Boarding school

“ Here again we are met by the suggestion that the boarding-school of this type is not a native growth, but an exotic. England has supplied us with a precedent. The great boarding-schools, Rugby, Eton, and Harrow, are the resort of the gentlemen of England. Though termed public schools, they are class schools, reserved and intended for the education of only the highly respectable. The sons of the butcher, the baker, and candlestick-maker are not formally barred, but they are tacitly excluded. The pupils are the sons of the upper and well-to-do middle classes. ”

“ In after-years, when I lived in London, I came to know children who went to school in Gower Street, and travelled backwards and forwards by omnibus—children who had no other recreation than an occasional visit to the Zoological Gardens, or a somewhat sombre walk up to Hampstead to see their aunt; and I have often regretted that they never had any experience of those perfect poetic pleasures which the boy enjoys whose childhood is spent in the country, and whose home is there. A country boarding-school is something altogether different. ”

“ Philip Hamerton points out, the boarding-school presents a difficulty. As he says, "The worst of the distant school system is that it deprives the home residence that remains of all beneficial discipline; for the boys are guests during the holidays, and the great business is to amuse them." ”

“ There are possibly good boarding schools where children are better than they would be at home, but I never knew one. The only good reason for sending the young to be cared for by strangers is when the home for some reason is not a fit place. No doubt a good boarding school is better than a bad home; but no boarding school is as good as a good home and wise parents. ”

“ Another argument, though a much smaller one, in favour of boarding schools is that they save the time otherwise spent in going and coming. Most people do not have a really good day school at their doors, and the distance to be traversed may be considerable. ”

“ The advocates of the different sorts of training represented by boarding-school and college life are often hostile to each other. There is much to be said in favor of both educational methods, and the decision concerning which shall be adopted for a young girl should depend largely upon her own temperament, tastes and inclinations. The advocates of college life are too apt to assume that the texture of boarding-school learning is flimsy, which [113] it sometimes is. The friends of boarding-school life assume that a college training means an absence of regard for the feminine graces ”

“ It is a capital subject: in the hands of a writer sympathetic with girls, of fertile imagination and vigorous power of characterization, boarding-school life affords material for most entertaining combinations—but the literature of the boarding-school has yet to be written. The average boarding-school story has three main characters—the attractive, impulsive heroine, always getting into trouble; the cruel, cold-blooded, unscrupulous rival, habitually dealing in falsehood, and the teacher who is singularly devoid of discernment or intuition. ”

“ Almost every teacher of a country school could give vivid and pathetic illustrations and examples of the discomforts, the annoyances, and the trials to which a boarder in a strange family is subjected. The question of a boarding place should be in the mind and plan of every school board when they employ a teacher for their district. It is they who should solve this problem for the teacher by having a good available home provided in advance. ”

“ The boarding school is admitted to excel in turning out strong, self-reliant, sociable, practical men of affairs, men who have learned by early experience not to think or make too much of small injustices, to rough it, if need be, with equanimity and cheerfulness, and to count it a man's part to endure hardness in a manly spirit. ”

“ The boarding-school forms an environment selected to correct the inequalities which result from the special action upon the child of individual homes. The life of a boy in one of our large public schools is well calculated to act as a corrective in this way not only by reason of its ordered routine and discipline, but still more because it is affected, perhaps for the first time, by the strong force of public opinion. ”

“ The closing exercises drew together the friends of the students from different parts of the country.
The school grounds had more than a thousand visitors, and as there was no building large enough to seat them, the canopy of heaven afforded ample roof in the groves. The exercises of the day were creditable both to the instructors and pupils. The appearance of the students showed much intelligence and a training of the best kind. The Academy has been much crowded during the year, having had over two hundred scholars.
A boarding-school has always an advantage among our colored people. ”

“ I do not myself see what advantages the day school possesses over the boarding school, save those that are concerned with a particular [Pg 243] facet of morality, and beyond the weakening of a partisanship that is inclined to put a boy in blinkers. There are some very fine day schools in the country, but the day school, especially of recent years, has tended to become an alternative for parents with large families who cannot afford to send their sons to expensive boarding schools. ”

“ There is no doubt that, unless parents are vigilant and interest themselves unremittingly in providing necessary physical advantages, the boys in a crowded city are likely to be less healthy and vigorous in body, and perhaps in mind, than those educated at a first-class boarding-school. It may be, as our cities increase in size, and suburbs become more difficult of access, that the boarding-school will become more generally popular ”

“ Professor Marshall also attended the school twice a week to lecture on literature and natural science. He was a much greater general favourite than Mr. Browne; everybody appreciated his affable manner and bland smile, and the little jokes with which he punctuated his remarks.
The girls always felt that it made a change to have anybody coming in from the outside world. The one disadvantage of a boarding-school is that mistresses and pupils, shut up together, and seeing one another week in, week out, are rather apt to get on each others’ nerves. ”

“ The first of these is whether it is good for all boys alike to continue their life at school, especially at a boarding school, up to the age of eighteen or nineteen; and the other is whether more encouragement and pains should not be given to developing the best type of day school, or, to put it somewhat differently, whether the barrack life of the boarding school has not, through fashionable drift and class prejudice, become too predominant a part of our English education at the expense of the home life with all its finer educational influences. ”

