The Express.
London, England, 1868-06-16 00:00:00

TIIE CITY AND COMMERCIAL NEWS

be. as heretofore. Full, lady, mad Impartial In a word,
while 6U the present features of the paper will be maintained,
rte arrengera-nte will undergo no other modification than each
as is nweesary to a more thee:nigh and egieleat representation
and dimmed= of the occsinenoes, internam, and opinions of the
day.

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Efte •xlreosc.

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=a.° Lea' re.—And A (r-OkVAAATIVE Avito T.

PRU CF~9B.

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RXTRA 11ORNINO PERFORMANCES. TYPERIAL
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night at t. Places neared at the Box-taco frOen Ten till at . Old Bond-street; and the principal
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STRAN
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BRITANNIA.
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ifit ; Mianent
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With ABEL FLINT; OR, THE MISER% D

RION WATER AT LONDON BRIDOR.
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LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 16.

PUBLIC. SCHOOLS.

Ir has often been remarked by intelligent foreign
admirers of English institutions that the secret of
their stability might be found in that liberal energy
of the governing class which, instinctively re-
sisting hasty innovations, knew how to march
with the times, and to unite the aristocracy of in-
telligence and instruction with that of birth and
rank and old estate. There is sonic truth in
this, and some illusion possibly. If to
see ourselves as others see us is not always
encouraging, it is occasionally a little too
flattering. If the mere supernumeraries of Eng-
lish society might be allowed to pass an opinion
on the merits of the leading actors on this grand
stage, without being accused of that mean and
envious familiarity which a valet feels towards a
hero, they would perhaps be disposed to suggest
that it was pretty easy for the governing class
to take and keep the lead in a country where all
beyond and below the sacred caste were ignorant,
poor, dependent, and content, and that the true
ordeal of factitious imperiorities would come only

THE

when all careers wore open to all talon% in agree and
equal State. There have always been found among
the hereditary rulers of those islands men who
have felt nobility to be an obligation ;
power, a trust; leisure, an opportunity
of moral and spiritual self-development ;
wealth, an injunction to do good; and the
higher education, a discipline of manly virtues.
These have been the bright exceptions, and their
example has been the salt of this English earth of
ours. But if we turn from the minority to the
majority of the class born among us to all the
advantages of fortune, we begin to appreciate the
enormous waste of intellectual treasure which the
privileged indolence of our great educational
foundations, our Universities and colleges and pub-
lic schools, has committed, generation after gene-
ration, until, something lees than forty years ago, it
began to dawn upon the minds of easy-going
people that the days of privileged incapacity and
irresponsibility were numbered, and that a new
England, a self-created England of industry
and enterprise, had arisen to demand its share of
the sunshine and the soil. Within a quarter of a
century a peaceful social revolution has silently
transformed this country, by the fruitful co-
operation of science and capital. A now race of
men has sprung up who owe nothing to universi-
ties or public schools, and who by sheer force of
brain and will have made themselves the leaders of
a new army of labour. Political power has slipped
from idle hands, and the new law of competition
has given a better than parliamentary title to capa-
city. Those changes, which are not peculiar to
our country, but which in a country of old habits
and traditions are more searching and severe than in
communities of later growth, are not accom-
plished without losses and regrets. For a while
they make vulgarity prevail, and it is probably
not until the old aristocracy has fully recognised
its dangers and its duties, and the new democracy
has caught the contagion of self-sacrifice from an
old aristocracy purified by affliction, that a new
light and a new sweetness will suffuse and pene-
trate our English commonwealth. We know not
whether such considerations as these were altogether
absent from the mind of Lord firs.ratoriflast evening,
when he called the attention of the House of Lords to
the report of the Public Schools Commission of
1864, and moved for copies of every petition and
memorial on the subject of public schools which
have been received by her BLussre's Go-
vernment since July 1, 1866. " The middle
" classes—ho said it to their honour—
" were straining to the front in the march
"of intellectual advancement; and if the
" nobility and gentry of this country wished to
" preserve their present lead in mental culture,
"they must put their great schools and univer-
" pities into a condition to compete with the un-
" endowed and general schools of the country."
The noble lord is one of those who have a right
to speak of their order " taking the lead in mental
" culture." The expression would be a strong one
from lips less authorised. Whether we look to
the sciences, to the arts, to scholarship, to the
highest ranks of the liberal professions, to the
choicest paths of literature, it would be a bold
figure of speech to assert, in these days, that the
nobility and gentry, who have been educated at
the public schools and Universities, are taking the
lead in mental culture. With brilliant exceptions,
that may be counted on the fingers, the great
pioneers in science, the classic celebrities in litera-
ture—not to speakof political andparliamentary life
—are mostly names of an untitled nobility and a
landless gentry—precursors, it may be, of an aris-
tocracy for which the Herald's College has yet to
be established. Let it be cordially and gratefully
acknowledged that in the ranks of the nobility
and gentry of whom Lord STANHOPE spoke,
the most disinterested friends of that na-
tional and popular instruction which is
levelling society upwards at so terrible a rate,
have been found. Among the Peers whom Lord
STA.seecryx addressed were the flower of our most
famous public schools, who when June comes
round, revisit with a tender and melancholy
affection those " happy fields " beside the
Royal river, and think "of days that are
"no more." At these ancient and noble schools—
who would deny it l--the manly virtues that
have preserved our nobility and gentry from
corruption and decay have been fostered in
a kindly and indulgent air. The high courage, the
contempt of danger, the quick sense of honour,
the loyal love of duty, the hate of all that
is mean and base, the admiration of skill
and fortitude and endurance, which should
characterize the leaders of an old and
powerful society, have been nourished and
trained for centuries in the Playing-fields of
Eton. We rejoice to believe that while the tradi-
tions of this moral and social discipline of an
aristocratic democracy, peculiar to our
public schools, are not forgotten, some
other indispensable qualifications for the battle of
life in an age of unrestricted competition,
are being cultivated at Rugby and Harrow,
at Winchester and Westminster, and at Eton
itself, under the new governments of those great
institutions. The new head master of Eton has
already introduced great and salutary changes in
the list of studies, and is quietly and prudently
recasting the whole course of instruction.
Nor are the rivals of Eton neglecting to advance
in the same wise direction, in which the more modern
schools at Marlborough and Cheltenham have an-
ticipated them. Much is being done, but more
remains to do ; and we may take the liberty to
hope that the reign of venerable and obstructive
prejudices is past.