As a boy and a young man I went through the ordinary classical education—private school, public school, and university. I do not think I troubled my head at the time about the philosophical theory or motive of the course; but now, looking back upon it after an interval of twenty years, while my admiration of the theory of it is enhanced, as a lofty and dignified scheme of mental education, I find myself haunted by uneasy doubts as to its practical efficacy. While it seems to me to be for a capable and well-equipped boy with decided literary taste, a noble and refining influence, I begin to fear that for the large majority of youthful English minds it is narrowing, unimproving, and conspicuous for an absence of intellectual enjoyment.

Is it not the experience of most people that little boys are conscientious, duty-loving, interested not so much in the matter of work, but in the zealous performance of it; and that when adolescence begins, they grow indifferent, wearied, even rebellious, until they drift at last into a kind of cynicism about the whole thing—a kind of dumb certainty, that whatever else may be got from work, enjoyment in no form is the result? And is not the moral of this, that the apprenticeship once over and the foundation laid, special tastes should as far as possible be consulted, and subjects simplified, so as to give boys a sense of mastery in something, and interest at all hazards.

The champions of our classical system defend it on the ground that the accurate training in the subtleties of grammar hardens and fortifies the intelligence, and that the mind is introduced to the masterpieces of ancient literature, and thus encouraged in the formation of correct taste and critical appreciation.

An excellent theory, and I admit at once its value for minds of high and firm intellectual calibre. But how does it actually work out for the majority? In the first place, look at what the study of grammar amounts to—it comes, as a matter of fact, when one remembers the grammar papers which were set in examinations, to be little more than a knowledge of arbitrary, odd and eccentric forms such as a boy seldom if ever meets in the course of his reading. Imagine teaching English on the same theory, and making boys learn that metals have no plural, or that certain fish use the same form in the singular and in the plural—things of which one acquires the knowledge insensibly, and which are absolutely immaterial. Moreover, the quantity of grammatical forms in Latin and Greek are infinitely increased by the immensely larger number of inflexions. Is it useful that boys should have to commit to memory the dual forms in Greek verbs—forms of a repulsive character in themselves, and seldom encountered in books? The result of this method is that the weaker mind is warped and strained. Some few memories of a peculiarly retentive type may acquire these useless facts in a mechanical manner; but it is hardly more valuable than if they were required to commit to memory long lists of nonsense words. Yet in most cases they are doomed to be speedily and completely forgotten—indeed, nothing can ever be really learnt unless a logical connection can be established between the items.

Then after the dark apprenticeship of grammar comes the next stage—the appreciation of literature; but I diffidently believe here that not ten per cent of the boys who are introduced to the classics have ever the slightest idea that they are in the presence of literature at all. They never approach the point which is essential to a love of literature—the instinctive perception of the intrinsic beauty of majestic and noble words, and still less the splendid associations which grow to be inseparably connected with words, in a language which one really knows and admires.

My own belief is that both the method of instruction and the spirit of that instruction are at fault. Like the Presbyterian Liturgy, the system depends far too much on the individuality of the teacher, and throws too great a strain upon his mood. A vigorous, brilliant, lively, humorous, rhetorical man can break through the shackles of construing and parsing, and give the boys the feeling of having been in contact with a larger mind; but in the hands of a dull and uninspiring teacher the system is simply famishing from its portentous aridity. The result, at all events, is that the majority of the boys at our schools never get the idea that they are in the presence of literature at all. They are kept kicking their heels in the dark and cold antechamber of parsing and grammar, and never get a glimpse of the bright gardens within.

What is, after all, the aim of education? I suppose it is twofold: firstly, to make of the mind a bright, keen, and effective instrument, capable of seeing a point, of grappling with a difficulty, of presenting facts or thoughts with clearness and precision. A young man properly educated should be able to detect a fallacy, to correct by acquired clearsightedness a false logical position. He should not be at the mercy of any new theory which may be presented to him in a specious and attractive shape. That is, I suppose, the negative side. Then secondly, he should have a cultivated taste for intellectual things, a power of enjoyment; he should not bow meekly to authority in the matter of literature, and force himself into the admiration of what is prescribed, but he should be possessed of a dignified and wholesome originality; he should have his own taste clearly defined. If his bent is historical, he should be eagerly interested in any masterly presentation of historical theory, whether new or old; if philosophical, he should keep abreast of modern speculation; if purely literary, he should be able to return hour after hour to masterpieces that breathe and burn.

But what is the result of our English education? In one respect admirable; it turns out boys who are courteous, generous, brave, active, and public-spirited; but is it impossible that these qualities should exist with a certain intellectual standard? I remember now, though I did not apply any theory at the time to the phenomenon, that when at school I used dimly to wonder at seeing boys who were all these things—fond of talk, fond of games, devoted to all open-air exercises, conscientious and wholesome-minded, who were at the same time utterly listless in intellectual things—who could not read a book of any kind except the simplest novel, and then only to fill a vacant hour, who could not give a moment’s attention to the presentment of an interesting episode, who were moreover utterly contemptuous of all such things, inclined to think them intolerably tedious and essentially priggish—and yet these were the boys of whom most was made, who were most popular not only with boys but with masters as well, and who, in our little microcosmography were essentially the successful people, to be imitated, followed, and worshipped.

