Eton.

It is probable that before long there will be a call for a revision of the Eton constitution. In age, wealth, prominence, and importance to the country, Eton comes next to the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge : it was to be expected, therefore, that her turn would follow theirs in the process of educational reform. And, indeed, the Cambridge Reform Commissioners were invested with powers for examining, if necessary, the case of Eton, and proceeding accordingly; but they appear only to lave used this power in terrorem, to overcome the reluctance of the Eton authorites to consent to the reforms of King's College, Cambridge. Probably they found the task of bringing Cambridge University to accept even a slender modicum of reform quite difficult and disagreeable enough : and had no desire for an extension of it. We have had, however, various signs, from the most different quarters, that the public mind is turned or turning to this subject. Ordinary remonstrances, with the average admixture of error and exaggeration, can often be silently crushed by the weight of influence which old, famous, and independent bodies possess; but such treatment could hardly be applied to the pamphlet of Sir J. Coleridge. That eminent old Etonian has written with a most thorough knowledge of the subject, and in a strain of affectionate though not indiscriminate page 293 eulogy. He has avoided every appearance of making a direct attack on Eton,—to a degree almost laughable, when he entitles his pamphlet "A Lecture on Public Schools;" so that, in fact, the only fault we can find with him is, that he has tempered his judicial severity with a little too much of partial tenderness. Even thus, what he does say shows that he strongly feels the imperative need of reform.

It will be well, in discussing this question, to disconnect it entirely from the general controversy between public and private schools. The arguments for both have been frequently well put forward, and appear adapted rather to balance than to meet each other; in the case of individual boys the choice between them may often be determined by individual circumstances; but it is almost certain that, in England, public schools will always maintain their advantage. There can be no doubt that they are a most natural outgrowth of the English mind; that they embody most characteristically that spirit which pervades our whole political and social system; and which draws from foreigners so loud a note of mingled wonder, censure, and admiration. But the general public school system is considerably modified in the case of each school by its peculiar institutions; and it will be more profitable, as well as more convenient, to discuss these separately.

The only danger lest the question should not be thoroughly examined arises from the fact, that there has been of late so much written, said, and done, about educational reform. The upper classes, the middle classes, the lower classes—all have had their turns in the general sifting that the education of the country has undergone. The average mind, whose interest for the public Weal is more or less largely adulterated by the desire of hearing some new thing, is beginning to get tired of the whole business, and to think that we might now let it rest awhile. It may be doubted whether we ought ever to let it rest; whether we ought not to accept a continual state of change, not as an ideal condition of our educational system, but as the best thing that we can practically get. We have by this time outgrown the presumption of imagining that we can ever make institutions for all time; and the worst evils of change are less than those that result from forcing one age to work in the harness of another. And let no one point, in the serenity of self-satisfaction, to the great and glorious results produced by any institution in former times. Such an appeal is appropriate in Cathay, but certainly not among us. All that now exists, all that we hold most precious, is derived from changes, against which the same appeal might have been made with equal force.

But it may be asked, Why not trust to the wisdom of the educating bodies themselves, and the indirect pressure of public opinion, to effect the necessary changes, without any direct external action? And there can be no doubt that the great improvement which has taken place, during the last thirty years, in our public schools has been effected almost entirely in the former way. But some of these bodies are so predisposed by their constitution to retain the old and refuse the new, without fairly considering the intrinsic merits of either, that they cannot be entirely trusted with the work of their own reform. A plain statement of the case will, perhaps, enable us to judge whether Eton be one of these or not.

