The Express.
London, England, 1867-08-15 00:00:00

THE BISHOP OF OXFORD ON EDUCATION

QUAcKEBY.

On Tuesday a meeting was held at the Corn
I Exchange, Hayward's-heath, which is the *mitred point ol
Sussex, in furtherance of a scheme to promote another
I educational institution on the plan of "St. Nicholas Col-
lege," and of the College at Hurstpierpoint. The new
schools are to be called the Artlingly Schools, and the
first stone waslaid three yes= ago by the then Lord Pre-
sident of the Council, Earl Granville, but since the wing
has been in course of erection the does for &dais-
mien have been so numerous, y for boys from Lon-
don, that it had been decided to build two wings. The
building is to be on a beautiful site purchased near
Beloomkie, possessing all the advantages of a fine healthy
country, • good supply of water for boating and bathing,
and a large playground ; and the teaching will be men-
tially the same as at the other institutions named above.
The chair was taken at the meeting by Mr. F. B. Boate-
-1 IiON the chairman of the local committee.
The meeting was addressed by the Chairman and the
Rev. N. Woodard, when
The Bishop of Oxroan rose amid loud applause. He
said the simple consideration put before the public showed
that nothing could be much more important for England
than that her lower middle classes should have reel educa-
tion within their power—he did not say "provided for
them," as there should be nothing eleemosynary whatever
in the scheme ; but such an education should be placed
within their reach. There was nothing more difficult for
a middle-ohms parent than to have to go about the'country
schools hunting for their boys. The question was settled
for the parents of the upper class. They had only to
send their children to Ragby, Haseow, or Eton. Such
a parent thought to himself the boy' might get more
or less of bad, or he might get more or less of good ; but
there he was in one of the accepted training plume—
s oollegiate place, where a number of fellows of his
own rank were collected together, and were undergoing the
process of being shaken up in the great bag of life, to be
thrown out in one shape or other. But there was no such
place for the middle class, and the middle-class parent bad
no guarantee such as the upper classes had, that the place
of education of their boys would give them any sound
education at aIL But it was necessary for the English
people that there should be such • guarantee. The
English people were always boasting that they were not
to be taken in. It might be that those barbarous people
on the other side of the water—those frog-eating people—
might be taken in, but "we Englishmen," so the speech
went—"No, sir." The fact was, no one was so gullible as
John Bull. It was notorious that any one who would
spend 5001. in advertising anything for sale would bring
a good return for his money. He would not like to
mention pills particularly, or ointments, or anything
with a name that a noun-substantive of the English
language would convey ; but they might have noticed the
top of the advertising column of a newspaper beaded,
say "Pills." Well, the reader would say, "Bother
pills," and go on, and 10, the succeeding and succeeding
advertisement would be pills also, the idea evidently being
that by the time the middle of the column should be
reached the reader would be in such • frame of mind that
he must rush out for a box of these self-same pills. That
being the condition of the people there were to be seen
great " institutions," he would not " name names," but he
had seen magnificent " institutions " built out of pills and
ointments, and in honour of that glorious quackery to
which most men, in some shape or other,
in the course of their lifetime, contrived to burn
a little pinch of incense. If a man went to school
himself, and had bad food, bad lodging, indifferent
companionship, and little good teaching, he would not be
"taken in" when be yras sent home at the end of the
ball-tear with a prim book giving • description of him as
the " most promising boy in the school." He did not go
to school himself, but he sent his boy, and the boy would
not tell all that occurred. It was perhaps uppermost in
• boy's ideas that his father weak' not be likely to believe
what he said of so " respectable • school." Perhaps he
thought that his father might tell the master, and then
he guessed what would follow in the "next half ; " sad
then boys generally had great revel nice for the men
who gave them little to do—eo altogether it was hard
for a father to trace out the education quackery—
and this, indeed, was a most portentous quackery.
The places founded by Mr. Woodard were guaranteed
centres of education, and they were to the middle classes
what Rugby and the other places were to the upper classes.
In them the boys would be sure to be fairly taught, fairly
treated, and fairly fed, and brought into connexion with
there in their own tank of life. Such were the institutions
founded by Mr. Woodard, and they were, moreover. con-
nected with the Holy Church of Christ. Education, to be
efficacious, must be religious, and to be religious it must
have the moving spit it of the beloved church of England.
The right my, prelate proceeded further to speak in favour
of the schools by saying they were throughout good, not like
the sack of wheat of the cheating farmer who put some good
what at the top of a sack, some good at the bottom, and,
with bad in the middle, tried to pass the whole off as good.
There would be formed a board of managers of every class
in London to govern the whole of these schools, and this
fact would prove that there was no party spirit at work in
the schools. He concluded by saying that the education
given in these schools was such as to fit the boys to take
their places as English Christians in the great strife of life
which assuredly awaited all.
Mr. HubNird, M.P., Mr. J. H. Campion, Captain Sergi-
son, and other gentlemen spoke, and • subscription having
been entered into at once, the proceedings closed with
hearty votes of thanks to the chairman and to the bishop.