Middle-Class Education. 41 



Difficulties of a ^^ Modern " Education. 

 Kev. G. G. Bradley, Marlborough. — " In answer to the question ' How 

 far is it possible to give a really good public school education on any other 

 basis than that of instraction in the dead languages ? ' I do not believe that 

 we are at present in a position to answer the question finally and decidedly, for 

 the experiment has not yet been fairly tried, but I may state briefly my own 

 opinion. While I should deliberately prefer as the best education, when 

 attainable, that mixture of careful study of the language and substance of the 

 great writers of antiquity, with modern reading and mathematics, which I 

 attempt to combine in my own teaching, yet I believe that a thoroughly sound 

 education may be given, and at the same time the advantages of public-school 

 liie enjoyed by boys with whom for various reasons a different plan is pursued, 

 a large space devoted to mathematics and science, and a thorough study of 

 German and French substituted for classics. But the difficulties of working 

 out this experiment are great," &c. 



Cheap Masters are dear Bargains. 



Eev. Dr. Temple, Eugbj-. — " We might have more masters by engaging at 

 lower salaries. But this would be an improvement in one way at the cost of a 

 serious damage in another. Good men cannot be got below a certain price. 

 The work is very severe, and a man must have the means of saving money 

 against the time when he can continue such work no longer. There is pro- 

 bably no employment which exhausts a man so thoroughly as teaching : and 

 this is well known, and men will not enter on such a profession unless they 

 have the prospect of providing for independence when retirement from work 

 has become necessary. Moreover, to be a thoroughly good teacher requires a 

 combination of many qualities : and the men who possess that combination 

 are proportionably rare." 



Greeh an easy Language. 



Mr. Calvert, Shrewsbury School. — " A son of a solicitor in Shrewsbury, 

 Intending his son for his own profession, placed him in the Non-Collegiate 

 Class, where his progress in Latin was so great that by it alone he placed 

 himself at the head of the Fifth Foma : at witness's suggestion the father 

 then consented to the boy learning Greek, and in seven months, never having 

 seen a Greek book before, he was able with a little preparation to construe a 

 jjassage of the Odyssej'. AVith Grammar and Dictionary he would probably 

 in less than an hour construe a chance passage of thirty lines." 



The English Form an Idle Form. 



Dr. Kennedy, Shrewsbury. — " I think a few put themselves on the Non- 

 Collegiate list merely from idleness. They are the idle boys of the school." 



Mr. Calvert, Shrewsbury. — " The Non-Collegiate Class has a tendency to 

 encourage indolence." 



Mr. Bentley, Shrewsbury. — " The Non-Collegiate Class established to 

 meet the wants of those who do not send their sons to the University do Latin 

 with the Class ; but instead of Greek and Verses, extra modern languages and 

 mathematics. They do not make more progress than the Collegiate boys, 

 though they have lour hours a week in modern languages against two hours of 

 the Collegiate boys. It is joined bj- a class of boys who hope thereby to escape 

 a portion of their regular form work — generally at the requirement of the 

 parents." 



Bifurcation System. 



Kev. E. Benson, Wellington College. — ^The boys in working their way up 

 the school follow one uniform course into which the leginning of Greek enters 