The first fact we have to notice, which will, we think, much amaze the uninitiated, is this; that, although the Eton masters are justly considered the best paid members of their profession, the salary that each receives for his regular work in school is under 45l. per annum. This is the only part of their income which is fixed; the remainder, which is derived from private pupils, is fluctuating, and, therefore, hard to estimate. As, however, it has been much exaggerated, we shall try to approximate to it. We believe the income of an assistant master, who has not a boarding-house, to vary between 600l. and 900l. per annum, while one who has a house makes page 294 between one and two thousand. It may happen that an old and privileged master exceeds the highest of these estimates; or a peculiarly unlucky new-comer falls below the lowest; but, on the whole, we think they will be found correct. We see, therefore, that the actual income of a master is at least twelve times that which he receives from King Henry the Sixth's foundation; while, at the same time, the work for which he is paid 45l. may be reckoned as taking up a third of his time. For this work, therefore, he is ludicrously underpaid; it follows, as a matter of course, that he must be paid very highly for the remainder. This discrepancy between the two payments is evidently in itself an evil: it must tend to produce a proportionate inferiority in the underpaid work. With a high-principled and conscientious body like the Eton masters, this tendency will, of course, be much weakened, but operate it must, to a certain extent. Again, it is desirable that a schoolmaster's income should be partially fluctuating, and influenced by competition; but that it should be liable to so great variation, from the effect perhaps of mere fancy or fortune, while his work is by no means increased or diminished in the same ratio, is unfair and unadvisable. But the worst result, to which we shall again have occasion to allude, is this; that, since the masters are thus almost entirely dependent on their pupils for support, and since each fresh pupil, while he adds 20l. to their income, adds very little to their work, they are naturally inclined to take more pupils than they otherwise would, and, as we think, more than they ought.

How, then, is the money of this royal and wealthy foundation absorbed, that it pays its misters at the rate of the lowest usher in the commonest grammar school?

The answer is easy. The foundation supports, besides the masters and seventy scholars, seven fellows and a provost. The exact income of a fellow is of course known only to his fortunate self and [unclear: brethen]; but we may-estimate it at about [unclear: 1,000l]. a year. This he receives for doing a minimum of work; and it may be doubted whether this minimum might not most advantageously be dispensed with.

Let us look into the relations of this sinecurist and absorptive body; we may find that we have here a great cause of the evils of Eton, or at least a great obstacle to their removal.

The simple fact of sinecurism, with-out excuse, gives us a presumption against them. They form a perfect specimen of those "comfortable bodies," which our ruthless reforming age has insisted upon making uncomfortable, where it has not swept them away altogether. They are a useless relic of past ages—a remnant of the monastic life; ideally, a life of self-denying and learned seclusion, actually so often a life of luxurious and unlearned sloth. It is one of the jus test praises of our own times, that we are honest, sincere, and earnest, in endeavouring to give "a fair day's wages for a fair day's work;" and not otherwise.

It is true, that the fellowships at the universities have escaped thé general destruction; but only for two weighty reasons, viz. as prizes to stimulate youth to intellectual exertions, and means for assisting it, when talented and poor, through the early unproductive years of our learned professions. The income of these fellowships, too, is comparatively small, and in most cases only sufficient to answer these two ends. It is true that these reasons do not cover the case of a bachelor retaining his fellowship through life; but here we must speak our own decided opinion—the opinion of a large and influential body at both universities—that in this point the reform has not been thorough. Here, however, another strange relic of monasticism, in itself objectionable, exercises a counteracting force; and the public, while it does not compel these sinecurists to: work, has at least a grim satisfaction in not allowing them to marry.

But it is said in favour of the Eton fellowships, that they are useful as re-tiring pensions for the masters. Let us examine this excuse.

The simplest answer is, that retiring pensions are not needed at Eton. An Eton master begins with an income of usually about 800l. and rises to one of usually about 1,500l. a year. When we consider how much lower are the payments given to others of the same profession, of at least equal ability, who have no retiring pension to look forward to, we feel that there is no hard-heartedness in saying, that every Eton master ought to save enough to support him in his declining years. We may remember, too, that he is in a situation of peculiar advantage with respect to that which every paterfamilias feels to be the chief source of his expense and anxiety, namely, the education of his children.

But even supposing that retiring pensions of this large amount were desirable, we can easily show that the present system is very ill adapted for properly bestowing them.

