MR. QUICK'S "EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS."* THE first edition of this book
was reviewed in the Spectator nearly twenty-three years ago. It has a strange, and even pathetic history. It was brought out by its author with con- siderable difficulty, and, at some personal sacrifice. One dis- tinguished publisher flatly refused to have anything to do with it. Another consented to publish it on commission. As the edition was limited to 500 copies, about 120 of which were sold at the nominal price of 7s. 6d., and the remainder for 3s. 6d., while 230 was spent in advertising, it does not require a great arithmetical effort to see that the final balance was very much against the author. The English public, then, was not enthusiastic, though the critics, almost without exception, spoke well of the book. But on the other side of the Atlantic things were different. No leas than three publishing firms reproduced the book. That none of them made any acknowledgment to the writer, need hardly be Essays on Educational Beformers. By Robert Herbert Quick. London: Lougmans. 1890.
said. In those days the literary pirate was wholly master of the situation. Two of these editions were garbled and mutilated ; the third was complete (Mr. Quick calls it "a perfect reprint," but we have before us a copy in which he has noted that it contains "numerous en-ors of the press," a misspelling of the author's name being among them). Copies of this edition Mr. Quick used to import to meet the English demand, the number thus obtained amounting to about 1,500. In the autumn of last year, the edition now before us was issued. It has been largely rewritten and largely added to,— so much so, indeed, as almost to double its contents. The author lived long enough to see its success, a success which was only one of many proofs that his various labours in educa- tional reform had not been wholly in vain. On March 8th last he died, after a brief illness, at the house of an old friend in Cambridge.
Robert Quick was a very interesting personality, and not lees loveable than interesting. Never was a more kindly, candid, liberal soul. He was a keen observer, a shrewd thinker, and, one may venture to say, now that the word has recovered its true meaning, an enthusiast. And he had what enthusiasts commonly lack, much to their loss and the damage of their work, the gift of humour. But of what he was, of his religion, learnt at the feet of F. D. Maurice, of his unstinted charity, of his unfaltering courage, his fierce indignation against wrong, to mention some only of the good things in him, this is not the opportunity to speak. Readers who would wish to know what manner of man he was, should go to the April number of the Journal of Education, and see there what is said of him by those under whom he served, by colleagues, friends, pupils.
His career was curiously varied. In his early manhood, and for a time in later life, when he was presented to the vicarage of Sedbergh (where, of course, the neighbourhood of the school was an attraction), he devoted himself to clerical work. But the main occupation of his life was education. Circumstances did not open to him a great career as a school- master. He was not a scholar or a mathematician, and the head-master of a great school has to be one or the other,—or, at least, had to be when Quick was on his promotion. But as an assistant-master he had an experience of almost unique extent. He was the very Ulysses of teachers, always eager to see a new country in the world of school. He knew very afferent regions in that great territory of "intermediate education." He filled posts, at one time or another, in some dozen schools, varying from each other as greatly as the Surrey County School and Harrow. And everywhere he did excellent work, everywhere he was beloved, and when he departed for some fresh field, was everywhere missed. His friends used to laugh at him as a "rolling stone ;" and indeed, in the case of any ordinary man, one would have regarded with suspicion a series of changes so rapid. Possibly there may have been some element of restlessness in his character. But, on the whole, he changed his sphere of action because he felt that some other sphere, not more inviting or lucrative, but with more opportunities of working and learning—of learning, perhaps, rather than of working—called him. And there was never a time, we fancy, when any head-master that knew his business would not have been glad to secure his services, apponens lucre even a brief period of contact with that energetic temper, that suggestive mind.
Of course the personal influence of even the most migratory of teachers can only reach a little way; but Quick's own views and judgment were greatly enriched by this varied ex- perience, and by the eager study with which he continued to supplement it. How much he learnt, how much he advanced, how much deeper and broader his views became, as he made acquaintance with fresh provinces in action and theory, may be seen by a careful comparison of this edition of Educational Reformers with the first. The book in its earlier form shows no little both of theoretical knowledge and of practical sagacity. (How true it is, for instance, that "preparatory schools labour under this immense disadvantage, that their ruling spirits are mere children without reflection or sense of responsibility," as contrasted with the often thoughtful " sixth-form " boy!) But these qualities are greatly developed in the revised issue. In form, in arrangement, in the annotation, often modifying or correcting earlier statements, we see the same advance. Mr. Quick lived to see much that he contended for practically accepted. The merits of Froebel, for instance, in the educa- tion of children have now generally received the acknowledg- ment which he was among the first to give. Much else that when he first wrote seemed almost paradoxical is now in the air. Possibly there are changes proposed, if not impending, of which he would not have approved. The scientific, for instance, may expel the literary, a revolution which would certainly have dismayed him. But whatever may happen, his services to the cause of education will never be forgotten, and this book is a worthy monument to his fame.
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