PERSE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I believe that you have made another grievous blunder. I cannot be quite sure, but I am very nearly sure that Mr. J. B. Allen, the Master of Perse School, Cambridge, is not a clergyman.
Another error you make in the same matter is where you say that Dr. Bateson's letter as to Mr. Maxwell's deficiencies apply to his defective teaching of English. It appears from Mr. Maxwell's letter which appeared in the Times of Saturday, that the report on which Dr. Bateson's letter was founded, in as far as it was un- favourable, referred only to Latin,—only to one class in Latin, &c.
—I am, Sir, &c.,
[Mr. Allen is a layman,—a fact which convicts us of "grievous error" in one sense, since it shows that we were grievously exaggerating the good-sense of the laity in supposing them free from the petty fanaticisms which are comparatively excusable in the clergy. The error as to English was due to the imperfect phraseology of the letter from Dr. Bateson, as it appeared in the Times of Thursday week, where our correspondent will find "the English department " duly specified as the one in which the school under Mr. Maxwell's management was found to be chiefly deficient.—En. Spectator.]
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