on which the final moral judgment ought to depend. For
this As to the Eton imbroglio, we feel the same grave reluctance to reason, we are always reluctant to enter on such painful discus- enter upon its minutim, as we did with regard to the Felsted sions as those concerning the Felsted and the Eton troubles, and dispute. Fortunately the only points on which we think it our when we do enter on them, are always anxious to narrow, our duty to comment strongly, are very simple. The Head Master opinion to the one or two cardinal points on which no great of Eton, Dr. Hornby, became, we believe, very soon after his complexity of issue can be raised. Thus in judging of the appointment in 1868, dissatisfied with some of the Senior dismissal of the Rev. W. S. Grignon from the Head Mastership Masters of the School, and had at one time given of Felsted, we were careful to comment only on the main points some of them notice of dismissal, after which there of the case,—the dwindled number of the Trustees of Felsted, were two or three resiginations, and better relations were which had fallen to a bare- quorum ; Mr. Grignon's long and patched up with the others. Apparently, Mr. Oscar Browning, successful services ; the failure of the Trustees to support him one of the most popular of the Assistant-Masters, was one of with common decency against an Assistant-Master who had those with whom the Head Master's relations continued strained. brought against him the grossest moral charges, which, by the He has been a master for fifteen years in the school, and seems admission of the Trustees themselves, were so baseless as not to have been appointed, not by the Head Master merely, but by then to need investigation; the irritability of temper and impro- the former Head Master with the Provost's consent, and a legal priety of speech to which this failure, together probably with excess opinion has been given him that that being the case, he cannot, -of work, gave rise on Mr. Grignon's part; the monstrous course in all probability, be legally dismissed by the Head Master's of dismissing him without even giving him notice that his die- act alone, but only with the consent of the new Governing Body, missal was to be proposed ; and finally, Bishop Claughton's neg- who succeed to the Provost's former share in these responsibili- lect of duty in failing to give a full bearing to the Head Master ties. Various disputes as to the conduct of Mr. Browning in dismissed, before deciding whether to veto the dismissal or not, relation to the great question, so hotly disputed a year or two ago, On the intricacies of the various subordinate quarrels we care- of House Fees, and afterwards in relation to the number of boys fully avoided passing any judgment, nor did we even deny that be was entitled to have in his house, appear to have arisen be- the Trustees might have had an adequate justification for taking tween him and the Head Master, disputes on which we can pass no the course they did, though they had not shown it, if they had opinion. So far as we have one on the point which seems to have but done what, in common justice they were bound to do, given given rise to the charge of lying brought against Mr. Browning by
they were before. They have, in fact, to use theological the Head laster full notice of their intention. And we are happy
language, the support of authority as well as of reason, and I to see that, in consequence of the reserve with which we wrote, authority, whether a reasonable force or not, is an effec- not the smallest injustice was done to the Felsted Trustees. whose jive one. It is just the same with the Bishop's talking. If he defence, in the shape of a letter to the parents and guardians of talked twice as often as he does, always provided audiences went the boys at Felsted, prepared by the Clerk to the Trustees at to hear him, just twice as many audiences would go away a little their request, is now before us,—a defence which makes the case more fixed than they were before in convictions it is very good against their conduct on some of the points we have mentioned for them, or for anybody, to entertain. Some newspaper readers much stronger than it was before, and does not weaken it on any may be a little irritated next day to find "the Bishop again," but point. On what should, no doubt, have been the main point L much more numerous class has received a • benefit which, were for the Bishop, in investigating the excuses for Mr. Grignon's the Bishop silent with dignity, would have been withheld. It is improper language concerning the Trustees, the Clerk's letter all very well to say they are not influenced, but they are in- makes the case against them far more startling than it was before. fluenced, as is shown by the Associations rising on every side, He actually complains of Mr. Grignon for not being ready to and by the wholly new position which a Bishop has assumed give the Assistant-Master who had charged him with gross in Lancashire minds. As it happens, there exists just one ex- drunkenness, and much worse moral offences,—without the treme illustration of what we say which is visible to everybody. slightest justice, as the Trustees must be taken as having ipso Nobody of authority ever talked so much, as Mr. Gladstone has facto admitted, in that they did not even investigate the charges,— observed, as the present Pope. He talks on every conceivable a testimonial silent on these cardinal points of moral fitness, and subject, to almost every conceivable kind of audience. There dwelling only on his capacity as a teacher, on the ground never was so much talk from a Pope, and to Protestants a good that before Mr. Grignon had had any evidence of this gentle- deal of it seems very weak, or even wishy-washy platitude, but man's untrustworthiness, he had given him willingly a strong tee- of its influence on the Catholic world there can be no timonial ; and worse still, the Clerk states that two years after- doubt whatever. There are plenty of critics of this wards the Trustees entertained sufficient doubts as to the falsehood Pope, even among high Catholic prelates, but none of of this Assistant-Master's charges against Mr. Grignon, to make them deny that be has had more influence on the Church— it incumbent on them to investigate these charges more closely, good influence or bad influence is not the question—than any if the Bishop had refused to confirm Mr. Grignon's dismissal. Pope since Hildebrand. Whether the Irshop of Manchester This quaint avowal on behalf of the Trustees of utter moral in- always chooses the subject of his public talks wisely is another competence for the duties of their office should fill the minds of matter, one to be decided on evidence which is not before us. all persons interested in the school with profound alarm. A For ourselves, judging from his reported speeches, we should say Head Master is charged with gross intoxication, and with worse that, allowing for a certain conventionality of thought, very offences, which the printers refuse to print, by an Assistant- apparent in his last lecture on Extravagance, he usually chooses Master ; the Trustees, not believing the charges, request the for his subjects just those habits, and ways, and peculiarities of his Head Master to give that Assistant-Master a good testi- people which might, if unreasonably indulged, be exaggerated monial, that he may be enabled to resign without suffer- into sins or serious social errors,—surely as useful a field for ing any private injury ; they then pass a resolution dis- discourse as a Bishop able to see the world as well as the Churches missing the Assistant-Master in question, and not "entirely could easily select. That he begins to weary us with his constant exonerating" the Head Master from blame, but admitting speaking, we may confess, and yet feelthat in the Bishop's place it that "the question of his removal from the post of Head might be a duty to go on speaking, and let those weary who Master" had then never been even "under their consideration." would. St. Paul, in that little house without the walls of Rome, And then, more than two years later, they allow their Clerk to must have said things over and over again in a manner which, if state on their behalf that "the imputations made" on Mr. Grig- he had had reporters, might have wearied Christians, but the effect non in the correspondence with this Assistant-Master would have,
isf that iteration has not wholly died away yet. in their minds, needed close investigation, "if the documents laid be- fore" Bishop C laughton had not been "sufficient to satisfy his mind." God preserve English Schools from such Trustees as these, to whom HEAD MASTERS AND GOVERNING BODIES. it never even occurs that if the gross moral imputations referred
IT is with no sort of pleasure that we see the appeals to the to had any vestige of plausibility in them, they had for two years Press which are made, and perhaps to some extent neces- neglected their simplest and most imperative duty in leaving them Barfly made, in relation to the administrative disputes in our unscrutinised ! What Bishop Claughton may have to say for Public Schools. The truth is that the administration of these himself we do not know. Unless the Clerk to the Trustees is dis- important Trusts is but too likely to be rendered timid and irreso- owned on this point by the Trustees, which is hardly probable, lute by the knowledge that this appeal can always be made, and the Charity Commissioners will do very wrong, if they leave the that, when made, the verdict given must necessarily carry great interests of the school any longer in the hands of men so utterly weight with it, while it may often be very far indeed from the truth incapable of appreciating the simplest rudiments of their moral that the Press really grasps the whole scope of the circumstances responsibilities.
on which the final moral judgment ought to depend. For this As to the Eton imbroglio, we feel the same grave reluctance to reason, we are always reluctant to enter on such painful discus- enter upon its minutim, as we did with regard to the Felsted sions as those concerning the Felsted and the Eton troubles, and dispute. Fortunately the only points on which we think it our when we do enter on them, are always anxious to narrow, our duty to comment strongly, are very simple. The Head Master opinion to the one or two cardinal points on which no great of Eton, Dr. Hornby, became, we believe, very soon after his complexity of issue can be raised. Thus in judging of the appointment in 1868, dissatisfied with some of the Senior dismissal of the Rev. W. S. Grignon from the Head Mastership Masters of the School, and had at one time given of Felsted, we were careful to comment only on the main points some of them notice of dismissal, after which there of the case,—the dwindled number of the Trustees of Felsted, were two or three resiginations, and better relations were which had fallen to a bare- quorum ; Mr. Grignon's long and patched up with the others. Apparently, Mr. Oscar Browning, successful services ; the failure of the Trustees to support him one of the most popular of the Assistant-Masters, was one of with common decency against an Assistant-Master who had those with whom the Head Master's relations continued strained. brought against him the grossest moral charges, which, by the He has been a master for fifteen years in the school, and seems admission of the Trustees themselves, were so baseless as not to have been appointed, not by the Head Master merely, but by Dr. Hornby, it is that while that charge was entirely beyond any- thing warranted by Mr. Browning's conduct, as he himself relates it,—of course Dr. Hornby may have quite another account of the matter to give,—Mr. Browning's dealing in that matter