A SECOND LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE
"CORNHILL MAGAZINE" FROM PATERFAMILIAS
The Cornhill Magazine (December, 1860)
"What I'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver, "is how to find the right sort o' school to send Tom to; for I might be ta'en in again, as I've been wi' th'academy. I'll have nothing to do wi' a'cademy again; whatever school I send Tom to, it shan't be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes and getting up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick." - The Mill On The Floss
Sir, - Since I last had the honour of addressing you respecting the educational destitution of the upper classes of English society at the present moment, that important topic has been treated at considerable length by more distinguished pens than mine; a writer in the October number of the Quarterly Review having enthusiastically vindicated our public schools from aspersions recently cast upon them by certain pestilent novelists, whilst Sir John Coleridge, justly described by the Quarterly reviewer as "one of Eton's most accomplished living sons," has promulgated his opinions and aspirations concerning the great public school at which he was reared, in a lecture delivered by him about two months since at Tiverton, and since published as a pamphlet by John Murray.
The Article in the Quarterly is written with great knowledge and ability, but with a too evident bias in favour of our public schools as they are. Treating of English education generally - of private as well as of public schools - whilst it denounces with an unsparing pen the faults and shortcomings which it discovers in the former, it barely indicates those which at the present moment disfigure and paralyse Eton and Harrow. The reviewer defends the existing state of things by assumptions with which we are all familiar. He maintains that it is very advantageous for England that the children of her noblest and wealthiest citizens should be massed together under confessedly inadequate supervision and instruction; he predicts the downfall of the British aristocracy should public school education be ever superseded by private tuition, and attempts to reconcile parents to the neglect which their children experience at these great establishments, by representing "a system of inquisitorial espionage, such as is practised in the schools of Southern Italy by the Jesuits," as its only alternative. He even goes so far as to suggest that in considering the subject they should accept Mazzini as the type of the foreign youth, who has been carefully looked after, and Hampden as that of the British public schoolboy, "thrown early on his own resources." The advocates of private education might as fairly contrast the characters of Washington, Garibaldi, George Stephenson, or Lord Clyde, with that of Beau Brummell, a celebrated Eton gentleman of the Georgian era.
But as the Essay in the Quarterly contains nothing that is new, and much that is partial and unsound, I will content myself with making one quotation from it, which, I submit, entirely establishes the case I sought to prove in my former letter:-
"Although we have defended public schools against the aspersions of their uncandid critics and injudicious advocates, we are by no means disposed to deny that they are susceptible of considerable improvement, and that certain defects common to all, though in very different degrees, may be pointed out. In all, the machinery for exciting the emulation and calling forth the energies of average boys, might be amended; in some it has almost to be created. . . . In all, the tutorial system might be improved; the numbers of the tutors should be increased, and in some schools the standard of their qualification should be raised, and their sphere of duty enlarged. Where the houses of tutors are too large, nothing can be easier than to employ an assistant, and no dame's house should be without a resident tutor." - Q. R. p.423
The above passage, rendered into plain English, reads nearly thus: - "If new arrangements were made at our public schools, by which average boys - i.e. the great majority of boys - could be ensured a fair chance of education; if the tutors were more numerous and more competent; if they were able to bestow more attention on their pupils, both in and out of school, than they at present receive; if they were no longer allowed to accept payment for the instruction of many more boys than they can possibly attend to; and if batches of thirty or forty lads, of all ages and sizes were no longer indiscriminately huddled together in lodging-houses in which there is actually nobody to control and supervise them, save the old lady who keeps the house; if these trifling improvements were carried out, and if these trifling drawbacks were removed, our public school system would then be an excellent one.
After such an avowal, it is amusing to find this accomplished champion of our public schools as they are, recommending parents to investigate closely the internal economy of the private schools to which they entrust their children, and assuring them that "in private school reformation they themselves must be the chief agents," whilst in the same breath he denounces "the reckless curiosity and discontent which leads parents now-a-days to examine every part of our public school system, instead of accepting it as an excellent whole."
We will now proceed to examine what view a more impartial and more judicial mind has taken of the same subject.
