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HENRY BROUGHAM, Esq.

Chairman of a Committee upon the Education of the Poor in the late House of Commons.

SIR,

THE subject of the following remarks is within the limits of an inquiry, which the country owes chiefly to you. Whether it will be pursued with success, depends essentially upon the support the public may be induced to give to your further labors; and I am sure that the meanest assistance will not be useless in the struggle which you may anticipate.

What I shall say has reference in a great measure to my own views only; but no discussion can fail of evincing the necessity of legislative interference. That the present system has been so long permitted is not surprising, although a very little reasoning will show its inexpediency.

It is remarkable, that an examination of some of the Grammar schools of the metropolis, by the "Committee of the House of Commons for inquiring into the state of education among the lower orders," was slightly objected to. Open resistance seems not to have been attempted; but an opinion clearly now prevails in respectable quarters, that an appropriation of their endowments to the higher orders of the people is not, upon a fair construction of the intention of founders, an abuse. If considerable numbers of boys are studying the classics under the endowed masters, their purpose is supposed to be fully answered. The expense those boys are put to, independently of the funds, is never weighed; and something of good being evidently produced, the management of the foundations is, without more reflection, exonerated from suspicion. So far as relates to the great schools, changes are not, undoubtedly, to be admitted without much thought; but it is of more importance that they should not shrink from the closest inspection, if representations are loudly repeated un

favorable to their character. Where, however, the funds are confessedly a sinecure, we must entertain different views.

From the best sources of information we may collect, that in England and Wales nearly 500 free schools are now in existence. Of these Eton, Westminster, Winchester, Merchant Taylors, and many others, cannot be satisfactorily examined. It is impossible to estimate perfectly the merits of such establishments, without an exact acquaintance with funds and documents. Founded in remote times, and subsequently increased, their general character must depend upon the rules of various benefactors. But, eminent as they are, the features of charity can be but faintly traced upon them now; very few, indeed, of the 470 boys at Eton receive a gratuitous education. Westminster seems still more peculiarly the resort of the sons of the richer gentry. At Winchester the expenses are perhaps universally great; and Merchant Taylors is said to be voluntarily supported out of the private stock, and subscriptions of its liberal governors. The consequence of all this is, that the 1040 boys who attend these four schools, cost their parents, at the lowest calculation, 12,000l. per annum for tuition alone, whilst 100,000l. more will not in other respects support them. What are their respective funds, in addition to these sums, for the annual education and bringing up of the boys, can at present be known to those persons only who administer them. By the specific directions of the founders, 280 of the 1040 are entitled to the chief advantages of the several establishments; and the increase of the value of the estates, has doubtless rendered admissible more of the classes originally intended to be so benefitted. The law, in such events, looks distinctly to an enlargement of the number of objects. But it is evident that the expenditure abovementioned, must exclude the mass of these from seeking their right. The "poor and indigent" will not be ready candidates for Eton; and but few counties in England will produce parents hardy enough to send even one possessor or expectant of an inheritance of only 607. a year to Westminster. Merchant Taylors seems less objectionable on the grounds of expense; but "poor mens' sons" will not find it a prudent scene of education; while the father of a "poor scholar" of Winchester will be grievously disappointed, if he has formed his expectations of modern bills by extracts from the terms of early admission. The extension of these schools to others, not on the several foundations, seems to be perfectly consistent with their early practice; nor are the “ foreigners

necessarily to be selected out of the less opulent orders of the community.

The first object appears to have been, to supply the means of instruction to certain individuals, who could not afford the cost of masters and other expenses; a second was, to permit the resort of others, who, at one period of our literary history, could not readily gain access to competent tuition, whatever ability of payment they might possess. From time to time, when these two objects have proved repugnant, the latter has yielded in seminaries in which regard has been had to the most important purpose of their institution. Some arrangement of this sort took place at Christ's Hospital prior to the year 1724, as mentioned in Strype's edition of Stowe, when "foreigners' to the establishment were excluded; probably they were found to interfere injuriously with the attentions due from the masters to the free boys. That the contrary general practice is unjustifiable, which has so much excluded the poorer candidates, will scarcely be doubted, after a short discussion of its causes and operation. How to restore or enforce the wisest system cannot be difficult; whether it can be quickly accomplished, may be of more slow decision. The opinion of many respectable individuals, that the present state of the matter is precisely right; the arguments of all the interested to the same effect, and the known risks in some changes, may, however, be fairly called its only support.