In the first place, these fellowships are confined to clergymen. Now, in every school, the lay element among the masters is, or ought to be, very considerable. The necessity of this, and the evil that would result from leaving our education entirely in the hands of clergymen, is now fully recognised; and from the present course of public feeling, we may infer that it will be daily more and more felt. While we protest against the extreme view, which some hold,¹ that educational work is in no sense work of the ministry, and therefore a schoolmaster cannot conscientiously take orders, we think that laymen ought, as much as possible, to be encouraged to devote themselves to education. And, since at present they cannot hope for any of the first places in their profession, nor look forward, as clergymen can, to other work as a relief after the fatigues of a schoolmaster's life, it is apparent that they, if any, ought to have these retiring pensions, from which they are expressly excluded. The additional evil, too, must be noticed;—that this restriction of the fellowships induces men to take orders who would not otherwise do so. This result is on every account to be regretted; and that it does not exist in theory only, even among the most high-principled body of men, any resident at either university can tell.

We have alluded to the resources possessed by clerical schoolmasters of retiring to easy parochial work. If the fellowships were done away with, these resources might be most conveniently and fully secured to the Eton masters. The numerous livings, now in the gift of the fellows, might be offered to them in succession as they fell vacant. Under the present system they would of course be rejected with scorn by all who could look forward to a fellowship. It might naturally be supposed that the corporate body would give these livings away in its corporate capacity; as it is, they form a nice piece of patronage for the friends and relatives of the fellows, as a casual reference to the Clergy List will prove.

But there is another reason which would render the Eton fellowships a bad system for the award of retiring pensions, which also constitutes an objection against their existing at all; the fact that the fellows form a small cooperative body, with perfectly uncontrolled freedom of choice, and no subsequent tests of their election. Bodies of this kind are peculiarly liable to the temptation of choosing for other reasons than that of simple desert. The abuse we allude to has been known to creep in even at the universities, where the co-opting bodies are larger, where they distinctly profess to elect according to proficiency in learning, and where a bad choice may reflect subsequent disgrace on themselves. There is a clanger of such a body being unduly influenced by merely social reasons: there is a still greater danger of family motives making themselves felt—a greater danger, both because the abuse is worse in itself, and because it is harder to eradicate. This

¹ We are sorry to hear that Bishop Villiers refuses to ordain schoolmasters in his diocese. But the law at present allows individual bishops too much licence of private tyranny : and Lord Shaftesbury's protegés are beginning to make this generally felt.

page 296 influence, when admitted in one instance, is irresistible in a second, and the members become bound together in a sort of a mutual complicity in family jobbery, which the smallness of their numbers makes it easier to perpetuate. We are not drawing a picture of the existing state of things at Eton—far from it; such a charge would be most invidious, and, as far as we know, untenable; but we can have no guarantee against such things occurring there as elsewhere.

But it may be urged that the fellows actually have some slight amount of work—they administer the college re-venues, and preach in chapel to the boys. This is true; but so unfortunate is their relation to the school in its present state and with its present wants, that their work is almost equally undesirable with their idleness. In the first place; being a number of old men, who have lived from boyhood within a narrow circle of traditions—as they have all proceeded from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, and back again to Eton—it may easily be conceived that they are an ultra-conservative and obstructive body. But, as the force of this general objection will not be felt by all, in order to particularize, it will be necessary to enter more fully into the constitution of the school, and allude to some of the practical complaints which have been brought against its present working.

There are at Eton about 70 collegers, or boys on the foundation, who live in the college buildings; and about 750 oppidans, i.e., boys living in dames' or masters' houses. The oppidans are, therefore, ten times as numerous as the collegers; and there is no doubt, that, in the eye of the world, they are more than ten times as important. It is they that have made Eton what it is; it is to their class, without a single exception, that the long roll of names belongs in which an Etonian glories. Sir J. Coleridge, in his admirable lecture, has told us that oppidans were provided for in the original design of the founder. This is a new and interesting view of the subject: the rigidly mediæval mind has hitherto regarded the collegers as the only boys belonging to the foundation, and, therefore, the true Etonians; and the oppidans as really only the private pupils of the head master.

