Our article of last week on the Rugby appointment has
been attacked, but we feel no doubt at all that every word of it will be strictly substantiated. Mr. Hayman has been chosen in a spirit of reaction from Dr. Temple's Liberalism by reactionary trustees, who have had no sympathy for the painful position in which they were placing a man of worth and culture, who had really no ade- quate claim to the post thrust upon hint to the exclusion of those who had. A correspondent of the Daily News has asserted that Mr. Hayman cannot be chosen for his Conservatism, because he had testimonials from four Liberals. Doubtless he had, but as other correspondents of the Daily News ask, what did those testimonials assert ? Did they assert Mr. Hayman's fitness for this responsible office at Rugby, or were they general and perhaps old testimonials, simply stating what was known by the writers of Mr. Hayman's attainments? We all know what testimonials are ; when most conscientiously given, they are given, and quite rightly, by any man who is well acquainted with another's attainments and abilities, by way of certifying what he knows, and it constantly happens that each of a number of candidates has a testimonial— couched, of course, in very different terms—from the very same person. What we want to know, what the public ought to know, is whether the very Conservative Trustees of Rugby School chose the best head master they could get on the face of the evi- dence before them, and without regard to political sympathies or antipathies. We believe that the country will insist on getting a full inquiry into this appointment, and that the result, though far from discreditable to Mr. Hayman, will not be at all creditable to the majority of the trustees.
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