does not understand English boys. Mr Max Müller-than whom there can be no higher authority on such a subject-recommends a system which seems to promise better than any which has hitherto been tried. French, he thinks, should "be "be grafted on Latin."

"I think French should be taught grammatically by an Englishman who has had opportunities, either by travel or by birth, of acquiring a fair knowledge of French. I think he should ground the boys in the grammar of the language, but he should have an assistant, who is a Frenchman, under his supervision, to read aloud to the boys and to dictate to them, to give them every facility for acquiring any exceptional knowledge of the language which either they or their parents might think it desirable they should possess.

I

would aim principally at securing an accurate knowledge of grammar; and, secondly, a sufficient amount of reading to enable a boy after three or four years to read for his own amusement." Gen. Evidence, 57, &c.

A good accent, or fluency in conversation, he does not think can be attained in an English school. The unsatisfactory results of the teaching under foreign masters he holds to arise from the fact that "boys are sure to detect some national peculiarities and turn them into ridicule," and that few foreign teachers are good Latin scholars. There can be little doubt that he is right in his view; that to be taught by the regular classical master is the best mode of raising the study of modern languages in the estimation of the boys; and that whatever may be lost in the way of defective pronunciation will be more than counterbalanced by real study of the language itself. Mr Bradley, head-master of Marlborough, and Mr Johnson of Eton, express themselves strongly to this effect.

But the Commissioners have felt, and confessed honestly at every opportunity, that the great enemy which masters and Royal Commissioners have to fight is-idleness; and against it they forge two new weapons, in Recommendations xxiii. and xxv. It would seem,

perhaps, scarcely a fair way of stating them to state them thus: 1. That no boy shall come to a public school who is not a fair scholar; and, 2. That no boy shall stay there who is slow and difficult to teach. But really this is what they pretty nearly come to; and if carried out, they would certainly work a very radical change. In the Commissioners' own words, every boy before admission to a public school is "to pass an entrance examination, and to show himself well grounded for his age in classics and arithmetic, and in the elements of French and German."―(Recomm. xxiii. From this latter part Mr Vaughan dissents in a long memorandum at the end of the Report, and suggests the alternative of natural science.) Unquestionably this recommendation is directed to the right points - the negligence of parents, the inefficiency of home education, and the loose training of preparatory schools. But how many of the public schools will have the courage to enforce such a regulation otherwise than nominally? And if some, who stand high enough in repute to be able thus to pick and choose their scholars, do enforce it in reality, will not the less prosperous schools be flooded with the refuse, and thus become less efficient than ever? Or, if all have the courage to make this " 'pass" examination a real one, what is to become of the rejected candidates? Again, have "Public" Schools a right to say they will teach none but those who have been well-taught already? Is no boy to go into the water until he has learnt to swim? It would be idle to put any question to the Commissioners which bears upon founders' intentions, or it might fairly be asked, did they intend to exclude the ignorant and ill-taught? So, again, Recommendation xxv. provides that "no boy shall be suffered to remain in the school who fails to make reasonable progress in it;" and it goes on to fix a maximum age at which each form

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is to be reached, failing in which, the boy is to be "removed from the school." Dr Arnold had a system of weeding" at Rugby, which was very much questioned in his day but he at least never moved" a boy for mere backwardness, unless there was something in his character which led him to think that he was doing harm to the school and no good to himself by remaining. A New College undergraduate, to whom the Commissioners, with this theory working in their minds, put some questions on this subject by way of "feelers," gave a very sensible and straightforward reply :

"1544. Do you think it would be an advantage or a disadvantage if boys were not allowed to be in the lower form, if they were above a certain age? -I should certainly think it would be an advantage to the other boys, and a great advantage to the master. I do not know whether that would counterbal ance the greater disadvantage which it would be to the boy himself."

Let us hear what a head-master -not of one of these nine Public Schools, but who is doing the work of education energetically and successfully has to say upon the difficult question of dismissal, even in the case of a boy who is "doing no good" in the school:

"A great school from time to time receives all the evil of the worst English homes as well as all the good of all the best. What is to be done with it? The easy way of getting rid of the difficulty is to cut the Gordian knot, and dismiss a boy directly, as soon as he gives real trouble.-As a part of ordinary discipline, however, dismissal is out of the question, as being no training for those who are dismissed, and giving a wrong idea to those who stay behind. It is not right in a master to escape from a difficulty in this way."

