FROM WITHIN.

SECTION I.

CLASS-ROOM STUDIES:

I. CLASSICS

II. MATHEMATHICS.

III. HISTORY.

IV. SCIENCE.

V. MODERN LANGUAGES.

VI. ENGLISH Literature.

VII. FORM TEACHING.

VIII. TEACHING TO THINK.

I.

CLASSICS.

BY T. E. PAGE.

THE position of classical studies in the older public schools has during the last fifty years undergone a great change. At the time of the Royal Commission in 1863 that position was supreme and unchallenged. Mathematics and modern languages were at best tolerated; science was not even considered; and at Eton, although what is called an "Army class" existed, it is on record that it was "attended by only one boy." Education was, in fact, almost wholly carried on "in form," and the form-masters were invariably classical men who perhaps incidentally taught various other things, but whose chief concern was with Latin and Greek, their teaching being also, as a rule, confined to translation, grammar, and composition, such subjects as philosophy and archæology being either unknown or unregarded. The system was a narrow one, and, in the case of boys without any literary tastes, perhaps rather disciplinary than educational, but those who reached the higher forms certainly secured both mental training and also a considerable knowledge of letters, while the more able who came into living contact with the great teaching headmasters-for "organising" heads did not then exist-received an education which, allowing for its partial scope, was in its quality of the best, as any one who recalls the names of those great contemporaries, Butler, Elwin, Kennedy, Moberly, and Temple will at once understand.

Now, however, matters have already much changed, and the whole tendency or drift of events is to still larger and more far-reaching change. As the number of schools which now rank as "public schools" has much increased, so the competition between them has naturally much increased also, and it has far too often taken the form of extravagant expenditure on buildings and the like, so that a great school is now also a great establishment, the cost of maintaining which is so heavy that it can only be met by continually attracting the favour and support of comparatively wealthy parents. Financial considerations, in fact, affect public schools more than they once did, and more than, having regard to the true welfare of education, they ever ought to do. Their noble and richly-equipped buildings, their ample and well-ordered grounds please the popular eye and look well in an illustrated paper; but, though these outward things are not without their value, it is certain that they are purchased at too high a cost if their existence induces teachers to consider, not what is right, but what is profitable; not what is best, but what is most in demand.

That such a tendency exists to-day there can be no question, and should it ultimately become dominant, it will canker and kill all liberal education; but even in its incipient stage, and while it is held in check by many strong influences and instincts, it has powerfully affected classical study. That study does not and never can pay." No knowledge of Plato is worth a shilling in Threadneedle Street, and as the struggle for existence becomes keener, as some specially-trained capacity becomes continually more essential to securing a livelihood, parents continually look with more favour on such studies as seem to lead directly to practical results. That they should do so is, within certain limits, not only natural, but right. The primal obli

gation of life is that a man should earn his bread by work, and it is the business of education to fit him for that end. But it is an end which is subordinate and not final, for beyond and above the studies which help to win bread are the studies which help to make a man, which lead not to wealth, but to well-being, and it is this latter truth which parents and boys are most tempted to forget, but which schoolmasters, who are not mere hucksters or cheap-jacks of knowledge, must most carefully remember; and until some worthy substitute has been found for classical study, until it has been shown, not in theory, but in practice, that some other form of literary training can take its place without detriment to the discipline, culture, and development of the mind, they are bound to claim for it a just place in any system of higher education. And assuredly they may safely do so, for it lies at the roots of all modern intellectual life; it has, from the dawn of European history, quickened and inspirited every effort toward progress; and its efficiency as an instrument of education has been tested by the experience of centuries. No popular clamour and no calculations of the market can affect its intrinsic worth, but the pressure of hard, practical facts and the larger meaning which the discoveries of science have given to the word "knowledge" do demand that the proper position of classical study in a rational system of education should be very carefully considered. The danger of sacrificing it and the difficulty of retaining it are equally clear, while to find some means of avoiding both the difficulty and the danger is the chief problem before our public schools to-day. Unhappily, however, they make no earnest attempt to solve it. They seem, indeed, to have no definite and reasoned purpose, but to drift, as it were, aimlessly along wherever the tide carries them, and there is real risk that under the influence of panic