CHRIST'S HOSPITAL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "Sprcrerox.-] SIR,—The governing body of Christ's Hospital seems bent on repeating a mistake which has already produced, unless I am greatly mistaken, ill effects of no inconsiderable kind. They are determined to continue the unhappy division of power which gives to their Head Master authority over the boys within the walls of the school-room, and to another person, independent of the Head Master, authority outside those walls. The terms of the advertisement by which they invite applications for the office of Warden—for so this domestic monarch is called—have been deservedly ridiculed by more than one of your con- temporaries. They offer to the well-educated gentleman. who is to exercise discipline on Sundays and weekdays over seven hundred boys, £350 per annum and a house, and they stipulate that he is to hold his office subject to annual re-election. Of course, they will have abundance of applica- tions. It is exactly the post which every one who has nothing to do, who has given up his employment or been given up by it, will think himself competent to fill. The word " dis- cipline" especially will attract ex-officers of the Army, and it may be safely predicted that the Governors will have an absolute host of gallant gentlemen to choose from. But the salary is ludicrously insufficient to tempt any really able person, not to mention the humiliating precariousness of the tenure. But it may very reasonably be questioned whether this is a post which it is possible to fill satisfactorily. The experience of the past is, I believe, of an adverse kind, and it is difficult to see how success can be attained in the future. What hold is the Warden, knowing nothing of the boys where only it is possible to make their acquaintance, to get on those over whom he is expected to exercise a moral influence? It is an old adage, indeed, that " boys discover their character at their play ;" but there they discover it to those who play with them. It might be said that they do not play at all at Christ's Hospital, cooped np as it is in the heart of the City ; but anyhow, how is the Warden to see anything of his seven hundred ? Practical schoolmasters know that the ordinary schoolboy, out of his class-room, is--not to use the term harshly—an accom- plished hypocrite. It is only the most acute observer, with ample opportunities of observation, who is able to see below the surface. Within the class-room he cannot choose but reveal something to an intelligent teacher. But it is precisely the teacher to whom the wise authorities of Christ's Hospital refuse the power which he only can be expected to wield with any good effect. Bat, indeed, the matter is too clear to need argument. The plan is condemned as emphatically by common-sense as it is condemned by experience. The best thing that can be hoped for is that the Governors will find a faineant who will be content to let things slide ; bat it is only too possible that they may choose some self-opinionated person who will come into collision with the Head Master, and perhaps lose to the Hospital the services of a most effective chief.—I am, Sir, &c.,
EMERITUS.
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