CONCLUSION.

Two impressions are very clearly left on the writer's mind from a study of the returns that have been furnished to him. The first is the great willingness of preparatory school headmasters to adopt any change of the benefit of which they have been convinced. They are by no means blind to the faults that exist, and are indeed the first critics of the weak points in their own system. The chief point on which this is perhaps not quite true is in the matter of short periods of work and frequent intervals of play in the open air. But even in that connection it is only fair to say that the importance of this matter has only begun to be fully realised in quite recent years, and there are distinct signs that within a short period the reformed system will become universal. The second impression is the general regret that is expressed or implied by almost all headmasters at the enforced neglect of English subjects. The wish is not to abandon classics and mathematics as the principal medium of education, but rather to level up and to level down. We all acknowledge the many benefits that come from a sound training in the classics, but we think that at present their importance is exaggerated, and we would like to use time taken from these subjects, say three or four hours a week, to give a proper grounding in geography, embracing elementary science, and the literature and language of our own country. To the uninitiated it would appear that if they felt this nothing would be easier than for headmasters to make the change. This, however, is not the case. Preparatory schools are not solely educational establishments, they are also business concerns. Headmasters depend for their means of living on the profits of their schools. To make them pay they must please their parents, and parents will not be pleased unless their boys take satisfactory places at the public schools. If the headmaster's clientèle is among the class that desires scholarships for their boys, then that school must win scholarships or cease to exist. In any case, a school that fails to get its boys into fairly high forms on entering the public schools will, even with the highest athletic traditions and the greatest social prestige, stand at a serious disadvantage in the very keen competition that exists. To get scholarships at the public schools and to gain a high place on entrance there, a knowledge of classics and mathematics is indispensable. Practically boys are placed by the authorities of the public schools on those two subjects alone. Some public schools do give some weight to other subjects but it is not much. Practically, classics and mathematics are the only things that count. So long as this state of affairs continues there will be no considerable reform. It is evident that the hours devoted to study by preparatory schools are already quite as long as is consistent with the health and wellbeing of the boys-in some cases the hours are already

excessive.

The only way in which the desired reform can be introduced is by lowering the standard in classics and mathematics. No doubt the public schools are in much the same difficulty as preparatory schools. Their curricula and time-tables must be based on the requirements of the Universities just as ours are on theirs. If the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge gave weight in scholarship and matriculation examinations to English and French, the change would immediately make itself felt, working downwards from the public to the preparatory schools. Till that is done there can be no important change, and in the meantime one can only say that, given the circumstances that at present exist, preparatory school time-tables are at least as satisfactory as we have any right to expect them to be.

H. FRAMPTON STALLARD.

THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL CURRICULUM.

The Preparatory School curriculum, in all its main features, is the direct outcome of the Entrance Scholarship system at the Public Schools. It is true, of course, that only a very small percentage of boys obtains Scholarships, and that for the rank and file the way into a Public School must lie through the ordinary entrance examination. But between the two examina tions there is only a difference of degree. The standard in the scholarship examination is much higher, but the subjects in both are practically the same-Latin, Greek, French, Mathematics, with possibly (but by no means necessarily) questions in History, Geography, and Divinity. Accordingly, all boys in the Preparatory Schools are passed through the same kind of training If they can reach the scholarship standard, well and good; a few-perhaps 8 per cent, on a liberal estimate-secure election; the rest get as near to the standard as they can, since the form in which they are to start at the Public School will depend on their knowledge of Latin and Greek as shown in the entrance examination. The scholarship examination therefore includes that for entrance, as the greater includes the less, and its requirements are of decisive importance in shaping the work of the Preparatory School, for dull and for clever boys alike.

It is necessary to draw attention to this point at the outset, in order that it may be clearly understood how small is the power of initiative that lies with the Preparatory Schoolmaster himself in shaping his curriculum. His function is to prepare boys for the Public Schools; and admission to these is dependent on certain definite conditions. There is a very general feeling among Preparatory Schoolmasters that, in the light of modern knowledge and modern experience, those conditions are in important respects unwise; but they are powerless of themselves to alter them. Public opinion, meanwhile, as represented by the average parent, finds a ready test of efficiency in the scholarships a school is able to win. Nor is it surprising that parents should desire scholarships for their sons. They are intrinsically valuable, and to many people money is a serious consideration. But it is not only the poor or the mercenary parent that is attracted by them. Success in a public competition of this kind is gratifying evidence of a boy's ability. For intellectual fathers and mothers, moreover, there is a peculiar attractiveness in the system which obtains at Eton and Winchester, of keeping the scholars together in a community of their own, where the intellect of the school is focussed, and interest in intellectual things is therefore likely to

*I must be understood to refer here and in what follows to the Classical side of Public Schools, in which the great majority of boys are trained. Some important schools have no properly organised Modern side; some

be keener. But even if there is no "college" for boys on the foundation, a scholarship is still worth having, for it ensures a good start at the Public School and the special attention of the masters no slight advantages in a crowded world of 500 or 600 boys. For many reasons, therefore, scholarships are coveted. I need not here enter on the vexed question whether the system by which they are awarded is morally justifiable. But their influence on the Preparatory Schools is beyond dispute. Scholarships in all but a very few schools are now thrown open to general competition. If success is to be achieved, a narrow definite path must be followed. Thus, if from time to time complaints are heard from parents who are interested in educational reform and who recognise the shortcomings of the Preparatory curriculum as it stands, they count for little in the general acquiescence or indifference.

