High Schools.^*

I have hinted in my summary at the reasons which seem to

State schools have a tendency to destroy all but the best grammar schools.

make it imperative that the State should establish schools intermediate between the State school and the University. I may add that the very excellence of our State schools makes it necessary to supplement them. The best of them teach what they teach so well that a great many parents are satisfied to withdraw their children altogether from the costly and pretentious, but not much more satisfactory, middle-class schools. The result is, first—which is not undesirable—that only the best middle-class schools can maintain themselves, and next, that even a good middle-class school has but a poor chance in any but a large town. Where ten or a dozen additional pupils may make the difference between profit and loss it will often happen that just this number is taken off by the State school, either learning extras in it or simply working up to the primary standard. It need scarcely be said that many families suffer severely by the want of middle-class schools. In the first place the teaching of extras in primary schools is more or less accidental, and an excellent head teacher may not be qualified, and may have no assistant qualified, to give

^* On reflection I have preferred this name to that of grammar school, which seems to imply an education based upon the study of language; and to that of commercial school, which seems to imply that the education is only adapted for mercantile pursuits.

page 88 instruction in French, in chemistry, or in trigonometry. In the next place the class of education offered by schools which rank between the primary schools and the University is of such importance as to demand a separate and most careful organization. Every township of three thousand contains fifty or a hundred families who would wish their children to continue their education three, four, or five years beyond the age of twelve, when the standard of the primary schools ought to have been attained. If the State does not assist these families to support a high school they will commonly be unable to do it. In some cases they will make a sacrifice and transfer themselves to a larger town for the sake of their children's education. More commonly they will select one child for education in an expensive Melbourne school and will leave the others to learn as they can in the primary school of the place. But often they will make no effort, and children who might have held their own creditably in the intellectual competition of professional life will be kept on a little longer than is necessary at the primary school and then be transferred at once to practical life or to household duties.

In the first place, I wish to see Greek omitted from the

Greek.

ordinary course and taught only in their last year to State scholars who are about to go up to the University. The study of Greek was introduced at a time when no modern language except Italian had a literature worth studying, when Aristotle page 90 and Hippocrates were the best medical text-books, and when theology and metaphysics occupied the ripest minds of the century far more than is now the case. The study has been retained by tradition and habit, and is generally supported on the grounds that the common Greek text-books are of singular literary finish, or that Greek is necessary to medical and theological students, or that the Greek language from its structure and difficulties is an exceptionally good discipline for the mind. I cannot dispute the first of these statements. Even at this day I believe that a student of style will learn more from Greek models than from the literature of any single country in modern Europe. But inasmuch as no existing system trains its students to appreciate this polish in less than four or five years, I hold that we can no more demand a knowledge of Greek from average men and women than the purchase of the highest works of art from ordinary householders. The other two arguments I do not admit. Greek is not more necessary to the theological student than Hebrew, and he may as well learn both separately as one. Above all, the Greek of the New Testament is as different from the Greek taught in schools as the idiom of Burns from that of Pope; and the only author I am acquainted with, Philo Judæus, whose style really throws light on the New Testament, is never by any chance taught in schools or colleges. The case is even stronger as regards medicine. No doubt many medical terms are derived from Greek, but they are either technical words never found in the great exemplars of classical literature, or barbarous modern compounds, intended to express modern thoughts and sometimes only expressing modern ignorance. Such terms as "alopesia," "cyanosis," "aneurism," "embolism," are not met with in ordinary Greek reading; words like "sternum," "petroleum," and "choroid" have lost their Greek forms; and the name "oxygen" only records a mistaken theory of Lavoisier's. Lastly, the view that Greek is an exceptionally good discipline for the mind can only be based on the difficulties it presents. Its grammar is scarcely more elaborate than the German, and it does not express thought so clearly as French. Above all, the discipline it imparts is only given to those who master it, and in proportion as it is more difficult than modern languages will its discipline be less often felt.

