The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-11-25 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER ON THE

EDUCATION QUESTION.
The Bishop of Winchester presided on Saturday at the
309th anniversary Speech-day of St. Saviour's Grammar
Schools, Southu ark, London, and in the course of his speech
said:—

I for one believe that the prosperity of this school,
and of schools similarly situated, is at this moment a
matter of great national importance, as giving a sound
English education to those youths whose future in life
is to be commerce, trade, and all that hard and honour-
able work for winch our country is siv singularly famed,
and with the full success of which, and the honourable
conduct of which, thp welfare of our nation is so end.
nently bound up. What has given in all the markets
of the world so high a place to English manu-
factures and English goods is that the very name
in times pant has conveyed an idea of real ster-
ling artichs brought into that depot by a real and
honourable commerce. (cheers.) I urn perfectly con-
vinced that nothing, speaking even for this world, could
compensate in this lani I of ours forany thing which should
in the least degree shake that character for thorough
probity and high lion i or which has been so log bound
up with the great commerce if these islands. The train-
ing of those who are to take their place in trade and
commerce, which has been spoken of by your exa-
miners and your heal master, is not the simply teaching
them the intellectual tricks- because, unless the intel-
lect, when it is polished, is guided and directed by
a higher faculty, its own exercise becomes little more
than a set of juggling tricks. The training of our
youth, not in that only, but in those principles of
honour which lads get when they are brought up
together under goocl influnee, the honour, not of the
master only, high as that may be' but the honour
which spreads down from the master through every
rank of the school, so that there is a traditional and
social estimate of honour which spreads itself to those
who nom, into a school, is lif eminent and imperemi-
nent value to the students within it. (('heers.) It is
just like putting things you want to polish into a bag
together, and violently shaking them, that the friction
may make all bright. Th at is the manner of our
schools. We put a number id our boys into the bag of
school society, and they arewell shakeikugtogether, and
all the better. One polishes the other, and brings out
that which is in him. When, therefore, in a school
like this you have a high pi ineiple of himonr run-
ning np into religious teaching' and maintained by a
religious character in those who head it, I say that
that mutual friction of boy with boy is just the very
best process that can be possibly conceived for rubbing
off that which is tarnished and evil, and bringing ont
that which is goldvn and good. ((heers.) Well, on
the other side, allow me to say, I think few things are
nines important at tins moment, especially in this
country, than that which was, I believe, Queen Eliza-
betty's great object in giving such countenance as she
gave to grammar schools in every part of the country
—that great principle should still be fulfilled—
mean that there should be cut out paths by which,
without breaking through the rules of social and

political life which hold the nation together, tho, e
to whom God given the gift a genino may naturally
rise from the very lowe4 to the very Wiest rank in
English society, feeling not that society was ag.sins t
them, and that they must be tempted to break It
dawn to assert their own place; but that society was
with them, welcoming the efforts of those to whom
Cod gives the divine spark, providing means by which
they may rise to be kings amongst their fellows.
(Cheers.) Nothing is more important at the present
moment than this, for none of us can doubt there is a
. . .

force heaving the crust of the marvellously artificial,
social, and political life upon which we are all
moving —that there are forces heaving and threatening
with their rumbling and disquietude to break it up, to
the diacomtiture alike of us all. In these days so to con-
stitute society that because a lad is born poor, though
he may have the greatest gifts from God in his intellect,
in his understanding, and even in his moral tendencies,
that he yet must feel he must be kept down, if society I
continue as it is now, is to put a temptation in the I
way of such lads who feel that social life as it exists I
is against them, to put themselves against it, a temp-
tation which many of them may not have the prowess
tol resist. So, I say, RI becomes a grand national
object—l think it is a great justice to -and I think I
that it is acting upon God's intention also —that we
should, in a great and rich country like this, say to
the chill of the poorest man, "if God has given the
power of rising we will give you the opportunity."
(Cheers.) And therefore I rejoice to see in this
school, and in all grammar schools, as far as they can
be made to carry out that purpose of the wise Queen
and her wiser councellors, I rejoice to see them still
maintaining the opportunity given by teaching all that
classical literature which I confess I agree with one
of your examiners in atill believing to be the best in-
strument fir raising the intellectual powers which the
cleverness of man has never yet discovered. It is the
best for many reasons, because that grammatical
study is so pre-eminently useful, because the study—
and the diligent and painful study lif a dead language
does not give that instant return which the study of a
living language uses—and so it does not in the same
way tempt a man to be merely superficial and does
not in the same way breed self-conceit. It is rather
a humbling than an exhalting process, the long
course, and somewhat tedious course of mastering
thorough a dead language; hut it acquaints the mind
with other modes of thought than those which are
round about it teaching it patience, judgment, and
moderation, as well as giving it that high polish which
no other mode of education which I know of can give.
Besides all these and other advantages, which it would
take too long to name, I believe nothing can so
thoroughly develop the ordinary intellect of man as a
thoroughly round classical education. (('heers.) I
rejoice that anyone living round about here, and
having a child capable of receiving that polish, may,
in this school, have the opportunity of affording him
an educat' which will enable him to go to one if
our Universities, so that he may, through the
University, rise in one of the higher intellectual
professions of this land and may become Arch-
bishop of ( 'anterl nry, Lord Chancellor of England, or
sit in the seat of the Prime Minister, distributing lord
chancellorships, judgeships, bishoprics, and all the
other of those great bonlsms which the Prime Minister,
front time to time, pulls out if his political pocket and
administers to good political boys. (Laughter and
cheers.) I say, then, may this school continue to
Nourish, aml to abound in all this wholesome learning.
The report of the examiners has brought before us the
names of boys who are doing credit to their teaching
here. You are to be witnesses, as lam to be the
happy instrument, of putting into their hands the
prizes which they have won, and which I trust will be
incentives to them for greater exertions in time to
come, and a promise of yet greater prizes to come here-
after. (('heers.)