On Wednesday afternoon the Archbishop of York, distri- buting competitive
prizes at Wigton to the successful competitors of the schools of that town, took occasion to praise Mr. George Moore for "stirring up a great interest in education, in the country round about," and observed that the reason why "a good deal more than half the parishes in the common run of agricultural districts have no national schools whatever," is be- cause the lower classes do not care about education, and this indifference the Archbishop attributes to the low standard of knowledge with which the upper classes themselves are content — an Archiepiscopal admonition which the county magnates will not particularly relish, but which they deserve, successful commerce represented by Mr. George Moore having al- ways been more favourable to the cause of education than agricul- tural ascendency. The Archbishop touched, among other things, upon the vice of all English teachers—undue attention to clever pupils, and neglect of the many. He evidently confounds this vice, peculiar to the English teacher, with the supposed effects of the competitive system as such. This, we think, is a mistake. One of the faults of the competitive system is to raise the average standard of education too much, at the expense of special and peculiar genius.
Previous page
