Ar the termination of the great European war, in which our country played so conspicuous a part, those energies which had been long and largely absorbed in the struggle were liberated for questions and efforts of social polity. Slowly at first, but steadily, the minds of men were turned upon the education of the people. The names of Bell and of Lancaster are stamped upon this period: nor were the humbler classes of the community at first the objects chiefly contemplated. The educational appliances existing, or needing to be called into existence, for the classes above them, became objects of warm discussion. There is perhaps no period during which the higher grade of endowed grammar-schools was more flourishing than this to which we are referring. Not only the professional men in the towns, but a considerable proportion of country gentlemen, sent their sons to be educated at the leading grammar-schools in their own or in an adjacent county. The facilities for reaching schools remote from home were then much less, and the expenses much greater, than in the present day. The large public schools were possibly far distant from the intending scholar's home, were certainly costly, and the numbers accommodated in them were smaller in proportion to the population of the country than at present. Proprietary schools were unknown. Private schools and private tuition prevailed to some extent; and some small portion of the youth of the country were sent to the Continent for their education. In the grammar-schools the education was generally free, either to all the children of a town or surrounding district, or to a certain

VOL. CX.-NO. DCLXIX.

assigned number of them. For the most part the education provided by the endowment for the free scholars did not include other subjects than the classics; and a small fee was charged for English, writing, and arithmetic. Where the number of foundation boys was not limited by the charter, this served as a check upon the admission to the school, which might otherwise have been inundated by scholars from the class which now fills our primary schools. But even this check did not prevent the influx of many boys whose parents would have preferred that they should receive an exclusively commercial education, as it is called, and who submitted to the Latin only because the endowed education came to them at a lower charge than that of the private commercial academy. Thus there gradually arose that feeling against the classics as the great instrument of education which has been developing ever since, which has reached such a pitch in our own time, and which it is to be hoped has now culminated, in its turn soon again to decline. Where was the use, it was asked, except for the learned professions, or indeed in all cases even for these, to spend so many years in the acquisition of a dead language? Far better to utilise those precious years in gathering stores of information bearing upon the future vocation in life by which bread was to be earned. School, in fact, according to these views, was to be regarded as the beginning of an apprenticeship.

Within half-a-dozen years after the peace we find Vicesimus Knox protesting against those tendencies to which the writings of Locke

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more especially had given so much countenance, and denouncing clauses of a bill then before Parliament as calculated to degrade grammarschools. "If this degradation of grammar-schools," he asks, "should unfortunately take place, may not the country become, as the French conqueror called it, a nation of shopkeepers?" The same points have been constantly in dispute ever since; but the arena on which the struggle has been carried on between the champions of the old institutions and their antagonists has been gradually shifting. Regarded from the point which it has now reached, the demands of Dr Knox, and his fervour in their behalf, must wear the appearance of grotesque simplicity. He is so led away by his jealousy for the classics, that he hardly distinguishes with sufficient clearness between the substitution of other subjects of instruction for the ancient ones and their annexation, and so does scant justice to those who would espouse only the latter. The true question was, whether the subjects sought to be introduced were largely and increasingly to supersede the old staple of grammar-school education, or to be carried on as a preparation for it, side by side with it, and in subordination to it. There can be no doubt that at the period to which we are referring the claims put forth for the classics were too exclusive, and that the education given in grammar-schools was as much deteriorated by the practical assertion of those claims as it is now in danger of suffering from the opposite. This entire monopoly of the scholar's time by Latin and Greek, and the utter ignorance of many essential matters in which he frequently left school at the age of sixteen or seventeen, gave an impulse to the establishment of the proprietary schools. Some of the earlier of these split upon a rock which

has made shipwreck of many a fair venture in education. The constant and indiscreet meddling of Committees of Management paralysed the efforts of the master, and rendered the position intolerable to a man who was really fitted for it. Some, too, sank beneath the weight of a heavy building debt; and in more than one of the larger towns, schools of this class, which commenced apparently under the fairest auspices, and with an ample attendance of pupils, after not many years became altogether extinct, or dwindled into insignificance. Others, however, survived their trials, and are still flourishing, to the great benefit of their respective localities. The enterprise which had been shown in the towns, where the schools established were chiefly for day-scholars, soon received a further development in the rearing of schools in places of no great population, not for the benefit of the locality, but for the reception of boarders.

