Shrewsbury School

“ Many persons of eminence in by-gone days received their education in Shrewsbury School. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it sent forth one of the most brilliant ornaments of her court, the gallant and accomplished Sydney,—the “miracle of the age;”—and in the present day, under the able management and profound learning of the late head-master, Dr. Butler, it has maintained a pre-eminent rank among the Public Seminaries of sound Learning and Religious Education in this country, having produced numerous individuals who have been distinguished p. ”

“ But you'd be just as well off—better—here at New Moon.”
“Dean! I want some education——”
“Education! Education isn’t being spoon-fed with algebra and second-rate Latin. Old Carpenter could teach you more and better than the college cubs, male and female, in Shrewsbury High School.”
“I can’t go to school any more here,” protested Emily. “I’d be all alone. All the pupils of my age are going to Queen’s or Shrewsbury or staying home. I don’t understand you, Dean. I thought you’d be so glad they’re letting me go to Shrewsbury.” ”

“ But civilisation draws us to big towns for our livelihood. However much the stockbroker might wish to send his son as a day boarder to Shrewsbury, he would find it quite impossible to do so. The town of Shrewsbury would provide no scope for his activities. He could not possibly settle there. A scheme that would involve the complete alteration of the public school system can only be called a revolution. A reformer has to work on his existing material. ”

“ Emily was cast for a part that suited her, so she became keenly interested in the matter and enjoyed the practises, which were held in the school building two evenings of the week under the chaperonage of Miss Aylmer.
The play created quite a stir in Shrewsbury. Nothing so ambitious had been undertaken by the High School students before: it became known that many of the Queen’s Academy students were coming up from Charlottetown on the evening train to see it. This drove the performers half wild. The Queen’s students were old hands at putting on plays. ”

“ But there are also a good many shy boys, who will not venture to make themselves conspicuous by literary and imaginative feats, and who yet if it were a matter of course and wont, would throw themselves with intense pleasure into literary creation. The work done, for instance, at Shrewsbury, at the Perse School, at Carlisle Grammar School, in this direction—I daresay it is done elsewhere, but I have seen the work of these three schools with my own eyes—show what quite average boys are capable of in both English poetry and English prose. ”

“ To speak of the other public schools—Harrow, Westminster, Shrewsbury, Marlborough, Wellington, Clifton, Repton, and the rest—would of course be interesting, but I could scarcely hope to illustrate more clearly what a public school really is. At all of them the boys live in "houses," much as men at the universities live in colleges. ”

“ After all, argues many an easy-going parent, a public-school education is a public-school education, whether dear Benjamin gets it at Eton, or Shrewsbury, or Bolsover. We cannot afford Eton or Shrewsbury, but we will make a pinch and send him to Bolsover, which sounds almost as good and may even be better.
So to Bolsover dear Benjamin goes, and becomes a public-school boy. In that “noble building” he does pretty much as he likes, and eats very much what he can. ”

“ Industry, intellectual interests, the capacity for taking pleasure in deductive reasoning, in observation, in experiment, no less than in the highest works of imagination; where these qualities are present any rational system of education should surely be able to make something of them. Unfortunately for Darwin, the Shrewsbury Grammar School, though good of its kind, was an institution of a type universally prevalent in this country half a century ago, and by no means extinct at the present day. ”

“ The school rooms are in the rear of the building, in which twenty-five boys and as many girls receive their education, with clothing twice a-year. At the age of fourteen the boys are apprenticed, and £10 given as a premium with each ”

“ The management of the school and funds is under the direction of fourteen trustees.
PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION SCHOOL.
This school was begun by a subscription as early as the year 1708, for the instruction and clothing of poor children, and is conducted on the National system, in spacious school rooms near the east end of the English bridge. A sermon is preached annually in aid of its funds p. 146at two of the churches in the town. Nearly three hundred children receive daily education here, and on Sundays they attend the worship of the established church. ”

“ They are supported by subscriptions and donations, with a small weekly contribution from the scholars.
ST. MARY’S AND ST. MICHAEL’S SCHOOLS
are situated in the suburb of Castle Foregate, and were erected in 1832, in the old English style of architecture, from a design by Mr. John Carline. Two hundred and fifty boys and girls receive their daily instruction, and are taken to St. Michael’s church twice on Sundays.
The school is supported by private benefactions; and the National system of education is adopted.
ST. CHAD’S LADIES’ SCHOOL
is held in the remains of Old St. ”

“ The girls are clothed annually, and the total expence of the school is rather more than £100 a year, nearly one-half of which is contributed by the children in the shape of earnings and a penny fund, the remainder by subscriptions and donations. ”

“ James Millington, a draper, of Shrewsbury, and consists (according to his will) of a school-master and mistress with liberal salaries, and a chaplain, whose duty it is to read prayers every school day at nine o’clock in the morning. The scholars, &c. attend St. ”

“ None the less Kennedy regularly sent up to the universities a succession of pupils, who carried all before them. A list of the innumerable distinctions obtained by Shrewsbury men at Oxford and Cambridge between 1840 and 1860 undoubtedly establishes his claim to be the greatest classical teacher of this century (see Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners on the Revenues and Management of certain Schools, &c., 1864, ii. 330–2) . ”

“ Miss Heerwart took charge of a training college for Kindergarten teachers in connection with the British and Foreign School Society; the Froehel Society was founded, and Madame Michaelis took the Kindergarten into the newly established High Schools for Girls. For the children of the well-to-do Kindergartens spread rapidly, but for the children of the poor there was no such happiness; the Infant School was too firmly established as a place where children learned to read, write and count, and above all to sit still. Infants' teachers received no special training for their work ”

