The Sun.
London, England, 1820-07-20 00:00:00

EDUCATION.

The following Letter, addressed to the worthy
Editors of a highly respectable Provincial Paper,
upon the subject of Education, and the several
modes of Instruction pursued at our Public
Schools, contains many excellent observations,
and will be extremely interesting to all persons
connected with and anxious for the real improve.
meat and happiness of children.

Sans,—Yonr Paper of the Uri of April, wherein the CHAR-
TER LIOUSE is alluded to, contained a remark as to the ex-
pediency of a scholar being examined by a person indepen-
dent of the establishment, in order that the real attainments
of the school may be discovered. My reason and experience
equally acknowledge that your observation is founded in wis-
dom ; and as, consideting the start which learning seems to
have made throughout all ranks and degrees of men, the
subject is of extreme importance, I venture to hope that the
following hints may obtain an introduction into your paper.
Before, however, 1 enter upon the subject of this letter, let
me observe, that I verily believe its contents are calculated
to effect a good object, while I am equally confident that they
ought to prove offensive to no one. If novelty shou'd not be
suffered to prejudice truth, neither should antiquity sanctify
error, and if error is exposed it will be corrected. Certain I
am that the rising generation would derive benefit from the
surrender of established customs like those to which I
shall call your attention, at the same time that those to whom
aothotity is entrusted are not to be blatned for their natural
attachment to old habits, lint for their pertinacious adherence
to than, when discovered to he injurious.
Yost are probably aware that youth at the Charter Deets.:
is instructed upon the principles of Dr. Bell. Dr. Russell is,
I believe, the first person that has applied them to classical
education. It was, unqoestionably, an experiment, .yet, al-
though various difficulties mnst hare presentro themselves in
the higher departments of the school, where composition and
taste are so essential, the acknowledged success of his endea-
vours sufficiently attests tic propriety of the attempt. Lt is
unnecessary, perhaps, to observe that, according to this sys-
tem, merit alone obtains the pre-eminence. Industrious
talent must he satisfied. All possibility of partiality is ex-
cluded. No faviiur of the master Can exalt an undeserving
no contrivances of the latter can supply the place of
..Laity ne um.1,,2t- nitfitlentAl vjoialiVn 01 disci•
ptine, no trivial omission of duty will, Ity di.gosting the feel-
ings of a weak preceptor. for ever preclude all future ambi-
tion in the truant. The guilty in such cases will he punished,
but they will ht forgiven. No personal dislike that may he
entertained against him by his superior, no exterior recom-
tuendation, no elegance of names, no rank, no fortune, no
connections—nothing but merit can elevate, nothing but the
absence of it can degrade. Such. Sirs, is the operation of
this system upon the tender mind at that most important nio-
ment,-when its infant strength begins to venture upon the
wing, and when the least breath of encouragement, or blast of
' opposition can facilitate its progress, or defeat it for ever.
This subject is, I much fear, not generally considered with
that attention which it deserves. The numerical strength,
the convenience of situation, the regularity, the order and the
discipline of an establishment, are the first objects of our in-
quiry, and the ultimate auides for our determination. This
is far from being an unworthy species of information, and
provided I am perfectly satisfied that the spirit of rising
manhood is not broken, its proper and legitimate ardour not
checked, nor exalted and gentlemanly feeling invaded by the
attainment of soar an end. i should bail with pleasure any
system which could place numbers under cuntroul, and impe-
tuosity under restraint.
But, as the virtues are to he cherished, so is the mind in
which they reside to he invigorated. It is not the subdued,
and abject and crawling humility., that I would look for,
which is degraded, whilst it is harmless, and which is render-
ed impervious to liberal knowledge he the very means which
conduct it to order: hut the lofty and aspiring soul, which,
by its inhaustions (if I may so express myself) becomes thirsty-
after information, and which is virtuous in action, not from
compulsive dread, hot from nobility of principle, less front
the precept of command, than from an admiration of exem-
plary virtue. Indeed, it is clear, that the cane of a drill ser-
geant, or the staff of a constable, police officer, and parish
beadle may maintain discipline ; hot if we send our children
to school to be instructed and to be improved; if we wish to
qualify them for the several duties of life, the honors of learn-
ing. the offices of the State, and 'the demands of society, we
should inquire after talent, attainments, and impartiality,
wherever they most abound and are most wisely applied.
If the limits of your paper do.not confine my endeavours, I
will now attempt to point out as briefly as I can some of the
defects which are still permitted to exist in many public
schools, by which the beauty of Dr. Russell's arrasigemeut
will be made more evident. And I know not how I can bet-
ter effect this, than by stating the results of my own most
melancholy experience. I was educated, some years ago, at
an establishtnent called by some a public school, properly so
denominated from its numbers, although it had no royal
foundation to entitle it to that bottom-. in the accepted mean-
ing of the term. The general principles of management, so
'ar as learning was concerned, were thess :
Before we entered into school to construe our lessons to the
master of our classes, thrs labour of construction had been
previously saved us by the exertions of our tutors, i. e. the
tutor first construed every lesson to his pupil, who, wlth his
pencil or pen, was permitted to mark the English over every
Greek or Latin word ; and so prepared, with hooks so mark-
ed, rendered his task into English so acquired, when called
upon by the master of his class to do so. When I add that
the masters were themselves the tutors, and that therefore
they so aided the very pupils which belonged to them in their
own classes, in the performance of the task which they should
afterwards demand from them, and when I add, that each
boy was compelled to pace a tutor and to pay for this very
serious inint y, the extent of the evil will be manifest. The
fact is, this custom is an abuse of a good institution, it being
evidently intended that. the boy' should construe to the rotor
(as is sometimes done), and not the tutor to the boy. As to
our exercises and compositions they were, to a certain extent,
also indebted to the tutor, to whose eye they were first sub-
mitted, and to whose amendments and. taste they were first
subjected, ere they were delivered to the master of the class.

