Headmasters do the same. It is from them that the initiative must come. Let them make it clear that they will countenance no specialisation in the Preparatory School, either in classics or mathematics or modern languages; and let them prove that they mean what they say by taking Greek and Latin verses out of our curriculum, in order that time may be found for a more liberal system in the precious early years of boys' education. It would be a first and most important step towards putting the intellectual side of Public School life on a level with that moral and physical training of which the nation is so justly proud. G. GIDLEY ROBINSON.

APPENDIX A.

ASSOCIATION OF HEADMASTERS OF PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

In response to an invitation from the Headmaster of Rugby to appoint a Sub-Committee to confer, on June 20, with a Sub-Committee of the Headmasters' Conference, on the four questions mentioned in our letter of March last, viz., (1) The Curriculum, (2) The Examinations for Entrance and Scholarships, (3) The Age of Entry to Public Schools, (4) The Health of Boys at Public and Preparatory Schools,-the Committee met on Tuesday, June 13, 1899, to choose the Sub-Committee, and give them "instructions."

Fifteen members out of the seventeen were present, and every "instruction" was carried unanimously.

That the Curriculum for young Boys should be based on the following principles:

1. a. It should be wide rather than special, and should aim at developing all faculties in due proportion.

b. The course of education should be adapted to the average, rather than to the exceptional, Boy.

2. (.) That the subjects we ask to have included in all Entrance Examinations are

i.

Latin. Translation, Grammar, Prose (connected piece and sentences). [Obligatory.]

ii. French. Translation, Grammar, Sentences. [Obligatory.] iii. Greek. Translation, Grammar. [Optional.]

iv. Mathematics. Arithmetic [Obligatory], Algebra and Euclid [Optional].

V.

English. Divinity, English History, Geography (Physical and Political). [Obligatory.]

vi. Drawing. [Optional.]

science alone, and that schools live by scholarships.

But it seems

to me tolerably certain that we must ere long reconsider our methods, and, if the phrase may be pardoned, redistribute our bribes. The tendency is, Í think, to give more weight to those parts of the examination which test general intelligence."-The Master of Trinity (Dr. Butler), Presidential Address to the Teachers' Guild, May, 1900.

(b.) That the Entrance Scholarship Examinations should follow the lines of the Entrance Examination proposed above, with the addition of Latin Verses and Greek Sentences.

(c.) That due credit be given to all these subjects, and all Scholarships awarded on the aggregate of marks obtained.

The Sub-Committee appointed were :-The Chairman, REV. H. BULL; Vice-Chairman, REV. DR. WILLIAMS; Hon. Secretary, MR. COTTERILL; MR. MANSFIELD, and MR. LYNAM.

APPENDIX B.

In June, 1887, the Headmasters' (Public Schools) Committee on the Teaching of Greek arrived at the following conclusions :

That while it is not desirable to do anything to lower the position of Greek in Classical Schools,

(1) Boys who begin Greek before the age of eleven might, as a rule, have spent their time on other subjects without any loss to their Greek.

(2) It is desirable that all boys should have advanced beyond the elements of Latin before beginning the study of Greek.

The Committee desire further to express their opinion that in the examination for Entrance Scholarships at Public Schools it is not desirable that the examination in Greek should be such as to necessitate the very early study of Greek.

In the same year (July 25th, 1887) a letter was sent to Preparatory Schoolmasters signed by three of the same Committee, Mr. Bell (Marlborough), Dr. Fearon (Winchester), Mr. Welldon (Harrow), intimating that they proposed to act on the above Report. They wrote:

"At present Masters of Preparatory Schools are frequently induced by the requirements of the Public Schools to start boys in Greek before either their knowledge of Latin or their mental growth has qualified them to enter on the study of a second dead language. Our experience shows that the minds of young boys are confused by the multiplicity of subjects taught at the same time; and all the more, when they are taught Greek before they have acquired the power of reading an easy Latin author, and are still grappling with the rudiments of Latin Grammar.

"Boys who began at a later age would be able with more rapidity and less confusion to assimilate the grammar of a language which has many features in common with Latin.

"And there would be other considerable advantages in beginning Greek at a later age. Time would then be set free for the study of French, Geography, and the outlines of History; and above all for gaining such acquaintance with English as would both stimulate interest and thought and promote a more intelligent study of Latin and Greek.

"We are persuaded that such a plan as is proposed would tend to diminish the number of boys who leave school at sixteen or seventeen with a confused and inaccurate knowledge of the Classical languages, and too ignorant of subjects which should form part of a liberal education.

