kind from which it is useless to expect either animation or precision,
so long will a blight rest upon the education of the country. While
boys of average abilities continue to be sent to the Universities, and
while the Universities maintain the classical fence, so long will the
so-called modern sides at schools continue to be collections of more or
less incapable boys. And in decrying modern sides, as even headmasters
of great schools have been often known to do, it is very seldom stated
that the average of ability in these departments tends to be so low
that even the masters who teach in them teach without faith or interest.

It may be thought of these considerations that they resemble the
attitude of Carlyle, of whom FitzGerald said that he had sat for many
years pretty comfortably in his study at Chelsea, scolding all the
world for not being heroic, but without being very precise in telling
them how. But this is a case where individual action is out of the
question; and if I am asked to name a simple reform which would have an
effect, I would suggest that a careful revision of the education of
passmen at our Universities is the best and most practical step to take.

And, for the schools, the only solution possible is that the directors
of secondary education should devise a real and simple form of
curriculum. If they whole-heartedly believe in the classics as the best
possible form of education, then let them realize that the classics
form a large and complicated subject, which demands the WHOLE of the
energies of boys. Let them resist utilitarian demands altogether, and
bundle all other subjects, except classics, out of the curriculum, so
that classics may, at all events, be learnt thoroughly and completely.
At present they make large and reluctant concessions to utilitarian
demands, and spoil the effect of the classics to which they cling, and
in which they sincerely believe, by admitting modern subjects to the
curriculum in deference to the clamour of utilitarians. A rigid system,
faithfully administered, would be better than a slatternly compromise.
Of course, one would like to teach all boys everything if it were
possible! But the holding capacity of tender minds is small, and a few
subjects thoroughly taught are infinitely better than a large number of
subjects flabbily taught.

I say, quite honestly, that I had rather have the old system of
classics pure and simple, taught with relentless accuracy, than the