On the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of the principal public schools : a paper read at the monthly evening meeting of the College of Preceptors, May 11th, 1864 / by W.B. Hodgson.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the condition of the principal public schools : a paper read at the monthly evening meeting of the College of Preceptors, May 11th, 1864 / by W.B. Hodgson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    English character, so much admired, we ore told, and envied by continental ra- tions, perish if boys were taught what interests, not disgusts, them, and what it is of the utmost importance for their own and for others' sakes that they should know ? If not, then away with such flimsy pretexts, which do but thinly veil an obstinate resistance to educational im- provement ! If I complain of scarcity and badness of food, is it any answer to tell me that the air is very pure, and the prospect exquisitely fine. I rejoin, M G i ve me better food, and more of it, and I will better appreciate the purity of the air and the loveliness of the prospect. I remem- ber an advertisement of a vacant curacy in one of the Southern counties, which is scarcely a burlesque on this mode of rea- soning. It ended thus,— The salary is small, but the sea-bathing is excellent. The learning is small (for, as Mr. Glad- stone says— Boys learn but little hero below, And learn that little ill,)— but the cricket is excellent. If physical exercise and amusement (for which, by the way, I have long and earnestly pleaded) arc indeed the leading purpose of our great schools,—and it would seem that at Eton they absorb a very large proportion of the school-life,—then let the fact be avowed and acted on : cedat armis toga; let the gown give place to bat, ball, and wickets ; let cricket be promoted, vice classics superseded, and let the Head- Mastership be transferred to that vir caiul'nhitmt, Mr. Lillywhitc, or the clas- sically denominated Mr. Julius Caasar. Possibly, however, if cricket were made compulsory and primary, and classics op- tional and secondary, we should have less of the former and more of the latter, and the change might be fatal to the very supremacy of the physical training which it was intended to promote. But, seri- ously, it is deplorable to see how parents sutler themselves to be hoodwinked by the substitution for sound mental culture of things which need not be its substitutes at all, but which ought to be its firm allies and faithful friends. Even Mr. Gladstone (who, in spite of his brilliant and versatile talents, his rich and various acquirements, is still a striking instance of the defect which Mr. Faraday, in his evidence, points out in men classically trained)* speaks, in his letter to the Com- missioners, of the low utilitarian argu- ment in matter of education, for giving it what is termed a practical direction; and declares it to be so plausible, that we may on the whole be thankful that the instvnete of the country have resisted what in argument it has been ill able to con- fute. In some amazement I turn up the word instinct in Johnson's Dictionary; it is there defined: Desire or aversion act- ing in the mind without the intervention of reason or deliberation; the power de- termining the will of brutes. I will not ask whether instincts may be acquired, or are necessarily innate. But never before, probably, was so singular a duty assigned to instinct as that of judging of the com- parative value of rival methods of school training. Falstaff indeed says,— Beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was a coward on instinct. To be an educa- tionist on instinct, and by instinct to recognize the true system of education, is a feat so remarkable, that I can hardly believe it to be within the capacity of any one man, much less of a whole nation. Is it not, besides, the very business of reason to lessen the exclusive domain of instinct, and to guide instinct, where it does not take its place? Mr. Gladstone's recent speech in the House of Commons presents many subjects for remark ; but time per- mits me to say here only that when he charges the ineffectiveness of school- teaching on the luxury and self-indul- gence in which we live, and the laxity which is essentially connected with the * See Fiazers Magaaiae for February, lfaG4, p. Ii6.