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Church, without ever allowing himself or those whom he has influenced to become partisans in or for either.

The claims of Latin, of Language, and of Poetry, have been vindicated, those of Mathematics and Physical Science have been not grudgingly recognised, while their exclusive and overbearing influence has been restrained. Drawing was systematically taught at St. Mark's College by a devoted teacher, Mr. Rawlins, before the department at Marlborough House existed.* What Hullah has done for Music, not only in training schools, but also among the middle classes, it is needless for me to say.

The somewhat different methods of teaching adopted at Battersea; at Chester, where the training school includes an engineer's workshop; at York, where a yeoman school is attached to the training school; at Cheltenham and other colleges, where differences of another kind prevail — not to mention female training schools,-only prove how thoroughly the trainingcollege system has justified itself to the apprehension of men of various minds; and how ripe we are for the extension of an analogous education to other classes.

What then are the lessons to be learned from the failure of efforts to establish middle schools, efforts in which many have been engaged, as they know to their cost?

The first and principal fact established is the strong love of independence, and dread of interference which is so common in the families of the middle ranks.

The next is the absence of and necessity for a recognised standard of Middle-Class Education; on this so much has been said of late in various letters,† of which some are republished in this volume, that a bare allusion is sufficient.

A third point learnt is the mischief of confounding apprenticeship with education; that is, of establishing colleges or schools to teach particular trades or arts to boys by model workshops or model farms conducted within the precincts of the teaching

*The late Mr. Butler Williams was probably the first to teach drawing in classes on a great scale in this country; it should, also, be remembered that Mr. Dyce had been at work in the School of Design at Somerset House; and those who are familiar with the earlier efforts to improve Sacred Music know that Drawing was not the only art in which he did good service.

† See especially Letter of Mr. Templeton, a schoolmaster, below, p. 89. ‡ See this point fully treated by the Rev. F. Temple, below, p. 49.

department. The very parents of sons destined to be farmers, engineers, or medical men, who most value education, are most forcibly alive to the fact that professional knowledge can only be acquired by what is called "seeing practice;" and that the only practice from which habits of business can be learned, must be practice carried on for its own sake as a real business, and not improvised for mere illustration in the class-room.

Therefore the proper work of the school is education; and the only useful education is that which prepares the pupil to learn and to act for himself.

The practical conclusion, then, at which we arrive is this-that the hope of the Middle Class for their children lies in providing a common test of merit open to all comers, whether from public colleges, from private schools, or from the retirement of their own chamber; and therefore that the responsibility of judging whether this standard has been attained must be vested in competent and impartial hands.

It is evident that, in the absence of some public test, the parents, a body of men habitually engaged in manufacturing, buying, and selling, are not, as a class, good judges of the merit or demerit* of the education. they pay for, till (too late) they judge by the result in after life: they require professional help.

Neither are the private schoolmasters as a body in a favourable position for doing justice to themselves or each other. The attempt has been made by the College of Preceptors, but it has failed to secure the confidence even of the class whose interests it is supposed to represent.

Some have suggested a Royal Commission composed of leading manufacturers, engineers, and men of science: to this plan there are grave objections. Many of the most eminent persons in these departments are self-taught, men of strong natural genius and practical originality. Such a body of men, even if they could possibly find a principle of hearty cohesion which would satisfy the conditions requisite for mutual co-operation and for

* While these pages are passing through the press, I read the following forcible expressions in the letter of an experienced observer, himself in trade:-"This has always appeared to me the real bite of the educational question—popular shabbiness of estimate combined with popular inability to appreciate. Those who buy bread, or meat, or clothes for their boys have some tolerable judgment of the article; but, in buying instruction for them, they buy in the dark; and the most conscientious teacher has no chance against the most ignorant quack."

QUALIFICATIONS OF UNIVERSITIES FOR EXAMINING SCHOOLS. 9

the confidence of a religious people, would hardly be able to administer discriminating justice to the professional labour of the schoolmaster, or to stand against a plausible demand for disproportionate attention to particular branches of knowledge.

We thus come to the Universities.

QUALIFICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITIES FOR EXAMINING
SCHOOLS.

It is needless to prove here the claims which the Universities possess to public confidence, for that confidence has been shown as a fact by the memorials which crowded the tables of their Councils before the last Long Vacation, calling on the Universities to fulfil their mission as general examining boards, no less than as educating societies. But it will not be irrelevant to state some grounds for the belief that the Universities have not hastily responded to the call, nor undertaken a task to which they are unequal.