One of the profoundest classical scholars of modern times, the late Professor Conington, told me that, in consideration of the great difficulty of teaching Greek properly, when the claims of other branches of knowledge were recognised, he was prepared to see it struck out of the list of necessary studies at Oxford. Two other scholars of scarcely inferior reputation, Professor Goldwin Smith and Dean Liddel, addressed a letter to the College of Physicians pointing out the uselessness of the study of Greek for medical men. Mr. Henry Sidgwick developed the general view elaborately in "Essays on a Liberal Education." These views have been accepted to some extent, and French and German are now put on an equal footing with Greek in the Woolwich examinations. Therefore, even in a conservative page 91 country like England, where the wealth of the higher class of students permits a certain indulgence in educational luxuries, Greek has been denounced or partially discarded as superfluous.^*

In reply, I would beg my readers to ask themselves, what knowledge worth having a boy of fifteen can acquire about time: and persons thoroughly unlike his own. Let us take one of the illustrations I have used, the Great Rebellion. The England of that day was not the mining and manufacturing England of this century, a country covered with railways and studded with large towns. It had no newspaper press worth speaking of; its houses of Peers and Commons held quite different relations from those which

^* I may add that our grammar schools are so arranged that pupils may escape learning Greek In other words, the teachers who keep Greek in our schools advise that its study may be dispensed with.

^† "A Plea for Rational Education."—Fortnightly Review, August 1877, p. 183.

page 92 exist at present; its taxation had been or was independent of excise, and property tax, and assessed taxes; its people were influenced by religion in the conduct of their daily lives and in their political struggles to an extent that can scarcely be understood now. Its courts were governed in their procedure and decisions by precedents of the middle ages, while its ripest thinkers anticipated the ideas which have been embodied in the American Constitution. Thanks to Macaulay, Hallam, Carlyle, Sanford, and Gardiner, any man of average education may study these times with insight and understanding. But the cleverest boy or girl can learn nothing that is really worth knowing about them from such textbooks, excellent of their kind, as Edith Thompson's and Bright's histories, the books now in use in our schools. What they learn is a farrago of dates and technical names (like ship-money and star-chamber) and names of battles and names of statesmen and generals; and what they remember is an anecdote here and there, or a striking incident—the execution of Charles I., or the concealment of his son in the oak. They fail to learn more, not only or chiefly because their text-books are meagre, but because their minds are undeveloped. It takes some knowledge of the world, or a high imaginative faculty to transport oneself back into past ages and understand the characters and springs of action of a different time. So far as I can judge, very few acquire the knowledge or develope the imagination or feel an interest in history proper till they have reached the first year of an University course.

Helm to the study of Latin.

The economy of time which the changes that I have already proposed will cause will be very great. I would hint at one other alteration which Mr. Grant Duff has recommended. "So far from the learner being shut up with grammar and dictionary, every conceivable help must be given. The best translations, the best illustrations from art, must always be at hand." By illustrations from art I take it Mr. Grant Duff alludes to the use of photographs of old Roman buildings, and such books as Milman's "Horace" or Burn's "Rome." The cost to a teacher of supplying

^* Simultaneously with Mr. Marcus Clarke's, another excellent hand-book of Australian history has been published by the Messrs. Sutherland.

page 93 himself with these would not be very great if the department procured them for him, as is done with school manuals, at trade price. I would add one hint from my own experience. When a pupil, by the aid of translations, has acquired a fairly large vocabulary he ought to be practised in translation at sight and encouraged to guess. We are apt, I think, to trust too much to a scholar's memory, and too little to his intelligence. Yet the way in which every one of us has learned the mother tongue has been by having a few words explained and by guessing or thinking out the meaning of a great many.

With the mind thus trained the pupil will be well qualified to

English composition.

attempt English composition. I do not mean that he will be page 94 able to write what are commonly known as "theses," exercises upon some abstract subject, such as "patriotism," or "the office of the imagination." Work of this sort demands knowledge and original thought to an extent that a boy or girl of seventeen cannot possess. But these may be trained to write letters, to describe some place or object with which they are familiar, and, above all, to practice précis writing, the reproduction in the fewest possible words of an argument or of a narrative. I confess to a strong feeling that much of the time now spent in our schools on analysis might properly be devoted to composition, and that an average employer, banker, merchant, or tradesman will generally prefer a clerk who can put his thoughts and knowledge into well-chosen words to one who can only dissect and demonstrate the structure of another man's thought. I would urge, therefore, that English composition should count for one-third the marks given in any paper or papers on the English language and literature.