To the growth and accessibility of these schools is to be attributed the decline of many of the old grammar-schools, which half a century ago could boast a considerable number of boarders in addition to the sons of parents resident within the endowed areas. Notwithstanding the course of instruction had in a large number of the foundations been modified and extended by schemes of the Court of Chancery, the proprietary schools had still a clear preponderance of attraction, in that they offered on much the same terms a course of instruction not inferior, with a school society certainly much superior. Only under specially favourable circumstances has the prosperity of half a century back been continued to the old foundations. Some of them have benefited by the circumstance of their position in the middle of only a small population being attractive to board

ers; others have numerous and valuable exhibitions to offer; in some instances a master of more than ordinary popularity may have operated to fill the school. But, as a general rule, the endowed schools have languished, and by no means command the proportion of elder scholars preparing for the university which they formerly did. Meanwhile they have been controlled by masters not less able than of old, but fully competent to convey instruction of the highest class. Indeed, to give such instruction has seldom ceased to be a part of their duty; but it has had to be given only to units where it was formerly given to tens. The head-forms of the schools have been reduced to very few boys, who must not the less be taught separately, and on these the master must expend an amount of time and labour which would suffice to teach classes many times more numerous, and would teach them better, backed by the stimulus of numbers. master's time is badly economised, and there prevails throughout these schools a great waste of power, and the good effected is utterly disproportionate to the means employed. But there is another element of weakness and difficulty pervading most of the grammar-schools. Within the walls of the same school, whose numbers will often not exceed 50 or 60, are to be found boys ranging from seven or eight to seventeen or eighteen years of age: the standard of admission is ordinarily very low, and the course of instruction extends to preparation for the university. Now a school of this kind will need, for really satisfactory working, to be divided into as many classes as one of 150 or 200 scholars. thus the number of masters, though large in proportion to the number of boys, is small in proportion to the number of classes. These drawbacks and difficulties, known practically to

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many a schoolmaster, were brought prominently under the notice of the House of Commons in 1864, on a motion for statistical returns embodying the influential facts with respect to each school. The granting of these returns was shortly afterwards followed by the appointment of the Schools Enquiry Commissioners, who made their admirable and exhaustive report to her Majesty in 1868. the following year the Endowed Schools Act was promptly passed, under the auspices of the Vice-President of the Council, authorising the appointment of commissioners, with powers extending to the 31st December 1872, to recast schemes for endowed schools in the spirit of the recommendations of the Enquiry Commission. To some of these we propose to invite attention.

Prior to the appointment of the Schools Enquiry Commission, at the time when the previous returns were moved for in Parliament in the same year, a remedy was suggested which might alleviate the difficulties and loss of power in the working of those schools which were exerting themselves to make the best of their position, and to do some real service to education; and this remedy, it must be observed, kept scrupulously in view not only the thorough utilisation of the endowments scattered throughout the country, but the preserving to each of the endowed areas its due share in them, or at least its priority of claim. It set out by dividing schools into upper, middle, and lower, according to the course of instruction given in each, which would again itself depend upon the age at which the boys left school. The Commissioners have in their report adopted a similar division. They say :-" Education, as distinct from direct preparation for employment, can at present be classified as that which is to stop

at about fourteen, that which is to stop at about sixteen, and that which is to continue till eighteen or nineteen; and for convenience we shall call these the third, the second, and the first grade of education respectively. . . . It is obvious that these distinctions correspond roughly, but by no means exactly, to the gradations of society."-Report, i. 15, 16.

The "suggestion of a remedy" went on to remark that those very facilities for travelling which have done so much to depress the grammar-schools, may be invoked in turn to do them good service, since the following proposal without cheap travelling would be less practicable. In order to secure a more beneficial application of the endowments-to make, in fact, a certain amount of revenue turn out a far larger number of highly educated scholars than heretofore the country was to be divided into suitable districts, and the endowed schools in each district were to be required to combine for the maintenance of at least one upper or first-grade district school. To this the high scholars from the several schools in the district were to be sent; and thus those who, in groups of two or three, would be otherwise occupying most of the time of a number of head-masters, would come to be taught, and with much more advantage, by only one. Boys from the endowed areas were to be received into this upper school as boarders on the lowest possible terms. Some additional outlay would, it is true, be entailed upon the parent of a boy who would otherwise have been a day-scholar in his own town; but this increase should be confined to establishment and travelling expenses-the food costing the same in both casesand would be richly compensated by the additional advantages. Boys from endowed areas should always

