254 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



Not because of opposition from the Head-master, nor, 

 in any degree, from the want of sympathy in these 

 subjects felt by the Provost and Fellows, but because 

 of the enormous inertia of this ancient machine. 

 However, I have succeeded in obtaining new buildings 

 for chemistry and physics, and have also enabled boys 

 to take up modern languages and science in place of 

 classics at an earlier age than was hitherto possible. 

 The upholders of the classical system are fond of talking 

 about "specialisation," a term they use when a boy is 

 allowed to give more time to modern subjects. They 

 seem to forget that the boy has been made to " special- 

 ise " in Latin and Greek ever since he was seven years 

 old at the rate of ten or twelve hours a week. 1 Classics, 

 in the opinion of some schoolmasters, is the " be all and 

 end all " of a boy's education. The modern subjects 

 are only introduced as a sop to a world wanting in 

 "culture," not to strengthen the character or the intel- 

 lect. How soon a scientific method will be introduced 

 into the teaching of all subjects is a matter which the 

 future alone will show. The signs of the times, how- 

 ever, seem to point to a new development in our Eng- 

 lish public schools, for even those most wedded to a 

 classical education are beginning to see that the condi- 

 tions of life are altered, and that therefore, if we are 

 to succeed in the preparation of our boys for these 

 changed conditions, our type of education must also 

 be changed. 



I am fully alive to the value of literature and the 

 humanities as a part of education, but, then, these 

 subjects, like all others, must be intelligently taught. 

 The old idea of putting boys through a grind, and 



1 At Eton the amount of time spent by boys from twelve to fourteen 

 years of age on Latin and Greek alone actually exceeds twenty hours a 

 week, and the question naturally arises, " with what result ?" 



