164 



NATURE 



\_yime 28, 1877 



In general, the stigma, when in the unexcited state, 

 is positive to the style. As, however, it can be shown 

 that other factors, not concerned in the excitatory process, 

 are operative in the production of this result, not much 

 importance is to be attached to it. 



I send this short note in order that physiologists 

 interested in the subject may be able to repeat the ob- 

 servations during the present season. 



University College, J. Burdon-Sanderson 



June 27 



TAUNTON COLLEGE SCHOOL 



'T'HE circumstances alluded to last week, under which 

 -'■ the Taunton College School is threatening to col- 

 lapse, and is in immediate danger of losing the head- 

 master who has made it what it is, are interesting on 

 public grounds to the advocates of scientific instruction, 

 as well as to the general educationalist. In a pamphlet 

 published in 1865, and containing letters from Dr. Dau- 

 beny. Prof. Phillips, and Dr. Acland, Mr. Tuckwell was, 

 we believe, the first English schoolmaster to assert publicly 

 the claims of science to an honoured place in the curricu- 

 lum of all first-class schools ; and his evidence before 

 Lord Taunton's Commission, his papers read to the 

 British Association in 1869 and 1871, and his communi- 

 cations to the Royal Science Commission, show how 

 ddigently he has for twelve years past been working out 

 in his school at Taunton the many practical problems 

 which beset the introduction of a new subject into an 

 ancient, established, jealous system. The school has 

 thriven m his hands, risen rapidly in numbers, and gained 

 the highest public distinctions at the Universities, the 

 India Civil Service, Cooper's Hill, and Woolwich ; and 

 though the short-sighted economy of his governing 

 body left him for years without a science master or a 

 laboratory, and refused him a museum, botanical garden, 

 and science class-rooms, he has overcome all these diffi- 

 culties by patience, by the munificence of friends, and by 

 pecuniary sacrifices ; and at this moment many distin- 

 guished scientific visitors are glad to testify to the com- 

 pleteness of a system which passes the whole school 

 through a course of physics and chemistry, and in- 

 cludes physical geography, botany, and meteorology 

 in its more special training. In 1875 the number 

 of boys had risen to 120, but the thrift of the governing 

 body kept down the number of the masters. The typical 

 proportion of assistant-masters to bo\s in modern schools 

 of this size is one in sixteen ; the Taunton masters were 

 only one in twenty-seven. The school could not continue 

 to succeed under this policy ; the masters were unequal 

 to the work ; the number of boys fell off until a visitation 

 of fever brought them below the paying point, and the 

 school, already heavily in debt, was on the point of being 

 closed. The panic-stricken officials laid the blame upon the 

 head-master ; his theology and politics were pronounced 

 suspect ; his unpopularity had caused the falling num- 

 bers ; and when his friends came forward liberally with 

 money and promises of money the governing body took 

 the money, but upon condition that the head-master 

 should leave at Christmas. Against this parents and old 

 pupils are indignantly remonstrating ; both have sent to 

 Mr. Tuckwell public addresses of sympathy and con- 

 fidence ; the parents forwarding also a strong protest to 

 the president of the governing body, and in many cases 

 threatening to remove their sons if Mr. Tuckwell goes. 

 So far, however, the custodians of the school's interests 

 show no sign of yielding ; it seems certain that the head- 

 master will be turned out, and more than probable that 

 the school may, after all, collapse. 



There are two points in this struggle between philis- 

 tinism and culture on which we should like to dwell, in 

 the interests both of general and of scientific education. 



The first is the mischief being worked in the less im- 

 portant first-class schools by the constitution and habits 

 of their governing bodies. These were the pet institutions 

 of the Endowed Schools' Commission. They were to 

 include the educated gentleman of the county and the 

 representative tradesman of the town : the first, rich in 

 recollections of Eton and of Christ Church, was to initiate, 

 develop, control ; to support and instruct the head-master; 

 and to keep his bonri^eois brother straight ; while that 

 second-rate but docile coadjutor was to back the enlighten- 

 ment of his superior, and to reconcile while he typified 

 the democratic feeling so essential, it was thought, to the 

 local popularity of a school. Charming in theory, it was 

 in fact the weak point in the Commissioners' scheme. 

 The feet on which their image had to stand were of iron 

 mixed with miry clay ; the two refused to coalesce, and 

 the clay came uppcrmon. The gentlemen make admir- 

 able governors, but they are in London, in Scotland, on 

 the Continent, at Quarter Sessions ; and the local men, 

 who are always on the spot, become virtually the 

 governing; body. They too frequently know nothing 

 ot education. They cannot understand a head-master's 

 ideas and aims ; they in too many cases gorern 

 the school as if it were a workhouse, and treat the 

 head-master as they habitually treat the master of their 

 union. The world has net forgotten Felsted Grammar 

 School ; and the committee of head-masters could tell us 

 of many other cases, less notorious, but not less galling 

 and mischievous. No first-class school can thrive un- 

 less its governing body is composed of gentlemen, who 

 understand, as Mr. Walter said the other day at Welling- 

 ton College, that their first duty is not to interfere with 

 the head-master. 



The second point is one which we have often urged 

 before : the opposition offered by many of the clergy to 

 the Culturkaiiipf. Of course there are notable exceptions 

 to this incrimination ; but the I'iri Obsciiri oi Revellius, 

 and the clerical bigots who combined to oppose the 

 new learning of Colet, Erasmus, and More, would re- 

 cognise their legitimate posterity in those of the present 

 day, who, themselves uneducated even according to 

 the narrow standard of the past, join in denouncing 

 science and unsectarianism as the irremissible sins of a 

 head-master. Bishop Fox, the founder of the ancient 

 school at Taunton, was rattened by the Oxford clergy 

 for forcing the new study of Greek upon his college of 

 Corpus Christi ; his representative in Taunton shares his 

 fate to-day, driven from the school which he has relounded 

 for forcing on it the new study of science. 



We write in no hope of assisting the head-master, 

 or of educating his opponents into large-mindedness. 

 Mr. Tuckwell will see his schemes collapse, and be parted 

 from the profession in which all eagerly attest his success, 

 and to which he has given the best years of his life. The 

 school will either break up under the irritation of the 

 parents, or its distinctive features will perish with the 

 ruler who called them forth. The order of the old 

 teaching, the assertion of the old theology, will resume 

 their way in Taunton School. Chemistry, and physics, 

 and botany ; Shakspeare, and Milton, and Macaulay, and 

 Guizot, will give way to gerund-grinding and Latin verse. 

 Where Wesleyans, Independents, Quakers, Catholics, and 

 Unitarians worshipped in the same chapel and attended 

 the same scripture-classes, sectarian exclusiveness will 

 re-enter its swept and garnished home. We can only 

 chronicle the facts as indicating the obstacles to be met 

 and reckoned with by the pioneers of modern educational 

 progress. We can only express sympathy with the 

 head-master, who will yet find some compensation for his 

 worries in the unusual warmth of testimony contained in 

 the address which first brought these circumstances to 

 our knowledge, and in the consciousness that, having 

 advanced a noble cause, his work will not in the end be 

 thrown away. 