“ But a good boarding school can be developed only where the conditions are favorable for the continuance of the pupils from year to year, until they reach the higher grades. The fact that the 7th and 8th grades were reached only during the last two years and then only by the self-supporting young people is quite suggestive, not merely of a past embarrassment, but of that which should be an important feature in the future management of the institution, namely, a constant endeavor to increase the opportunities for young people to support themselves by the employment furnished at the institution. ”

“ Boarding School has demonstrated in their midst what faithful teachers can do for the children, the whole community are ready to show their appreciation, from good old Chief Grindstone to the wee little folk who carry flowers to their white friends in the school ”

“ So often, as it seems, from various motives, good and bad, the boy remains more or less excluded from these long after he has become capable of a certain partnership in his parents' interests. The drawback of life at a public school is that it is highly artificial. Call it as you please a barrack or a monastery, a boarding-school is something cut off from the main streams of ordinary life. In the holidays the boy renews contact with ordinary life, and that periodic renewal is an essential part of his education. ”

“ These are the boarding-houses where those students whose homes are in the remoter parts of the district reside, and the contrast between our raw material, the uncouth, prejudiced village lad, and the finished product, the gentlemanly, affectionate student who is about to leave us, is an object-lesson in itself. The boarders, though comparatively few in number, are really the nucleus of the school, and take a prominent part in matches and in school life in general quite out of proportion to their numbers. ”

“ The boys in the contemporary public boarding-schools secured a little privacy by the adoption of strange and sometimes cruel social customs, and more has been done since then by systems of 'studies' and 'houses.' Experience seems, however, to show that during childhood a day school with its alternation of home, class-room, and playing field, is better suited than a boarding-school to the facts of normal human nature. ”

“ And my master said to the good housewife, Do your young boarding-school ladies still at times continue their visits to you, Mrs. Dobson? Yes, sir, said she, I expect three or four of them every minute.
There is, my dear, said he, within three miles of this farm, a very good boarding-school for ladies. The governess of it keeps a chaise and pair, which is to be made a double chaise at pleasure; and in summer time, when the misses perform their tasks to satisfaction, she favours them with an airing to this place, three or four at a time; and after they have breakfasted, they are carried back. ”

“ Soon the scarlet-fever broke out, and before the close of the term twenty-three boarding scholars, and many of our day scholars, had been sent home on account of sickness.
The boarding scholars seem, generally, to be happy and contented with us, and eager to return at the opening of each new term; and their progress in their studies, and general deportment, is much greater than with the day scholars. The general interest, [183] also, of the tribe in the subject of education is greatly quickened. The boarding-school, with suitable accommodations, might be made a great blessing to the tribe. ”

“ A great boarding-school in England is really an infinitely more licentious place; and grosser immoralities are every day connived at in it, than are known to pollute this delicate and curious commonwealth ”

“ Whatever may be said of primary instruction in the country, certainly of secondary education one can find in large cities the best there is for children not yet old enough to go away to boarding-school. ”

“ On such occasions there is the selection of the clever boy or bright girl, whether from a Christian family or not, to come to the next stage in this educational scheme.
Station boarding-schools are at the station of the resident missionary, and his wife is in charge. Here are the best pupils from all the villages, numbering sometimes even a hundred. Selections from these pass on to the girls' high and training-school at the central station, and also to the high school and normal school, or college for the boys. The theological school completes the equipment. ”

“ Oh yes, you are very welcome to have six of your own, but you might have six dozen without knowing what a girl brought up at a second-rate boarding-school is capable of, or what it is to have had no development of conscience. What shall you do? send her to school?’
‘After that recommendation of yours?’
‘I didn’t propose a second-rate boarding-school, ma’am. There’s a High School starting after the holidays at Rockstone. Let me have her, and send her there.’
‘Ada would not like it.’
‘Never mind Ada, I’ll settle her. ”

“ One may say that a girl should learn these things at home, but sometimes her surroundings there are not favorable and again she needs the impetus of just such criticism as she receives at a good boarding-school to make her aware of the value of form. The aim of a good boarding-school is to make of a girl an attractive member of society as well as to make her mentally appreciative. ”

“ On the one side there is the benefit of the country and air and space; on the other, the family affections and the education derived from knowledge of family responsibilities. In the case of parents who live in the country, there is a different argument in favour of boarding schools, namely, the improbability of a really good day school in their neighbourhood. ”

“ Most boarding school boys are inclined to be mischievous, and to cause a good deal of annoyance to persons living in the neighborhood, but I must say——-"
"The Academy is not an ordinary boarding school, Mr. ”

“ At this period it is amusing to read in a local record that ‘literature is not neglected in this town; for in Middle Street there is an academy where young gentlemen are boarded and educated.’ The idea that a boarding-school necessarily implies literary cultivation has long since expired. ”

“ But the special cases which justify parents in sending young children to boarding schools are numerous, now that established home life is growing more rare, and they have to be counted with in any large school. ”

“ He can rarely, if ever, obtain opportunities for healthful exercise and recreation equal to those afforded by a well-conducted boarding-school. He is likely to become a little man too early, or else to sit in the house because there is nowhere to play. At a boarding-school he will, under firm but gentle discipline, keep regular hours, eat simple food, and between study times be stimulated to cultivate athletic or other outdoor pursuits. It is not strange that parents [112] should be attracted by the comparison, and decide that, on the whole, their boys will fare better away from home. ”