Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/279

Rh solicitor, and many go straight from school into city life as men of business; and nearly all of them suffer from the lack of intellectual and moral stimulus during these later years of their school life.

Now many of these boys could without difficulty pass the entrance examination to the university at sixteen or seventeen, if well and carefully taught; and I have long held the view that such boys would greatly benefit by going to Oxford or Cambridge at the age of seventeen, or even sixteen, if suitable arrangements could be made. It was with this conviction in my mind that I published a scheme showing how this experiment might be tried about twenty years ago. The interval has confirmed me in the opinion that it would be a distinct gain to many boys to take advantage of such a scheme if made available. They would go out into the world from the university at the age of twenty far better equipped and prepared for life, both as regards knowledge and interests, tastes and character, than by going straight from school at nineteen.

And looking to my own University of Oxford, I see no reason why such younger students should not be safely received. There are at least three colleges in that university which would find it easy to adapt their arrangements so as to secure this. Each of these colleges has a hall in connection with it, well suited for the residence of a college tutor who might have special charge of these younger students, residing in the hall during their first year with somewhat stricter rules as to ordinary discipline and liberty, but in all other respects exactly on a par with the senior undergraduate members of the college.

On the subject of the day school, as compared with the boarding school, a subject which has not hitherto received the attention it deserves, I may venture to repeat here what in substance I have said on other occasions. Many parents are so situated that they have no choice in the matter; but to the educational inquirer it is a question of much interest and importance. 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. It is a fine type of character which is thus produced, at its best; but the best is not always seen in the result, and the system too often produces an undue deference to public opinion, a spirit of moral compromise and a loss of moral enthusiasm. The human soul in its finer parts is a very sensitive thing, and I do not think the barrack life of an average boarding school is always the most favorable for its healthy growth.

As I look back over the school days of my own pupils I feel that those of them had, on the whole, the best education who grew up as day