The Provinces, stirred by the operations of the Middle-Class 'Schools'
Commission, are beginning to find out that they them- selves may be able to take a good deal of work out of the Com- missioners' hands by local organization. A very important com- mittee was formed in Devonshire last week, at a meeting attended -by Lord Devon, Lord Portsmouth, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir J. D. Coleridge, and others of the magnates, for the purpose of -assisting the Commission in the distribution and arrangement of -the Devonshire endowed schools so as to meet the wants of the population. Better still, in some places the old endowed schools seem to be reforming themselves. In Somersetshire, last week, a renovated and transfigured Taunton grammar-school, which -owes its new lease of life entirely to the energy of the present head- master, the Rev. W. Tuckwell, who has trebled, and more than trebled, its number of pupils during the time he has presided over it, entered on a new stage of existence as " Taunton College," with new buildings, due to the liberality of the late Lord Taun- ton and other Somersetshire proprietors. Mr. Tuckwell is one of the most able and successful of those masters who include a sound knowledge of physical science in the teaching of their schools, and do not permit classical studies to monopolize the minds of their pupils. Taunton College, under Mr. Tuckwell, like Bristol Col- lege, under Mr. Percival, promises to be an admirable type of the best class of the new secondary schools, and, perhaps, even to emulate the success of Marlborough College, under Mr. Bradley.
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