Now the natural result of the Eton system is, that the school is under a kind of double government; of the provost and fellows on the one hand, as administrators of the college funds, and the head master on the other. This double government is not in itself an evil. Most public schools are similarly under the control of trustees or governors, who, if they are sensible men, do not clog the working of the school; they form a useful check on an imprudent head master, while they let a wise one have pretty much his own way. But the result of the peculiar constitution of Eton, and the narrow sphere in which the fellows have lived, is that they are imbued with the above-mentioned mediæval theory: and, while they are not wanting in care for the collegers, they refuse to consider themselves bound to do anything at all for the oppidans. A short-sighted and unfair policy, even on their own grounds; for the first-rate teachers, of whose instructions the collegers reap the benefit, are paid, as we have seen, chiefly by the oppidans : not to mention the enormous social advantages which the collegers derive from the fact that Eton is what it is, instead of a mere grammar school of seventy boys. But such is the policy too often pursued. For instance, there is now an imperative need of new school buildings at Eton. Various evils result from the present confined state of the school. Sir J. Coleridge has alluded to one, viz. that mathematics has now to be taught in a private building, so that an important branch of education is degraded in the eyes of the boys. The new buildings would cost at least 10,000l. Will it be believed that the fellows will only furnish a very small portion of this sum from the funds of the foundation? so that, for the rest, recourse must be had to private subscription; that is, an appeal ad misericordiam must be made to old Etonians, or the parents of the oppidans, who already pay so much, page 297 must be still further taxed. It would be most unjust to attribute this strange parsimony either to laziness or selfishness; the fellows have, we believe, spared neither trouble nor expense where the benefit of these would be reaped exclusively by the collegers; but the deficiencies of a system are obvious, which thus perniciously narrows the scope of the best intentions.

Let us now turn to the case of the assistants. It is against them that the heaviest complaints have been brought; against their quality, their number, and their work.

With regard to the first count there has been considerable exaggeration. It is, no doubt, an evil that they should all up to a late period have been taken from a single college at Cambridge, and that a small one; but no Cambridge man would have questioned the classical reputation of King's. Obscure it may be called, as it made no appearance in the class lists, and was so much cut off from the rest of the university; but a slight reference to the list of university scholarships and prizes in the Cambridge calendar—the only honours formerly open to King's men—will speedily place its merits on their true footing. The Triposes were, a few years ago, thrown open to the King's men; and, though it was some little time before they entered with alacrity into the novel competition, they are now bidding fair to stand second to none in classics, as the classical Tripos list for 1860 shows. Here we find four King's men, out of the six who went in, in a first class consisting of eleven, two of these four being first and fourth. The size, however, of the college is quite inadequate to the supply of masters to a school like Eton; which Dr. Goodford has seen, and consequently introduced the principle of selecting indifferently out of the whole number of old Etonians. We hope, however, that he will go further than this, and do away with all restriction of choice altogether—that he will not be bound by the irrational prejudice which, grotesquely parodying the popular maxim, refuses to have any but an "Eton man in an Eton place."

It is not merely that, even under his system, the supply of fit candidates barely equals the demand. The best scholarship will not compensate for the general narrowness produced by such a selection, a narrowness tending to perpetuate routine, however obsolete, and oppose reforms, however desirable. That there should be a preponderance among the assistants of Etonians, who can best understand and appreciate the system under which they were trained, is natural and right; that all others should be excluded, unnatural and wrong.

In the other two complaints, which, in fact, amount to one—that the number of assistants is too small and consequently their work too great—there appears to be more truth. They are led to take so many private pupils, that they cannot give to each the attention that the parents have a right to expect. This probably arises, as we before observed, from the fact that this "private business," as it is called, is the only lucrative part of an assistant's work. No doubt, Dr. Goodford has done much by making a rule, that no new master shall have more than forty pupils; but we wish he had put the limit lower, and made the rule apply to all. We sympathize with his motives in not disturbing old masters who had already more; but it does seem a peculiarly inappropriate application of the principle of vested interests. If the limit was a lower one, say thirty, there would be about five more assistants required, and the incomes of all would be diminished : to compensate, we would propose an increased rate of payment for school-work, which would also remedy the already noticed inequality in the ratio of the two kinds of payment. This might be easily done if a portion of the money now absorbed by the fellows were set free; but, as long as the system remains unaltered, there is no chance of it.

