A PLEA FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—There are many defects in our public school system, but there is one point to their credit, which has not, perhaps, sufficient weight attached to it. That is the subordination of lower boys to upper boys, and the sense of responsibility fostered in upper boys by the position they hold.
It is rather the fashion in the present day to emphasize the need of early specialization, and boys are removed from
public schools prematurely, the result being a narrowness of view, a want of respect for those above them, and an inordinate belief in themselves. They are herded in the society of boys about their own age, and they have no one to look up to except their masters and teachers—who are grown up men. The hero worship of a boy is bartered for a discipline which often tends to pettiness. Is the experience of Sandhurst, the Britannia, Osborne, quite encouraging? The age at which boys may enter at Sandhurst has lately been lowered again. The perpetual changes in the conditions for entering the army are the despair of teachers, and a constant source of bitter disappointments. In all departments of public life—in Church and State equally—there is an astonishing want of consistency and method, which is only partially counteracted by that common- sense which still forms the basis of English character, but our national happy-go-lucky methods allow of haphazard experiments which may, in the end, cost us our position among the nations. The public schools have a great future before them if they can manage so to co-ordinate their system of education as to give all the specialization needed for military training without hampering too seriously the wheels of their curriculum. This should be done without that infinitesimal dove-tailing which exercises the ingenuity of hard-worked masters. Specialization should not be begun too early, but the course of study should be so arranged that whatever is done should be done thoroughly, and the average boy's powers considered above all. The clever boys can shift for• themselves. There is a residuum which it seems almost impossible to reach. The Headmaster's conference is thrust into a wintry corner. Are the summer holidays too short to allow of so prolonged a meeting as might produce a greater -unity of system, while preserving variety of method, and start our curriculum for an Olympic victory with a minimum of Radley College, Abingdon.
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