From a College Window

ty years; and now that it is over I sometimes sit and wo

re horribly overworked. The whole thing whizzed, banged, grumbled, and hummed like a factory; but very little education was the result. It used to go to my heart to see a sparkling stream of bright, keen, lively little boys arrive, half after half, ready to work, full of interest, ready to listen breathlessly to anything that struck their fancy, ready to ask questions-such excellent material, I used to think. At the other end used to depart a slow river of cheerful and conventional boys, well-dressed, well-mannered, thoroughly nice, reasonable, sensible, and good-humoured creatures, but knowing next to nothing, without intelle

among masters and boys alike; but the whole thing frozen and chilled

s and scholarships, and to end by becoming professors. Instead of simply reading away at interesting and beautiful books, and trying, to cover some ground, a great quantity of pedantic grammar was taught; time was wasted

d be time to keep up the simpler subjects as well. The result would be that when a boy had finished his course, he would have some one subject which he could reasonably be expected to have mastered up to a certain point. He would have learnt classics, or mathematics, or history, or modern languages, or science, thoroughly; while all might hope to have a competent knowledge of French, English, history, easy mathematic

e result is that they have no power of composing in any of these languages, when they might have learnt to compose in one. Meanwhile, they have not had time to read any English to spe

st would find some amusement. I should read a story aloud, or a short episode of history, and require them to re-tell it in their own words. Or I would relate a simple incident, and make them write it in French

, mathematics, science-leads off in a separate di

e classics are, as the results abundantly prove, too hard a subject for ordinary minds, and they are taught in too abstruse and elaborate a way. If it were determined by the united good sense of educational authorities that Latin and Greek must be retained

used to press this fact upon my sterner colleagues, they would say that I only wanted to make things amusing, and that the result would be that we should only turn out amateurs. But amateurs are

ves no grip, or vigour, or stimulus. Here again no one takes any interest in the average man. If the more liberal residents try to get rid of the intolerable tyranny of compulsory classics, a band of earnest, conventional people streams up from the country

d capable of discharging any labour." That is a beautiful theory; but it is not borne out by results; and one of the reasons of the profound disbelief which is rapidly spreading in the country with regard to our public schools, is that we send out so many boys, not only without intellectual life, but not even capable of humble usefulness. These theorists continue to talk of classics as a splendid gymnastic, but in their hands it becomes a rack; instead of leaving the limbs supple and well knit, they are strained, disjointed, and feeble. Even the flower of our classical syste

ightest flowers of the human spirit, and I think it well that any boy with a real literary sense should be brought into contact with it. I do not think highly of Latin literature. There are very few writers of the first rank. Virgil is, of course, one; and Horace is a splendid craftsman, but not a high master of literature. There is hardly any prose in Latin fit for boys to read. Cicero is diffuse, and often affords little more than small-talk on abstract topics; Tacitus a brilliant but affected prosateur, Caesar a dull and uninspiring author. But to many boys the path to literary appreciation cannot lie through Latin, or ev

is sympathy and imagination. They cannot conceive that what moves, touches, and

to look upon their work as a disagreeable necessity, which they do conscientiously, expecting nothing in particular from it. They play games ardently, and fill their hours of leisure with talk about them. Yet one discerns in mind after mind the germs of intellectual things, undeveloped and bewild

estly. I want energy and zeal above everything. But my honest belief is that you cannot get strenuous and zealous work unless you also have interest and belief in work. At present, education as

t have a certain positive character before it can take shape. There must arise a desire and a respect for intellectual things, a certain mental tone, which is wanting. At present, public opinion only indicates that the rising generation is not well trained, and that boys, after going through an elaborate education, seem to be very little equipped for practical life. There is no complaint that boys are made unpractical; the feeling rather is that they are turned out healthy, well-drilled creatures, fond of games, manly, obedient, but with a considerable aversion to settling down to work, and with a firm resolve to extract what amus

roficiency is still liberally rewarded by scholarships and fellowships; and while the classical tradition remains in our schools, there are a good many men, who intend to be teachers, who enter for classical examinations. But where we fail grievously is in our provision for average men; they are provided with feeble examinations in desultory and diffuse subjects, in which a high standard is not required. It is difficult to imagine a condition of greater vacuity than that in which a man leaves the University after taking a pass degree. No one has endeavoured to do anything for him, or to cultivate his intelligence in any line. And yet these are our parents in the next generation. An

u do profes

thing, feeding

y part of the equipment of a professor or a teacher; but here again lies one of the fatal fallacies of our system-that we train from the professorial point of view. Omniscience is not even desirable in the ordinary mind. A boy who has appreciated the force of a few great historical characters, who has learnt generous insight into the unselfish patriotism that wins the great victories of the world, who can see the horror of tyranny and the wrongs done to h

of starvation. The system, indeed, too often reminds me of an old picture in Punch, of genteel poverty dining in state; in a room hung with portraits, attended by footmen, two attenuated persons sit, while a silver cover is removed from a dish containing a roasted mouse. The resources tha

to adopt the profession, unless they have an enthusiasm which causes them to put considerations of personal comfort aside. It is only too melancholy to observe at the University that the men of vigour and force tend to choose the Civil Service or the Bar in preference to educational work. I cannot wonder at it. The drudgery of falling in with the established system, of teachi

evail, while the studies of the average passman are allowed to be diffuse, desultory, and aimless, and of a kind from which it is useless to expect either animation or precision, so long will a blight rest upon the education of the country. While boys of average abilities continue to be sent to the Universities, and while the Universities maintain the classical fence,

, scolding all the world for not being heroic, but without being very precise in telling them how. But this is a case where individual action is out of the question; and if I am asked

ilitarian demands altogether, and bundle all other subjects, except classics, out of the curriculum, so that classics may, at all events, be learnt thoroughly and completely. At present they make large and reluctant concessions to utilitarian demands, and spoil the effect of the classics to which they cling, and in which they sincerely believe, by admitting modern subjects to

e, taught with relentless accuracy, than the present hotchpotch. But I earnestly hope m

oman spirit, as part of the spirit of the world, than to make them acquainted with the philological and syntactical peculiarities of the two languages. It may be said that we cannot come into contact with the Greek and the Roman spirit except through reading their respective literatures; but if that is the case, how can a system of teaching classics be defended whi

to a simpler and more enlightened system of education; but the results of the present system seem to me so negative, so unsatisfactory, as to justify, and indeed necessitate, the trying of educational experiments. It is terrible to see the patient acquiescence, the humble conscientiousness with which the present system is administered. It is pathetic to see so much labour expended upon an impossible task. There is something, of course, morally impressive about the courage and loyalty of those who stick to a sinking ship, and attempt to bale out with teacups the inrush of the overwhelming tide. But one cannot help feeling tha

dissatisfaction will reach such a height that the old system will be swept away root and branch, and that many venerable and beautiful associations will thereby be sacrificed. And with all my heart do I deprecate this, believing, as I do, that a wise continuity, a tendency to temperate reform, is one of the best notes of the Eng