The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-06 00:00:00

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classes." Lord JOHN RUSSELL and Sir JOHN PA-
KINGTON are hardly heard of now ; their weary
business has been to get the different and hostile
sects to tolerate anything that coul I be called
national education for those who could afford but
twopence a week or nothing a week, and to per-
suade the twopenny-class teachers, committees, and
patrons to submit the results of their work to
Government Inspectors. To a large extent they
have succeeded, and the National and British Schools
have, for the more part, teachers possessing more
or less of capacity verified by normal school train-
ing and by Inspectors' supervision ; some of them
have obtained what might be almost called a
diploma in their own line—such testimonials from
the authorities as would gain them a good Natioual
School appointment at any time if they wanted one.
The examinations of the children, we know, also,
to have been attended with good results, in aiding
competent masters, and in encouraging them and the
children under their care, by stimulating emula-
tion, and also in exposing the incompetent, both
schools and masters, to the notice of their employ-
ers, and the subscribers to the school.

It is now the turn of the middle classes. The
boys of the National Schools had been of late far
better cared for than those of the classes next above
them: The sharp lad at the National School was
superseding the alumnus of the private school, at
least in what a London Alderman once toasted as
"the three Its". The chances.were that he could
equal or surpass in them the boy whose parents
were 'above sending him to a British and Foreign
or a National School. He would read and write as
well, and in arithmetic beat him hollow. Some-
thing was now needed to make sure that the sons
of him of " the three Its" should at least surpass
their father in the lessons taught by VYSE and
MAYOR. Very natural, therefore, was it that the
fit it thought should be to find efficient and trust-

W)rthy inspectors for the. schools above the class
which could ask or receive national support, and
most creditable was it to Oxford that she should
be the first to offer public examinations by men
whose competency and superiority to improper in-
fluences it was impossible to doubt. From the
beginning we hailed the movement as one for
which every parent with two or three hundred a-
•year and upwards, to live 'en, ought to be thankful.
The University Examinations cannot, we imagine,
Tail to raise the standaid of education. The
schoolmasters will be compelled to meet the re-
quirements of the examiners. Public opinion
will require it, and we shall witness a growing
demand for competent teachers, since both parents
. .
will prefer the schools where they are proved to
6sist already, mid the masters who are deficient
will be obliged to obtain them at any cost to keep
up a respectable school at all.

As to the result of the late examination, they
kre, we confess, very much what we should have
anticipated. We should: have supposed, indeed,
that a greater number of masters would have been
too well aware of the general requirements of
. .
examiners to have sent such it, large number who
could be rejected on such humble matters as spell-
ing and arithmtic, yet any educated man, the
editor of a respectable newspaper, for instance,
who has been accustomed to receive letters from
many correspondents who have had the kind of
education now exposed to the.test, is well aware
how many of them do make orthographical mis-
takes which often surprise.him. Perhaps an editor
sees more of this kind of errbr than most persons,
his middle-class correspondents having generally
to travel out of their accustomed business topics
when they i,ldress him. The orthography for prac-
tical purposes is, of course soon acquired in the
College of Trade and business; even if it was but
defectively known before.
..

. . .
The number altogether rejected—upwards of seven
iiundred out of eleven hundred and fifty—is indeed

a very large proportion, and may seem, al some
to show that it arose in part from the differ-
ence of University and common school systems ; yet
this would hardly explain the fact that. of the

juniors, three hundred and seventy-one, of the
seniors two hundred and five, failed to pass the
PreliMinary examinations—failed, that is, in "ortho-
graphy, writing, analysis and parsing, arithmetic,
geography, English history, and English composi-
tioU"-:—and chiefly "in the.orthography and arith-
metic." It seems idle to allege that any difference
between University systems and the system of the
humblest commercial schoolmaster, or of the most
retired private teacher, fifty miles from any railway,
an Recount for this. As we have said, we were
not altogether surprised at "the result. We too
well know that " thorough" is not the word of the
majority of schools for the majority of their pupils,
nor even for those who pass. for their best lads and
who are sent home with high characters ; we had
tong suspected that a great Part of our middle-class
education was of the most.superficial kind. That
the idea, so essential in all education, of perfect
mastery of the subjects 'professedly taught, as
far. at least as the children go, is almost entirely
wanting. It is essential to the reputation of the
school that the child should have read certain
books in Latin, or have done certain sums in arith-
Mefic,: or be able to talk of his Achievements with
the globes, and show, perhaps, fair-looking copy-
books. Muiuuv's grammar he must, of course,
also have repeated and be able to repeat, whether
he • can write off-hand• a grammatical and
correctly spelled sentence .or. not. But the five
hundred and seventy-six failures, in the elemen-
tary subjects just mentioned, show but too plainly
. .
that our apprehensions were: not groundless, and
that the great mass of middle-class education did
need just the probing and. testing which is now
to be applied to it.

Privab schools and private lunatic asylums have
one point in common ; it is the interest of those
who manage them -to deceive .those who place the
children or the lunatics in their:respective institu-
tions;. they have, indeed, another point in common,
that it is often difficult for those who trust them to
judge of the state of those placed by them beneath
their care. The schoolmasters' bread depends not
on the actual, but on the supposed attainments of his
pupils, of which the parents, even setting aside the
tendency of parental pride to think the best of our
sons, are, too frequently, but incompetent judges ;
just as in the other case, the keeper of the privtite
asylum lives by the presumed madness of his wards,
while those who place them under his care, are, at
least they are told they are, incompetent to tell
whether a man be mad or not. The boy must have
succeeded, and the alleged lunatic must be a real
one, or the source of gain is dried up.

We are not indicting all schoolmasters of direct
fraud, but in both cases the danger is great ; in the
former, which now concerns us, it is plain that
there are numerous teachers up to the mark them-
selves and able to bring their scholars up to it.
Their number will increase by hundreds, when a
few examinations have taught what is really
wanted. It will become a necessity for masters
who would have first-class pupils, to be able to get
his pupils through the public examinations. The
schools wit' ch succeed there will swallow up the
others, unless they rise at once to the required
standarsoon
boy notseetheprizes brought
home frdom.
school
whomust in i this way
We
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advertise it to all his father's' and mother's friends,