The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-01 00:00:00

SCHOOLS INQUIRY COMMISSION.

Mr. Fearon, in his report on secondary education in
Scotland, just issued, states that the most important con-
clusion he derived from his brief inspection of Scotch burgh
schools, and the educational principle which his tour most
strongly impressed on his mind, was, that education, to be
good, must be popular. To have a really good education,
a real desire for it and a real interest in it must be evinced.
There were other lessons of minor importance which he
learnt at the same time, such as the uses and abuses
of endowments, and the direction in which they should
be reformed ; the importance of not placing mas-
ters beyond the influence of the public favour, and
of making them neither too dependent nor too
independent ; the value of cheap means of edu-
cation and psychological training for the teachers of
secondary schools ; the advantages of day-school education
for the middle classes, &c. But all these seemed to be
less vital truths than the great maxim that no good edu-
cation will be produced until there is a demand for it.
Subordinate to all considerations prompted by his inquiry
was the one grand question suggested by this maxim—
How is this demand for a good education to be excited
among the middle classes ? The reason why nine Scotch
burgh schools were so well attended, and why such good
work was done in most of them, was owing to their being
constantly stimulated from without. Public demand
for the things which they produced made them work,
and public interest in the result of their work helped
to make that result successful. The schools were in
sympathy with the public, and supplied the wants of the
public, and thus there was co-operation. With regard to
English grammar-schools being so thinly attended, and,
proportionably to their wealth, having so little done in
them, Mr. Fearon reports that it is because they are not
stimulated from without. They are out of sympathy with
the public, and the public distrusts them. The
English grammar-schools may be right in their theory
of what is the best system of education, and what is the
best for the children to learn, but the parent does
not think they are. They have made much of
what he considers unsuitable to him, and have ignored
that which seems to him necessary, so he has, after a
long time, come to regard them as hopelessly perverse,
loses all interest in them, and either forsakes them alto-
gether or considers them as au unsatisfactory makeshift.
Educational enthusiasm is therefore nipped and blighted,
and whatever vigour remains flows into private schools.
Let grammar schools, like Scotch burgh schools, assimilate
themselves to public requirements ; and to effect this the
strong hand of authority, guided by men of real educa-
tional experience, and of. that courage which proceeds
from a plenitude of knowledge and keen insight, must
interfere on a scale never before attempted in this
country. As soon as the public wants begin to be supplied
in a manner which appeals to the untutored instincts of
plain men, the public will be aroused and stimulated, and
the movement be progressively increased in breadth and
intensity.

Robberies of arms in Ireland continue to be
perpetrated. Three men lately entered the house of Mr.
Fitzgerald, Corn Market-street, in the centre of the city of
Cork, and, in presence of the proprietor, robbed it ,Of
gun, with which they coolly decamped.
We learn by telegraph that Mr. S. D. Foulkes,
vho has been for sixteen years managing clerk to the
Wolverhampton County Court, has absconded with
upwards of £l,OOO. His wife and family are at Wolver-
hampton.
The Home for Convalescents, at Bournemouth,
in Hampshire, erected in memory of Lord Herbert of Lea,
has been a great. success as far as regards the benefits it is
producing. It has now twenty-two inmates, and has
accommodation for thirty-two. It stands on a most beau•
tiful and healthy spot.
MISTAKES OF THE TELEGRAPH. —4 Several jour-
anis," says the France, " lately announced that a regiment
at Burgos, in Spain, had mutinied, but the journals in
q.iestion were misled by an erroneous statement of the
telegraph. It was the convicts is prison who bad risen in
revolt, and the regiment which had put them down."
THE INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGE TROPHY.—TiIe
plan, originating with Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. C. H.
Lindsay, M.P., of a record-book to accompany the Inter-
ims been carried out. Two
the production of. the work.
a han:lsome volume for the pur-
31n,eahateri osfinriaisalt
viCed
aaele:ne,
snegxetio:elin':doo,l4
pur-
pose of recording- the origin of the trophy. For such a
book the estimate given was £26 10s. The work has
finally entailed an expenditure of ten times the sum
agreed upon ; and the loss is borne by the con-
tracting firm. The immense book is bound in
covers of inlaid woods, the crosses of the Union being
formed by the blending of the Irish black bog-oak with
English oak from Windsor Forest and Scotch fir from
Balmoral. The gilt clasps are pierced and engraved with
the blended emblems of the three countries, and there is a
large escutcheon on the front cover, bearing the inscription,
"The Record Book of the International Rifle Contest
between the Representative Teams of England, Scotland,
and Ireland, with the Government rifle, instituted 1864."
The book will accompany the trophy wherever it may be
for_tbe time.

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