Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/514

510 work of the modern side ought to be much the higher, but it is always badly done because the atmosphere is altogether bad.

It may be said that I am only destructive in my criticism of public schools. I think it will be found that I am also constructive, although I acknowledge that my sketch needs much filling in. "Well, can much more be done in an address lasting one hour? I will now try my hand at a little filling in. I have no objection to the existence of classical schools something like the present for boys who are fond of classics. The average boy will not be asked to attend such a school. I feel sure that much greater attention ought to be paid to the teaching of English composition, to English poetry and prose, and to English subjects generally. I also feel sure that much attention ought to be paid to natural science. And surely it can do no good for the classical masters to go on sneering at natural science subjects and calling them "stinks" as they do now.

I want, however, to speak more particularly of a much higher kind of school, which will educate the boy usually called clever and also the boy usually called stupid. As I have already remarked, I think that these names may sometimes be redistributed.

The school is one for boys from eleven to sixteen years of age. It ought in no way to be connected with any classical school. English subjects will predominate, but teaching in Latin and Greek and modern languages and other alternative subjects will be provided, although they will not be forced upon any boy. The masters who teach English ought to know enough Latin and Greek and Celtic and Old English and modern languages to be able to illustrate the derivation of English words through their roots. And they must be well read in English subjects and fond of English literature. They will make the boys fond of reading English, and encourage them to find out what they like best. Some boys will take to history and philosophy, some to poetry and imaginative literature. Every boy ought to get the best chance of developing his faculties. It may be asked—if we can not make the average boy spend or waste twelve hours a week on Latin, what are we to do with him? At all events, now, we keep him doing something, even if it is only marking time. My answer is, you think only of his putting in time; well, then, let him put in his time at work that interests him; any work of that kind must be educative under an intelligent master who can help him in his studies if it induces him to look up information for himself. Thus, when reading travels or history, he will use the globe and raised maps and read geography, and hunt up plans of battlefields. Think of the things that a boy used to be punished for doing, and let him do those things under wise direction. I used to be punished for reading Scott and Cooper. Nowadays prizes are given to boys for their knowledge of Ivanhoe or Quentin Durward. Expand this into a system. A boy who loves to browse over Chambers' English literature ought to be guided