was not altogether to be justified, and that he showed a certain undue eagerness for the emoluments of his office. But be that as it may, the offence, if it were one, had been condoned. It is quite clear that, " lie " or no lie, it had not so far shaken Dr. Hornby's confidence in Mr. Browning as to prevent his co-operating with him for a year and a half after it, and that unless a good deal more had happened to shake his trust in Mr. Browning, he would not have dismissed him. Dismissed, how- ever, Mr. Oscar Browning is, and if he had been only dismissed, without any charges brought, on the ground that as chief adminis- trator of the school, Dr. Hornby was of opinion that it was for the advantage of the school to part with Mr. Browning, we should have held it far too grave a matter to interfere without good reason assigned with the responsibility of a Head Master, to question his judgment. But as a matter of fact, this is not the case. Dr. Hornby did assign grave and serious moral charges against Mr. Browning as his reason for his dismissal in his letter to Mr. Browning, and as the validity of these and other charges came finally before the Governing Body, it was clearly simple justice to give Mr. Browning notice of the further charges to be brought, and ask him to state to the Governing Body anything he might have to say in answer to those charges. This, we are told, was not done. The Governing Body are as much to blame for this as Dr. Hornby. Mr. Browning, complying with the usual rule of honour in these cases, sent Dr. Hornby a copy of the statement he was about to make to the Governing Body, before the Governing Body met to consider that statement. Dr. Hornby, not complying with this reasonable and usual rule, did not submit to Mr. Browning the reasons he was about to state to the Governing Body for what he did, and has ever since refused, we are told, to furnish Mr. Brown- ing with that statement. This is not fair-play. The Governing Body and Dr. Hornby are both guilty, as it seems to us, of a very great injustice, in not allowing Mr. Browning to be heard in his own defence. if the Governing Body heard the complaints of the Head Master against Mr. Browning at all, they ought to have heard his answer to those complaints. It is possible enough that this would not have altered their course. But it is certain that it would have given them, what they cannot, as it is, have had, namely, the opportunity of knowing whether there was any new light to be thrown on the Head Master's view of the case. Even supposing that they ignored altogether every- thing that Dr. Hornby alleged, except what Mr. Browning had himself expressly admitted,—and this is the view of their conduct which makes their action in the matter least questionable,—they would have done far better to ask Mr. Browning for his defence, and so assure the Assistant-Masters and Mr. Browning's friends that they had been anxious to hear all that was to be said on both sides. Substantial justice itself is not complete without inspiring full confidence that it is intended as justice, in the minds of those who suffer from its award.
On the whole, we cannot but say that the relations of our public-school teachers to their administrative superiors appear to be still unsatisfactory. The Governing Bodies are hesitating and uncertain in their dealings with the Head Masters. And the relations of the Head Masters with the Under-Masters is far from what it should be. The duties of the teacher are gradu- ally growing in importance. The ability, the scholarship, the talents devoted to this profession, are rising to a higher standard every day, and it is absurd to refer the troubled relations caused by this new sense of capacity and dig- nity which schoolmasters are very naturally feeling, to what may be termed, in many respects, the accidents of new arrange- ments. Worse troubles would have arisen, we believe, under the old Trusts, which were wholly unfit for their purpose. But that the new arrangements have not apparently compassed what was needed, we admit. The Governing Bodies of our greater schools, composed as they are of wise and distinguished men, are yet apparently of far too fluctuating materials to carry on the administration steadily and on permanent prin- ciples. It is an accident who attends a meeting. Those who attend on one occasion do not on another, and thus the relations between the Trustees and the Head Masters never assume the permanent character which is necessary for efficiency. The Governing Bodies of our secondary schools are not properly selected or renovated, as the case of Felsted shows. Again, the Assistant-Masters are getting too much of the character of a ser- vice, are becoming too necessary to the welfare of the schools, too able, and too learned, to hold their positions willingly on the mere fiat of a Head Master, however distinguished. Mr. Browning, for instance, has for fifteen years held a great influence in the school in which his chief has only ruled for seven. Parents and scholars both feel the great hardship of having men of such standing cavalierly discarded, in favour of youths who have nothing but University honours to recommend them. And a hardship there certainly is. As far as we can judge, the Eton Governing Body has not acquitted itself well in the recent emergency, and the Felsted Governing Body has flagrantly con- demned itself. But we doubt much if the difficulty be really due only to an individual failure in either case. The true type of the control required by our new circumstances, whether over the Head Master, or the Assistant-Masters, has not yet been adequately worked out. The failures we see are due in part to individual in- adequacies for the responsibilities imposed, but in part, too, to an_ inadequacy of system which is but too likely to give us much further trouble in future.
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