was the remedy? That this great class should be rescued from the tender mercies of private desultory enterprise? That, in this land of education, it should henceforth get something out of the millions. given annually for this purpose to every class except itself? That in an age when "L enormous endowments,"-the form which public aid took in earlier ages, and taking which form public aid founded in those ages the Universities and the public schools for the benefit, along with the upper class, of this very middle class which is now, by the irresistible course of events, in great measure excluded from them-that in an age, I say, when these great endowments, this mediæval form of public aid, have ceased, public aid should be brought to these classes in that simpler and more manageable form which in modern societies it assumes the form of public grants, with the guarantees of supervision and responsibility? The Universities receive public grants; for-not to speak of the payment of certain professors1 by

1 These professors are now nominally paid by the University; but the University pays

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