September 15, 1904] 



NATURE 



499 



games and their out-of-school life, with the natural results 

 that their strongest tastes in after life are for amusement 

 and sport. 



Some of these boys, after loitering at school to the age 

 of eighteen or nineteen, go to the University as passmen, 

 some begin their preparation for the work of a doctor or 

 a solicitor, and many go straight from school into City 

 life as men of basiness; and nearly all of them suffer from 

 the lack of intellectual and moral stimulus during these 

 later years of their school life. 



Now many of these boys could without difficulty pass the 

 entrance examination to the University at sixteen or seven- 

 teen, if well and carefully taught ; and I have long held 

 the view that such boys would greatly benefit by going to 

 Oxford or Cambridge at the age of seventeen, or even 

 sixteen, if suitable arrangements could be made. 



It was with this conviction in my mind that I published 

 a scheme showing how this experiment might be tried about 

 twenty years ago. 



The interval has confirmed me in the opinion that it 

 would be a distinct gain to many boys to take advantage 

 of such a scheme if made available. They would go out 

 into the world from the University at the age of twenty 

 far better equipped and prepared for life, both as regards 

 knowledge and interests, tastes, and character, than by 

 going straight from school at nineteen. 



And looking to my own University of Oxford, I see no 

 reason why such younger students should not be safely 

 received. 



There are at least three Colleges in that University which 

 would find it easy to adapt their arrangements so as to 

 secure this. Each of these Colleges has a hall in connection 

 with it, well suited for the residence of a college tutor who 

 might have special charge of these younger students, 

 residing in the hall during their first year with somewhat 

 stricter rules as to ordinary discipline and liberty, but in 

 all other respects exactly on a par with the senior under- 

 graduate members of the College. 



On the subject of the day school, as compared with the 

 boarding school, a subject which has not hitherto received 

 the attention it deserves, I may venture to repeat here what 

 in substance I have said on other occasions. 



Many parents are so situated that they have no choice in 

 the matter ; but to the educational inquirer it is a question 

 of much interest and importance. 



The boarding school is admitted to excel in turning out 

 strong, self-reliant, sociable, practical men of affairs, men 

 who have learnt bv early experience not to think or make 

 too much of small injustices, to rough it, if need be, with 

 equanimity and cheerfulness, and to count it a man's part 

 to endure hardness in a manly spirit. It is a fine type of 

 character which is thus produced, at its best ; but the best 

 is not ahvays seen in the result, and the system too often 

 produces an undue deference to public opinion, a spirit of 

 moral compromise, and a loss of moral enthusiasm. The 

 human soul in its finer parts is a very sensitive thing, and 

 I do not think the barrack life of an average boarding school 

 is ahvays the most favourable for its healthy growth. 



.As I look back over the school days of my own pupils I 

 feel that those of them had, on the whole, the best education 

 who grew up as day boys in good homes at Clifton College. 

 There they enjoyed all the advantages of the cultivated 

 home, which I need not here enumerate, and at the same 

 time, through the arrangements we made for them, all the 

 best elements in the life of a great boarding school. 



In the upper school of 500 boys, we had about 160 day 

 boys living at easy distances from the school. 



These boys were divided into two houses — North Town 

 and South Town — about eighty boys in each house, and they 

 were treated for school purposes just as if they were living 

 together in a boarding house. 



They were under the same rules as boarders in regard 

 to hours of locking up, or the bounds beyond which they 

 might not go without a note from their parents giving 

 express leave. 



Their names were printed in a house list, a master was 

 appointed as their tutor, whose duty it was to look to their 

 pduc.-itional needs and progress, to their reports and conduct, 

 just as if they had been boarders and he their house master. 

 ICach house had its own room or library on the College 

 prf-mi^es, with books of reference, and so forth, for spare 



NO. 1820, VOL. 70] 



hours, and took its part with the boarding houses, and held 

 its own in all school affairs, games, and other competitions. 

 .And my experience of this system compared with others 

 has led me to the conclusion that the form of education 

 which may on the whole claim to be the best is that of 

 a well-organised day school, in which it is clearly under- 

 stood to be the duty of the masters to give their life to the 

 boys in school and out of school, just as if they were at a 

 boarding school, and in which the bovs are distributed into 

 houses for school purposes, just as if they were living in 

 a boarding house. Under such a system they get the oest 

 of both worlds, home and school. 



From the public school we pass naturally to the Universi- 

 ties, and the first question that meets us is the influence 

 they exercise on school education, through their require- 

 ments on admission or matriculation and the bestowal of 

 their endowments and other prizes. 



On this part of my subject I have seen no reason to alter 

 or modify what I said at lilasgow three years ago, and 

 therefore I merely enumerate and emphasise the suggestions 

 which I put forward on that occasion for the improvement 

 of education both at school and college. 



I hold that it would be equivalent to pouring a new stream 

 of intellectual influence through our secondary education if 

 O.xford and Cambridge were to agree on some such require- 

 ments as the following : — 



(i) In the matriculation examination (a) candidates to be 

 free to offer some adequate equivalent in place of Greek. 



(6) -An elementary knowledge of some branch of. natural 

 science, and of one modern language to be required of all 

 candidates. 



(c) .A knowledge of some period of English history and 

 literature also to be required of every candidate, and ability 

 to write English to be tested. 



(d) The examination in Latin and any other foreign 

 language to include questions on the subject-matter of any 

 prepared books offered, some questions on history and 

 literature, and translation of easy passages not previously 

 prepared. 



(c) Marks of distinction should be given for work of 

 superior merit in any branch of this examination, as, indeed, 

 of every pass examination conducted by the University. 



Candidates should not be excluded from residence before 

 passing this examination, nor should they be required to 

 pass in all subjects at the same time ; but the completion of 

 this examination would be the necessary preliminary to entry 

 for any other examination required for a degree. 



(2) On the question of endowments and the minimising of 

 waste in the administration of them there is much to be 

 said, and I would suggest for consideration : 



(i) That, as a rule, open scholarships and exhibitions 

 might be reduced to free tuition, free rooms, and free dinners 

 in hall, or thereabouts. 



(2) That every holder of an open scholarship or exhibition, 

 whose circumstances were such that he needed augmentation, 

 should, on application, receive such augmentation as the 

 College authorities considered sufficient. 



(3) That care should be taken to discourage premature 

 specialisation at school. 



For this end it should be required that no scholar should 

 enjoy the emoluments of his scholarship until he had passed 

 the matriculation examination described above ; and a fair 

 proportion of scholarships should be awarded for e.xcellence 

 in a combination of subjects. 



The Universities might also do good service in the way 

 of stimulating secondary education, if some small proportion 

 of their entrance scholarships were distributed over the 

 country as county scholarships, on condition that the county 

 contributed an equal amount in every case. 



In this way some equivalent for the endowments, so 

 cynically confiscated by the Education .Act of 1002, might 

 be recovered and used for the benefit of poor and meritorious 

 students. 



Other reforms, which would, as I believe, be productive 

 of valuable results, are the requiring from every candidate 

 for a degree a knowledge of some portion of our own 

 literature and history, and the encouragement of intellectual 

 interests and ambitions by abolishing all purely pass examin- 

 ations. .A pass examination, in which the candidates are 

 invited simply to aim at a minimum of knowledge or attain- 

 ment, is hardly worthy of a university. The opportunity 