Now if it were certain that the qualities which are developed by an English education would be sacrificed if a higher intellectual standard were aimed at, I should not hesitate to sacrifice the intellectual side. But I do not believe it is necessary; and what is stranger still, I do not believe that most of our educators have any idea that the intellectual side of education is being sacrificed.

I remember once hearing a veteran and successful educator say that he considered a well-educated man was a man whose mind was not at the mercy of the last new book on any ordinary subject. If that is an infallible test, then our public schools may be said to have succeeded beyond all reasonable expectation. The ordinary public-school type of man is not in the least at the mercy of the last new book, because he is careful never to submit himself to the chance of pernicious bias—he does not get so far as to read it.

At present athletics are so much deferred to, that boys seem to me to be encouraged deliberately to lay their plans as if life ended at thirty. But I believe that schools should aim at producing a type that should develop naturally and equably with the years. What we want to produce is an unselfish, tranquil, contented type, full of generous visions; neither prematurely serious nor incurably frivolous, nor afraid of responsibility, nor morbidly desirous of influence; neither shunning nor courting publicity, but natural, wholesome, truthful, and happy; not afraid of difficulties nor sadly oppressed with a sense of responsibility; fond of activity and yet capable of using and enjoying leisure; not narrow-minded, not viewing everything from the standpoint of a particular town or parish, but patriotic and yet not insular, modern-spirited and yet not despising the past, practical and yet with a sense of spiritual realities.

I think that what is saddest is that the theoretical perfection screens the practical inutility of the thing. If it seems good to the collective wisdom of the country to let education go, and to make a public-school a kind of healthy barrack-life for the physical training of the body, with a certain amount of mental occupation to fill the vacant hours that might otherwise be mischievous—pleasure with a hem of duty—let it be frankly admitted that it is so; but that the education received by boys at our public-schools is now, except in intention, literary—that is the position which I entirely deny.

Personally I had a certain feeble taste for literature. I read in a slipshod way a good deal of English poetry, memoirs, literary history, and essays, but my reading was utterly amateurish and unguided. I even had some slight preferences in style, but I could not have given a reason for my preference; I could not write an English essay—I had no idea of arrangement. I had never been told to “let the bones show;” I had no sense of proportion, and considered that anything which I happened to have in my own mind was relevant to any subject about which I was writing. I had never learnt to see the point or to insist upon the essential.

Neither do I think that I can claim to have had any particular love for the classics; but I was blest with a pictorial mind, and though much of my classical reading was a mere weariness to me, I was cheered at intervals by a sudden romantic glimpse of some scene or other that seized me with a vivid reality. The Odyssey and the Æneid were rich in these surprises; for the talk of Gods, indeed, I had nothing but bewildered contempt; but such a scene as that of Laertes in his patched gaiters, fumbling with a young tree on his upland farm, at once seized tyrannically upon my fancy. Catullus, Horace, even Martial, gave me occasional food for the imagination; and all at once it seemed worth while to traverse the arid leagues, or to wade, as Tennyson said, in a sea of glue, for these divine moments.

One such scene that affected my fancy I will describe in greater detail; and let it stand as a specimen. It was in the third Æneid; we were sitting in a dusty class-room, the gas flaring. The lesson proceeded slowly and wearily, with a thin trickle of exposition from the desk, emanating from a master who was evidently as sick of the whole business as ourselves.

Andromache, widow of Hector, after a forced union with Neoptolemus, becomes the bride of Helenus, Hector’s brother. Helenus on the death of Pyrrhus becomes his successor in the chieftainship, and Andromache is once more a queen. She builds a rustic altar, an excuse for lamentation, and there bewails the memory of her first lord. I was reflecting that she must have made but a dreary wife for Helenus, when in a moment the scene was changed. Æneas, it will be remembered, comes on her in her orisons, with his troop of warriors behind him, and is greeted by the terrified queen, who believes him to be an apparition, with a wild and artless question ending a burst of passionate grief: “If you come from the world of spirits,” she says, “Hector ubi est?” It is one of those sudden turns that show the ineffable genius of Virgil.

I saw in a moment a clearing in a wood of beeches; one great tree stood out from the rest. Half hidden in the foliage stood a tall stone pillar, supporting a mouldering urn. Close beside this was a stone alcove, with a little altar beneath it. In the alcove stood a silent listening statue with downcast head. From the altar went up a little smoke; the queen herself, a slender figure, clad in black, with pale worn face and fragile hands, bent in prayer. By her side were two maidens, also in the deepest black, a priest in stiff vestments, and a boy bearing a box of incense.

A slight noise falls on the ear of Andromache; she turns, and there at the edge of a green forest path, lit by the red light of a low smouldering sun, stands the figure of a warrior, his arms rusty and dark, his mailed feet sunk in the turf, leaning on his spear. His face is pale and heavily lined, worn with ungentle experience, and lit by a strange light of recognition. His pale forked beard falls on his breast; behind him a mist of spears.

This was the scene; very rococo, no doubt, and romantic, but so intensely real, so glowing, that I could see the pale-stemmed beeches; and below, through a gap, low fantastic hills and a wan river winding in the plain. I could see the white set face of Æneas, the dark-eyed glance of the queen, the frightened silence of the worshippers.

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