Some of these grounds were so admirably stated by Mr.Temple, Mr. Bowstead, and Professor Max Müller,* at Exeter on the 18th June, the day on which Oxford passed the Statute which created the title of Associate in Arts, that I need only refer to their speeches.

The traditional method of study-study as distinguished from listening to lectures—the impartiality of examinations, and the experience in setting questions and judging of answers; the wellregulated habits of emulation; the modest pretension in announcing subjects of study, the strict requirement of quality in the result; the social and harmonious action of many for the honour of a great institution; the tender care for the dull and the diligent, as well as the correctives applied to desultory brilliancy: all these have long been known, and, as long as they last, will secure to the Universities the confidence of the country.

But there are one or two circumstances which conspire at the present moment to qualify the Universities in an especial manner for the new work to which they are invited.

First, as regards the foundation of all education-Religion. Their exclusiveness is taken away by Act of Parliament; but a definite faith and pure worship still remain integral parts of

* See their speeches below, p. 197 et seq.

10 QUALIFICATIONS OF UNIVERSITIES FOR EXAMINING SCHOOLS.

their system and habits; Oxford therefore and Cambridge can do without offence what it would be very difficult for any new institutions even to attempt-examine young men (whose friends do not object) in their understanding of the truths of revealed religion, and of the forms of public worship, without raising any new questions of principle or compromising any doctrine.

Secondly, as regards secular knowledge. Oxford in particular is in a favourable position for combining much freedom with much exactness. In former times an exclusive attachment to a limited range of subjects might have contracted the sphere of examination. But so much has been done in Oxford of late for the study of the natural sciences, that, while among her principal officers she numbers men of European celebrity as linguistic scholars, she may fearlessly challenge the world to charge her with narrowness or repugnance towards any branch of human learning which can be said with truth to have an educating tendency.

Thirdly, in a department of which I have spoken already,* and shall have to speak again presently-that of the Arts-Oxford has great advantages, not only in her ancient buildings and libraries, but in collections of more recent date, and in the strong interest felt in the subject by some, not the least active of her sons, who believe that she is capable of rendering great service to the world if only some living instruction be provided in order to make the value of her treasures known to the rising generation of future artists and patrons of art.

The last advantage to be noticed is the experience which many of her members possess of the official work of public Education going on in the various parts of the country. For the Universities consist of members non-resident as well as resident, and such a work as that now under consideration can manifestly be carried out only by the co-operation of many minds in a common spirit. The number of former Fellows of certain great Colleges in either University who are connected with the public service affords at once a pledge for the ability and common feeling which pervades those illustrious societies. If we add to these the distinguished scholars who occupy important posts in our great towns and elsewhere as masters of grammar-schools, and the number of University men connected with the administration of justice and public institutions in rural districts, it will be seen

* In the Introduction to the Exeter Papers, reprinted in the Appendix, p. 102.

at once how powerful an engine for good exists ready to hand, and how strong is the security that no private crotchets or personal interests will be allowed to disturb the action of a great body of men for the mental cultivation of a free people.

EXPERIENCE GAINED BY THE WEST OF ENGLAND
EXAMINATION.

We are not entering on wholly untried ground. The experiment, large as it is, has been tried on a sufficiently extensive scale. Prizes to the amount of a hundred and twenty guineas were offered for competition to boys educated in the West of England with a view to employments in Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Above one hundred boys attended in June, 1857, at an examination which lasted four days. Most of the favourable circumstances which have been prospectively indicated above are facts in the retrospect of this Examination conducted at Exeter. The practical demand of the middle class—the desire for a real test of work among the schoolmasters to deliver them from slavery to ignorance and prejudice—the ready confidence placed in University men—the union among these, and the harmony between Oxford and Cambridge men, and, I must especially add, the help of Eminent Artists and Naturalised Foreigners the proof afforded by the results of the examination, that not smatterings of science, but language first, then a knowledge of numbers, and of form, whether in geometry or in drawing, were the telling parts of education-the possibility of combining a plan of Scriptural examination on the basis of the Church of England, with liberty to Dissenters-all these things were plainly proved at Exeter, and are pleasant to look back upon.

Many circumstances combined to make the West of England a convenient field for trying the experiment. The geographical position of the district is favourable to concentrated action; the variety of its population-agricultural, manufacturing, maritime, and mining-relieves it from dull uniformity. The division of estates among owners and occupiers is on such a scale as to support the independence of a large number of persons both among the gentry and yeomanry, and therefore to favour spontaneous activity in various forms.

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