MR MILL ON ENDOWMENTS.
B. MILL'S striking article in the new (April) number of the Fortnightly Review on " Endowments " exhibits him in his ante-Parliamentary phase of protesting against doctrines that many consider revolutionary, rather than in his Parliamentary phase of urging them on. We do not mean, however, that he is at all more Conservative than the occasion demands. If any of Mr. Forster's Select Committee on the Endowed Schools' Bill looks into the article with any view of finding in it arguments for crippling Mr. Forster's Bill, he will be bitterly mistaken. It will do more to strengthen the ease on that side, by the very caution and moderation of its language in relation to still more trenchant suggestions,—like Mr. Lowe's, for instance, or one which was advocated with a name of great weight affixed to it (that of Mr. J. G. Fitch) in the January number of Fraser's Magazine,—than any mere advocacy, however able or unanswerable, of the right of the State to deal with educational endowments as Mr. Forster's Bill pro
poses. On one minute point, indeed, Mr. Mill would probably wish to see Mr. Forster's Bill amended in a
conservative direction. He insists very strongly on the expediency of allowing any educational experiment made by the donor or bequeather of endowments to be tried for a sufficient length of time without any power of interference on the part of the State, unless the experiment involves a distinct breach of the law. He thinks that no eccentricity or peculiarity in the experiment or conditions imposed should be restrained till after it has been fairly tried, as this would imply that the dull, average, common-place estimate of utility which is sure to be more or less embodied in any free State's Government, would have the power to rob us of all the originality which may be looked for from individual genius and experience, and to suppress schemes which, if carried out, might have opened up some new vein of national caPaaity. He indicates that every not illegal educational endowment ought to be entirely free from public interference for a considerable length of time, which he speaks of as from half a century to a century, in order to give a fair oPportunity of trial ; and we suppose, therefore, that he would consider the thirty years suggested in Mr. Forster's Bill as the time of trial, during which it should have a perfect immunity from public interference, too, short. For our own Parts, while quite agreeing in Mr. Mill's principle that individual experiments, even when tried only posthumously by bequeathed money, ought to have a fair trial, we regard Mr. Mill's period of from half a century to a century as greatly too long. A number of very silly schemes will always be tried by posthumous endowments in every free country, and there is no reason whatever why they should have a very Prolonged existence,—a single generation is at least sufficient to see if an experiment is adapted to its time and place,—when they happen to be silly and meaningless. On the contrary, for a really original plan, adequately adapted to the time and place at which it is originated, however unpopular and newfangled it may be thought at first, a whole generation's trial can scarcely be held insufficient. Thirty to forty years are surely ample time wherein to try the value of a scheme which appears eccentric at the outset. Such a period would be far too long for the existence of a mere obsolete and obstinate, or novel but crack-brained experiment, if there were any means of knowing at the first trial which are obsolete and crack-brained, and which are destined to show vitality. On the whole, from thirty to forty years will surely be considered a far better period of probation than from fifty to a hundred years, considering how many schemes are doomed from the beginning, and only likely to live by public forbearance to the end of the time.
