IV AND WHERE TO FIND IT 93 



The " ciphering " of the lower schools expands into 

 elementary mathematics in the higher; into 

 arithmetic, with a little algebra, a little Euclid. 

 But I doubt if one boy in five hundred has ever 

 heard the explanation of a rule of arithmetic, or 

 knows his Euclid otherwise than by rote. 



Of theology, the middle class schoolboy gets 

 rather less than poorer children, less absolutely 

 and less relatively, because there are so many 

 other claims upon his attention. I venture to say 

 that, in the great majority of cases, his ideas on 

 this subject when he leaves school are of the most 

 shadowy and vague description, and associated with 

 painful impressions of the weary hours spent in 

 learning collects and catechism by heart. 



Modern geography, modern history, modern 

 literature ; the English language as a language ; 

 the whole circle of the sciences, physical, moral 

 and social, are even more completely ignored in 

 the higher t-han in the lower schools. Up till 

 within a few years back, a boy might have passed 

 through any one of the great public schools with 

 the greatest distinction and credit, and might 

 never so much as have heard of one of the subjects 

 I have just mentioned. He might never have 

 heard that the earth, goes round the sun ; that 

 England underwent a great revolution in 1688, 

 and France another in 1789 ; that there once lived 

 certain notable men called Chaucer, Shakespeare, 

 Milton, Y oltair o, Goethe, Schiller. The first might 



