undue "straining at the collar" reach it in the regular course of work. A special master is usually set apart for this form in schools that care to undertake this higher standard; the embryo scholars thus have their fair chance of distinguishing themselves without any detriment to the rank and file. Indeed, through a school that looks on to occasional scholarships there usually runs a tone which makes for steady work; the keenness of the stronger intellects inspires and helps the weaker; there is an absence of the slipshod, inattentive, casual work which is the bane of all real efficiency; the habit of attention is gradually acquired, increasing with a child's increasing years. Masters and boys pull together, for beside the usual motives which incite boys to do their best the desire to please parents, the constant removes term by term, the class prizes, and so forth -there exists also the natural wish to imitate and perhaps to emulate.

And as to the young would-be scholars themselves? Our experience says that it is difficult to estimate too highly the immense moral and mental value of this "working with a purpose" from the beginning. It gives them, as they advance up the school, a liking for knowledge, a habit of concentration, and-more valuable still-a certain sense of responsibility which has just that steadying influence on the character that the oft-times flighty spirits of the boy" with brains of his own" seem to demand. So much is this seen to be the case by those who have opportunities of judging that not unfrequently do wealthy parents, to whom the monetary value of the scholarship is nil, make a special request that their boys may be allowed to work also with this aim and finally go in for the examinations with their companions, though of course they have no intention of accepting the prize if gained.

We come, then, to the last objection—namely,

that this early mental effort tends to exhaust a boy. This could only be brought forward by one entirely ignorant of his subject. Some failures, of course, there will be as well expect every fruit that looks goodly in its green immaturity to fulfil its promise of perfection. But facts are facts; and any one who cares to study University statistics may see for himself how many of the most valued prizes and scholarships of Oxford and Cambridge and the best places in the Final Class-lists yearly fall to the lot of those whose names have figured on the entrance scholarship list of one of our larger public schools.

There the scholarships are in most cases-of ancient endowment. How are they to be fitly awarded except by examination? All attempts to benefit "Founder's Kin by their means, or to bestow them for county qualifications—as has been sometimes tried at Oxford and Cambridge-have only ended in hopeless failure. There seems no satisfactory way of departing from the usual practice, which will probably obtain until it is altered by Parliamentary Commission. And it appears to us that they confer an immense benefit upon the present generation, fathers and sons alike, while they also have protested silently, year by year, against the vapid and indulgent teaching to be found in many preparatory schools. If those of us who to-day are moulding the characters and the intellects of the sons of the upper classes—and not only the sons of English gentlemen but of those from Greater Britain who are joining us in greater numbers every year-will bear in mind old Quintilian's advice to schoolmasters, "laudare aliqua, ferre quaedam ; mutare etiam, reddita cur id fiat ratione ; illuminare, interponendo aliquid sui," we shall never be at a loss for willing pupils, and shall also find plenty of keen scholars without cram!"

XXIX.

THE PARENT AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.

BY A HEADMASTER.

MANY of those who write glibly about the duties and opportunities of the schoolmaster omit one province of his work: they require from him that he should not only be a teacher and an organiser of the teaching of others, not only have sufficient psychological insight to be able to deal with the boy mind, alike mentally and morally, not as a constant but as a thing of infinite variety, but also that in domestic management he should be endued with qualities which would appertain more properly to a successful hotel-keeper. That is to say, he must at once be an educator and also a practical man of business. But there is one more duty which falls to his share—one which is by no means the easiest of his tasks: no schoolmaster can afford to disregard the many-sided problems which the "parent" presents. "There is one reason," said a very successful assistant master to me, "why I hesitate to stand for a head-mastership. Many years of teaching have led me to expect that boys should be irrational, but Heaven save me from the irrational parent!"

In the remarks which follow it is to be understood that the difficulties presented by parents are emphasised. It would be untrue to apply the criticisms to all parents, because it must be confessed that there are two classes who do not give the schoolmaster any

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active trouble; there is, first of all, the parent who regards school for his boys as an expense which has to be met in the same way and with the same amount of regularity and want of enthusiasm as rent and taxes; his correspondence is of the purely formal type -"Enclosed please find, &c.,” and after the first visit to the school he rarely comes again. This class gives no trouble, but at the same time no satisfaction. A second class gives no trouble, but does give satisfaction. They do not worry the teacher as to methods or details, but they take an intelligent interest in results, are quick to note suggestions as to the treatment of faults or improvement of weaknesses, and are always loyal in their attendance at school functions. To them the schoolmaster is a friend rather than someone who sends in an account at rather awkward times, when there are the urgent calls of summer holidays or Christmas festivities. "I thought my boy "--wrote such a one- was above the average in intelligence, and, if you will forgive my saying so, I was convinced that your first two reports were mistaken, though I did not say so; these holidays I have had more opportunity of being with the boy, and I am sure you are right; I see he has a gift of memory, but little else, and I am gratefel to you for correcting my impression, because it will help me very much in making plans for his future." One more quotation from a letter of the "parent sensible," may illustrate an attitude which is very uncommon. An authority on education when sending his boy to school wrote:-"You may be apprehensive of criticisms and suggestions; have no fear; I am sending my boy, not to my school, but to your school; I regard you as a fellow-expert, and as you know, when augur met augur

The sentences quoted above lead naturally to the consideration of the most common form of what may, without offence I hope, be called parental

interference. Few people venture to give advice to doctors, and none probably to lawyers, but how many hesitate to interfere with a school curriculum ? On education they are all professors, and they employ the "practical" standard as a charm wherewith to conjure. "Please arrange for my boy to drop subject A or subject B (such things as German or Greek, or even History) and do something practical in those hours," is a common request even in lower forms, as schoolmasters will testify. If the schoolmaster, instead of pointing out that in the ordinary arrangement of a school time-table, there are no lower schoolmasters left to deal in odd hours with unconsidered trifles, ventures to enquire what "practical" instruction is meant, the general answer is mathematics, although for the ordinary boy there is probably no more "unpractical" subject. "Please excuse," wrote another parent (of a boy whose exertions were mainly confined to play hours) "my boy from some subject or subjects next term; I do not believe in craming" ( sic.).

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I venture to say that there is no school which could not multiply instances of this kind. big schools with overflowing waiting lists' can afford, perhaps, to disregard this kind of nagging criticism, but the smaller schools, which have to keep an eye to numbers, cannot do so, and I am sure that much good general education in such schools is being sacrificed to suit parental fancies.

But there is even a graver accusation which may be levelled against parents as a general class. Home and school are regarded as two distinct lives, and no real attempt is made to preserve an all-important continuity. The holidays are treated as a relaxation of rules, and the schoolmaster and all his ways relegated temporarily to oblivion, or else boys are openly encouraged to relate their rule-breaking exploits, and how they "scored off" Old Poppy (to borrow a title