It need scarcely be added, after stating that Mr. Mill insists, with his usual force and ability, on the duty of protecting for a given period all endowments bequeathed by private individuals for any legal object, however eccentric, that, though he strongly advocates the right of the State to revise these applications of endowments after the expiration of that time, he is entirely opposed to diverting them more widely than is necessary for the sake of real efficiency from their original end, and that, in the case of education, he combats strongly Mr. Lowe's wish to see all permanent endowments cease. He points out, with his usual fairness, that while there are many things which Free Trade does "passab/y," and which anything but free trade would do abominably ill, there is nothing which free trade does "absolutely well ; for competition is as rife in the career of fraudulent pretence as in that of real excellence." "Free trade," he adds, with that sharp intellectual definition which is the best characteristic of his style, "is not upheld, by any one who knows human life, from any very lofty estimate of its worth, but because the evils of exclusive privilege are still greater, and what is worse, more incorrigible." And of course, in the case of education, parents being, as a rule, bad judges of what a good education is, and often too poor to buy it even where they are good judges, free trade will not answer nearly as well in the case of education as it does in that of ordinary commerce. Free trade, as supplemented by well-administered endowments, which can afford to set up a good standard, will at all events be far better than free trade without that supplement. They may set a fashion in education which parents, otherwise accessible only to very narrow considerations, will be anxious, for the sake of fashion, to follow. Such a scheme as Mr. Forster has introduced into the House of Commons will supply the country with models of school education which, by altering the fashion, must improve the teaching of the private schools at least as much as they will improve on their own present standards. The only argument against this use of the endowments to which Mr. Mill gives a very inadequate reply is Mr. Lowe's, that it is unfidr to private schools to subsidize competitors which can thus afford to undersell them, and give an equally good or better education at lower prices. We do not think that this argument has any real weight, but what it has is not in the least met by Mr. Mill's reply, that so long as endowed schools are not able to deal with the whole education of the country, the cost of that education must be determined by that of the private schools, not of the endowed, just as the cost of wheat depends on its cost on the worst soil on which it is produced, not on the best. This seems to us a bad answer, for two reasons ; first, because the endowed schools will not be allowed, in all probability, to raise their terms, like the sellers of wheat, till those terms are as high as those of private schools equally good. If the head master
has a small minimum salary secured to him out of the endowment, as is proposed,—and a most important proposal it is for securing a high standard of independence,—and if the school buildings are also provided or improved out of the endowment,—as is also proposed, and not without reason,—it is clear that the school can afford to charge lower terms for its scholars, than a private school which pays a high rent for the school-house, and has no minimum salary for the muter.
And it is also obvious that while the people, through the Government, influence the organization of the endowed schools, the pupil fees are sure to be limited to what will be adequate
to keep up an efficient organization, and that even if they were to be raised up to the full private-school standard, there would still be the advantage of a minimum salary to the master, free school buildings, and probably a much larger and therefore less expensive system of organization, on the aide of of the former. Mr. Mill's answer therefore seems to us quite insufficient. He ought to have admitted, we think, that good endowed schools do and must operate injuriously, in apecuniary sense, to good private schools. But the injury is not, as far as we can see, any greater than the injury to every new business of having to compete with old-established businesses based upon capital accumulated for many generations. The private competitor must always look very sharp for the mistakes or deficiencies of the old and easy-going firms, in order to make good his ground against them ; and so it will be in education. A man with high educational faculties will not hesitate to compete with the endowed schools, in spite of all their advantages both in prestige and capital. But he will not attempt to deny that they are great advantages,—that he must fight against odds. Mr. Mill has pointed out in his Political Economy how subsidized competitors, like the women who knit stockings in their leisure hours, to eke out their husbands' wages, can afford to undersell those who pursue the same calling merely as a trade, since they will do it for almost anything beyond the mere cost of materials. To a modified extent, the endowed schools will be in this advantageous position as compared with the private schools. They will at least be spared certain heavy expenses which the private schoolmasters must cover before they can even begin.
Most important of all, in relation to the scheme of the Government, is Mr. Mill's very striking defence of the principle of applying educational endowments to the object of assisting the best scholars in primary schools to enter the secondary, and so win their way to the Universities. Mr. Mill says, very justly, that no measure will do so much to heal class differences, and extinguish the Socialistic cravings which spring up in all countries oppressed by caste distinctions, as this measure for sifting out the best of the poorest class, and raising them to a level with the highest. "The real hardship of social inequality to the poor," says Mr. Mill, "as the reasonable among them can be brought to see, is not that men are unequal, but that they are born so ; not that those who are born poor do not obtain the great objects of human desire unearned, but that the circumstances of their birth preclude their earning them ; that the higher positions in life, including all which confer power or dignity, can not only lie obtained by the rich without taking the trouble to be qualified for them, but that even were this corrected (to which there is an increasing tendency), none, as a rule, except the rich, have it in their power to make themselves qualified. By the proposal of the Commissioners, every child of poor parents (for, of course, girls must sooner or later be included) would have that power opened to him if he passed with real distinction through the course of instruction provided for all ; and the feelings which give rise to Socialism would be in a great measure disarmed in as much of them as is unreasonable or exaggerated, by this great concession to that in them which is rational and legitimate." This last consideration ought to have real weight with the obstructionists to the Endowed Schools' Bill. It is perfectly true, and a matter of the greatest moment to Conservatives, that to open great careers before the ablest of the poor would both undermine the moral position of the Socialist malcontents, and deprive them of their ablest leaders, by opening to those leaders the path to individual eminence and success.
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