Sir John Coleridge commences his Tiverton lecture by stating that he has selected Eton as his example and text, because he was educated there - because from his boyhood to the present day his connection with that school has been unbroken and intimate - because he is bound up, by the ties of both blood and friendship, with many of those who have been and are at present occupied in carrying out its system - and because he conceives that from its size and composition it is, in a national point of view, the most important of all our schools, as well as the most complete and accurate type of the class to which it belongs.
I hope that, without exposing myself to the imputation of either vanity or egotism, I may here point out, that upon the subject of public school reform Sir John Coleridge and myself entirely agree. I am convinced that when Sir John delivered his admirable lecture at Tiverton, he had never seen or heard of the humble letter on the same subject, which I had previously published in your pages; but it does so happen, and I mention it with pride, that in argument, in fact, and almost in illustration, the lecture of "Eton's most accomplished living son" and my letter to you are strangely coincident, due allowance being made for Sir John's rare abilities and copious eloquence, and for my less cultivated and homelier style.
Sir John, professing the most earnest affection and admiration for Eton, states of it precisely what I stated concerning Harchester. He complains that a small and comparatively obscure college at Cambridge enjoys the valuable monopoly of supplying Eton with masters; that the quality of the masters thus supplied is by no means first-rate, whilst their numbers are altogether insufficient; that, although a rather pompous pretence has at last been made of teaching the Eton boys arithmetic, mathematics, and modern languages, it is but a pretence; and that even the classical scholarship, which used formerly to be the pride and honour of the school, has of late deplorably dwindled, especially amongst the oppidans, who constitute nine-tenths of the whole number of the pupils.
Of all this, according to Sir John Coleridge, the Eton authorities are fully aware; yet they decline to adopt the only and obvious remedy for the evil - an immediate and liberal increase in the educational staff of the school. The present head-master, Dr. Goodford, has indeed at last formally admitted that one Eton master cannot do justice single-handed to seventy Eton boys; and he has prospectively restricted each new master to forty pupils; but he has abstained from imposing this rule on those who are already in the school, on the principle of respecting vested interests!
Against this mistaken application of a just principle, Sir John's superior sense and honesty revolt; he insists that the Eton tutors are at Eton for the benefit of the Eton boys, instead of the Eton boys being there, as Dr. Goodford seems to think, for the pecuniary advantage of the Eton masters. He asks whether what ought never to have been permitted at all by the head-master should be continued indefinitely, because individual tutors make a good thing out of the abuse; and he expresses his conviction, which must also be the conviction of every sensible and disinterested man, that Dr. Goodford's new maximum of forty pupils to one teacher is far too large. "Would any master of a private school," exclaims Sir John, "pretend to teach forty boys without an assistant; and does not an Eton master undertake to teach his pupils far more than they are expected to be taught at any private school?"
With respect to mathematics and modern languages, Sir John lays down the excellent maxim, that whatever a school like Eton professes to teach, ought to be taught in the best possible manner. He affirms that in the present day no Eton boy can be said to be properly educated, unless at the age of seventeen or eighteen he has acquired a sound elementary knowledge of the science of numbers and mathematics, and an acquaintance, to the same extent, with one or two modern languages. And he then expresses his belief that as matters are now managed at Eton - in spite of loud professions to the contrary - mathematics and modern languages are systematically neglected. To teach the whole school French, there is one French master, an Englishman, and the one assistant mathematical master, who is not allowed to take equal rank with the classical masters, furnishes what additional help he thinks requisite by contract, such additional help being paid for extra by the pupils. Respecting such arrangements as these, Sir John observes:-
All who know boy-nature must anticipate the result. If they perceive that the teachers in one department are not placed on the same footing as those in another, they are quick to infer that the department itself is considered to be of less importance and lower rank; and the teachers are at once placed on a disadvantageous footing. Men of remarkable qualities even so may acquire the proper amount of deference and attention from the best of their pupils, but it is not conceded as a matter of course to their office and to the importance of what they teach. Where this deference to the teacher is wanting, attention to the matter taught will commonly fail. I repeat only what I have heard more than once - that Eton boys are reputed as not bringing with them ordinarily to the university, or to competitive examinations for public appointments, that proof of sound elementary teaching in arithmetic and mathematics which the apparatus presented to the public would seem to promise, and with Eton, professing to teach in these departments, ought to give."
