W. Tuckwell

“ Is it the even and progressive development of young minds? the strengthening in equal proportion of the faculties of imagination, memory, reason, observation? the opening doors of knowledge in the plastic time of youth, which if not opened then will be fast closed in later years by the pressure of active work, or habitual exclusiveness, or energies paralyzed through disuse? Nothing of the kind. It is constructed entirely with the aim of winning certain prizes; for scholarships with which a costly university bribes men to come to it for education ”

“ The childish aspirant to the entrance scholarships of a public school is placed in the hands of a crammer at eight years old, that at thirteen he may turn out Latin verses as a Buddhist prayer-mill turns out prayers, and may manifest, as a distinguished head-master has lately said, to the eye of a teacher searching for intelligence, thoughtfulness, promise, intenseness, "a stupidity which is absolutely appalling." ”

“ It is easy for Parliament to lay down rules which shall control the latter once for all; it is not easy to bind the actions of some forty different foundations, each electing its own scholars according to its own idiosyncrasies, or in obedience to the changing wills of bodies in a perpetual state of flux. ”

“ It is not for nothing that a parliamentary investigation into the expenditure of college endowments should have been supported by members of the colleges themselves, or that a proposal to distribute college scholarships and exhibitions by a central authority in accordance with the results of the leaving-examination should have emanated from eminent university teachers. For it cannot be too strongly urged that college scholarships stand on very different ground from university prizes or degrees. ”

“ All who feel the discredit of past neglect, its injury to our national, intellect, and its danger to our national prosperity, will do well to support by unqualified adhesion the first attempt that has been made to probe its causes, and the first consistent and well-considered scheme that has been put forth for its removal.—Nature. ”

“ School-masters anxious to teach science, and doubtful how to set about it, will meet all the facts which can enlighten them in the appendices to the report. They will find lists of accredited text-books, specimens of examination-papers, varieties of school time-tables, priced catalogues of apparatus, syllabi of lectures and experiments, botanical schedules and tables, plans and descriptions of laboratories, workshops, museums, botanic gardens ”

“ As regards the teaching of science, they recommend that it should commence with the beginning of the school career; that not less than six hours a week should be devoted to it, and that in all school examinations as much as one-sixth of the marks should be allotted to it. ”

“ In a volume whose research and condensation make it not only a monument of conscientious toil, but an invaluable hand-book to all who are laboring to work out practically the great problem of which it treats, the commissioners investigate the obstacles which have caused the endowed schools to defy the weighty recommendations of former commissions, the unanimous verdict of educational authorities outside the scholastic profession, and the increasingly urgent demands of English public opinion. ”

“ In all these, but most of all where the universities can determine the ordeal, one principle of success has been established, and that principle is one-sidedness. The candidate for India, for Woolwich, for Cooper's Hill, must at an early age select certain subjects and throw overboard all the rest. ”

“ Showing in detail the comparatively trifling cost at which indispensable apparatus can be obtained, the commissioners nevertheless admit the rarity, in the present state of English culture, either of independent science-teachers suited to the larger schools, or of men, such as poorer schools desiderate, combining literary with scientific knowledge. ”

“ This, however, is an evil of the past rather than of the future, since not the least among the advantages expected from a reformed system of school-teaching is the creation of a race of able teachers, general as well as special. The relative value of science as an implement of mental training is next discussed. ”

“ It may still be audacious, but it is no longer novel, to suggest that, supposing future legislation to retain the college scholarships at all, they should be awarded by the authority of government, in strict connection with leaving-examinations which government shall conduct, and in reward not of special but of general proficiency. ”