"The Conference of Headmasters has already taken up the subject. We should be prepared to go even further. While we fully recognise that the age test is rough and unscientific, and can only be provisionally accepted as a convenient mode of fixing a definite idea, we hold that the evidence which has been brought forward shows that Greek scholarship would sustain no loss, and in many cases would gain, if even boys with some gift for language did not begin Greek till twelve; while in our opinion backward boys might profitably wait till later. To meet the needs of such boys we are prepared to make arrangements for teaching Greek in our own schools ab initio, and to admit boys on the classical side, up to a certain standard in the school, without a knowledge of Greek. We are most anxious to do nothing that will diminish the range and influence of classical education in England. But we believe that a change of method on the lines here indicated would lead to a higher average of intellectual attainment in Public Schools, and that, so far from injuring the cause of classical education, it would strengthen it by removing reasonable objections and by establishing the study of both Latin and Greek on a more scientific basis."

THE PLACE OF THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR BOYS IN SECONDARY EDUCATION IN ENGLAND.

1. Of the foreign and American visitors who come in increasing numbers to study English education, it is probable that comparatively few have even heard of the existence of what we call Preparatory Schools. And yet the latter occupy an important place in the line of higher education in England. But so unsymmetrical are our educational arrangements, and so lacking in formal unity, that there are doubtless many Englishmen, not to speak of strangers from other countries, who would find it a little difficult to construct a diagram showing the various elements in our national education and the connection (if any) between the different parts which make up that varied whole. The aim of this volume in general is to furnish a description of the educational service rendered by the Preparatory Schools to the nation, and to explain the conditions under which their work is carried on; while the special object of the present paper is briefly to indicate the place now occupied by these schools in English Secondary Education, and to compare some features of their work with those of the corresponding parts of German education. As part of this task, therefore, I may be permitted to enter upon a short preliminary explanation of the circumstances which determine the special position of this type of English schools.

2. An English boy, whose parents can afford to give him a Public School education (to use those words in the English, not in the American, sense), usually begins what may be called regular lessons when he is about six years old. If his parents live in the country he generally has a governess; but, if they live in a town, it is a not uncommon arrangement for them to send him, when he has reached the age of six or thereabouts, to the Kindergarten attached to a girls' Secondary School, or to a class for little children taught by some lady with a special gift for that kind of instruction. In recent years there has been a great increase of interest in the education of young children, and some of the classes, referred to in the preceding sentence, are doing very interesting and original work. When he is nine and a-half, or ten, years old (or perhaps a little later), the boy is generally sent away from home to a Preparatory Boarding School, usually in the country, often at the seaside or in other bracing air. He stays at the Preparatory School until he is between 13 and 14, when he goes on to the Public School which has been

On this point it is impossible to generalise, but there are some signs of a tendency to defer sending boys to a Boarding School away from home as long as possible.

chosen for him by his parents, or where he may have been elected to an entrance scholarship.* At the Public School he will remain (in the great majority of cases as a boarder) until he is 18 or nearly 19, when, if he is intended for university life, he will go on to Oxford or Cambridge. But he will leave the Public School at a rather earlier age if he enters the Army, and the same will be true generally (though by no means always) if he is destined for commercial life.

It is a little difficult to say exactly at what point in such a course of education, secondary, as distinct from primary, education begins. Much will depend on the circumstances of each individual case. But, ordinarily, as soon at any rate as he enters the Preparatory School (and in many cases earlier) the boy will have begun to learn certain classical subjects which are still the staples of English secondary, as distinguished from public elementary, education. And, what matters a good deal more than the subject matter of his school lessons, he will then, as a rule, have entered a certain scholastic atmosphere, and a rather clearly distinguished sphere of educational influences, which are characteristic of the tradition of our older type of secondary schools. It is on entering the preparatory school, therefore, that a boy usually begins his secondary education, and enters upon a course of training which, being planned to extend over the eight or nine following years, may fairly claim to be judged by nothing short of the outcome of the whole period for which it has been designed. A prolonged course of secondary education, though made up of a number of school years, each more or less separate in the matter of instruction, cannot be compared to one of those bookcases which are composed of separate shelves, each an independent unit and separately useful, though forming in the aggregate a single piece of furniture. The course of education is intended as a whole, and should be judged as a whole. Of such a prolonged course of educational treatment, that furnished by the preparatory school is only the opening stage. It is not a course of education complete in itself, though it is usually under different direction from that which follows it. It is only a fraction, rather more than a third and less than a half, of a lengthy course of training. Of a flight of nine or ten educational steps, the preparatory school represents the first three or four. No one ascends them who does not mean to go up further still.

The preparatory school course is thus an integral part of one of the main lines of English secondary education. There are, of course, in England other lines of secondary education for boys, not to speak of what is done for girls. But this particular line of preparatory school and public school has a distinct character of its own and has rendered, and is rendering, specially valued service to the national life. That being the case, it is singular that no attempt has previously been made to describe the work of the preparatory schools and to show in detail the course of

* Most preparatory schoolmasters are in favour of boys going on to the Public School at 13 or thereabouts.