THE HEAD-MISTER OF ETON AND THE GERMAN SCHOOLBOY,
LTO TRH RINTOR OP TRU "SPBOTATOR.1
Sna.,-1 should have been glad not to have troubled your readers with another letter on this subject, as my purpose had been attained by lodging my protest, and all the more so as Canon Lyttelton graciously admitted that he had been wrongly reported in the Press. But as Mr. T. W. Carr in his letter in your issue of the 16th inst. accuses me of having misled your readers, I feel in duty bound to have another word on the subject. I shall not enter into the introductory part of his communication, as I consider it irrelevant to the point at issue, but shall content myself with answering what he says on the subject of German schoolboys obtaining the right to aerve for one year in the Army without having to pass any special examination. The extract he quotes from Mr. Ernat's novel is very amusing, and is perfectly well known to me, as I have read the book in question. But surely one does not go to the pages of exaggerated fiction, fiction, moreover, written with a purpose, to prove one's case. I never pretended that every boy in the Untersekuncla passes into the Obersekunda. Dunces and incapable boys are naturally kept book, as being unfit to enjoy the advantage obtained by their more industrious and better gifted fellow. pupils. What I have said, and what my experience, both as a pupil and teacher in German schools, has taught me, years without end, is that the boy who satisfies the demands of his teachers obtains ipso facto the certificate in question. There is no special examination of any kind for such a boy. I may also, I suppose, pass over the highly coloured remarks as to fraud; and suicide of both teachers and boys. If the German schoolboys are more serious than those in our country, so much the better for them, and there is now a general consensus of opinion among the teachers of this country that games and sports of all kinds are being seriously overdone to the detriment of sound education.—I am, Sir, Sr.c.,
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