Influences of French and Latin upon style.

Let me add one other argument. The difference between Macaulay, the most French of our writers, and Johnson, one of the most Latin, represents in strong contrast the influence of the two languages upon style. Macaulay is pointed, straightforward, and clear as day; Johnson balanced, antithetical, and cumbrous. This difference, which would admit of many other illustrations, belongs to the two languages. The best scholars often dispute the meaning of a Latin sentence, from its intricate and involved page 95 structure; of French, it has been happily said that it ceases to be French if it is ambiguous. No doubt the very structure of our language assists precision in thought; but what is obscurity in a Latin writer is apt to take the form of affectation in a Latinist.

As regards Latin, I assume that the education given by a high

The study of Latin.

school should aim at teaching grammar and literature. There is no royal road to grammar, as has often been said, but, I believe that if the teacher forces his class to remember that Latin is not a language by itself, but one of a family, and works it steadily into the French and English teaching, he will produce more durable though, perhaps, not quicker results than by the old system. In the teaching of Latin literature the teacher who does not harass his pupils with composition ought to be able to achieve comparatively great results in the study of Latin authors. At present a candidate for matriculation learns, perhaps, a book of Cæsar and a book of Virgil, going painfully over them again and again until he knows them more or less by heart. It is not too much to say that he may easily treble this. Let him begin in his first year translating as soon as he has learned the most meagre outlines of grammar, but translating with such help from a vocabulary, or notes, or a translation as to make his work easy. I do not think it is too much to say that in the four years he will spend at school, especially if he waste no time on centos of sentences or third-rate writers, he may easily read the part of Cæsar's Commentaries which relates to Britain, the Agricola of Tacitus, the De Senectute and Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, the second and sixth books of the Æneid, the third, tenth, and thirteenth Satires of Juvenal (or select odes of Horace at the teacher's discretion), and perhaps even a book of Pliny's Letters, or of the Natural History. The minimum course Mr. Grant Duff proposes, and which I have kept steadily before me, page 96 embraces very much more than I have suggested; but though Mr. Grant Duff would have Latin begun a year later than I propose, he includes a three years' university course in his plan, and, I may perhaps add, seems to estimate the capacity of average scholars a little too much by his own highly trained intelligence and exceptional energy.

The faculty of observation.

Take a child of seven years, which has not yet been subjected to the drill of a school. It is noticing, handling, experimenting in every direction, picking up knowledge through every sense, and storing its memory with facts. See it again after it has had several years at school, poring over desks during day-time and preparing night work at home. It is no longer restless and mischievous; it has learned attention and concentration; but in proportion as it is a promising scholar, it has probably ceased to observe. Put that child later on, when he is now a young man, into an anatomy class, he must begin life again and learn to observe, must distinguish similar bones by the processes for attachment of muscles, the foramina, and the articulations. Nay, his easiest work in medicine will be at the beginnings, and it is not impossible that the long disuse of his observing faculties will tell fatally against him in diagnosis. I have taken a single instance, but page 97 there are examples on every side. What we call a practical man is a man who observes and thinks; the men who succeed as breeders are those who have noted the points of stock and the peculiarities of race intelligently. The men who founded gold mining in Australia were men who had trained themselves to observe where gold was likely to be found. I do not wish to attach excessive value to the bushman's remarkable faculty of leaving nothing unnoticed that comes within the range of his eye, and I do not think it possible that we should keep our children observant, except at the cost of the severer training which is to give them attention and mental discipline. But I certainly regard observation as a faculty on which success in life largely depends; and I think children may be taught to observe as well as to think, and so trained as to observe intelligently.

Meantime I know no more admirable substitute for formal

Use of the study of chemistry.

logic than chemical analysis. The time when students of a certain calibre get a craving for logical method, and are fascinated by syllogistic forms, belongs, I think, to the University rather than to the school course. But I know nothing in Mill that is not implied in Fresenius or Noad, unless it be the dissection of

^* I may refer the reader for a fuller discussion of this subject to Mr. Wilson's admirable article in "Essays on a Liberal Education."