- •
gow
leave it to the •seitse of any unprejutiiced person 'to
say, whether, if.l wished to make my sun inattentive at school
and idle at the University—whether, if I wished that he
should be devoid of emulation, unanthitious of distinction—
whether, if I wished that at school he should become profligate,
or when he quits it because ruined—whether, I say, any plan
could be mare successfullydevised titan what I have mention-
ed, 1 will now proceed. Having attained a certain height
in the school, rank went by rotation. It was beneath the
dignity of fifteen that talent or application shun Id rise above
tY or ignorance, and the, only chance of distinction was
a'ttntPhiediAnnual Examination, or at the Annual Contest for
the Prize. Ti' be sore there were pecuniary rewards, and
those eaaited souls whose there
were out to be wuttuik:Ll by

the elevation of superior ability, were to be encouraged by
the donation of a shilling in the min of the realm. As to the
prizes, they were beneficial as far as they were suffered to be
so. They Were not extended to prose for reasons beyond my
comprehension, but certainly gave a stimulant to poetical
compositions ; and, if every class but the highest had not
been excluded from such advantage, and thus the first steps
of the ladder neglected, Lunch gopd would, I doubt not,. Itave
resulted. -

As to the Annual Examination, though it was this upon
which I wished particularly to have addressed you, suffice it
to say, that two examiners, independent of, and unconnected
with, the establishment, ware appointed for an annual dis-
covery of our real attainments ; and they contrived it as fol-
lows :—For Composition every boy. was allowed the,full use
of his grades and dictionary. But as dictionaries are oftan
ponderous, and as the more bulky they were the more easily
they contained hundreds of old written exercises between
their friendly leaves, and, moreover, as the subjects fur Coln
position are necessarily so limited ns that much Assistance
could generally thence be derived, so it came to pass that the
dictionary would often produce, by a spontaneous birth, an
offspring pleasing to the examiner's eye, little aware of the
deceit, and as little interested in detecting it. Then for learn-
ing. 'fhose 'books which were to make known our real ac-
quirements, were selected by the master during the reced-
ing half year with much care and anxious solicitude. When
gone through, others were not supplied, and thus our know •
ledge increai•ed. They were read and re-rend: construed and
re-construed to the master ; they were marked (as I have de-
scribed before) and re-marked in the presence of the master.
They were filled with quotations, and re-filled with parallel
passages in the presence, with the knowledge, and by the de-
sire of the master.

Thus it came to pass that by such lining and interlining,
under the superintending direction of the master, the author
was properly translated to the. Reader's eye. Thus also it hap-
pened, that by the Lind offices of certain books which contain
certain notes,which notes were diligently transplanted into the
scholar's page, with the knowledge of the master, a boy,
who by possibility might not know a noun adjective from a
noun substantive—whether Thueydides wrote in poetry or
prose---,whether the actions which his history records were
performed in the old world or in the new—or whether the
Mediterranean were a sea or a borough town. Such a boy,
I say, could boldly quote you a handsome round dozen lines
from Aristophanes, fifty parallel passages front /Eschylus,
and as many from Euripides, to discover to you his delicate
sense of the beauty of any author then in his hand. Thus,
Sirs, were we instructed, and OW were our real attainments
discovered. No comment is necessary, and, if I did not daily
suffer with thousands from the effects of such a system, I
know not whether its widespreading evils would, by this very
tarsicai character, excite a smile of contempt or a tear of
CUMpa95lOll from Your übcdieut servant,

V. 1,. 13.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS.

AN ACCOUNT of PAYNIENTS made to the COMMIS-
SIONERS for the REDUCTION of the NAI lON AI,
DEBT, by the TRUSTEES of SAVING BANKS in ENG-
LAND.. in enels•Half.yenr, from the passing of the -Act 57
• Get, 111. to-the Mh July, 1830; with the Amount of Stock
purcha,ed therewith.