Saint-Cyran & Locke on Public Schools.

though by a different road. To both of them it seemed that children require much more individual care and watching than they can possibly get in a public school. SaintCyran would have said what Locke said: "The difference is great between two or three pupils in the same house and three or four score boys lodged up and down: for let the master's industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible he should have fifty or one hundred scholars under his eye any longer than they are in school together: Nor can it be expected that he should instruct them successfully in anything but their bocks; the forming of their minds and manners [preserving them from the danger of the enemy, Saint-Cyran would have said] requiring a constant attention and particular application to every single boy, which is impossible in a numerous flock, and would be wholly in vain (could he have time to study and correct everyone's peculiar defects and wrong inclinations) when the lad was to be left to himself or the prevailing infection of his fellows the greater part of the four-and-twenty hours." (Thoughts c. Ed. § 70.)

§ 12. An English public schoolmaster told the Commission on Public Schools, that he stood in loco parentis to fifty boys. "Rather a large family," observed one of the Commissioners drily. The truth is that in the bringing-up of the young there is the place of the schoolmaster and of the school-fellows, as well as that of the parents; and of these several forces one cannot fulfil the functions of the others.

§ 13. According to the theory or at least the practice of English public schools, boys are left in their leisure hours to organize their life for themselves, and they forin a community from which the masters are, partly by their own over-work,

N

Shadow-side of Public Schools.

partly by the traditions of the school, utterly excluded. From this the intellectual education of the boys no doubt suffers. "Engage them in conversation with men of parts and breeding," says Locke; and this was the old notion of training when boys of good family grew up as pages in the household of some nobleman. But, except in the holidays, the young aristocrats of the present day talk only with other boys, and servants, and tradesmen. Hence the amount of thought and conversation given to school topics, especially the games, is out of all proportion to the importance of such things; and this does much to increase what Matthew Arnold calls "the barbarians"" inaptitude for ideas.

§ 14. What are we to say about the effects of the system on the morals of the boys? If we were to start like SaintCyran from the doctrine of human depravity, we should entirely condemn the system and predict from it the most disastrous results;* but from experience we come to a very

* A master in a great public school once stated in a school address what masters and boys felt to be true. "It would hardly be too much to say that the whole problem of education is how to surround the young with good influences. I believe we must go on to add that if the wisest man had set himself to work out this problem without the teaching of experience, he would have been little likely to hit upon the system of which we are so proud, and which we call "the Public School System." If the real secret of education is to surround the young with good influences, is it not a strange paradox to take them at the very age when influences act most despotically and mass them together in large numbers, where much that is coarsest is sure to be tolerated, and much that is gentlest and most refining-the presence of mothers and sisters for example-is for a large part of the year a memory or an echo rather than a living voice? I confess I have never seen any answers to this objection which apart from the test of experience I should have been prepared to pronounce satisfactory. It is a simple truth that the moral

The Little Schools for the few only.

66

different conclusion. Bishop Dupanloup, indeed, spoke of the public schools of France as ces gouffres." This is not what is said or thought of the English schools, and they are filled with boys whose fathers and grandfathers were brought up in them, and desire above all things to maintain the old traditions.

§ 15. The Little Schools of Port-Royal aimed at training a few boys very differently; each master had the charge of five or six only, and these were never to be out of his presence day or night.*

§ 16. It may reasonably be objected that such schools. would be possible only for a few children of well-to-do parents, and that men who would thus devote themselves could be found only at seasons of great enthusiasm. Under ordinary circumstances small schools have most of the drawbacks and few of the advantages which are to be found in large

It is the simple

dangers of our Public School System are enormous. truth that do what you will in the way of precaution, you do give to boys of low, animal natures, the very boys who ought to be exceptionally subject to almost despotic restraint, exceptional opportunities of exercising a debasing influence over natures far more refined and spiritual than their own. And it is further the simple but the sad truth, that these exceptional opportunities are too often turned to account, and that the young boy's character for a time-sometimes for a long time--is spoiled or vulgarized by the influence of unworthy companions.” This is what public schoolmasters, if their eyes are not blinded by routine, are painfully conscious of. But they find that in the end good prevails; the average boy gains a manly character and contributes towards the keeping up a healthy public opinion which is of great effect in restraining the evil-doer.

* “The number of boarders was never very great, because to a master were assigned no more than he could have beds for in his room." (Fontaine's Mémoire, Carré, p. 24.)

Advantages of great schools.

schools. As I have already said, parents, schoolmasters, and school-fellows have separate functions in education; and even in the smallest school the master can never take the place of the parent, or the school become the home. Children at home enter into the world of their father and mother; the family friends are their friends, the family events affect them as a matter of course. But in the school, however small, the children's interests are unconnected with the master and the master's family. The boys may be on the most intimate, even affectionate terms with the grown people who have charge of them; but the mental horizon of the two parties is very different, and their common area of vision but small. In such cases the young do not rise into the world of the adults, and it is almost impossible for the adults to descend into theirs. They are "no company" the one for the other, and to be constantly in each other's presence would subject both to very irksome restraint. When left to themselves, boys in small numbers are far more likely to get into harm than boys in large numbers. In large communities even of boys, "the common sense of most" is a check on the badly disposed. So as it seems to me if from any cause the young cannot live at home and attend a day-school, they will be far better off in a large boarding school than in one that would better fulfil the requirements of Erasmus,* Saint-Cyran, and Locke.

* "Plerisque placet media quædam ratio, ut apud unum Præce tɔrem quinque sexve pueri instituantur: ita nec sodalitas deerit ætati, cui convenit alacritas; neque non sufficiet singulis cura Præceptoris; et facile vitabitur corruptio quam affert multitudo. Many take up with a middle course, and would have five or six boys placed with one pre

ceptor; in this way they will not be without companionship at an age when from their liveliness they seem specially to need it, and the master

Choice of masters & servants. Watch & pray.

§ 17. As Saint-Cyran attributed immense importance to the part of the master in education, he was not easily satisfied with his qualifications. "There is no occupation in the Church that is more worthy of a Christian; next to giving up one's life there is no greater charity. The charge of the soul of one of these little ones is a higher employment than the government of all the world." (Cadet, 2.) So thought Saint-Cyran, and he was ready to go to the ends of the earth to find the sort of teacher he wanted.

§ 18. He was so anxious that the children should see only that which was good that the servants were chosen with peculiar care.

§ 19. For the masters his favourite rule was: "Speak little; put up with much; pray still more." Piety was not to be instilled so much by precepts as by the atmosphere in which the children grew up. “Do nof spend so much time in speaking to them about God as to God about them :" so formal instruction was never to be made wearisome. But there was to be an incessant watch against evil influences and for good. "In guarding the citadel," says Lancelot, "we fail if we leave open a single gateway by which the enemy might enter."

§ 20. Though anxious, like the Jesuits, to make their boys' studies "not only endurable, but even delightful," the Gentlemen of Port-Royal banished every form of rivalry Each pupil was to think of one whom he should try to catch up, but this was not a school-fellow, but his own higher self, his

may give sufficient care to each individual; moreover, there will be an easy avoidance of the moral corruption which numbers bring." Erasmus on Christian Marriage quoted by Coustel in Sainte-Beuve, P. Riij, bk. 4, p. 404.