^† It is an important advantage in connection with botany that our schools will find text-books of Australian botany ready for use. Baron von Mueller has published one; Mr. Guilfoyle is bringing out another.

page 98 sophisms. Mere chemical lectures with experiments seem to me, I confess, little more than a pleasant mode of trifling away time, useful perhaps in stimulating the pupil's interest, hut barren of any higher results. But the example of our schools of mines shows that it is perfectly possible to fit up a laboratory at a trifling cost, and to teach the elements of analysis at least to moderately large classes. The work is of a kind that does not tax the strength, and that most students enjoy. Under a teacher like Professor Hoffman, of Berlin, the Socratic method of enquiry why the experimenter had used one test and passed by another, and how he arrived at his conclusion, was as sharp training for the reasoning faculties as I have ever undergone. It is a secondary advantage of chemistry, that many chemical books are admirably written; clear and attractive. The teacher, in fact, will only have his choice of good hand-books from which to illustrate the principles of the science; from Daltou's Atomic Theory, Liebig's Letters, and Faraday's Lectures, which were popular in my day, to modern text-books, such as Roscoe and Shuttleworth.

Physical geography.

Thus armed, the pupil might, I think, pass on to physical geography; beginning in the first year with the study of the Australian continent and its outlying islands, till he understood why settlement has followed its peculiar track, what the history of exploration has been, how land has taken its present form, what are the causes affecting climate, and in what way minerals, flora, and fauna are distributed. In the second and third years page 99 the student might, I think, acquire similar knowledge about the rest of the earth; and during the fourth year of residence might be taken on to such considerations as the influence of natural causes on man (as explained by Buckle and Herbert Spencer), or the way in which man modifies nature (as treated by Marsh), or the way in which an insular situation, a mountainous country, or large forests have determined critical periods in history. My experience as a teacher is that matter of this kind is an excellent preparation for the study of history, is found more interesting, and is more easily understood than history proper, and can be imparted to average pupils of sixteen and seventeen.

Afternoon.

• Piano and chemistry, 2 lessons of an hour.
• Arithmetic, 2 lessons of an hour.
• Botany, 2 lessons of 45 minutes.
• Physical geography, 2 lessons of 45 minutes.
• (In the higher forms geology or natural philosophy might be substituted for this or for some of the chemistry.)^*

Allowing 5 minutes between each lesson, the forenoon lessons might last by this plan from 9 to 12.15 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and from 9 to 12.30 on Wednesday and Saturday; while the afternoon lessons might be given between 2 and 3.50.

Assuming that it is desirable to establish such schools as I have just sketched in outline, the next question is in what way it may be most economically effected. My idea is that the cheapest plan for the State will be to establish scholarships, awarded by competitive examination to the best State scholars of the year, and to map the country out into school districts, each of which shall have its separate endowment. In country towns where a good middle-class school is already established, the State may, I think, erect the town into an educational district by itself, and give scholarships from the State school, tenable at the grammar school or schools in question.

Scheme for the endowment of high schools.

Thus a town like Ballarat would receive 16 scholarships altogether, or four a year, tenable at such school or schools in the place as the department shall approve; and the department would further pay half the fees of all pupils who, having been a year in the upper sixth of a State school, should wish to attend an approved grammar school at Ballarat, or any other of these towns, as day scholars. I estimate that there are nine such towns now in existence, with a population of about 90,000, and that they would require an endowment of 45 scholarships. The case of Melbourne I regard as different in kind from that of towns like Ballarat, Stawell, or Hamilton. Did the State open a high school in towns such as these it would probably close the existing schools, whose proprietors would then claim compensation. But I do not think four or five high schools established in Melbourne or the suburbs would appreciably affect any really good school now in existence; indeed, my impression is, that the stimulus given to education by the various measures I propose will increase the numbers in schools of the highest class. I would therefore establish at least four day schools for Melbourne and the suburbs. The remainder of the country I have divided, as I best could, into 13 districts, averaging between 30,000 and 40,000 a piece, and entitled each to 20 scholarships, or to five page 101 a year. In the case of these districts the State will also he hound to pay the boarding expenses of those children who live more than two miles and a half from the school, or to provide them with railway passes, if any live within easy distance by rail of the school. I calculate these at £40 a year, and believe, from what I can learn, that this will be fair and not excessive remuneration for the master.

