3IidiUe-Class Education. 27 



as lias been said, we have 700 such institutions existing throug-h 

 the length and breadth of the land, we may fairly hope that, with 

 a proper amount of intervention on the part of the State and a 

 fixed honest purpose to carry out the intentions of the original 

 founders, in the spirit if not in the letter, something approxi- 

 mating to a satisfactory solution may be given to the important 

 question of middle class education. 



For, up to the present time, what has been done to supply this 

 acknowledged want? No general system has been pursued, no 

 comprehensive plan even suggested, that would in any sense 

 grapple with the difficulty. A few isolated efforts have been 

 made, and what do they amount to ? Let us glance at a few of 

 them. 



The Agricultural Collesre of Cirencester, of course, first deserves 

 our notice. Noble institution as it is, it cannot m any sense be 

 considered as exactly suited to the object we are now considering. 

 The instruction given is only adapted to more advanced pupils ; 

 indeed it commences at a point to which, as a rule, the youth of 

 the middle classes hardly attain before they have finished their 

 education. The rates of payment are also too high for our object, 

 and its position not sufficiently central. With every good wish, 

 therefore, for its success, we may dismiss it with this brief 

 notice. 



The educational establishment at Shoreham, with its adjuncts, 

 though intended to embrace a much larger section of the middle 

 classes, and though free from the faults just mentioned, has yet 

 one vital defect — it is so unmistakeably identified with par- 

 ticular religious views, that it will be regarded with somewhat 

 of jealousy by all who do not share those peculiarities, and con- 

 sequently it can hardly become a national institution. 



The Agricultural School in Surrey, Prince Albert's School in 

 Suffolk, and especially that at South JMolton, though fostered bv 

 Avealthy and powerful patrons, for that very reason are not such 

 as can be offered as general objects of imitation ; though, in one 

 sense, model schools they can be looked upon at present only as 

 successful experiments, of which time alone can prove the prac- 

 tical utility. 



The schools established by the " commercial travellers " for 

 the education of their children are too exclusive in their prin- 

 ciple and too restricted in their operation to serve as a model 

 for our imitation. 



The specious scheme of " perambulating teachers," proposed 

 with the noblest intentions by one of the most enlightened and 

 benevolent of her sex, appears to be open to this strong objection, 

 in limine, i. e., that it would (or might) provide instruction without 

 education. 



