-
Articles/Ads
Article Untitled Article ← Page 2 of 6 →
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
Pater familias ^ may sign his cheque for £ 400 , in discharge of the school account , per annum , of the young honourable his heir , or pay down £ 16 in quarterly instalments , as seems to him most fitting ; there is a sliding scale of prices made to suit us all . In a mercantile country , it is right that we should have such conveniences , only let us not be " counting the cost" too literally , and , having settled the pecuniary question , omit all other inquiries . It is surely
of the first importance that we should investigate the character of the man to whom we are about to intrust our own flesh and blood , and the condition of that place wherein our sons are to be happy or miserable for years . The actual amount and species of learning to be imbibed at these schools should be well regarded , and not less should we be satisfied with , their internal discipline . We ourselves were at a public school of the highest eminence for four entire years ,
except vacations ; three lustrums have passed over us since that epoch , and we can only dimly remember the names of our dry studies there pursued : they may have contributed , indeed , to get us through our matriculation at college , but beyond that , we know not of what use they were ; nay , nor of what ornament , for our very quotations have almost escaped our memories . Such a case is not ours only , but that of our father and brother before us , and of
nineteen in twenty of our present grown-up friends . To the common rejoinder , that we might have learnt more had we chosen , we reply , that we ought not to have had that choice accorded to us : there should have been some attempt to render learning attractive , some measures to restrain idleness , some patient explanation for the dull and tardy . There was nothing of this kind . The vast majority of boys dislike learning ; the reading youths , who made every use of
such poor advantages for study as our school possessed , would have done almost as w'ell without them : " They that are whole need not a physician , but they that are sick ; " we want schools that will teach something lasting to Smith and Jones , not to admirable Crichtons only . But knowledge—not rising to scholarship—cannot be lasting , because our after-life never reminds of it ; but year by year it
passes from us , and at best enables us to translate to inquiring females the elegant extracts of some didactic pillar of the State in parliamentary reports . Humanizing , refining , elevating , and all the rest of it , this may be to the scholar—to the Orichton aforesaid ; but what comes of four years' class-application of it to Jones ? It has , it is said , a great , though perhaps imperceptible , influence in his cultivation ; but is it reasonable that the fathers of nineteen boys
out of twenty should be paying £ 200 a year—which our public school-bill always exceeded—for an imperceptible influence ? Would not some French and German , practical mathematics , history and general information , continually in use , and so never getting rusty , be more worth the money , even supposing our boys knew a little less of the JEolic aorist , and the digamma , and the something-orother reduplication ? The stock reply to this remark is , that such little matters can be acquired at any time ; that the period of youth
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
Pater familias ^ may sign his cheque for £ 400 , in discharge of the school account , per annum , of the young honourable his heir , or pay down £ 16 in quarterly instalments , as seems to him most fitting ; there is a sliding scale of prices made to suit us all . In a mercantile country , it is right that we should have such conveniences , only let us not be " counting the cost" too literally , and , having settled the pecuniary question , omit all other inquiries . It is surely
of the first importance that we should investigate the character of the man to whom we are about to intrust our own flesh and blood , and the condition of that place wherein our sons are to be happy or miserable for years . The actual amount and species of learning to be imbibed at these schools should be well regarded , and not less should we be satisfied with , their internal discipline . We ourselves were at a public school of the highest eminence for four entire years ,
except vacations ; three lustrums have passed over us since that epoch , and we can only dimly remember the names of our dry studies there pursued : they may have contributed , indeed , to get us through our matriculation at college , but beyond that , we know not of what use they were ; nay , nor of what ornament , for our very quotations have almost escaped our memories . Such a case is not ours only , but that of our father and brother before us , and of
nineteen in twenty of our present grown-up friends . To the common rejoinder , that we might have learnt more had we chosen , we reply , that we ought not to have had that choice accorded to us : there should have been some attempt to render learning attractive , some measures to restrain idleness , some patient explanation for the dull and tardy . There was nothing of this kind . The vast majority of boys dislike learning ; the reading youths , who made every use of
such poor advantages for study as our school possessed , would have done almost as w'ell without them : " They that are whole need not a physician , but they that are sick ; " we want schools that will teach something lasting to Smith and Jones , not to admirable Crichtons only . But knowledge—not rising to scholarship—cannot be lasting , because our after-life never reminds of it ; but year by year it
passes from us , and at best enables us to translate to inquiring females the elegant extracts of some didactic pillar of the State in parliamentary reports . Humanizing , refining , elevating , and all the rest of it , this may be to the scholar—to the Orichton aforesaid ; but what comes of four years' class-application of it to Jones ? It has , it is said , a great , though perhaps imperceptible , influence in his cultivation ; but is it reasonable that the fathers of nineteen boys
out of twenty should be paying £ 200 a year—which our public school-bill always exceeded—for an imperceptible influence ? Would not some French and German , practical mathematics , history and general information , continually in use , and so never getting rusty , be more worth the money , even supposing our boys knew a little less of the JEolic aorist , and the digamma , and the something-orother reduplication ? The stock reply to this remark is , that such little matters can be acquired at any time ; that the period of youth