From what enquiries I have made, I believe that an ordinary town of 3,000 ought to supply from 40 to 50 pupils to a high school, and several more will of course come in from the neighborhood. I could quote instances at present where children ride or drive eight or ten miles to a primary school. Therefore I think the minimum income of a high schoolmaster, even allowing that he pays a pupil-teacher, will amount to £500 a year and a house; and I do not doubt that the best qualified men will raise this to £800 a year in the country, and £1,200 in Melbourne.

In the case of towns that only receive a small subsidy to existing

Subsidized schools.

grammar schools the State cannot expect to impose conditions. But where it sends as many pupils, as it will do in page 102 Ballarat and Sandhurst, it may reasonably demand that its own programme be complied with; and I think it may assist in this being done by arranging that the pupils shall receive instruction in chemistry from the chemical lecturers at the schools of mines, and by paying these gentlemen for their services. Nor will there, I think, be any great difficulty in sending the pupils once or twice a week to do chemical work in the school of mines laboratories, accompanied and controlled by a teacher from the high school.

But the most important high school examination will be that

Scholarships and exhibitions at the University.

which takes place at the end of the four years' course, and at which I would propose that ten scholarships be awarded every year of £50 a year each for the whole of the student's course at the University, and 54 exhibitions of the same amount tenable during one year only. The total expense of the first, on an average course of four years, will be £2,000 a year to the State; and the State will thus send up ten scholars every year among the candidates for degrees. When it is borne in mind that the £50 scholarships will not include payment for fees, since I assume that fees will be abolished, and that the holders will have a chance of winning other scholarships at the University, it will, I hope, be thought that this foundation will give the poorest man's son, if he be capable, the chance of entry into a learned profession. The 54 exhibitions that I recommend (making 60 with 6 agricultural scholarships awarded in the third year) will enable the holders to follow a year's course at the University, and obtain one or other of the certificates, which I hope the University will be empowered to grant. Many, I trust, will qualify in this way for a certificate of teaching; and I propose that these should be allowed to share the benefits of the Training College. Others may work for certificates of agriculture or metallurgy, and these may be helped on at our model farms and schools of mines; while others will qualify in the Medical faculty for certificates of dentistry, or pharmacy, or page 104 in the faculty of Practical Science for a certificate of navigation, forestry, or technology. When it is borne in mind that by this scheme the State will be training 60 men as primary schoolmasters, farmers, mining managers, dentists, mates, &c., where it trains 10 as doctors, lawyers, ministers, or high school masters, it cannot, I think, be said that there is any danger of flooding the professions with superfluous men. The present rule that the Minister may suspend or take away an exhibition for disorderly or immoral conduct in the holder will, of course, have to be retained; and a scholarship ought, I think, to be in abeyance as long as the scholar fails to pass the examination of his year. But a student may be left to judge for himself whether a particular course of lectures is or is not useful, and to stand or fall by his good sense.

The three high school inspectors, who will be required to work the high school system, may easily manage the Civil Service examination.

I proceed to give a scheme of the way in which high schools might be distributed over the country according to the plan I propose. The first list I give is of towns in which I propose that an existing school or schools should be recognised as high schools. The scholarships assigned are at the rate of one to every two thousand inhabitants, and will therefore vary in number from year to year.

The common charge for day scholars over 12 years of age in a country grammar school is about 14 guineas a year. The annual charge entailed by these scholarships will therefore be between £600 and £700 (£667 17s.) at most. But the State may perhaps obtain a reduction where it sends a large number of pupils. Beckoning children in the upper sixth of the State schools of these towns at one per cent, of the school population, which is, so far as I can learn, a fair estimate, and assuming that all will go on to the high school, we shall find an additional charge of about £1,260 has to be allowed for. Of course all will not want to go on, but, on the other hand, it seems probable that more than now stay on for the upper sixth will be induced to do so, when the highest class of a State school is the passport to a high school.