Mr Thring is speaking here, remember, not of harmless dunces, but of bad boys, whom nevertheless he holds it to be a part of the business of a great school to train

and reclaim. His view is higher and more philosophical, even if less conveniently practical, than Dr Arnold's: what would he say to the proposal of the Commissioners? If their recommendation in favour of this "cast-iron system," as Dr Moberly fairly calls it, should be carried out, there will come prosperous days for the private tutors who undertake to "prepare" for the universities lads who dislike the hard work and close discipline of school. But it is to be hoped that her Majesty's faithful Commons who make our laws for us, and some of whom must surely have stupid sons—heröum filii noxæ -will never suffer such a merciless enactment against dunces to pass into the statute-book.

The sim

With the fagging system, as well as with the recognised authority of monitors or præpostors, the Report wisely declines to interfere, except by such recommendations as already suggest themselves in any well-ordered school; that both should be "watched," and not abused. Two points only of much importance remain for notice, and in both we have the pleasure of cordially agreeing with the Report. It is recommended that the charge for tuition should cover the whole of the items, whether for "tutorial instruction," or for the regular, school course. plicity and straightforwardness of such a plan ought long ago to have insured its adoption, and it has been urged in these pages long before the appearance of the Parliamentary Report. It is also recommended that the "holiday times at the several schools should coincide as far as possible, so as to enable schoolboys who are members of the same family, but at different schools, to be at home for their holidays together." holidays together." This measure of reform, like the proposal for a common grammar, is so desirable and so reasonable that it is almost

too good to hope for: and the difficulties in carrying out what might seem so easy are much the same in both cases: which is to be the grammar adopted, and which the recognised date for "breakingup"? For nearly every school has here its own traditions, and will be loth to give way.

The character of the English schoolboy comes out very favourably, upon the whole, from this inquiry. Of his manliness, truthfulness, and freedom from gross vice, there is not only the testimony of his pastors and masters both at school and at the university, but this is confirmed incidentally by the tone of the evidence given by witnesses who were either still at school or had just left it, in a manner which is very pleasant to read. And although the character of publicschool life has very much softened of late years the change having been greater, perhaps, in proportion, than even the corresponding change in older society-there is not much need to fear that the modern schoolboy will degenerate into a milksop; a fall which we should lament at least as much as any decline in scholarship. There is very little flogging on the part of the masters, very little bullying from the bigger boys, and hardly any fighting amongst themselvesa fact which seems to have surprised some of the Commissioners as much as it will many of our read

ers.

At Eton it is evidently voted "low;" and even at Westminster, where the tone is harder, it is "considered rather below the seniors." But in spite of this march of peace principles, there is good reason to hope that the old "pluck" is at the bottom still. The little CharterHouse fag who was thrashed for the water not being hot enough "about three times," in a style which Mr Commissioner Thompson, having elicited the details, suggests to him must have been "a thorough

-"expected the fagging would be harder;" but as to changing, even if he could, from college into commoners, where it is "an easier life, but worse discipline," he has no wish at all to do that. At Westminster, where the fagging amongst the Queen's scholars is hardest of all the schools, one of the young witnesses says, "You very seldom see a Queen's scholar who does not like it better than being a town-boy."

In spite of all the willing and unwilling revelations made to the Commissioners, and printed for our instruction, the schoolboy remains, in some of his ways and doings, the same inexplicable being to the outer world as ever. Could any one have imagined that it formed part of his code of minor morals not to be helped twice at dinner? It is the tradition of some-we believe most of the boarding-houses at Harrow for the boys never to have "more than one help," in order that "they may get the dinner over as fast as possible." The evidence of one of the masters on this point has an amusing pathos about it.* Complaints had been made to him by letter that some of the younger boys (owing to this custom of the house) did not get enough to eat. He knew it to be no fault of his provision for them :

"It was a kind of fashion they had among themselves. They never will be helped twice. I made a most urgent appeal to them when I got this letter. I begged and entreated them to save me from the scandal of not allowing them to have a second help of meat, but it produced no effect."

We have been assured that the same fashion exists in some houses at Eton.

It is a curious contrast to the old days which many readers can remember as well as Lord Clarendon, when, upon the faintest suspicion of any tendency to put the boys upon short commons, the order went forth through the school for "eating-up;" when every boy-more especially if a fag-was expected to do his duty in clearing the tables of every eatable thing. Dr Scott had heard of it at Westminster, where it was carried out in one instance with a fatal persever"There is evidence," he says, "of a boy eating himself to death, in order to clear the larder, in Goodanough's time."

ance.