But, further, supposing the new masters procured, where are they to be lodged? Here again the obstructiveness of the fellows meets us. Each new assistant page 298 would require a new house with a pupil-room; [unclear: and] it is well known that every available house at Eton, within the narrow bounds that the authorities prescribe, it occupied. Now a large part of the land within these bounds is the property of the he College. Is there any hope that the will swerve from the principles on which they have hitherto gone?—viz. not to enlarge the bounds, not to build, and not to give any facilities for building Every one knows what a ruinous speculation house-building is, when undertaken without a large supply of experence and capital; and can sympathize with any Eton master who may have his net income considerably diminished, and his anxieties increased, by being tempted to engage in it without these qualifications.

Such work is exactly that which this wealthy unoccupied corporation is called upon to undertake; and we cannot but regret that its principles or prejudices lead it to throw this work on the shoulders of busy individuals.

Again, Sir J. Coleridge draws, with perhaps unconscious irony, the following ideal of what might take place, if the assistants had less drudgery, and more time for self-cultivation, and could hold reunions for mutual converse and counsel. "I presume," he says, "that such a movement on their part would be met in a congenial and co-operative spirit by the higher authorities; the college library should be thrown open to them—there could be no better place for their meetings—and they should be admitted into free and friendly council in whatever improvement was contemplated for school or college." We dare say that the Eton fellows ignore, as a body, the assistants, out of whom they have immediately risen. We know that they have refused, though solicited, to admit them to the college library; and that the most Utopian assistant, would not, in his wildest moments, dream of being admitted to "free and friendly council," &C.

We must now close our remarks on this part of the subject. We should deeply regret, if what we have said should cause pain to any one, but we have thought it best to speak plainly. We believe that the actual fellows of Eton are entitled to our highest respect; which, of course, only makes our case stronger. It only shows the universality of the rule that men are sure to be injuriously influenced by being placed in unfortunate relations. Few men, suddenly transferred from a sphere of confined drudgery to 1,000l. a year, and nothing to do, would be likely to become useful members of society. Few men, who had grown old within a narrow circle of traditions, would avoid overestimating their value; and few men, with these and other disabling circumstances, would be likely to make good governors to a school like Eton, which, more than any other, ought to keep pace with the advance of the age. That a Royal Commission will be called for, sooner or later, to revise the Eton constitution, we do not doubt; we only hope that it may be sooner rather than later. When it is appointed, the first thing it will have to consider will be whether the fellowships are to exist at all in their present state; and if so, whether their value, their number, the work attached to them, and the share they confer in the government of the school, are to be left unaltered.

Of course, an obvious suggestion is, that some additional definite work should be given them; but it is hard to see how this is to be done. Even the function of preaching in chapel which they at present fulfil, seems hardly adapted for them. Dr. Arnold's view—now generally acted upon—was that the head master should be also the preacher; and this plan, if occasionally sermons from assistants are admitted, is surely the best. The difficult task of influencing boy-nature through sermons can only be well performed by those who are brought into daily contact with their hearers. And as to anything else, when Sir John Coleridge suggests that the fellows should conduct the half yearly examinations, and also improve the boys' minds by lecturing on page 299 general subjects of interest, we cannot help feeling that his mind has entirely wandered from the dull reality in pursuit of a pleasing ideal. Any attempt of this sort would, we think, only make the need of a radical change more keenly felt. When this time of change comes, every respect will be paid—it always is—to vested interests; but we hope that no inopportune reverence for obsolete forms, and the letter of the founder's will, may prevent the utmost being done to make Eton more fit for the glorious work she has undertaken—that of educating the aristocracy of England.