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have a prior claim to be received pro rata; but accommodation would be provided also for other scholars, who would pay higher terms. like manner, the Hostel principle, in which the boarding-house is undertaken not by the master but by the governors, was to be adopted, by arrangement between the several endowed areas, whenever the transfer of boys from the parents' roof to a school of a different grade from that maintained in their native place became necessary for the economical and efficient working of the schools throughout the district. Now, the Commissioners, insisting strongly on the gradation of schools-in which we are perfectly in accord with them utter only an uncertain sound as to how the loss which individual parents must sustain, by the alteration of the character of education given in the local schools, is to be made good to them. Residents round about that school could formerly obtain for their sons at small outlay the advantage of preparation for the university, or for any of the higher competitive examinations. The grade of the school is lowered, and these advantages are no longer to be had close at hand, and for charges adapted to a small income. They must be sought at an expensive boarding-school, unless measures are taken, by applying the principle of contribution on the part of various foundations of the district, to furnish education of the highest grade in connection with board at cost price. It would not be necessary for this purpose to establish that which, according to the Commissioners' views, would be a firstgrade school in its entirety. It would suffice to provide accommodation and instruction for only the advanced scholars, who at present in twos and threes occupy so large a share of each head-master's time. This will only be carrying into effect

the caution of the Enquiry Commissioners in respect to remodelling the foundations. They say (Report, i. 572) and we heartily agree with them"It is highly expedient, no doubt, in revising these foundations, to avoid all needless interference with the wills of the dead. But it is carrying this caution to an absurd length, if we insist upon details which are doing mischief instead of good, and which are even thwarting the main designs of the founders themselves." We find also the following just remarks as to founders' intentions generally (Report, i. 167):-"The education of the masses could hardly have been thought of with serfdom yet unabolished;" and "the problem of those days was not universal education, but universal opportunity of education." Both poor and rich are often specifically mentioned; the poor, the Report says, "rather in a way that indicates the desire to keep the door open for their reception, than the expectation that they would form the majority of scholars" (i. 121). These remarks apply to founders in general; and a perusal of charters and deeds of trust will, on the whole, warrant the conclusion that neither the very poor nor the very rich were uppermost in the minds of the benefactors, but rather persons of limited means, to whom the sound education of their children was at once an object of desire and a difficulty. However this may be, there now comes a point at which founders' intentions have evidently diverged. While with many the sole motive was to elevate and spread education, others were undoubtedly influenced by predilection for particular places, or for particular circumstances. A spot endeared by cherished associations, fellow-creatures commended to sympathy by their helplessness, or by the sudden stroke of

adversity in the midst of affluence, were often chosen as the objects of the founder's bounty; and this, though stated as a result of the evidence, seems insufficiently applied in the Report. But if founders' intentions are to be respected, and not tampered with by sophistical arguments to serve the purpose of some favourite theory, how can too great account be taken of these diversities, or how can they be dealt with too tenderly? Even where the founder's affection for a particular locality, as in the case of the Royal Foundations, cannot be made out, still the withdrawal of privileges enjoyed by a town for many generations, and that strictly in accordance with the founder's prescription, may justly be regarded as a hardship. While private interests and feelings should be ready to bend to the general good, they ought not to be arbitrarily or needlessly disregarded, still less to be sacrificed to favourite theories. In dealing with old institutions, the consideration ought not to be simply, how far a given amount of revenues might be made to go by pouring them into a common fund, and again dealing them out. Respect is to be paid to what exists, and not only to the maximum effect which it might be possible to obtain, if everything had to begin again de novo. Thus to deal with old foundations is to introduce the thin end of the principle of the Commune, which would have not only every plot of land, but every citizen, farmed by the State for the good of the State. Each is to have his special pigeon-hole, which is not to be the object of his own free choice, but that to which some collective wisdom remits each, in order to secure for the entire community the greatest aggregate benefit. "We get all we can for our money," said an honourable member lately: true, when we are spending our own