from Mr. Barrie). The schoolmaster's task, then, in the case of younger boys, often begins afresh with each term, and much time is wasted in the process of undoing the result of holidays. "I am sure you are wrong in calling X. self-satisfied; we never notice it at home." Quite probably so, but if there were at the home the same requirements of regularity and discipline as there are at school the same faults would be noted. Breaches of discipline by smoking (not, perhaps, in itself a mortal sin, but on many grounds to be excluded from things lawful and expedient at school) would be much more unfrequent if there were less laxity at home; the stock uncle of the short story, when he takes his nephew out for a day, generally begins by offering him a cigarette, or (if more wickedly inclined) a cigar. The truth is that parents do not stop to think; they seem to regard school life as a bondage, and, therefore, hurry to give the victim sundry compensations, and the boys are at no pains to correct the misconception. Yet, as a matter of fact, school, with its companionship, its various societies and its splendidly organised games, is much more like a pleasant club than a prison.

There are many other phases of the parental attitude to schools and schoolmasters which might without injustice come under criticism, but there is certainly one which for the protection of schoolmasters deserves to be put baldly in the light of day. For some inexplicable reason quite a number of parents regard school fees as being in a different category to their other financial obligations. They are late in their payments; if permitted, they fall readily into arrears; they are seldom above asking for special terms and reductions. "I do not know," wrote a dignitary of the church (who did not enclose a cheque)," how I should ever have had my son educated but for the forbearance of headmasters." And

I am well aware that

this is not an isolated instance. most schools insist, at any rate on paper, on the payment of fees before the beginning of the term ; but most of those which do insist on "tuition 99 fees leave the housemasters to look after his boarding fees. I have no hesitation in saying that there is no housemaster at any of the big schools who could not, if he would, tell strange tales. And the smaller schools are even worse off, because in the first place they are run nearer to the "margin of cultivation," and in the second place because of the numbers question: to some a boy who does not pay is at any rate better than a vacant bed. And parents know it. And schoolmasters know it. And the results are more farreaching than appear at the first sight. Most parents want to pay less than the official fees if they can ; most schools outside of a certain special circle are never free from the anxiety of supply. The issue of this has been the multiplication of scholarships and exhibitions and house scholarships at practically every school; it would not be far from the mark to say that there is no boy of ordinary intelligence who could not get a scholarship somewhere. And the further issue is that many schools of good history and reputation have a much harder fight to keep up appearances than the world imagines, and that assistant masters, who, after all, are in a more responsible position than the rank and file of most professions, are as a rule consistently underpaid. The whole subject is one which, without indignity, the Headmasters Conference and the Headmasters Association might take in hand. Anyone who has studied the history of schools in the last two decades must have marvelled at the multiplication of scholarships; the reason is not that the schools have become richer. And I am sure that the parental demand for scholarships (which may be in many cases described as a selfish desire to pay less than the market value

of education) has corrupted a good deal of the teaching at private schools, and produced a great deal of undesirable cramming.

A schoolmaster who reads what has been written will, unless he has been born under a peculiarly fortunate star, find much, the counterpart of which has happened in his own experience; there are parents who cannot, or at any rate, ought not to, read it without a twinge of conscience. Perhaps, as if moved by a mission sermon, suddenly remembering that when their boy left school for good, and the items incurred during the last term were sent in, they regarded these as a negligeable quantity, they may hasten to send the surprised housemaster a cheque. But I would not encourage him to exuberant hope.

The three main heads which have been outlined above may be summarised as school discipline (as compared with home life), education and finance; on none of these I venture to think is the attitude of the parent as a rule logical or wise. He is, probably, not without excuse when he puts forward his views on the educational problem, because, just now, no one—not even the Army Council-seems quite certain what education is or should be, and because also-and let us schoolmasters confess it -the promotion of what to teach and how to teach it into one of the burning questions of the day has really improved to a remarkable extent the curricula of the schools. But there is still left a great debatable field wherein parents may be right, and schoolmasters wrong and vice versa; a typical instance may be taken in the attitude to corporal punishment. "Mr. Chamberlain was never caned, and I thoroughly agree with his opinion on the subject." "My boy is of a highly strung and sensitive nature, and would regard corporal punishment as an indignity." "If, instead of allowing boys to spoil their hand-writing by writing impositions

in the hours in which they should be out of doors, they were caned if idle or inattentive, the result would be, I am sure, more satisfactory." These and others like them are questions which perhaps belong to the sphere of casuistry, but the schoolmaster has to take up a position, and he will perhaps be wise if, without emulating an Orbilius or a Keate, he does not agree to the protection of, shall we say, "home industries"?

But the sum of the matter is that for the real success of the public school method the parent must in many cases alter his conception of the schoolmaster, recognise the claim of the latter not merely on his consideration, but also on his purse, and make open profession that he regards himself as a co-operator rather than a critic.

XXX.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CITIZENSHIP.

BY THE REV. T. L. PAPILLON.

IN times of educational awakening, when men and nations are seeking to improve their educational practice, they look to the experience of the past, or to great thinkers and writers, for the inspiration of ideals. The oldest, the most lasting, and perhaps on the whole the most fruitful of such ideals is the preparation of the individual citizen for the duties of citizenship. To cultivate and train all the powers of mind and heart-and the physical powers also-to their best and most perfect development; to fit men and women, not only to lead good and successful lives as individuals, but to play their part in the life of the family and of the community in the best possible way for the common good-in a word, to fit them for life and for citizenship. That has been, from Plato's days to our own, the central ideal of all systems of education, whether sketched in the philosopher's study or worked out in practice, and in proportion as they have approached or are approaching to it has been, or is, their benefit to mankind. To the ancient Greeks, for example, the highest perfection of humanity, intellectual and physical, the best culture of the individual citizen for the benefit of the State, was their ideal. It dominates such early attempts at the systematic treatment of education as we find in the writings of