THE "PUBLIC" SCHOOLS AND THE EMPIRE.
[To THE EDITOR or THE "Bram:on:1 SIR,--Surely your critic, in your issue of July 26th, is most unfair to Dr. Gray and his book. He begins by quoting (and, indeed, without acknowledgment) Dr. Gray's quotation,
p. 81, from the Talmud, and he goes on to acknowledge as true many of the points urged by Dr. Gray in his book ; but all this is merely to emphasize the greatness of the theme and the opportunity it afforded that he may flagellate the author for presuming to touch "the Ark of the Covenant." Your critic is a very fair sample of that type of mind, manufactured in England to-day, which is the despair of patriots and the joy of live foreigners. He admits, in feeble phrases, the need of drastic change, but complains that Dr. Gray does not water down the facts sufficiently to suit the jaded nerves of that prejudiced class of inefficients which are the product of effete education. The whole spirit of your critic is precisely that of the dull people who monopolize the " public " schools (with their big endowments) in order to get cheapened education at the national expense. He quotes, with sarcastic disapproval, Dr. Gray's description of some of our national characteristics, sublimely unconscious that his own criticisms delightfully illustrate the truth of them. Of course, if Englishmen will not listen to those who criticise unless the criticism is mere milk and water, they can never realize the need of drastic changes. The House of Lords knew they ought to reform themselves. They failed to do so; they drifted, and then were wiped out. If the wealthy classes who monopolize the " public " schools cannot reform them, either Mr. Lloyd George will wipe out the " public " schools, or the Germans will wipe out England. For we need a governing class. The " public " schools have ceased to produce them. They only
produce simulacra.—I am, Sir, &c., C. REDDIE. Abboteholme, Derbyshire.
[No better proof of the soundness of our criticism of Dr. Gray's contentions could be produced than the tone and temper of Dr. Reddie's letter.—En. Spectator.]
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