VIII

"PUBLIC" SCHOOLS

Ir appears that, while Continental colleges, seminaries, gymnasiums, lyceums, were more often planted and nursed by care of Church or State, in trim, uniform patterns, well fenced, lopped and labelled on some definite plan, our English schools were apt to grow like a wild wood, sometimes standing in each other's light, thriving diversely according to accidents of soil, weather, exposure, one here and there shooting up into sunshine of favour, another spreading shrublike in the shade, perhaps dwindling or decaying among a dank undergrowth, some running to a crown of noble foliage, some to gnarled and prickly fibre, some richly fruitful, others cumbering the ground for want of due cultivation. Or the difference might be illustrated by comparing the two orders to Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral : foreign schools being more on classical or Palladian lines, the English ones rather in the Gothic style, irregularly built, sometimes incongruously patched or enlarged, often choked up with quaint monuments, queerly exhibiting stately effigies beneath burlesque gargoyles, sacrificing convenience to venerated features of antiquity:

"Rich windows that exclude the light,

And passages that lead to nothing."

To drop metaphor, our schools grew as varied in features as in fortunes. Some, under the beams of lordly patronage, through advantage of situation in

a great city, by the fertility of their endowment, or by the luck of getting a forceful master at the nick of time, have sooner or later developed into the first-raters which it is one of our idiosyncrasies to style Public Schools, par excellence, though, least of all, are they open to the public. In some instances their esprit de corps has been strengthened by connection with certain colleges, as Eton with King's at Cambridge, Winchester with New, and Merchant Taylors' with St. John's at Oxford; and in general they are closely related to our old Universities, that have cultivated the same independent varieties of character. One school is understood to foster the type of scholarship admired at Oxford, another aims rather at Cambridge standards, a difference illustrated by the story of an Oxonian's enthusiasm for the grandeurs of Eschylus, on which one trained in the opposite camp was for throwing cold water with the criticism, "too many weak cæsuras!" Not less

closely related are our public schools to a social system that gives us a mixed aristocracy of birth and talent, not seldom recruited from the lower ranks pressing now more and more to gybe the heels of the courtier.

Which are these aristocrats of our scholastic society? The great Public Schools used to be counted as nine, like the Muses, three of these perhaps inwardly cherishing a specially good conceit of themselves. When, two generations ago, the question was taken up by Parliamentary Commission and enactment, their number was officially reduced to that of the seven planets, Winchester, Eton, Westminster, Charterhouse, Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury; while St. Paul's and Merchant Taylors' were then banished to the limbo of "Endowed Schools" to be dealt with by separate legislation. But at that time, besides old Grammar-schools like Repton, York, Uppingham, Warwick, Tonbridge, Durham, Sedbergh,

Manchester, etc., that had been waxing as others waned, were brightening a whole constellation of new schools that will hardly own to any inferior rank, unless in point of age-Clifton, Cheltenham, Marlborough, Radley, Rossall, Malvern, Bradfield, King's College, Eastbourne, Brighton, Wellington, Epsom and others, only a few of them, such as Leamington and Westward Ho, finding not enough depth of earth for firm root.

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Certain of these "proprietary colleges" were specially designed for the sons of officers, clergymen, doctors, but found reason soon for taking any fish that came to their net. In Sussex, Canon Woodard set up at at Lancing, Hurstpierpoint and Ardingly three schools for training in Anglican doctrine and discipline boys of different classes at different rates, the first, second and third class scholars respectively nicknaming one another "Nobs," "Snobs" and Roughs," the last of whom got the education of a cheap Winchester at fees no higher than those of Dotheboys Hall. These schools were so successful as to be multiplied over the country. Taking like example from the Jesuit propagandists, Roman Catholics, Evangelicals, Nonconformists, Secularists, all started, more or less on public school lines, dispensaries for their special tenets, to be administered in a medium of learning with as much sweetening as could be afforded by the funds and the principles of the promoters.

More years ago than one cares to count at my time of life, I travelled with a youngster going home for the holidays from one of the fixed stars of public schooldom, which, to avoid odious comparisons, let us name Tweedledum. We got into talk about his native place, Tweedledee, my own destination also; and I asked him why he was driven to seeking scholarship among sons of Heth, when his town had a not unknown school of its own. "A Grammar-school!"

he denounced it with infinite scorn. So indeed was it styled, as had been the exclusive Tweedledum not so many generations back. Tweedledee was in fact the older of the two, and might have been the richer had it not been robbed by the reformers of its clerical institution. The Head of the despised Grammarschool was himself an ex-master from Tweedledum, and so had been the Vicar of Tweedledee, my friend and host in the place. For the moment these two dignitaries were at odds that ended in explosion. An increase of its endowment having accrued to the school, the Headmaster and his faction were for spending this windfall on new buildings, swimmingbath, gymnasiums, playing-fields, and other Sybaritic improvements to attract youth from far and near, perhaps to keep boys like my travelling companion at home. On the other hand, my friend the Vicar, a man whose name is noted in educational literature, argued that the money had been left by a local philanthropist for the benefit of his own neighbours, so that increment of funds should go rather in fulfilling his intention to give them better opportunities of education, from which practically they were now as much barred out at Tweedledee as at Tweedledum.

The result of that contention is no business of the reader's, who, if he live to my age, may perhaps see Tweedledee after all outstripping Tweedledum in the scholastic race. What he must see is that several of our Grammar-schools are treading on the heels of their proud superiors, more than one of which appears to be waxing unwholesomely fat, out of condition for anything but kicking. A doctor practising at Tweedledum analyses its blood as too much thickened by ices and chocolate-creams, so that in any long run it is bound to be blown before Tweedledee, which, as yet, is less well provided with pocketmoney or self-satisfaction. Moreover, Tweedledum's leaven of lordly patronage seems being much adul

terated by a meaner admixture that swells its bulk without improving its flavour.

As our newly rich do not always care to recall the humble origin of their fortunes, so the Tweedledums of our scholastic world are too prone to forget how they began life in circumstances like those with which they now belittle the Tweedledees, all of them mainly designed for poor men's children, such as Cranmer judged likely to be endowed with more gifts of Nature and "more apt to apply their study than is the gentleman's son.' Eton was primarily founded for twenty-five needy scholars and as many infirm old men. Charterhouse was endowed for the education of forty boys and twice as many of the broken-down "Codds among whom Colonel Newcombe ended his days so tragically. Dulwich had much the same origin as a union of a school and a hospital. The addition of paying pupils was an offshoot that by and by outgrew the original stem. At Winchester, William of Wykeham allowed the admission of ten outsiders, of whom the schoolmaster could make a profit that gave him an interest in adding to their number. And more than one of our scholastic Capuas did not at once rise above the rank of other Grammar-schools, wanting a vates sacer in a famous master, or some other accident of fortune. But for Dr. Arnold, would Rugby have been quite what it is to-day? though indeed it had more than one notable head before him. Harrow came into note as the Whig public school, in opposition to Tory nurseries; and it flourished under a succession of successful heads, broken by one who nearly let it slip back towards the position of a provincial Grammar-school, its boys attending the parish church three or four generations ago, before the original schoolroom became overshadowed by such a grove of fine buildings. Shrewsbury, one of the oldest of our schools, had gone down before being raised afresh