interesting, sometimes so diverting, sometimes so disconcerting, that a small volume might well be written on the subject. But the fact of this keenness of interest in their children's future is undoubted, and it is full of hope and encouragement. It is already producing far-reaching effects upon Public and Preparatory School education, and is destined to produce still greater ones. Multitudes of parents who, if they consulted merely their own selfish parental affections, would elect to keep their children at home up to the age when they go to a Public School are unable to do this, consistently with what they believe to be in their children's interests. Health, means for sufficient competition in both physical and intellectual pursuits, due preparation-physical, mental, moral-for the plunge into the bewildering numbers of the great Public Schools, the continuous watchfulness of one careful and skilful man during perhaps the most formative period of a boy's life-these are only some of the considerations which, according to my own observation and knowledge, do at the present time influence parents in sending their boys to Preparatory Schools, and in selecting particular schools. The field for such selection is certainly wide enough to satisfy every conceivable desire on the part of anxious parents, and to meet every conceivable idiosyncracy on the part of their boys.

II. THE NUMBERS AND ORGANISATION OF PREPARATORY

SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND.

The aims of Preparatory Schools, the work they are doing and are destined to do, the manner in which they are equipped for doing it, and the results of all this as represented by the boys as they leave them, and the men that these boys become the product of the Preparatory Schools-all this forms the subject matter of detailed and special treatment in the various papers that follow. But for the better appreciation of such detailed treatment some general information on certain points and aspects of the subject. may perhaps be most usefully conveyed by some remarks of an introductory character.

And first with regard to the numbers of the Preparatory Schools. It must be at once understood that any calculation on the subject must be taken as only approximately accurate, for the materials for a precise estimate do not at present exist. As the result of a careful investigation conducted on behalf of the Association of the Headmasters of Preparatory Schools about three years ago, and allowing for developments in the interval, it is calculated that there exist in Great Britain at the present time about four hundred Preparatory Schools, of the strict type as defined by the Association. As forming a necessary preliminary condition for membership of the Association the definition, with the condition of membership, is as follows:"Any School which, according to its prospectus, consists only of boys under fifteen, and prepares them for the schools represented in the Headmasters of Public Schools' Conference, or

for the Royal Navy, shall, subject to the approval of the Committee, be entitled to representation at the Conference of the Association."

The present position and the future aspirations of the Preparatory Schools would be quite inadequately understood without some account of the Association to which allusion has just been made.

A meeting of Headmasters of Preparatory Schools was held in London on March 30, 1892, to discuss Preparatory School cricket. The success of the meeting suggested the idea that united conference and action on the part of Preparatory School Masters was very desirable. Accordingly a meeting was held in London on December 23, 1892, at which fifty Headmasters were present. It was resolved unanimously

1. That an Association of Headmasters of Preparatory Schools be now formed.

2. That the Association be represented by a committee of fifteen.

3. That all questions affecting the organisation of the next year's conference be left in the hands of the committee.

From that time the Association has held an annual conference in London at the end of the Winter Term. At the present time the members of the Association number about 280, among whom are the Headmasters of almost all the leading schools. The constitution and aims of the Association cannot be better expressed than in the following quotation from its prospectus :— The Association was founded in the year 1892. Its objects have been defined as follows:-

(1.) To draw more closely together the Head Masters of Preparatory Schools, and organise their opinion.

(2.) To advance the interests of education as affecting those schools. (3.) To provide a recognised channel of communication with the Public Schools and with other educational bodies.

An Annual Conference of the Association is held at the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

The affairs of the Association are conducted by an Executive Committee of fifteen members, five of whom retire in rotation every year and are not, for one year, eligible for re-election. The Hon. Secretary and the Hon. Editor of the Preparatory Schools' Review, both of whom are appointed by the Committee, are additional ex-officio members of that body. The duties of the Executive Committee are :—

(1.) To make arrangements for Conferences of the Association, and to select subjects for discussion.

(2.) From time to time to invite, formulate, and circulate the opinions of members on educational matters.

(3.) To receive suggestions from members and to give advice and information if appealed to.

The organ of the Association is the Preparatory Schools' Review, the first number of which appeared in 1895. It is under the management of an hen. editor responsible to the Committee.

Work of great value has already been done, and much remains to be done, by the Association. Its objects, as defined above, have been fulfilled already to a degree only known to those who have interested themselves in it from the beginning. It is, I know, easy to lay too much stress upon measures brought forward, discussed, and passed by such a body,

and I will not indulge in the enumeration of lists of these. But I will permit myself two remarks.

The intercourse that takes place between the members of the Committee of the Headmasters' Conference and of the Preparatory Schools' Association has already been, and promises to be to an ever increasing degree, productive of most beneficial reforms in every sphere of secondary education-physical, moral, and mental. It has also, I believe, shown to both sides the immense value of a sympathetic appreciation of the aims, methods, and difficulties peculiar to each, and of the reccgnition of the great fact that the two classes of schools are so closely connected with each other as to be really one-the Preparatory Schools being in all respects (save that they are, with rare exceptions, not actually attached to particular Public Schools) simply junior departments

of the latter.

