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REV. H. COSTLEY WHITE, M.A., ON 



fees varying according to the social and pecuniary position of 

 the parents and the caprice or necessity of the teacher. At 

 Sparta, on the other hand, the aim was not the cultivation of 

 the intellect, but of the physical courage and the moral character 

 of a citizen soldier. Here was established the public boarding 

 school, supported by the State, with prefects or monitors, 

 housemasters, and a headmaster who was attended by a body of 

 floggers. In this Spartan system the mind was neglected in 

 favour of the body and of a modicum of specially selected moral 

 quahties, among which the qualities of responsibility and honesty 

 found no place. Here, in these two city vStates of antiquity 

 we see contrasted the germs of two groups of features which, 

 in our own system, are reproduced no longer in isolation or in 

 antagonism, but in harmonious combination. 



But not to pursue f urther this fascinating theme, which would 

 take us too far afield, let us ask what, in England, is a public 

 school. Strictly speaking, of course, it is not a public school at 

 all, but just the opposite. It is an institution controlled not 

 by any public authority but by a body of trustees or governors 

 privately appointed under its particular deed or charter or other 

 instrument. Hence in America its counterpart — Grotton, or 

 St. Paul's— is more properly called a private school ; the public 

 school is the State school. Historically, fiowever, the public 

 school in England took its title, in days before the establishment 

 of national education by law, from its distinction from the old 

 local or grammar school, A public school drew its clientele 

 from any part of the country far or near, and it took resident 

 pupils either as scholars on its foundation or as commoners 

 boarding under supervision authorised by itself. It served the 

 locality, but was not merely a local school ; it served the public 

 at large, but was not limited by any public control. The system 

 has grown apace in the course of five centuries, and particularly 

 in the nineteenth century ancient foundations have been con- 

 firmed and enlarged, old local or grammar schools have been 

 extended, refounded, re-endowed, new foundations have been 

 established by royal benefactors, by the generosity of individuals 

 and guilds, by the enterprise of masters and the public spirit of 

 friends, until in 1920 on the roll of the Headmasters' Conference, 

 which in a sense represents the public schools to-day, there stand 

 the names of no less than 125 schools. 



In these schools there are being educated some 43,000 boys. 

 In the face of these figures, is that really a tenable view which 



