838 REPORT—1904, 
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 P 
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 preparation 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 facul- 
ties 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 largely centred in their games and their out-of-school life, with the 
natural results that their strongest tastes in after life are for amusement and 
sport. 
3 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 
business ; 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 examina- 
tion to the University at sixteen or seventeen, if well and carefully taught ; and 1 
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 undergraduate 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 ta 
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 by early experience not to 
think or make too much of small injustices, to rough it, if need be, with equani- 
mity 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 always 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 
