Middle-Class Education. 43 



Sir J. F. W. Herschell. — " I know it is a common idea that classical and 

 mathematical proficiency are incompatible, and imply fundamentally diiierent 

 conditions of mind. This, however (except as regards the higher degrees of 

 proficiency which go to render a man distinguished either as a scholar or a 

 mathematician, and the proposition might be then extended to every other 

 form of excellence), I disbelieve ; I believe that a great mass of good mental 

 power which might have become available to human progress, if duly fostered 

 and developed, has thus hitherto been lost to the community." 



Arithmetic. 



Dr. Whewell. — " Practical mensuration should be taught at school. It 

 %vould be a great advantage if the use of Logarithms were also taught. If 

 arithmetic were already taught effectually at school, I should be disposed to 

 add the use of Logarithms (I mean the practical use) as an art of great value 

 for abridging laborious arithmetical operations." 



On French Masters. 



Dr. MoBERLEY, Winchester. — " Foreigners can seldom be found to manage 

 and teach eflectually classes of English boys who are not anxious to learn." 



Eev. C. B, Scott, Westminster — " The difficulty of working a French class 

 eflSciently is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is on many grounds desirable 

 that the master should be French by birth : and that if so he is sure to find it 

 a hard task to manage English boys. They constantly misunderstand each 

 other, and neither the instruction nor the discipline is what it is at other 

 times." 



Eev. G. G. Bradley, Marlborough. — " In both departments (classical and 

 modern) foreign languages are taught by Englishmen." 



Eev. E. W. Bensok, Wellington College. — " One foreign master in eacli 

 language is employed, and the system adopted with them is to put under them 

 the test modern scholars and the beginners in each school, and to place under 

 English masters those boys who from their state of progress require to be 

 steadily worked in exercises, and construing after a classical manner, rather 

 than to be practised in the nice polish of the language, or on the other hand to 

 begin the rudiments of grammar and pronunciation. These appear to be the 

 points in which foreign masters take pleasure and excel, and they have not the 

 same difficulties of discipline with either of those two classes of pupils as with 

 others. I cannot but be of opinion that if a school can include one Frenchman 

 and one German on its staff for the purpose of correcting pronunciation and 

 looking over the higher kinds of composition, and can then intrust the greater 

 part of the French and German teaching to Englishmen who have had an 

 University Education, and who having lived abroad are thoroughly versed in 

 the foreign language which thej'' undertake to teach, the work will be lar more 

 effectively done than by any other arrangement." 



Max Muller, Esq., Oxford. — " I find as a general rule that fluency in 

 speaking is never acquired at any public school whatever. Whenever I find 

 fluency in speaking I can always trace it to an extraneous source. I think 

 the expeiicnce of continental as well as English schools is against attempting 

 to impart to schoolboys a conversational command of the language. To acquire 

 fluency in the foreign languages, especially English and French, has been- 

 attempted at the Eeale Schulen, not in the Gymnasia. One hour a Aveek or a 

 fortnight, devoted to the principles of comparative grammar, would be a saving 

 of more than ten hours in teaching French and Latin." Eecommeuds that both 

 French and German be taught in schools by Englishmen who have had oppor- 

 tunities, either by travel or by birth, of acquiring a fair knowledge of the 