“ In the career and character of Shrewsbury much that may at first sight seem paradoxical admits of easy explanation. Of a magnanimous disposition and a generous temper, he on more than one important occasion in his career, which also happened to be a decisive moment in the political affairs of the nation, acted on the impulses within him, thereby contributing very directly to great and beneficial results. ”

“ Shrewsbury was a sleepy old town, where life went on very placidly from day to day, and the sight of these busy, though narrow, streets with their many fine buildings and their swarms of people, the dogs drawing little carts of merchandise, the river with its bridges, the floating basin with many tall ships, the quays thronged with sailors and lightermen, filled me not only with wonder, but with a sense of loneliness and insignificance. ”

“ By the influence of Sir William Pulteney Thomas obtained a place in the customs. He died in London on 9 Jan. 1815. In 1779 he published, in quarto, with several plates, his ‘History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury from its Foundation to the present time, with an Appendix, containing several particulars relative to Castles, Monasteries, &c., in Shropshire.’ The book was, to a large extent, the work of a Mr. Bowen of Halston, Shropshire. It remained the standard history of Shrewsbury till Owen and Blakeway issued their ‘History’ in 1825, with acknowledgments to their predecessor. ”

“ Shrewsbury is a clean, cheerful, yet withal picturesque-looking city, where the tide of modern progress rolls to and fro along the steep old streets beside its ancient castle, past venerable parish churches and the quaint, half-timbered mansions of the ancienne noblesse.
Hotels and lodging-houses are not far to seek, while highroads and lines of railway ramificate from Shrewsbury throughout the county; so the traveller who intends to explore the nooks and corners of the surrounding district cannot do better than take up his quarters for a time in the proud old city upon Severn side. ”

“ There is no doubt that the most satisfactory way of seeing Shropshire is to spend a few nights in Shrewsbury, and make it the basis of operations; for Shrewsbury lies exactly in the centre of the county, and is the meeting-point of a particularly large number of good roads. The old town itself, too, does not deserve to be hurried through. The longer one stays in it the more one feels the charm of its gentle old age. ”

“ She was already well known in the capacity of an earnest student to the principal. Professor James C. Greenough, and found him and his able corps of teachers very willing to assist her to gain what she needed in the line of preparation for her professional career. In 1879, the only colored scholar in a large class, she graduated with honor from the Normal School. While attending this institution she entered a teachers' examination in Newport with sixteen Anglo-Saxon candidates, and came out of it with a general average of 941⁄3 per cent. ”

“ THE VILLAGE OF ALBRIGHTON,
distant three miles N.E. of the town on the Chester road, is a township in the parish of St. Mary, Shrewsbury. The church, a small humble structure, has been so effectually repaired by the modern goths with red stone and brick, that no reasonable conjecture can now be formed as to the period of its erection. A wooden loft issues from the west end, and inside the building is a curious ancient font, that will admit of total immersion, which has no doubt stood here for several centuries. ”

“ There is almost invariably a constant increase in this department, requiring frequently the organization of new classes in the grade above, [22] among the younger boys and girls. But, on the other hand, there is a constant loss of older scholars. In most schools, at the age of fourteen, in what is known as the early adolescent period of life, the pupils, for one reason or another, begin to drop out, and few enter to take their places. Almost every school is thus growing at the bottom and dying at the top. ”

“ As a student-teacher she often had the joy of seeing scores of her pupils saved under her teaching. As a teacher she is winsome, firm and gentle. Wherever she has taught she could teach again, so greatly loved is she. At Spelman she was and is still their pride. Here she graduated with the honor of Class Poet in 1888, when a position was offered her in the Mitchell Street Graded School of Atlanta, Ga. Her plans for beginning work in Africa were fast formulating, but being pressed she consented and served at said school till Christmas, 1889. ”

“ The constant growth of the Primary Department is his perennial perplexity. To relieve the congestion in the crowded Infant Class its older pupils must be brought into the main school, and teachers must be found for them. The superintendent is always seeking, and often seeking vainly, for new teachers.
(b) Another difficulty is found in the attempt to transfer scholars from one class to another. No matter how much out of place a pupil may be, it is almost impossible to transfer him to another class without incurring the displeasure of the teacher, the scholar, or the scholar's family. ”

“ Here and there were newer buildings of modern style, which made a worthy connecting link between the old dispensation and the new; for there were buildings as modern as are anywhere built, and some as ancient as are to be found anywhere, almost equalling those so justly adored at Chester. Shrewsbury is the shire town of Shropshire, and has a population of 23,406. It has the remains of an ancient castle, and some of the old walls of the city are yet standing. The River Severn, a sluggish and muddy stream, some three hundred feet wide, divides the town. ”

“ The clean macadam in Shrewsbury made it possible to drive our car without chains, though it rained incessantly, but soPg 62 steep and winding are some of the streets that the greatest caution was necessary.
Shrewsbury is described by an English writer as a "sweet-aired, genuine, dignified and proud old market town, the resort of squires, parsons and farmers, and mainly inhabited by those who minister to their wants. It never dreams of itself as a show-place." ”

“ But these are just the educational items which Harchester has hitherto evaded teaching. They are not yet part of the Harchester “school business;” the sooner they are, the better for the future prosperity of Harchester.
As matters now stand, what happens to a Harchester boy the moment he receives the promise of a commission or a clerkship, is just this: he is hastily removed from that celebrated school, and is handed over to “a crammer”—an educational empiric—who can have no pride in his calling; who deals only with full-grown and avowed dunces ”