HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE. 131 



Beraiondsey and Bethnal Green both owe much to him ; but it 

 was as the head of Portman Place School, in the south-east corner of 

 Bethnal Green, that I knew him best, and there I think his best school 

 work was done. 



In the old days of the School Board, when greater freedom was 

 allowed in these matters and the individuality of teachers and Board 

 Members had a freer scope, Mr. Tutt was able from time to time to use 

 his indiience, which his position as an entomologist gave him with 

 distinguished persons, for the good of his School, by getting to his 

 prize-giving men of influence and distinction. For he was always on 

 the look out to do the very best for his School. Everything at Portman 

 Place was subordinate to his School work, and few knew how great in 

 another department of life the Head was. And so it came about that 

 when only the other day he was called up to be interviewed by the 

 Committee with reference to his appointment to anew Central School, 

 built adjacent to his own, he came before people to whom his scientific 

 career was almost unknown, and who, when it was made known to 

 them, seemed almost to think that it was not altogether in his favour, 

 some despising entomology as compared with pedagogy, others think- 

 ing that a man's heart and strength could not be in two such important 

 works. 



I, however, and all who knew him intimately as a schoolmaster, 

 know how keen he was in his professional work. The organisation of 

 this new Central School had occupied him incessantly, and since it 

 w^as first proposed he was full of plans and schemes with reference to 

 it. It was his constant care right up to his death, and it was one of 

 his deep regrets that he did not live to work in it. It would be a 

 graceful recognition if the authorities would honour bira — and them- 

 selves — by naming it, after him, the " James Tutt " school. 



One fact stands out prominently in Mr. Tutt's management of his 

 schools. He was always himself impressed by the fact, and was 

 alwa3's bringing it home to those under him, that in a boy's elementary 

 school life, you had a unique, but very brief opportunity ; that there- 

 fore, the very most must be made of it ; he therefore insisted on 

 everyone taking pains. And to insist on this in modern school life is 

 no mere truism ; for some are so anxious to make everything pleasant, 

 that it requires some courage to insist on taking pains. It was with 

 the shortness of the boys' school life in view, that Mr. Tutt was one 

 of the first head masters in our Elementary S3'stem to arrange for 

 his assistants, with a view to doing the very best for the boys, to 

 specialise in all classes in the subject which suited each of them best ; 

 he felt that by this means you got the most out of your best men ; a 

 strong man from time to time left his own class to take the subject 

 in which he was strong ; and even in the case, now and again, of a 

 man who was not so strong, he felt that it was all to the good for the 

 boys to have a change. 



But Mr. Tutt's personality had the advantage of drawing to his 

 school some of the best teachers, and it also gave the school a fine 

 name with the parents in the days when there was not a geographical 

 line drawn round each school, and the parents were wisely allowed a 

 free choice. 



Further, with a view of doing the most in a short time, he 

 encouraged rapid promotion wherever it was educationally possible, 



