TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 835 
ture on popular education higher than elementary is a wise economy, and that 
their bread cast on educational waters will come back to them, not after many 
days, but very soon and in their own homes. Thus my observation has led me to 
the conclusion that by way of preliminary to progress our new educational 
authorities need instruction or persuasion as to the importance of a sufficient 
provision for really good secondary education; and it would greatly expedite 
progress if the Government could and would offer more liberal secondary education 
grants to be earned by efficient schools, and initial grants towards buildings and 
scientific equipment, to be met by contributions from local rates or other local 
sources, public or private. 
Many persons and localities would be ready to tax themselves with the view 
of securing a Treasury grant not available without such taxation. Meanwhile 
the wheels of our local educational chariots are tarrying on every side so far as 
higher education, whether general or technical, is concerned. 
It would also stimulate our local educational authorities if they could be more 
fully informed as to the practical advantages which have been derived from a 
practical system of popular education in such a country as the United States of 
America; and still more if they had set plainly before them the wonderful results 
derived by a poor country like Denmark during the last twenty-five years, and in 
the face of every disadvantage, from the system of education initiated by Bishop 
Grundtvig and taken up by the Government. 
And the need of our middle classes, especially that of the farmer and trades- 
men classes, is very pressing. A great deal of the education they receive is given 
in schools of which the public know very little, whether as regards qualifications 
of the staff—moral and intellectual—equipment, or methods of teaching, or even 
sanitary arrangements ; and it is to be feared that much of this education would 
on inquiry be found to be very poor, if judged by any reasonable standard of 
modern requirements. 
When we pass to the class of schools generally spoken of as public schools, 
those that look to the ancient Universities as the goal of their best pupils, we 
enter on another very interesting and important field of study. 
But for the beginning of our investigation we have to go behind these schools 
to the preparatory schvol, which has now assumed a definite place in secondary 
education, and therefore calls for serious attention. Some of these schools are 
very good, so far as the conditions under which they work admit of excellence ; in 
others there is, it is to be feared, much room for improvement. 
And such schools are now so largely used by parents that their condition 
becomes a matter of vital importance, as a boy’s progress and prospects, his 
moral and intellectual future, are very frequently determined for good or ill by 
his experience in the preparatory school, by the bent which has there been given 
to his morals, tastes, ambitions, by the fostering of his intellectual gifts or the 
failure to foster them. 
In the course of my own experience I have known many boys whose prospects 
in life were spoilt by their unhappy beginnings in some preparatory school, and 
who consequently entered their public school foredoomed to failure. 
These schools are in most cases private-adventure schools, conducted for private 
gain. Their staff consists very often of young men untrained for the work of 
education, and sometimes underpaid. They are subject to no public inspection or 
examination ; in fact, the general public have no knowledge of their condition. 
Seeing how grave are the considerations involved, I hold it to be one of the 
things needed for the general improvement of our secondary education that every 
private school, of whatever kind, should be liable to public inspection and public 
report thereon ; that a licence should be required for every such school ; and that 
the staff and their qualifications, and the remuneration given to each of them, the 
sanitary condition, suitability, and educational equipment of the premises, should 
all be considered in connection with the giving or withholding of a licence. 
As regards the curriculum of the schools preparatory to the public schools, 
the subjects taught, and the proportion of time allotted to each, it has to be borne 
in mind that they are nct free agents. In this respect they are dependent on the 
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