2 4 



substitution of a desire to gain prizes for real love of knowledge. 

 It degrades learning, and prevents the prize earner from appre- 

 ciating it." 



S. Dill, M.A. (Late Head Master, Manchester Grammar 

 School, now Professor of Greek in Queen's College, Belfast). — 

 " It is quite true, as the late Rector of Lincoln long since 

 pointed out, that the concentration of the powers on the 

 winning of prizes always weakens, and often destroys disinter- 

 ested love of knowledge." 



It is a question how much of the large development of trashy 

 reading matter now produced is a result of our school systems. 

 It is an old maxim that play is a parody on work. So our 

 school-work being all intense reading, the product must read 

 for amusement (he can'-t think), and we have the penny dread- 

 fuls and shilling shockers, and a multiplication of comic papers, 

 so called, and our brains are addled and kept from thinking 

 with lit- Bits, Rare- Bits, Scraps, Answers— et hoc genus 

 omne — soul-destroying vapours from the modern hurry of 

 life. We have also as a result of that system that bloodless and 

 fleshless thing the modern Text-book in numbers and repulsive- 

 ness which it is no wonder Thring compares to the frogs in 

 Egypt — " Manuals, rules, and technical terms," he says, "Tech- 

 nical terms, rules, and manuals possess the land, and bear potent 

 witness to the theory of the Pump." 



6. DETERIORATION OF HEALTH AND TRUE LIFE BY INDUCED 

 OVER-PRESSURE OF WORK. 



The system is morally bad because untrue. We want the pupil 

 to acquire knowledge. What we tell him we want is : that he 

 shall pass certain examinations. We place a false issue before 

 him, and he accepts it to his detriment and the destruction of 

 true life. The resultant physical evil is well known — body 

 and brain are deteriorated, the children become natives of 

 Kingsley's Isle of Tomtoddies — all heads and no bodies, and 

 with only turnips heads after all, and watery ones at that. 



Rev. Dr. E. Warre, Head Master, Eton. — " It is the able 

 and the studious boy who in the main suffers. Many a bright, 

 keen intellect of 10 or 12 has become dull and blunt, and has 