This is much to have effected. But there is something to add to this. The Association found the Headmasters of Preparatory Schools isolated members of a profession, with no coherence whatever. It has introduced them to one another through various agencies too various and too subtle to enumerate. It has been, and will continue to be increasingly, the means of bringing together and forming friendships of the closest description among men who, though engaged in a common great work, would, but for it, have never known one another at all. It has created precisely that element, the lack of which was such a grievous defect among Preparatory School Masters-it has created solidarity, and a sense of a common public spirit. Before the existence of the Association each man was usually pursuing his own work in his own way, and devoting himself to his own school, ignorant of the work, aims, difficulties, mistakes, successes of others, giving nothing to them, receiving nothing from them. All this is now changed. The friendliness of the intercourse with one another, the desire on the part of all to communicate to others anything experience has shown to be of value to themselves, the new sense of comradeship and good fellowship -this has been, in the judgment of the present writer, the most precious gift that the Association has bestowed upon the Preparatory School Masters of England.

I have dwelt specially upon this side of the influence of the Association, partly because I believe it to be the most important and the most interesting feature, partly because it is a feature more likely perhaps to be passed over than others of a more superficially prominent kind. If I have insisted specially upon this, it is not that I do not fully recognise the value of the work of the Association in other, and more public, more noticeable directions.

There are, then, as has been stated above, probably about 400 Preparatory Schools of the strict type. There is much "honourable curiosity" to be satisfied regarding these schools. Where are they situated? What are the numbers at each? How are they equipped? What manner of men are the masters, heads and assistants, and how furnished for the work they have to do? How are they paid, the one and the other? And the buildings

are these, in their main features and their details, adapted for their purpose? What are the subjects taught, and what are the methods of teaching? Are these modelled closely and mechanically upon those in use at the Public Schools? Or is there some disposition shown to adopt a more or less independent attitude?

Such are a few, taken indifferently, of the many questions that occur at once to anyone desirous of obtaining some accurate information regarding the Preparatory Schools of Great Britain. To supply such information is the object of the volume to which these general remarks are introductory.

III. THE PLAN OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.

For the guidance and better information of the reader, it may be well to add some remarks concerning the credentials of the contributors to the volume and the general scheme upon which most of the papers have been framed; and lastly, concerning the materials upon which the writers have based their contributions.

The writers of the articles, with certain exceptions to be noticed presently, are Preparatory School Masters, engaged at the present time, or up to within the last year or two, in the practical work of their respective schools, and are mostly men of long experience in that work. They are dealing therefore with subjects of which they have intimate personal knowledge from within. This fact, taken in conjunction with the constructive scheme of the papers themselves, will, it is hoped, give to the contributions a special value and interest. Hearty thanks are due to those who have contributed these papers. For men with plenty of leisure at their command it would have been an onerous undertaking. But for men whose time is almost incessantly at the disposal of others, hour after hour, and whose work frequently involves much minute attention and much anxiety, to find time during the school term to perform an additional task of such a nature as this was a very difficult matter. Consequently in most cases a considerable portion of the summer and winter holidays has had to be devoted to the business. The time and labour necessary for an adequate treatment of most of the subjects has been great, and it has been bestowed with no stint. It is impossible to resist the remark that the ungrudging, unsparing devotion of so much disinterested labour, at such cost to themselves, upon work of a public character such as this augurs well for the future of the schools-the Preparatory Schools of Great Britain-over which such men preside. For these men represent their profession.

The scheme has, of course, been adopted merely as a general direction, to be used by each contributor in his own way, and with such modifications as befit his subject. The scheme is as follows:In dealing with his subject each writer states, with as much completeness as is attainable, the actual condition of things prevalent in Preparatory Schools at the present time, adding, if possible, his own individual practice or predilections in the matter. Further, a statement is usually added, within the limits of a sober

optimism, of what seems to the writer to be a fairly practicable ideal, in advance of the present practice.

With regard to the materials which the writers have had at their command, in many cases the experience of the writerthe experience, it will be remembered, of an expert-would furnish him with an ample stock of materials upon which to found his deductions. But there are other subjects upon which it has seemed to be either necessary or highly desirable to go beyond the experience open to any individual schoolmaster howsoever experienced. In such cases a method has been pursued which has, it is hoped, secured a body of exhaustive information likely to prove of the highest interest and service to all who care to acquaint themselves with the subjects treated.

There has been issued to all the members of the Preparatory School Association, and to some other Preparatory School Masters not included in the Association, a series of statistical inquiries bearing upon some of the most important subjects that concern Preparatory Schools. These questions are in themselves so exhaustive and cover so much ground that it has been thought advisable to put them in an appendix, and we venture to recommend to the reader their careful perusal.

It will be seen that, in addition to the actual information asked for on matters of fact, a request has been added for expressions of opinion, both of a particular and a general nature. There has resulted a store of information of high educational value. This information has been dealt with by the writers of the papers dealing with the respective subjects, and has been embodied in their presentment of them.

to be

Such, then, is the design of the papers, and such are the materials to be disposed of, in the case of those writers who are themselves engaged in the actual work with which they are dealing--who write from within. But in order to give the reader an account as complete and trustworthy as possible of the matter in hand, it has been thought advisable to call in the aid of other contributors also, who would deal with the matter from without. Failing this, there might seem a certain one-sidedness in the handling of the subject. It is however plain that, whilst this treatment from without is highly desirable, its desirability will be in exact proportion to the kind of information available to the writers. The men to whom alone anything approaching to precise information on the subject is possible are, of course, masters of the Public Schools. And of these, headmasters and house-masters will possess opportunities of gaining the most complete knowledge. All students of the subject, all who are desirous of seeing it from every side, are greatly indebted to the distinguished Public School Masters who have contributed papers on "The Preparatory School Product," and we beg to tender to them our thanks for the services they have thus rendered to the cause of education. Our thanks are also due to other outside contributors for their interesting and valuable papers upon some subjects closely connected with the work of Preparatory Schools.

C. C. COTTERILL.