Middle-Class Education. 31 



and tlie prevalent feeling tliat grammar schools do not give the 

 education which is required no\v-a-davs, and that their mission 

 has gone by. 



It has, therefore, become difficult for the head-master of any 

 school not well endowed and most centrally placed to hold his own 

 at all. It seems impossible for the smaller grammar schools to com- 

 pete with joint-stock education, unless they can be so remodelled 

 that they may become the effective nuclei of large local establish- 

 ments on the " Bifurcation " plan : that is, having two depart- 

 ments — one Classical and the other Modern — working side by 

 side. 



To determine what the required education is, let us run 

 through the subjects taught in a good school, which adopts a com- 

 prehensive scheme of instruction, and consider which portions 

 are essential or profitable to the farmer. 



Relifjious Instruction. — The rule laid down for the Albert 

 Middle-Class College, Suffolk, can hardly be improved, it is as 

 follows : — " Religious instruction in accordance with the Doc- 

 trines and Practice of the Church of England. (N.B. Special 

 exemption from distinctive Church-of-England teaching, and 

 from Sunday attendance at the Parish Church or College Chapel 

 will be granted to sons of Dissenters upon application to the 

 Head-Master : the parents of such boys undertaking their care and 

 management on the Sunday to the satisfaction of the Governors)." 



The Classics. — Seeing that this study need occupy no time 

 that can be required for any other learning, there is no good 

 reason why the farmer who begins his education in time should 

 not attain a certain fair proficiency therein. A wise man will 

 ever after be thankful that he attained, when he did not feel the 

 exertion, such an amount of classical knowledge at least as the 

 professions of Medicine and Law demand. 



I am glad to see that Latin figures on the prospectus of the 

 Suffolk Middle-Class College. But I advocate further the intro- 

 duction of Greek to a certain jjoint, though of course I am content to 

 be coughed down when I start this oft disputed question. Those 

 only who are acquainted with the language can appreciate its 

 value, at once as an instrument to train the mental laculties, and 

 to throw light on the inmost shades of meaning in many a subtle 

 word that figures daily in the leader of their morning paper. 

 Contrary to the vulgar idea, Greek is a singularly easy language, 

 and a very short study of it would effect the main purpose for 

 which I advocate its introduction into every middle-class school, 

 viz., for the purpose of etymology. With this view the Greek 

 " Delectus," thoroughly taught, might answer every purpose, and 

 this surely could not, in the eyes of the most bigotted, absorb 

 much valuable time to the detriment of other studies. 



