proved, its prestige has become enhanced; indeed it is probable that the general level of ability is now much about the same as on the classical side.

This, then, was the first fundamental change in the ancient system, and it prepared the way for subsequent changes of a similar character. It was believed at the time that the classical and modern sides would, taken together, furnish all that was required for the education of boys. But even so the ground was not wholly covered. The specialisation of pursuits which was going on in the outside world rendered it necessary to furnish in some cases an education more closely connected with later life. Efforts were again made to respond to the call from outside: the work of adaptation was begun anew, and fresh shoots grafted upon the old stock. The results have taken many forms-the establishment of a school of practical engineering, of an Army class and Rifle Corps, and special provision for scientific teaching. To meet the new requirements many fresh buildings have been erected alterations have been effected in the older boarding houses, the school chapel has been enlarged and beautified, and quite recently scientific laboratories and lecture rooms have been added. These things are, it is true, matters of detail; taken singly they may appear to possess no great importance, but they are all alike a growth of the modern spirit: they are representative and typical: they are not a concession to utilitarianism, but a multiplication of the means of

enlightenment; and serve to indicate the ways in which an old foundation keeps in touch with the times, and endeavours to maintain and enlarge its usefulness.

And so the ancient and modern learning exist side by side, without antagonism or disturbance: here, in the school curriculum, in the buildings and in the spirit of the place generally, the past and the present

have met together. Yet there is no sense of incongruity, nor any lack of coherence: there is a common spirit and a common life; the feeling of unity is not broken by the divergence of intellectual interest. The aims of a Public School are not identical with those of a technical training college. Changes in the details of the studies pursued are not intended or allowed to obscure the old ideals, or to divert attention from the higher objects of education. Methods have changed to meet changed conditions, but that is all; the purpose that inspires is an inheritance from the past, and cannot be lightly abandoned. Possibly the education now given may enable a boy to make his way more rapidly and easily in the world. But even from a purely utilitarian point of view it is unsound policy which defeats its own purpose to make early education relative to rapid money-making in business or profession boys lose too much in the process; they can never become good citizens, fitted, in Milton's words, "to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices of peace and war," unless they have, at some time or other, stood a little apart from the throng and tried to "see life steadily and see it whole."

Preserving, then, the old spirit, but allowing it free scope to work itself out under modern conditions, the school carries on the work which it has inherited. It produces a type of boy not marked by any permature learning, or any very definite acquirements; but strong and simple and manly, free from ostentation and adult follies. The fields and broad meadows where he wanders in summer days, under "skies of the old immemorial blue," produce in him a love of the country and country pursuits, and a healthy simplicity and alertness of mind. He has time to think and time to play. His training should fit him for almost any sphere of

life, but more particularly perhaps to take part in the work which Englishmen are doing beyond the seas, as civil servants or colonists or soldiers or missionaries. And wherever he goes, his mind will surely retain traces of the influences which were about him in his youth. He enters upon the harvest of bygone ages, and learns, too, the hope of the coming days. He learns to look before and after, and to know himself, the heir of a great past and the trustee of a future which may be greater still.

XXV.

ROMAN CATHOLIC PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BY THE RIGHT REV. ABBOT GASQUET, D.D.

I.

No account of secondary education in England can be complete without including at least a résumé of what is being done in this matter by the Catholics. Their public schools-some of them large and flourishing establishments-were called into existence to furnish Catholic youths with training in the principles and practices of religion, together with adequate teaching in all the usual branches of a liberal education. The building up of these places and their support without endowments of any kind has obviously entailed much work and devotion, as well as great sacrifices on the part of those who have been engaged in the task. The very existence of such establishments is in reality a monument to the principle, which, rightly or wrongly, is deeprooted in the consciences of all members of the Catholic Church, that religion must form an essential and integral part in the education of the young. It is for this that they contend as a matter of duty to-day in regard to their primary schools, and it was to secure this that originally most of the present Catholic public schools were founded in foreign countries in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. At the present time these schools naturally fall into three groups or divisions, according

as they are directed by members of the diocesan clergy, by priests of the Society of Jesus, or by the Benedictines. Although naturally there is much that is common to all the Catholic public schools, each of these groups may conveniently be spoken of separately.

In the first division- the schools directed and to a greater or less extent taught by the diocesan clergy or such a congregation of men as the Oratoriansthree establishments seem to call for special notice. These are St. Edmund's, Old Hall, near Ware; St. Cuthbert's, Ushaw, near Durham; and the school conducted by the Oratorians at Edgbaston, Birmingham. To take these in order :

At Old Hall there was a private school for Catholics belonging to Bishop James Talbot (brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury) as early as the year 1769. When the English College at Douai, in France, which had been founded by Cardinal Allen in 1568, was broken up during the French Revolution in 1793 the professors and students, on being liberated from prison, made their way to England. Profiting by the then recent relaxation of the penal laws they determined to remain and to carry on their work of education in their native country. The Douai priests and students, who belonged to the north of England, went first to Crook Hall and then in 1808 to Ushaw, in the county of Durham. Those who were from the south established themselves at St. Edmund's, Old Hall, engrafting the new upon the older foundation of Bishop Talbot. The present building was begun in 1795 on what was, for those days, a large scale, and additions have been frequently made, as needs became evident, during the past century, and indeed up to the present time. A fine Gothic collegiate chapel, designed by the elder Pugin, was opened in 1853, and is now a chief feature of the establishment. The college was at first the property