MR. GRANT DUFF ON SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.
MR. GRANT DUFF kept back his Elgin speech this year till close upon the meeting of Parliament. Had it been a speech of the usual stamp, the delay would have been fatal to its influence. As it happens, however, its main topic has a peculiarly Scottish interest ; and we do not know that its author could have chosen a better time for uttering what he had to say with the certainty that it would be beard and pondered by those whom it chiefly concerns. The topic is one that en- grosses a large and growing amount of regard north of the Tweed. It has been discussed of late in our columns with a fullness that we are afraid may have become wearisome to some of our readers. But it is one upon which Mr. Grant Duff, by reason of very varied qualifications, is entitled to speak with an authority rivalling that of any scribe who has figured among our correspondents. The topic is that of Secondary Education in Scotland.
In propounding the ideas he has carefully thought out upon this subject, Mr. Grant Duff well illustrates his own idiosyncrasy. He is a man who observes, inquires, and thinks for himself ; who by force of native sagacity, and trained intellect, and wide knowledge, and painstaking care, arrives at independent con- clusions; and who proclaims whatever his judgment may be in a style remarkable alike for its unconventionality and its polish. The fault of all his speeches is that they are a little exaltis. He is prone to exaggerate the value of en- lightened thought over self-governing will in the affairs of political life. In the brief exordium devoted to the considera- tion of politics proper wherewith he prefaced his latest speech, he betrayed a half-consciousness of this characteristic. What he said in his introduction took the form of an apology for those very "sensible persons who are content to be denounced as doctrinaires, dreamers, disciples of Geist, and what not." In his view, these idealists are the true pioneers of advance. They set the tasks at which your so-called practical men (and surely the English dictionary contains no more abused word than that word" practical ") are fain to labour. Pitching their mark a long way ahead, they fix a goal towards which the average opinion of the country gradually makes way. This is all true. Mr. Grant Duff does not in the slightest degree exaggerate our ill-understood indebtedness to abstract thinkers. It were well had we more of them. As it is, we are smothered by the politics of detail. We waste an incredible amount of capacity and resource upon the paltry quarrels of the passing day, upon insignificant points that have to do merely with trivial and external facts, while, at the same time, we under-estimate the politics of principle, which alone are good, productive, and fit to educate or sustain a people. Thus it is that while we want creeds, we have only parties ; that in place of vital sym- pathies, we find contending "interests ;" and that while de- voting ourselves to what is termed reality, which is only the accident of the day, we live from hand to mouth, as if the reality of to-morrow deserved no heed. Men like Mr. Grant Duff are nettled by what seems to them such stupidity, sloth, and inconsequence. There is constantly a touch of impatient scorn in their references to that huge mass of Philistinism which they feel to be a drag upon national progress. They do not consider its countervailing advantages, how the slowness of the public mind to accept new notions forms an invaluable guarantee against rashness and caprice, how by necessitating a due amount of debate ere any change can be effected the nation is provided with tfte very best means of political instruction, and how, whatever advance we may make is thus rendered steady and secure, our ardent friends being thereby saved from the peril into which they might sometimes be tempted of rushing with "unscrupulous logic upon impossible practice."
Mr. Grant Duff has a very vivid idea of what Scotland needs in the matter of secondary education. He likewise sees, or thinks he sees, how the means of supplying this necessity might be obtained without harm to any one. Laying the two things alongside of each other, as the Royal Commission on Endowed Schools had done before him, he is lost in amaze- ment that they are not instantly perceived to be commensurate, while his wonder is dashed with something like rage or chagrin that those who do see how nicely they fit should enter- tain any demur about forthwith joining them. His desire, we take it, though he forbears particulars, would be to have established in every county a lyceum, or middle school, into which every youth of "pregnant parts" who had distinguished himself in the parish elementary school, and who evinced any wish to pursue a learned career, might be drafted, in prepara- tion for the University. And the method by which this could be done, as he imagines, is that of appropriating the endow- ments bequeathed for the establishment and maintenance of what in Scotland are termed "Hospitals,"—after Christ's Hos- pital in London, which is indeed the model of these numerous establishments. Let his notion be carried through, and we should have what John Knox and his colleagues who framed the First Book of Discipline desiderated in "every notable town," namely, a " Colledge in which the Arts, Logic, and Rhethorick, together with the Tongues, should be read by masters, for whom honest stipends should be appointed," in which "fair provision should be made for the poor, in especial those who came from landward, and were not able by their friends, nor by themselves, to be sustained at letters." As to the advantages of such a scheme, could it be carried out, we are happy to think that even Professor Ramsay, however much he may cispute the allegation that a certain crudeness and puerility are stamped upon the Scottish Universities because they stoop to do the proper work of such intermediate schools, will thoroughly agree with us. At present, to quote the words of the Endowed Schools Commissioners, "schools which begin the instruction of their pupils where the ele- mentary schools end, and prepare them for the higher class of Civil-Service appointments, and for the Universities, can scarcely be said to have any place in the educational economy of Scotland." That this is a grievous blunder and defect, who can doubt ? If the Universities do not stoop half-way to cover it by making their tuition too common, then all the more must the elementary schools expand themselves beyond their proper sphere, giving themselves to functions for which they are intrinsically ill- adapted, and the discharge of which is, under the Revised