If we turn to the requirements of the Public Schools, we find that at most of them the boy who secures election is one who shows exceptional ability in one particular subject. In the great majority of cases this subject is Classics. Sometimes it is Mathematics, or (rarely) Modern Languages. It is true that the examination usually includes a paper (the so-called "General Paper") of questions on History, Geography, and Divinity. But English subjects exercise little or no influence on the final award. What the Public Schools (with the rarest possible exceptions want is the specialised boy. This is frankly acknowledged by those who justify the present system. At the Headmasters' Conference in December, 1897, Dr. James (Rugby) said :—

The predominant reason for giving scholarships at Public Schools was the fact that they did wish to attract able boys to the schools. But then, again, there were two reasons for the wish, the first being that they naturally all of them wished to have interesting pupils to teach and pupils who would respond to the efforts of the teacher; and in the second place, there was the narrower reason, that headmasters wanted them to win scholarships at the University for their schools, and it was just there that specialising came in. The University did not recognise all-round equipment, neither did the colleges, and therefore, if schools were to succeed in the University examinations and that surely, it would be taken for granted, was an honest ambition-it was clear they could not be content simply to send their all-round boys, but must send boys who would do specially well in certain particular subjects. He could not think

that specialisation even at the very earliest age was altogether in itself a bad thing.

*

The

It would be easier to defend this point of view if all or even a large majority of Public School boys proceeded eventually to the Universities. The fact is that comparatively few do so. vast majority on leaving school go straight into one of the professions or into business. Either therefore Dr. James and those who think with him really believe a strict training in Classics to be the best education for all boys, the best means of developing faculty, so important that it cannot well be begun too early, or they are ready to subordinate the needs of the great majority to those of the clever few who are to win honours at the Universities for the schools that have educated them. It is,

* Report of the Conference of Headmasters, 1897, pp. 29, 31.

on the other hand, the growing conviction of many Preparatory Schoolmasters that to insist upon the teaching of both Latin and Greek in the Preparatory stage and to encourage early specialisation by scholarships, is to do an injury, in greater or less degree, to all young boys, and practically to sacrifice those who have small linguistic ability. But before discussing possible improvements in the curriculum, let us see what it actually includes. What is the curriculum best adapted to secure the twofold object set before the Preparatory School, viz., either to win scholarships by developing its boys along special lines, or to get them far enough on in classics to secure for them a good start at the Public School?

Briefly it will be found that, as soon as a boy comes to school, which we may take to be at nine years old, he begins (if he has not already begun) to learn Latin; at the same time he has lessons. in French, and spends a good many hours a week over English (spelling, dictation, parts of speech and analysis of the simple sentence). That is, he at once begins drill in the rudiments of three languages. Arithmetic, English History, Geography, Religious Knowledge, possibly Drawing or Object Lessons, complete his work in school. As soon as he has got through the two lowest forms,* which means for the clever boy before his tenth birthday, a fourth language is added-Greek. This involves a reduction in the hours devoted to English-always the first subject to suffer if time is required for anything else. Geometry and Algebra are also begun, Arithmetic being cut down to meet the need. Now also a beginning is made with Latin Verses. At the age of twelve (if he is to get a scholarship at all), a boy finds himself in the highest form, and devotes an increasing number of hours to Classics. There is no need to describe here the kind of papers he will have to face in the scholarship examination. But to anyone who studies those set at Harrow or Eton, Winchester or Rugby, it will be clear that a very considerable knowledge of Latin and Greek is required for success, and that without specialisation it would be impossible for a boy under fourteen to cover the ground. For the last two years of his Preparatory School training, therefore, the lion's share of the time table falls to Latin and Greek. About twelve hours a week, together with five-sixths of the evening preparation, may be taken as a not unusual total of hours allotted to these.

One

* Some schools postpone Greek till a boy has got through the three lowest forms, but this is exceptional. On the other hand, in some schools Greek is begun in the form next above the lowest. The reader may be reminded that I am speaking here of Preparatory Schools of moderate size (40-60 boys), with five or six forms. For large schools, with ten or twelve forms, this account would require some alteration; but there are not many such.

+ See Mr. Lynam's art. on "Examinations for Entrance Scholarships at the Public Schools," in this vol., p. 107, where the papers are given in full.

Here and there a school may specialise its boys in Mathematics, but the case is (happily) so rare that it may be left out of any general view of