The results of this Commission will be sufficiently important, if its work-honest and laborious as it has been-is duly recognised and appreciated by those whom it more immediately concerns. Dr Temple has stepped rather out of his way to anticipate, as a matter of course, that "in all probability the Examining Commission will be followed by an Executive Commission next year. Rugby does not require it, and most other schools would protest against it; and the Head-master of Rugby, with all his zeal for his own school, will hardly wish to place himself in the position of welcoming an interference on the part of Government which his brother masters repudiate. But it will be the fault hereafter of those who have sons to educate, if these volumes of Reports and Evidence do not do their work effectually without any aid from the "Executive." They contain a guide to fathers which has been long wanted; and though the volumes themselves look somewhat formidable, it is rather in appearance than reality. And they have been so largely commented upon and extracted from, that no one interested in the subject need be at a loss to know at least where to find the information he requires. Abuses— and there are proved abuses-will

*

hardly continue to exist long in these days, when once the light of publicity is let in upon them; or if they still survive, the schools where they are permitted will have forfeited whatever popularity they may as yet have enjoyed through the ignorance or indifference of parents. This inquiry has done for English fathers what they could not have done for themselves: it has given them an insight into public-school life which no individual could possibly have gained, and subjected to a searching cross-examination witnesses who would have been superbly silent to any parental query or remonstrance. It is hard to say whether the willing or the unwilling deponents have contributed the most valuable information. Public schools have been hitherto very much what head-masters chose to make them : strong in their ancient prestige, they wielded an authority which was almost irresponsible: happily, such appointments have been nearly always conferred upon men of high principle as well as great ability, and the trust has rarely been abused. But the best and most energetic teacher cannot raise the general standard of his school above the general demand of the customers whom he has to satisfy. An oldfashioned dame into whose schoolroom the National Education Commissioner pushed his inquiries, defended her shortcomings by the honest remark, "It is but little they pays, and it is but little I teaches 'em." The exact ground of her defence certainly cannot be taken by the masters to whom this Commission reaches; but they might very fairly excuse any deficiency in their results by the reply-“ It is but little we teach, but it is more than most parents require; the very dunces with whom you reproach us are the boys of whom their fathers are proud; fine, manly, truthful, gentlemanlike lads, who hate books as their fathers did before them." "The education of boys at school,"

says Dr Temple in one of those able replies which are really essays on education in themselves, "depends in reality on three things-on the influences of their homes; on the traditions of the school derived from the past; and on the administration of it at the present time. The first of these three is quite out of our reach, and yet it is the most powerful of all."* If school-work is looked upon and spoken of at home as at best a necessary evil, it will be in vain for the master to try to put it before them in the light of an interest and a duty; and until this is done successfully, not all the Queen's Commissions or Acts of Parliament can do much to raise the intellectual standard of the English schoolboy. "The schools of England will be good or bad according to the wishes of the homes of England." So says Mr Thring of Uppingham; + and the Royal Commissioners say much the same, in more circuitous and diplomatic language. They do not only remark upon the "ill-pre

pared and ignorant state in which boys are frequently sent to school," as one great impediment to the proper results of school-training; but they add a warning, which some of those benevolent societies, which supply so much good advice gratis to the poor as to the management of their families, would do well to have printed in an attractive type and circulated amongst their richer neighbours :—

"Of all the incitements to diligence and good conduct which act upon the mind of a schoolboy, the most powerful, generally speaking, is the wish to satisfy his parents; and his view of his duty when at school will always depend very much on the light in which he fee.s that it is regarded at home. He knows very well the estimation, be it high or low, in which industry is held by his parents. If their real object in sending him to a public school is merely or chiefly that he should make advantageous acquaintances and gain knowledge of the world, this is likely to be no secret to him, and the home influence, which ought to be the master's most efficacious auxiliary, becomes in such cases the greatest obstacle to progress.'

WHEN a person of sedate and solemn walk in humble life-say a Quaker tradesman or a Methodist parson- -so far yields to the lusts of the flesh, for once in his life, as to get gloriously drunk, his vagaries are generally of a most portentous kind, calculated to arouse inextinguishable laughter both in the skilful and unskilful. There is not only the grotesqueness of the motley moral antithesis, but there is an exaggeration of the phenomena of the vicious indulgence, which the seasoned toper has long ceased to exhibit, owing to a sort of practised cunning which exercises a control even over his excesses. It must be something like the cause of the

calamities of our solemn friend—a rareness to the exhilaration of victory-that has driven the sedate Germans to such fantastic tricks as are ludicrous, even in the midst of the sanguinary horrors they recall. To us accustomed to great victories, who, as each turns up, give it a hurrah and an illumination, and then have done, waiting quietly for the next, the way in which Flensburg and Duppel have taken possession of, and penetrated into, the heart and through every nerve of the German nature, is as wonderful a phenomenon as a stranger can behold. The ring of battle pervades everything; it is in the conversation, in the music, in the

+Education and School,' p. 256.