The first question should, I think, be answered in the affirmative. The University scholarships will be endowed out of the general taxation, and there "seems no sufficient reason why students should be disqualified from competing for them because they have been educated without charge to the State. In England it is often felt to be unjust that the small grammar schools are overweighted in the competition for college and university scholarships by large and wealthy foundations, or by the pupils of costly private tutors; and in these cases it is argued that the prize is given to the rich, not to the deserving, as the style of examination favours those who have received an exceptional training. But no such difficulty need occur with ourselves. The examiners, appointed by the State, will be specially interested in the high school curriculum, page 108 and will examine exclusively in subjects taught by the high school. Therefore, if there be any inequality among candidates, the disadvantage will probably lie with those who are trained at grammar schools, and who have devoted part of their time to subjects, such as Greek and Latin composition, which are not included in the high school course. On the other hand, it will be a great advantage to test the teaching in our new schools by comparison with that given in establishments of recognised excellence. Teachers and pupils throughout the colony will be put on their mettle; we shall soon know whether the new foundations are properly organized, and whichever lags in the race will be compelled by public opinion to reform and rouse itself to new exertions.

Middle-class education need not be made quite costless.

As regards the second point, I have already tried to show that the strong reasons which exist for making primary education costless and for endowing a university do not apply with equal force to middle-class schools. As regards these, the State is, I think, morally bound to establish them in towns where they cannot subsist against the competition of the primary school, but is not called upon to cheapen them. Could it bring university teaching to every important township, as it can bring high schools, it would simply be matter of calculation whether university fees should be retained or abolished. Therefore, in recommending that high schools should be endowed with scholarships, and that competent pupils should be admitted into them at half cost, I have lad regard to expediency rather than to equity. In the first place our costless State school system has fostered a certain indisposition in the part of the community to spend money on education. In the next place it is so important that intermediate education should be highly organized, that the State may, I think, fairly relieve the individual of a portion of his duty. But if the State tries to do all in this matter, it will, I fear, break down under the burden. It will find itself in this difficulty, that as the class which desires a high school education for its children—ministers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, storekeepers, farmers, &c.—is scattered irregularly over the whole country, we must either multiply high schools indefinitely, or board several thousand children at State cost. It will be very difficult to say that children who live at Ararat shall have a high school education without charge and that children who live ten miles off in the country shall be confined to the primary school. That part of the system I have suggested, which gives costless admission to the most capable in town or country indifferently, is, I think, perfectly fair. The other part of it, which reduces the fees to upper sixth pupils, will no doubt be of special use to pupils resident in the town where the high school is situate, but will not, I hope, seem so excessive a benefit as to provoke much jealousy. If we assume that the pupils qualified to compete for the State scholarships admitting to high schools are as two per cent, of the school population (a high estimate at present), there will be five scholarships every year for 160 possible competitors, and a reduction of half fees for many of the remainder. The advantage of competition page 109 will be enormous. School will measure itself against school, and every board of advice will be anxious that its own district should compete on favourable terms with its neighbours. Make admission to the high school matter of right for all equally, and the advantage of this stimulus will be lost. The cheaper system is also, I am convinced, incomparably the more efficient.

Three high school inspectors—one for language, one for mathematics,

Functions of high school inspectors.

and one for science, including geography and history—will be required to work the high school system. If I am right in supposing that they would examine 1,200 pupils a year, this, allowing for failures, and assuming that every pupil took up five subjects to make sure of passing, would give from 3,000 to 4,000 papers at each half-yearly examination; and therefore, even if the science examiner could take one paper in language, which we may assume, the work, at an average of 1,200 papers a-piece, would take from a month to six weeks to look over. Besides this, the inspectors should, I think, visit every high school once a year, and test the regular work of the school by oral examination. Lastly, they will have to hold three separate examinations—one for the exhibitions admitting to high schools, one for second year students who wish to work on a model farm, and one for fourth year students competing for university exhibitions and studentships. The duties, as I have supposed them, represent about six or seven months' work in the year, much of which will be in Melbourne, as the visits, once or twice a year, to thirteen country page 110 schools will be the only occasion of absence, and need not occupy more than a month. It would be difficult to organize a large staff of qualified inspectors on these conditions without paying them more highly than I propose, but the State may, I think, count on filling up three appointments with well-qualified men, as there are always some gentlemen to whom it is convenient to undertake half-work for half-pay.