We have not yet spoken of the provost; and we have not indeed much to say about him. The most ruthless reformer could not have the heart to prevent the realisation of the charming picture, which Sir J. Coleridge draws of him; nor need the most conscientious one object to a single sinecure, of this kind, in the gift of the Crown, which might always be so well bestowed. One likes to think of some old diplomatist or statesman, world-worn and longing for retirement, here devoting himself to study, and to the infusion of a new and cheering element into the social life of Eton. There would always be many an old Etonian—perhaps one who, though earnest and talented, had not been thoroughly successful in the great struggle of the world—who would thankfully hail this opportunity of returning to dwell in the lovely and beloved spot, where he might quietly, and without effort, be of so much real service.¹

There is one more point deserving especial notice. It is the fact, observed with regret by several old Etonians, that the scholastic attainments of the oppidans, as compared with the collegers, have lately so markedly declined. To inquire into the causes of this, and to attempt its removal, would be among the first duties of any revising Commission.

The decline is to a great measure only comparative, being due to the improvement effected in the foundation by throwing it open to competitive examination; but it is also positive, we fear, to some extent. Sir J. Coleridge is disposed to attribute it vaguely to general neglect. But two definite causes can he assigned for it : first, the want of any incentive for the oppidans to work, while the collegers have their progress continually tested by successive examinations, up to the time of their leaving the school; secondly, the fact that the concentrating into one body, separate from the rest of the school, talent and application above the average, tends to injure these qualities among the rest, by forming a contrast between talent and application on the one hand, and wealth, rank, and idleness on the other; and this contrast itself, when once formed, tends perpetually to increase. With regard to the first of these causes, two remedies may be suggested : first, the foundation of exhibitions for the oppidans, to be held at school. These exhibitions must evidently be considered merely as honours and rewards of merit, and not at all as charities, or their effect will be neutralised. Next, the prizes for essays, poems, &C. may be made more operative as a stimulus to work, by giving them more publicity, and more éclat. A simple method of doing this would be to publish the successful compositions, as is done at the universities, and at some schools. The second cause seems to show that the reforms of the foundation, most commendable in themselves, have not produced unmingled good. It is hard to see how to remedy it thoroughly, except by doing away altogether with "college," as it now exists, i.e. by transforming it into a number of scholarships, perfectly open (so that the stigma, to which boys are peculiarly sensitive, of receiving charity, might be removed), and by destroying as much as possible the social separation that now exists between foundationers and non-foundationers. It will of course be said, that it would be wasting the funds of a charity thus to

¹ It is interesting to be told that the saddened and humbled spirit of the fallen Bacon yearned after this office. Had King James granted his request, it would have derived fresh lustre, from the most signal instance on record of fame lost in the forum and won in the closet.

page 300 throw them open to the rich; but practically it is found in similar cases, that they are only even apparently wasted to a very slight extent. For, among the educated classes, the poor are so much more numerous than the rich, and work, on the whole, so much harder, that they will always carry off more than nine-tenths of the rewards of talent and application, if impartially given; and the vast advantage accruing both to rich and poor, from this equality and universality of competition, would many times compensate the apparent waste. The parallel case of the universities naturally occurs to the mind. Every university man will feel how much it would neutralise the beneficial effect of a foundation to exclude the rich from it, and how bad a strongly marked social separation between the scholars and commoners of a college would be for both classes. The present system at Eton also fosters the too prevalent notion that the sons of the rich are really sent to school for other reasons, than to learn what the school professes to teach. We cannot imagine a more pernicious belief: especially as the attempt to keep it concealed from the boys themselves is always futile. If the parents look upon the school instruction simply as a means of keeping the boys out of mischief, we may be sure that it will soon become, as such, quite inoperative. We are told that education is not instruction; and no doubt the spectacle of an instructed but uneducated man—what is called a mere scholar—is most lamentable. But instruction—undertaken as a reality and not a farce—is an indispensable element in every education : a truism which fathers who are men of the world, and even the muscular and social among the educators themselves, are sometimes in danger of forgetting. We have heard Eton praised for the democratic spirit that exists among the boys. The praise is perfectly just in a certain sense: but the prevailing tone in Eton, as in other public schools, may be better described as that of a broad-bottomed oligarchy—an oligarchy, of course, paying no respect to the ranks, as such, of the outer world. Whether this oligarchy is based upon right principles or not, is a question of the deepest importance for the school. Let us trust that it may always be so at Eton, and that there physical strength, gymnastic skill, and social talents, may ever yield in influence to real intellectual pre-eminence and deep earnestness of character.