in which Legislatures and the Courts are held has unquestionably declined. Such warnings will not be lost on English teachers and educational authorities; it is easier to relax the reins of discipline than it is to tighten them.

The true guiding principle is not difficult to discover or formulate; it, too, can be stated in terms of Pestalozzi, for it takes account first and foremost of what is best for the child. It aims through restraint at constraint; through restraint of evil it seeks the constraint of good. It starts from the categorical "Thou shalt not," enforced if necessary from without; it has always in view the categorical "Thou shalt," enforced by inward love of the good and instinctive habitual preference of the higher over the lower. It, too, believes in freedom, but a freedom which consists not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one ought. It believes in interest, but it cannot make a fetish of interest, nor does it desire to substitute an education of interest for an education of effort. "Interest," as Professor Armstrong says, "cannot always be maintained at bursting point: in school, as in the world, uninteresting work must be done sometimes, and in point of fact it is most important to acquire the art of doing uninteresting work in a serious and determined way." There is drudgery in every life that is worth living, and blessed is he who has learned not to shirk it. In fact, a closer inspection discloses a fundamental flaw in the logic of the gospel of interest. "Make work pleasurable," say its advocates, "and faults will not occur, punishments will not be necessary." But they forget that to secure this result one has not only to make work pleasurable, but to make it more pleasurable than anything else. It is not hard to make work interesting, but to make Latin more interesting than cricket is not easy when handling English schoolboys full of animal spirits. Many a

boy will be interested in Plato, but it is only a Lady Jane Grey that will prefer Plato to hunting. Amicus Plato, amicior ludus.

Restraint, therefore, is necessary, but its whole object is to make itself by degrees unnecessary. Discipline which starts with being a negative thing, a prohibition, must from the first have also its positive side; and the positive side must increase, the negative decrease. Cruelty to animals, for instance, can be checked by penalties, but kindness to animals can best be taught by keeping pets. It is on the positive side of discipline, the discipline of games, of sixth form responsibility, and all the different activities of corporate life that English Public Schools are strongest, and the new Municipal Secondary Schools have most to learn. It is the out-of-class activities which provide the best field for positive discipline, because in them a boy finds the best scope for self-direction; in them he learns an enthusiasm for an object which is not personal, and for an honour which redounds to the good name of the school rather than any single individual. He learns also that this honour must be won according to law; if not so won, it is rooted in dishonour, and worthy of all scorn.

Though this positive form of discipline lies outside the classroom, it does not lie outside the province of the teacher. True he is here no longer in command of his pupils, but though not over them, he can be with them; though no longer an instructor, he is all the more a teacher because he is educating through the most powerful of media, namely, companionship. This is the Greek method of moral training for the young, not a syllabus, not preachment, but "being with them "; it is the secret of Herbart's Führung,and Carlyle rediscovered it when he said, "Soul grows in contact with soul." The teacher who has earned the sympathy of his pupils

by participation in their common pleasures and their common life, who has found how to lay his soul alongside theirs, will not find it hard to minimise and gradually eliminate from his classroom the penal element of forcible restraint. He will constrain, which is better, and so fulfil the requirement of Xenophon's ideal king, who governs by consent.

XVI.

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT.

BY AN EX-HEADMASTER.

BEFORE discussion of the religious element in public school life, it is necessary to set forth some of the circumstances which affect its character and force. There are public schools connected with the Roman Catholic Church, and with some Nonconformist bodies, in which the pupils, with few exceptions, come from families closely connected with their special "denomination," while the masters are usually chosen from among its members. In such schools the problem of religious education is comparatively simple.

But in the large majority of English public schools the boys have been severally subject to home influences of diverse kinds. It is true that from various causes most of the ancient schools, and many of a more modern origin, are more or less formally connected with the Church of England; and in boarding schools provision is usually made for teaching and worship in accordance with its principles, subject to a conscience clause. But comprehensiveness, always a leading principle of the Church of England, has become much more liberal in recent times. Moreover, revolutions in religious thought have so far unsettled the faith of many fathers and mothers that they are far less inclined than in former generations to attend personally to the religious teaching of their

children, and it is a common observation of preparatory schoolmasters that young lads come to them increasingly ignorant of the rudiments of Bible knowledge and of the Christian faith.

Many of such parents value the training of a public school for reasons which have little relation to its religious traditions and influences.

Yet they seldom care to avail themselves of the conscience clause, except in respect of Confirmation. The result is that in the school chapel, and in Bible classes, may be found sons of Nonconformists and Jews, and of others who, without proclaiming lack of orthodoxy, combine with a nominal adherence to the National Church a languid interest in its doctrinal teaching. They desire for their boys sound moral training, and that stamp of character which is frequently produced by the discipline and social life. of a public school; and they are willing to believe that the "religious element" contributes to form such a character.

Again, the masters have been subject not only to such circumstances as affect the Christian belief and practice of many parents, but also to the atmosphere of University life and thought.

In making appointments most head masters do what is possible to secure men who make a definite profession of Christian faith and Church membership, at least for such posts as involve the duty of religious teaching. But the supply of well qualified lay masters, still more of men in Holy Orders, has of late years fallen much below the demand, and the difficulty of selecting "faithful laymen" has greatly increased.

Nevertheless, in spite of all these difficulties, those who know most of the inner life of the public schools can confidently assert that the religious influences working in them have never been more active or effective.