MARLBOROUGH AND THE ENDOWED SCHOOLS' BILL. [TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. - 1
SIR,—If I ask for some space in your columns, it is not because you have unintentionally misrepresented my own position, but because you seem to me to have given a wrong impression to your readers of one of the most important questions at issue in any discussion as to the merits of the Endowed Schools' Bill.
On the main scope and aim of the Bill, taken as a whole, I will say no more than that it has many abler supporters, no more cordial well-wisher than myself. If I see very grave defects in a portion of it which seem to me to threaten not only its usefulness if passed, but the probability of its passing at all without infinite friction and irritability, I am, I hope, at liberty to call attention to them publicly and privately.
One of these defects is the extreme looseness of the terms in
which the examining and taxing power is, by the words of the Bill, conferred on the new Couucil. If I have said elsewhere that by the words of the Bill a school could be repeatedly examined in any conceivable subject at the will of the Council, I did not give the instance till I had obtained opinions, of far more weight than my own, that this was the case. I gave an extreme instance of the indefinite powers entrusted to that body. You, Sir, know as well as I that the tendency of power placed in a central body, if not strictly defined and limited, is to move towards its utmost limits, not to fall short of them. And I felt, and feel, that it will require the utmost care on the part of the Government to prevent their very genuine wish not to cramp and thwart, rather than guide, the energies of the teacher from being merely a pious wish, merely a good intention. There is a danger, I feel sure, if the present crisis be not fully met, that the educational atmosphere may be sooner than is expected made one which no man of independent views or character could breathe for long ; one from which a future Arnold would hurry as from a mine charged with choke-damp. I havo read the Spectator amiss for many years if you, Sir, would not join with me in deploring such a result as this. I am therefore most anxious that Mr. Forster should (as I believe he will do, his attention once called to the subject) strengthen the "guarantees of freedom" which schools will enjoy under his Bill ; at present, he has given them absolutely none. Eton and Harrow might fight hard for their liberties, but then the Bill omits the strong, and deals only with the weak ; and though I hailed Dr. Temple's courageous avowal of his own wishes, I am not sanguine as to their proving effectual, and I repeat once more that I shrink from the thought of the rising schools of England being tied hand and foot at the mercy of an unknown Board.
Again you remind me that " no good teacher can fail to profit by having another man of ability examine his pupils on what he has taught them ;" and you apparently believe that I object to have this school entrusted to " independent examiners." Will you allow me to turn from the general question of State control, and to explain how our pupils are examined at present, and ask you whether you think the new Board can offer its something better in return for its heavy taxation ? The subject would, under ordinary circumstances, be quite uninteresting to your readers ; at present, it may give grave matter for consideration.
Let me speak first of the upper part of the school, of those whom
with valued assistance from more than one colleague, I teach myself. So far from requiring to be reminded that our work needs supervision, I may be allowed to say that the examination is always entrusted to independent and impartial examiners ; I most rarely take even the smallest part in it. Every year they pass into the hands of examiners from the Universities, men always of high standing, often of eminence, who not only draw up a written report for our own Council, entering with a frankness which is happily a tradition here into all weak points and deficiencies, but also give to the boys themselves a vied voce comment on this report, with the very purpose of enlarging on faults and shortcomings. Can Government supply the place of this? Would a printed report coming out some months later in a Blue-book be more or lees effectual ?
But you will say, 'There is the rest of the school, your younger boys, who are not yet or ever going to the University, and your modern school—what becomes of all these?' If you will allow me, I will state onr practice here, and ask you whether the new Council can help us greatly in this part of our work.
First, at the end of every half-year, each " form," numbering about thirty boys, is handed over to some master other than its usual teacher. He spends a week in examining them ; he writes a full account of their work, enlarging on faults of every kind as well as excellencies, and this he sends in to me. The next halfyear, or even before we meet, it is communicated to the regular master of the form, and is often made the starting-point for a discussion at a masters' meeting.
Am I an obstructive because I think that it will be immensely difficult for the new Government Bill to give us anything half as good as this? Where, I might ask, are they to find duly qualified examiners? We find a very hard week's work cut out for at least twenty-five examiners, men who are qualified to enter into the difficulties and rightly estimate the work of the ordinary schoolboy. Now it is easy enough for the young graduate in honours to do this in the case of the sixth-form boy, intellectually his own younger brother ; but, if my experience is worth anything, nothing but practice and training will enable the Oxford or Cambridge classman to take the measure of the lower forms well and justly. I am sure that for myself I should have been quite unfit to do so when I was a resident fellow at Oxford.
Secondly, a very large portion of my own work consists in carefully and systematically examining the different forms in separate subjects; history, French, English literature, classics, grammar, composition, have all at different times; come under my eye. I never examine a form without testing every boy individually, never without writing a full report of the work done, pointing out deficiencies with a frankness which nothing but their genuine desire for the good of the school could make endurable to my colleagues. Sometimes I ask a friend or a colleague to take some special department throughout the school, and, as before, a careful report is drawn up. Mr. Hales, for instance, will shortly come to inspect our English ; Mr. Bonney but lately reviewed our recently founded geological class.
Am I, may I ask once more, a timid obstructive, because I fear that, if all this work or much of it passes out of our hands into those of gentlemen appointed in London, we shall lose and not gain ? It would save us an immense amount of labour doubtless, but I cannot think that it would be nearly as good an educational system as we possess already. I will merely add that the total sum spent on examiners last year was under £70 ; this was the heaviest bill we have yet paid. As the bill runs at present, we might be asked for over £500.
I think this statement may, I do not say absolve me from your censure (that is of less moment), but help to clear up and state fairly one aide of the question. I will not enter at present, after taking up so much of your space, into the question as to how far we are bound to sacrifice something of the freedom, independence, and even solid interest of our school for the sake of raising the general level of education ; it is a question that could not be dismissed in a few sentences. But I am quite sure that the assent of those engaged in education is not to be won by refusing to look at the real grounds of their hesitation and objections.—I am, Sir, &c., Marlborough College, April 12, 1869. G. G. BRADLEY.
[We passed no " censure" on Mr. Bradley, unless it be censure to speak of him as a head master second to none in England, unless it were Dr. Temple, and perhaps not even to him. We did express regret, which we still feel, that he does seem to be, whether consciously or unconsciously, doing his best, not merely to limit the dangerous vagueness of which he complains in the latter part of the Endowed Schools' Bill (on that he has convinced us that he is right), but to discourage the Educational Council altogether. With great respect to a judgment so much better than our own, we do believe that the proposed Educational Council would provide examiners as efficient as any Mr. Bradley now employs, and more likely to throw fresh lights on the methods of teaching than those who examine his lower school, who are, he tells us. usually only his own staff shuffled. It is still more to the point to remark: that, though the Educational Council may not be greatly wanted at Marlborough while Mr. Bradley presides there, its uses for ninety schools out of every hundred, where there is no Mr. Bradley or anything like him, will be immeasurable.—En. Spectator.]
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