Code, most powerfully discouraged. No one who has the least public spirit acquaintance with educational affairs in Scotland can doubt be in vain. that Mr. Grant Duff has described exactly what is the link needed to give symmetry, strength, and effect to the whole system. But about the money ? That, to him, appears no obstacle,-at least he has the persuasion that it ought not to bar the way towards this salutary reform. His strong point is, that (excluding tlie revenues of the nine public schools, and the small endowments under £100 a year, which are dealt with by Section 3 of the Endowed Schools Act of 1873, and which are of little value) the annual amount of educational endowments in England and Wales is £596,490, or rather over sid. a head on a population of 22,712,266; while the annual value of the Scottish endowments is, in round numbers, 1175,000, which, on a population of 3,360,018, is as nearly as possible is. Oid. per head. That seems, unquestionably, a staggering fact, when it is presented in that absolute form. But its value is greatly reduced when we learn that all but an insignifi- cant fraction of the total revenue comes from the hospitals of which we have made mention, and that the trustees either evince the Utmost repugnance to be interfered with at all, or are bent upon themselves reorganising their institutions in such a manner as will adapt them to existing needs, but will keep them without the scope of public control. In the first cate- gory must be included the foremost hospital in Scotland, that of George Heriot-the "Jingling Geordie" of Sir Walter's' novel-the " pawkie " goldsmith to James L of England. The trustees are the Town Council and the Established Clergy, under whom the trust has so thriven that the annual income now very nearly equals the amount of the original bequest-some £20,000 odd-and who, backed by the working-class population, fiercely resent any proposal to interfere with their management. That this hostility is wrong and foolish seems quite unquestionable. Not only has the hospital produced no eminent men, as in the ease of its prototype, Christ's, but a large part of its income has, with the best intentions, been diverted to the purpose of pro- viding gratuitous elementary education for all and sundry. Such a purpose is utterly alien from the one which occupied the mind of the founder. By comparison, the design which is recommended by Mr. Grant Duff and the Commission is much more cognate with his idea. Parliament would certainly be in its right, were it to step in, arrest the overflow of the steadily- increasing surplus which now goes in an unnecessary direction (under the recent Education Act, there is ample provision for primary schools), and prescribe a wiser, more beneficent style of administration. In the second category must be included the Hutcheson Hospital at Glasgow, founded well-nigh two hundred years ago, to maintain an almshouse for eleven aged men and a school for twelve boys, which has now an income of over £10,000. Following the example set them by the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, who have voluntarily opened up three hospitals under their change, with the effect of making Edinburgh a more famous educational resort than it ever was before, the Hutcheson Trustees mean to utilise their endowments very much after the fashion re- commended by Mr. Meiklejohn, the able Assistant-Commis- sioner who visited their present institution. The effect will be, however, to render their funds no longer available for Mr. Grant Duff's purpose. In this, as in other cases, he must, perforce, be content with what surplus may remain, and look elsewhere for help on behalf of his thoroughly deserving pro- ject. In writing formerly on this subject, we suggested that another Baird might be found to do for Scottish education what one has done for ecclesiasticism. Mr. Grant Duff makes a similar appeal, enforcing it by a different illustration. He quoted to his Elgin constituents this passage from a House-of- Commons speech :-" Many honourable Members, I daresay, remember the story of Herodes Atticus, who spent so much of his life in adorning Greece with magnificent works. Why should not his example be followed, ntutatis ntutandis, in this age of ours ? If there are any such persons in Scotland, here is a field ready for them. By the expenditure of a much smaller sum than was lately given in Scotland for an ecclesi- astical purpose, the whole of our secondary education could be put on a proper footing." The argument is unimpeachably sound, and the irony of the introduction may pass as the author's humour. It is gratifying to learn that there is a pro- bability of attention being turned to the subject in a manner that promises great results. At a preliminary meeting held the other day, which was attended by some of the most thoughtful men in Scotland, it was resolved to form an "Association for the improvement of secondary education in Scotland." We have confidence that its labours will be distinguished by and intelligent energy, and that they will not
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