SECTIONAL TRANSACTLONS.— L. 427 



(c) The ourriciilum does much to produce the desired accuracy of mind. 



(d) Personal idiosyncrasies are perhaps more harshly repressed than they 

 are even by conditions of modern life. 



(e) While there is no emphasis on bread-and-butter subjects, it is perhaps 

 doubtful whether the gospel of work for work's sake, whatever its nature, 

 is sufficiently grasped. 



4. Thus we have a community, perhaps sometimes out of touch with the real 

 thing, but a useful copy of the real thing, where the practice of life may be learnt l)y 

 living. 



5. (a) The old idea of education was pouring something into an empty vessel. 

 (6) The most up-to-date idea is drawing something out of an apparently empt^ 



vessel, 

 (c) The idea here put forward is that of the public schools ; it is that all 

 education is life, and all life education. 



(c) Dr. Crichton Miller.- — Essential and Extrinsic Features of the 

 Public School System. 



(A) Essential features : (1) Boarding school, 



(2) For one sex, 



(3) During adolescence. 



Therefore exclude day schools, co-educational schools, and preparatory schools. 



(B) Extrinsic features : 



(1) Close connection with the older universities. 



(2) Predominatingly classical education. 



(3) Strong emphasis on athletics. 



(4) Prefectorial system. 



(5) Corporal punishment. 



Broadening tendency in all directions. 



Psychological justification for A (1) and (2). 



The uniqueness and value of the prefectorial system. 



The significance of corporal punishment. 



The success and failure of a standardising or levelling machine. 



Applicability to average cases and inapplicability to special cases. 



{d) Mr. F. J. R. Hendy.— ^ Critical Appreciation. 



Almost all commonly \irged in favour of the public schools can be accepted — their 

 great tradition ; the effect on the character of their members of the inspiring buildings 

 made possible by their great resources ; the high character of the public school master ; 

 their non-local character, which collects together boys from all parts and widely 

 different environments ; and the strong corporate sense coming from common life. 

 The public school is essentially the school to produce public servants and rulers of 

 an empire. 



Against this are to be set these disadvantages : — (1) boarding school life separates 

 the boy from his family and from feminine society, deprives the parent of the 

 liberalising experience of rearing his own sons and places on the schoolmaster too 

 heavy a burden. (2) The public schools cater for a class — and a wealthy class. 

 (3) They have no local monopoly, like the day schools, and have to compete for 

 numbers. (4) They produce ' good fellows ' of high quality but without great 

 intellectual attainment. (5) Above all, they have produced a severance in English 

 education, and caused an unequal distribution of the human and material resources 

 available for education. If the more truly national system of local secondary 

 education could participate in the endowments and have a share of the boys and 

 masters that go to the public schools, the national gain would be great. 



In spite of all, the public school system is invaluable to the nation, and will last 

 as long as our social system lasts, ft has supplied a large proportion of the head- 

 masters and inspectors and administrators of other types of education in Britain and 

 the Empire. These are spreading the principles of the public school system into the 

 local secondary and elementary schools and the hop© is that these will ultimately 

 develop into ' public schools without the dormitories.' 



