Middle-Class Education. 20 



tion and management of competent men, selected from those 

 who have graduated at our Universities with credit, if not with 

 distinction. Such a plan still leaves open the question of the 

 desirableness of creating County Colleges for giving further instruc- 

 tion to such pupils as are able and desirous to receive more 

 advanced information. 



Such, then, are some of the advantages which it appears to me 

 would result from the adoption of the scheme here proposed — 

 a scheme which certainly meets many of the difficulties that 

 beset this important question, and is based on practical expe- 

 rience. Therefore, with all humility, but at the same time with 

 some confidence, I offer these suggestions to the consideration of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 



Sandhach. 



III. — Middle-Class Education, having reference to the Improve- 

 ment of the Education of those tvho depend upon the Cultivation of 

 the Soil for their Support. By Rev. W. Holt Beever, M.A., 

 Oxon. 



What I write upon this subject will be based upon my experi- 

 ence in the management of a country grammar-school, mainly 

 filled from the ranks of the middle classes ; not a small propor- 

 tion of the scholars being the sons of well-to-do farmers. Of 

 the latter section several obtained high honours at Oxford, two 

 (specially mentioned in the Report of Her Majesty's Commis- 

 sioners to inquire into the management, &c., of certain Colleges 

 and Schools, in 1864), having been University scholars as well as 

 first-class inen ; another obtained his appointment to Woolwich 

 from school, and is now an officer of high promise in the Royal 

 Engineers ; and another distinguished himself at Cirencester 

 College. ^loreover I have for some nine years had a farm of 

 my own, and have been successful as an exhibitor of stock. I 

 shall then at least not be drawing on my imagination in the 

 sketch I shall commit to paper. 



The charges at this school come pretty near the mark assigned 

 by Mr. Edmunds (in his Lecture before the Central Farmers' 

 Club, February, 1865), as the fair price for Middle-Class Educa- 

 tion ; that is to say, from twenty-five to forty guineas per annum 

 were paid for Board, according to the " House," and ten guineas 

 for tuition in Latin, French, German, English, Mathematics, and 

 Drawing ; Greek, Music, Dancing, Drill, and Singing, being 

 "extras." Besides the Head -Master there were, for about sixty 

 boys, two Assistant-Masters (Classical and Mathematical), Uni- 