There are other most important points connected with Eton, upon which Sir John has touched, though with evident reluctance. He censures the habits of expense and self-indulgence which at present characterise the school, and expresses his doubts whether any systematic and earnest attempts are made by the masters to check them. He asks: "Do the masters, in their own houses, by precept, by frequent visitations to the rooms of their pupils, by example in their own rooms, at their own tables, in their own habits, sufficiently set before their pupils the duty and advantage of simplicity, the folly and mischief of indulgent habits? And do they repress with a strong hand apparent and tangible instances of such indulgence? Would a clever boy, who acquitted himself passably well in his lessons and exercises, find any difference in his reception with his tutor or master because he was notoriously expensive in his dress, luxurious in his room, or self-indulgent in his habits, so that he might see these things treated as reprehensible in themselves? I should be glad to think that these questions could be answered satisfactorily."
To Sir John's earnest and simple mind there is also something extremely distasteful in the ludicrous profusion of prizes and decorations dispensed by the Eton masters of the present day to their pupils. I recollect in former years attending a public distribution of prizes at a school in one of our colonies. Its governor, who took a deep interest in education, had furnished the prizes himself, and amongst them were Walter Scott's works, and Crabbe's poems, in many volumes. Before the distribution began, the principal of the school thanked his Excellency for his liberality, which, he said, would enable him to present a single prize volume to every boy in the school - an arrangement which could not fail to be most gratifying to their parents. Anybody who examines closely the Eton list of the present day must suspect that Dr. Goodford has taken a leaf out of that colonial schoolmaster's book. Sir John observes: "In my day, honours were sparingly bestowed. The Bishop of Lichfield, whom we justly reckoned the first of his day, was, I think, 'sent up' but four times during the whole of his stay in the fifth form, which could have been scarcely less than four or five years. Now, the Eton lists show boys with more than twenty honorary marks to their names."
Finally, Sir John Coleridge proclaims that in his opinion, in fairness to the parents of the Eton boys and to the Eton boys themselves, there ought to be an immediate diminution in the numbers of the school, or an immediate increase, to a very large extent, in the number of teachers, who ought all to be placed on a footing of equality with each other, in order to ensure to them the respect and attention of their pupils.
To those who are not conversant with the interior economy of our public schools, it may seem almost incredible that gentlemen of position and education, such as the Eton masters are, should so grossly neglect the important trust reposed in them; for truly it is an important trust, and one which ought to be faithfully discharged. "A man's heart must be cold indeed," says Sir John, "if it does not throb with emotion when he attends divine service in the chapel, and beholds that great assemblage of lads in every period of boyhood - too great indeed even for that ample building; and considers (what parent, or even what patriot, can fail to consider!) how many fears and anxieties, hopes and loves, aspirations and prayers, are stirring the bosoms and ascending from the hearts of thousands and tens of thousands in respect to their future destiny."
Yet it is by no means difficult to explain the apparent indifference of the Eton authorities in the matter. Eton, like all others of our old upper class schools, is, unfortunately, a mere money speculation. Conducted as it is, its shareholders - the Eton masters- reap enormous dividends, which, were it conducted with more fairness and honesty towards the pupils and their parents, must inevitably be much smaller. At present, its head-master receives an income exceeding £6,000 a year - an income far greater than that which is received by any of our cabinet ministers or by any of our bishops, save those of London and Durham; and yet I believe I am doing no injustice to Mr. Goodford when I say, that at the time he was elected to the head-mastership of Eton he had achieved no particular distinction at the university, or in any branch of literature, or, indeed, of any kind; and that since he has occupied that post, he has not succeeded in raising the character of the school, either for classical scholarship or for general learning. The profits of the assistant masters are, of course, unequal, varying according to the number of their pupils; but I think I am not overstating them when I say that they range between £1,500 and £3,500 a year. Their work is extremely hard - too hard; so hard, indeed, that they are compelled to leave the best part of it undone: they enjoy, however, a vacation of more than a quarter of the year. Some of them are, undoubtedly, men of capacity and energy, but many of them are not. And when we consider that most of them receive more than double the salary of the accomplished gentleman who conducts the vast affairs of the British Museum, and some of them three of four times as much as Professor Owen himself - and when we read what Sir John Coleridge, a friendly and most competent witness, says, respecting their very moderate claims to such excessive pay - it is impossible not to deplore, for their own sakes, as well as for that of the youths entrusted to their care, that they should be permitted to remain a day longer in the false position in which they now stand.
