NATURE 



[September 15, 1904 



and reading: aloud? What weight is given to elementary 

 drawing, or to an elementary knowledge of natural pheno- 

 mena, so as to encourage in the preparatory school an 

 interest in the mineral, vegetable, and animal world around 

 us, and to stimulate in early years the habit of observation, 

 and to impress the difference between eyes and no eyes? 



Such subjects as these, it is now generally recognised, 

 ought to be given a foremost place and equal weight with 

 the modicum of arithmetic, French, and ancient languages, 

 which have hitherto, as a rule, formed the staple of this 

 entrance examination, and have consequently given an un- 

 natural twist to the earlier education of our boys. 



As regards the public schools themselves, if we consider 

 them critically — though, on the other hand, I trust, by no 

 means forgetting their many and great excellences — the 

 points that invite attention would seem to be such as the 

 following : — 



There is undoubtedly a great deal of waste in these schools 

 owing to the poor teaching of untrained masters, who in 

 some cases cannot even maintain reasonable discipline, and 

 in many more have no real knowledge or mastery of the 

 best methods of teaching their subject, be it linguistic, or 

 historical, or literary, or scientific, and have not acquired 

 that first gift of an efficient teacher, the art of interesting 

 their pupils and drawing out their faculties and their tastes. 



It would, therefore, be reasonable, as it would certainly 

 be stimulative and advantageous, to require that all masters 

 should be bound to go through some system of well-con- 

 sidered and serious preparation or training for the teacher's 

 work, or at the least a probationary period. 



It should, I venture to think, be made a rule that no 

 master could be placed on the permanent staff until he was 

 certified and registered as having fully satisfied this require- 

 ment and given proof of his efficiency. 



And here I would venture to point out to existing masters 

 and mistresses in the leading schools how great a service 

 they may do to the cause of good education if they them- 

 selves apply to be registered. 



Seeing the advantages which registration is destined to 

 bring to our secondary education by winnowing out in- 

 efficient teachers and otherwise, the higher members of the 

 profession may fairly be expected to give their personal 

 adhesion to it as a part of their duty to their profession. 



We might almost say to them noblesse oblige. 



Again, it must, I fear, be admitted that one of the chief 

 defects in our public school education is still to be found 

 in over-attention to memory work, and in the comparative 

 failure to develop powers of thought, taste, and interest 

 in the things of the mind. 



And even in the teaching of languages attention has been 

 too exclusively devoted to mere questions of grammar, as if 

 to learn the language were an end in itself, whereas, in the 

 words of Matthew Arnold, " the true aim of schools and 

 instruction is to develop the powers of our mind and to give 

 us access to vital knowledge." 



For this end, as he reminds us, the philological or gram- 

 matical discipline should be more consciously and system- 

 atically combined with the matter to which it is ancillary, 

 the end should be kept in view ; whereas nine out of ten of 

 our public-school boys seem never to get through the gram- 

 matical vestibule at all; and yet we agree that " no pre- 

 liminary discipline should be pressed at the risk of keeping 

 minds from getting at the main matter, a knowledge of 

 themselves and the world." 



This also was written by Mr. Arnold thirty-six years ago, 

 and thoughtful critics are still repeating, and with some 

 reason, that the majority of boys who grow up in our public 

 schools seem hardly to have received an adequate training for 

 manv of the higher duties of life. 



We hear much more than formerly about the public schools 

 being the best training-place for good citizenship. There- 

 fore, say the critics, it is reasonable to inquire how far 

 their educational system, their ideals, their traditions, their 

 fashions, and the pervading spirit of their life fit the mass 

 of their pupils intellectually and otherwise for the duties of 

 citizenship, and for grappling in the right spirit with the 

 problems that will confront them. 



" Any careful observer," says one of these writers, him- 

 self a loyal public-school man, and intimatelv acquainted 

 with school life, " any careful observer, who has studied the 

 political moods and opinions of the middle classes in this 



NO. 1820, VOL. 70] 



country during the past few years, can hardly have failed 

 to notice two obviously decisive influences : an ignorance 

 of modern history and a want of imagination. For both 

 of these defects the public schools must bear their full share 

 of blame. 



" It may be doubted whether any other nation teaches 

 even its own history so little and so badly." 



The result is that " to the average public school and 

 university man the foreign intelligence in his daily paper 

 is of less interest than the county cricket ; and though events 

 of far reaching importance may be happening almost under 

 his eyes he is in the dark as to their significance." 



" As regards the duties and aims of citizenship in all the 

 various affairs of his own country, political, social, economic, 

 he goes out from his school almost wholly uninstructed by 

 the lessons of history, or by any study of the life and the 

 needs of our own times. Again, as it is urged, the lack 

 of imagination is hardly less dangerous to us than lack of 

 instruction in the lessons of history and the social conditions 

 and needs amongst which we have to live and work. No 

 doubt the gift of imagination is a natural gift — it cannot be 

 created. But, given the thing in the germ, it can be stimu- 

 lated and developed, or starved, stunted, or even crushed out. 

 No system of education that neglects it is even safe. For, 

 without it, principle becomes bigotry and zeal persecution. 

 It is conscientiousness divorced from imagination that pro- 

 duces Robespierres. Now, it is precisely here that we should 

 e.xpect the public schools to be most helpful, for it is through 

 literature that the faculty is most obviously cultivated, and 

 they all profess to give something of a literary training. 

 But though the intention is excellent the performance is 

 often terribly meagre." Whatever may be thought of such 

 criticisms as these, which come from within our public- 

 school life, it is, I imagine, generally agreed by those who 

 know both our national needs and the work and influence 

 of our public schools, that there is much room for improve- 

 ment in regard to methods of teaching, the cultivation of 

 intellectual interests and tastes, and the stimulating habits 

 of thought in the majority of their pupils. In close con- 

 nection with these considerations there are two questions 

 of practical importance which deserve a prominent place in 

 any study of our public-school education. 



The first of these is whether it is good for all boys alike 

 to continue their life at school, especially at a boarding 

 school, up to the age of eighteen or nineteen ; and the other 

 is whether more encouragement and pains should not be 

 given to developing the best type of day school, or, to put 

 it somewhat differently, whether the barrack life of the 

 boarding school has not, through fashionable drift and class 

 prejudice, become too predominant a part of our English 

 education at the expense of the home life with all its finer 

 educational influences. 



As regards the first of these questions, it will be remem- 

 bered that Dr. Arnold considered it a matter of vital 

 importance to expedite the growth of a boy from the childish 

 age to that of a man. 



In other words, the boy should not be left to grow through 

 the years of critical change from fourteen to nineteen with- 

 out special regard to his growth in intellectual taste and 

 moral purpose and thoughtfulness. His education during 

 these critical years should be such as to rouse in him the 

 higher ambitions of a responsible manhood. 



Does, then, the actual life of a public school really conduce 

 to this early development in the majority of cases? 



My own experience has led me to the conclusion that it 

 cannot be confidently held to do so. 



The boys in any of our public schools may be said to fall 

 into two classes — those who in due course reach the sixth 

 form, and during their progress through lower forms have 

 an ambition to reach it ; and, on the other hand, a numerous 

 class who do not expect to rise to the sixth, don't care 

 about it, and never exert themselves to reach it. 



For the first class, I doubt if any more effective prepar- 

 ation for life has been devised than that of our best English 

 schools ; but the case of the second class is somewhat 

 different. 



Many of these come to the end of their school time with 

 their intellectual faculties and tastes and their sense of 

 responsibility as men to a great extent undeveloped. 



From sixteen to eighteen or nineteen their thoughts, 

 interests, and ambitions have been ku'gelv centred in their 