There are many instances, however, of absolute decay; and many schools where the advantages imparted to any description of scholars, are utterly inadequate to the just expectations of founders; so that an extensive inquiry into the occasions of the disappointment might be made without noticing respectable seminaries. But the same vices in different degrees appear to affect almost all; and an entire view of the means of eleemosynary education in the country would be useful. In some schools they will be found predominant, in whatever light examined. The instances of decay are too numerous to be fairly attributed to unavoidable weaknesses in men. The best account to be given, even of such as florish in a resort of the richer part of the community, is that their foundations have been the occasion of clever men devoting themselves to the tuition of youth; that they have constituted a capital, without which such persons must have occupied themselves in other pursuits. This inducement may certainly have been effectual; and if all so circumstanced had in any considerable degree prospered, the tendency of that provision would have been undeniable. This, however, has not been the fact; and

many private schools which we are accustomed to think of with too little respect, show by their celebrity that a demand -for instruction exists, which the deserted state of Free Grammar schools, left to the full play of a system so much vaunted, equally shows they have not capacity to meet.

A late publication by Mr. Carlisle, is an authority on this subject, of which they only can estimate the value who, before its appearance, were necessitated to search for similar information; and the commissioners under the late act will find it a convenient index to the most unpleasant scenes of their inquiry. With its assistance I have been able to ascertain the total number of scholars in 120 of the 500 schools above mentioned. The amount is 10428; and they pursue every variety of study now in use in England. But the materials I could procure are not sufficiently accurate to show the entire state of a greater number.

Whoever has been accustomed in the courts of law and in conversation to hear the term "Grammar School," considered as characteristic of a peculiar exclusive establishment devoted to the dead languages, and venerable in supposed errors from its known antiquity and partial use, will be surprised to learn that in 56 of the 120 the minor branches of English learning alone are taught to 4236; and that in 80 at least of the 500, it is now, and beyond the time of memory has been, optional with the parents, whether the courses of study shall be classical or not; whilst nothing appears to show that such is not the specific intention in a greater number: so little does the real nature of things sometimes constitute the ground of our opinions. So far from a classical course being universally indispensable, in some instruction is gratuitous in English only, the founders having adapted their benefactions to the more pressing wants of the people, and the higher branches having been subsequently ingrafted upon their stock. The numerous ordinances still preserved vary in many particulars; and a better general description cannot perhaps be made, than that they are establishments for an education of such persons, as may otherwise be incapable of acquiring instruction, extending to the highest branches of learning, and meant to be pursued upon the wisest plans, and which sometimes admit stipendiary pupils; and instances may not be wanting in which such views are fully acted upon.

The meaning affixed by Dr. Johnson to the term "Grammar School," has considerably influenced public opinion on this subject; and, strange as it may appear, a court of justice has relied upon this authority: see 2 Vesey, Attorney General v. Whiteley. Yet, without detracting from the just re

The funds of ten schools in which the studies depend upon the wishes of parents, and in which there are 191 Latin boys, and 950 in the lower elements, amount to 2741/. per annum ; 1002 of these boys are also on the foundation, or those primarily interested in the respective seminaries. In one of them, St. Olave's in Southwark, the very model of an eleemosynary Grammar school seems to be presented to us: 260 boys are educated there, of whom 60 are more or less advanced under the three Latin masters, some few going off occasionally with handsome exhibitions to the Universities, and a moderate endowment furnishes the entire expense, without so much cost to parents as the supply of books. Such a Latin school only, is not to be found in ten other instances in the whole kingdom, upon funds equal to what here maintains the double establishment; and the 200 in the lower forms are, as to some of them, a perpetual supply of promising students for the upper school, whilst the others "more fitted for trades," acquire in those lower forms alone the information necessary for their expected modes of life; and the chief master of the Latin school is head of all. This system, too, produces that union of domestic and

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putation of a great name, we may be permitted to question his accuracy, if he meant that the learned languages alone were to be taught in these schools. Of imperfections he has feelingly confessed himself conscious, and this may be one of his examples of human infirmity. If he merely adduced one principal feature of his subject, it is an unfortunate error to consider him as having exhausted its characteristics. It is not a little remarkable, that the passage which Dr. Johnson cites from Shakspeare, should contain an allusion to the new method of teaching arithmetic with figures instead of counters: and yet that definition, so exemplified, has been taken for the ground of a judicial decision, declaratory of the exclusion of all mathematical science from the Grammar school. It may be further asked, for what purpose Buckley's Treatise, intitled "Arithmetica Memorativa," &c. was written? Mr. Leslie says, that "it appears at one period to have gained possession of the schools and colleges of England." The Philosophy of Arithmetic, Edinburgh, 1817. That, however, which should have been considered their chief ornament only, has for many years passed for their sole purpose.

1 În 1815, the writer of this letter began to assist in restoring an ancient grammar school in the south of England. He thought he could discover, in such of the documents as he gained access to, that an exclusive devotion to the classics was not intended by the founder. It had been many years in decay, as the whole neighborhood thought; and their sons were from time to time to be found in almost every similar school of reputation within forty miles. Part of the defensive evidence, however, states it to have been during the same period creditably florishing; but the sole acting trustee accounted for the decay (which he admitted,) by calling it a Latin school, and it has been material in the suit to ascertain its true character. Many similar establishments were examined in the years 1815 and 1816, and frequent proofs were met with,showing that the exclusion pretended was not universally directed