They are not selected for their lucrative posts because they have been first-class men or senior wranglers - or because they have had great experience in, or exhibited remarkable aptitude for, tuition; the services of first-class men, of senior wranglers, or of the most accomplished and experienced professors, might readily be secured for a third of the money paid to them; they become Eton masters solely because they are fellows of King's College, Cambridge and because King's College, Cambridge, has a vested interest in Eton boys. This of itself is bad enough - but worse remains behind. The number of Eton masters who teach is under twenty; the number of the boys they are supposed to teach is not far short of 850. Of these twenty masters, five are devoted to the tuition of the lower school , in which there are about 100 very young boys; leaving 750 senior boys to be instructed by fifteen instructors, which is impossible. If the number of assistant masters be increased, their profits must necessarily decrease - and decrease to a very considerable amount - were the additional masters admitted, as Sir John Coleridge very properly insists they should be, on an equal footing with those who are already share-holders in the concern. There is no doubt that any number of as good, and better tutors than those who now teach at Eton, might be obtained from the universities at salaries of from £600 to £800 a year; (the salaries of A. Panizzi, Esq., the Head Librarian of the British Museum and of Richard Owen, Esq., its Superintendent of Natural History, are but £800 a year each.) but then, if paid less than the gentlemen actually in possession, they would be placed in an inferior position to them, and the same unsatisfactory result would be obtained that is now obtained by a similar arrangement in the mathematical school.
The truth is that what is vulgarly called "the breeches-pocket question" has been, and still is, at the bottom of most of the evils which degrade our public schools. A comparison of the number of hours and minutes which the day contains with the amount of school and private business to be gone through by the twenty Eton tutors, will convince the most prejudiced that the slightest acquaintance with the character or supervision over the manners, morals, or pursuits of the boys under their care when out of school is impossible. With a larger number of masters, such acquaintance and such supervision would be easy enough; but then, "the breeches-pocket question" interposes, and the self-interest of the masters induces them to prefer maintaining things as they are, and expatiating to parents on the horrors of "inquisitorial espionage," and on the advantages of "throwing boys early on their own resources." The limitation of the "regular business" of the school to Latin and Greek, and the disinclination to include in it the study of mathematics and modern languages, are both clearly traceable to the same source. Were those necessary and important branches of education incorporated with the "regular business" of the school, they could no longer be charged for as extras; and were they taught "in the best possible manner," it would not only be indispensable to have a reasonable number of competent gentlemen to teach them, but also that those gentlemen should be placed in precisely the same position, social, pecuniary, and scholastic, as that which the classical assistant-masters now occupy.
Fagging - now, happily, almost obsolete - was also based upon "the breeches-pocket question." I used often to doubt, when called off from my studies, whilst a lower boy at Harchester, to mend my master's fire, to prepare his meals, or to brush his clothes, whether a system which permitted and upheld such practices could really be beneficial either to him or to me; but I never had any doubt that it was very beneficial to our tutor, inasmuch as it spared him the wages of some two or three servants, whose menial work was performed by us lower boys. The same reflection has occurred to me, when abstracted from my lessons for a week at a time to act as the policeman of my remove, to mark the boys in and out of chapel, to collect their maps and exercises, to ascertain who were sick and who were shamming, to warn the unfortunates who were sentenced to the block of the hour of their execution, to attend the awful ceremony and to assist at the toilette des condamnés - I could not but feel that such employment of my time was a fraud both on my parents and myself; but then the arrangement saved the wages of the servants, whose work it properly ought to have been.
