THE- FELSTED TRUSTEES AND HEAD MASTER.
[TO THB EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOB.1
SIR,—Will you allow me space for a few lines in reference to your article of last week ? I am the more bold to ask it, because I wish to defend not my own conduct alone, but the opinion of those valued friends whose letter to the Times you quoted.
In the first place, permit me to state that the Bishop of --- Rochester has not, to my knowledge, under the Felsted scheme, -- any visitorial power whatever, other than that of giving or with- holding his sanction to the dismissal of the Head Master ; there- fore, I could not bring the Trustees' treatment of me in 1873 under review by him. I might, at a cost not trifling to a man without private means, have moved the Court of Chancery to- direct the Trustees to complete their number, but with the certain result (the choice of new Trustees resting with the old) of the careful exclusion of every man likely to take part with me. Lastly, I might have consulted my dignity, gratified my oppo- nents, and injured the school by resigning my office, with the sure effect, in presence of the calumnies heaped upon meiof creating an impression that retirement had been forced upon me by consciousness of a bad cause. To my successor I should have- left the fatal legacy of a 'tradition in the school that the Head Master must bend before a cabal of his colleagues, ifonly they were unscrupulous enough in playing on the weakness of. the Trustees. I cannot see that such a course would have been just, either to myself, to the school, or to the parents who were giving me the most cordial sympathy.
And now, Sir, permit me, with all respect, to deal with your- strictures upon the course I took, and to say, in the first, place, that I freely and frankly admit that they are to a great extent just. If I deem them not altogether just, it is because I hold, it would appear, a view differing from yours of the fundamental relations of the Head Master of an endowed school to its Trustees. The policy of our forefathers, whether wisely or not,. gave to most Head Masters a position very different from that of the head of a modern proprietary school, who is undoubtedly the servant of the proprietors, and bound,-so long-as ke holds office,. to refrain from public comment on tkeir administration. They gave the power of appointment to the trustees, but the master, once appointed, held his office as a freehold, only voidable under conditions specially provided for by the statutes of each school. He- had his definite functions, on which the trustees had no more right to trench than he on theirs. He held his office by their nomination, but as a public trust. I conceive that certain mani- fest advantages of absolute subordination were foregone in order- to secure a double guardianship of the public interest, and that a. justification of this policy is to be found in the history of endowed schools generally. When they have fallen into evilcase, it has been from the apathy, the nepotism, or the self-seeking of Trustees, quite as often as from the inefficiency of Head Masters..
Now, to apply the general principle to the case of Felated. By our scheme, the house-steward was to be " subordinate and obedient to the Head Master," whose duty it was to see " that the wants of the boys were well and sufficiently provided for."' From this right and this duty the Trustees had no power to oust me. I found that the wants of the boys were, in most important matters, disregarded ; that all obedience was denied me by the house-steward ; that the income and, as a necessary consequence,. the efficiency of the school, were about to be wantonly sacrificed.. I held myself bound to act as the guardian of the public interest, to protest, first to the Trustees, and that failing, to the public, as. represented by the parents, and the inhabitants of the privileged county. But the sole justification of the latter appeal lay in the- failure of the former, which failure was not apparent, if the Trustees had it to say that they had honestly invited my opiniom on the plans before them, and had fairly and fully investigated my complaints against their officials. It became, therefore, an essential part of my case to show that their dealings with me had been " evasive " and " colourable and insincere." I might have avoided the words ; I could not avoid stating the fact itself, either to them or of them, without cutting the ground from under my own feet. On this ground, I justify, I will not say the exact, form in every point, but the substance of the language 1 have used of the Trustees recently, as quoted by them, paragraphs iv. and v. of their Minute.—I am, Sir, &c.,
• Hyndford House, Eastbourne. WDC S. GrniortoN.
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