Of course the ingenuity of our masters discovered plenty of excellent arguments in support of practises so convenient to themselves; our parents used to be told that carrying coals for the upper boys and toasting their muffins made us helpful and docile, and took the nonsense out of bumptious lads, and that an occasional week's idleness, as chapel and school policemen, gave us habits of order and vigilance; but such arguments would have applied just as aptly towards establishing the propriety of setting young noblemen and gentlemen to assist the scullion or to sort out the dirty linen for the wash. Tom Tulliver's occupation of blacking the family's shoes and getting up the potatoes at "the 'cademy" were probably dictated by similar motives and justified by similar arguments: they made him handy and humble, and saved "the 'cademy" the expense of a labourer, but then unreasonable Mr. Tulliver coarsely maintained that he had sent his son to "the 'cademy" to learn to read, write, and cipher, and not to discharge the duties of the odd man at a pot-house.
I have hitherto designedly abstained from making any allusion to the much vexed question of the comparative merits of public and private education, because I think it is a subject for which far too much importance has been attached. Both may be extremely good or extremely bad, according to the power and quality of the machinery by which either system is worked. A school can hardly be a very bad one, when its masters are conscientious and competent gentlemen, in sufficient numbers to do full justice to their pupils without overtasking themselves; it can hardly be a very good one, when its masters are not only insufficient in numbers, but when they have a direct pecuniary interest in teaching a maximum of boys with a minimum of educational staff.
The enormous advantages supposed to result from our public school education appear to me to be rather assumed than proved. Sidney Smith, in his famous essays on the subject, published in the Edinburgh Review - which I entreat every one interested in this subject to study - has satisfactorily shown, that the most eminent Englishmen in every art and science - whose names have adorned the annals of this country during the last three hundred years - have not been educated at our public schools. Even that much-vaunted, self-reliance and premature manliness, which we are so often assured is the exclusive attribute of public school education, is, in reality, worth little more than is the morbid precocity which the children of the poor acquire in our populous cities by being allowed to grovel uncared for in the gutter. A good many of them suffer seriously whilst undergoing the useless ordeal, and those who pass through it uninjured are, at twenty or twenty-five years of age, no more capable or energetic than are the sons of the decent mechanic, who have been reasonably well cared for during their early youth. A perusal of the life of George Stephenson, or of Admiral Hope's despatch, detailing our late disastrous defeat at the Peiho, will go far to show that British manhood is derived from far wider and deeper sources than the bad and expensive education which the children of our wealthier classes are just now receiving at our public schools.
I know very well that to all Sir John Coleridge has written, and to the remarks which I have myself presumed to make, there is one obvious answer: "Eton is now fuller than it ever was before; if you are dissatisfied, other people are not; send your sons elsewhere; we can do without them."
But I will not do the Eton authorities the dishonour to suppose that they will condescend to such a reply. The school over which they preside is our leading public school; it gives the tone to all the others; if it reforms, the reform will be general; if it resists and perseveres in its evil courses, other schools will do likewise. A very small proportion of parents and guardians are themselves competent to examine into and decide upon the comparative merits of schools, or to judge accurately of the progress which their children are making at them; they are most of them obliged on these points to trust to the honour of the masters and the general character of the school. The trust, therefore, which is reposed in a public servant, such as the head-master of Eton, is indeed a great one; his reward is proportionably great, and much is justly required at his hands.
It is of the deepest importance to us all - whether we have sons there or not - that such a school as Eton should be properly conducted; and if we have - as I think I have shown that we have - sufficient reasons for supposing that it is not, no false delicacy, no fear of giving offence, or of incurring unpopularity, ought to prevent us from speaking out. Sir John Coleridge deserves the thanks of every Englishman for his outspoken Tiverton lecture; indeed, I am myself free to admit, that had I not been supported by his very high authority, I should scarcely have ventured again to address you on this subject; for I well know the power, the ability, and the influence of those whose time-honoured monopoly I am anxious, with your assistance, to demolish.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
PATERFAMILIAS