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in so important a matter with due caution and upon proper knowledge.

There are two things which the state ought to secure for endowed schools-a good course of studies, and good masters, both of which, if secured, would certainly fulfil the founders' intentions much better than they are often fulfilled at present. It might be necessary to divide endowed schools into two or more classes, according to their revenue, and the wants of the district the highest class of schools should teach Latin and Greek, together with other things; in the other classes of schools, the learned languages should be replaced by something more useful to such scholars as would attend them.

As to the course of studies for the different classes of schools, there would be no difficulty in fixing on such as should be suitable to the wants of the community; and much assistance might be derived here from a careful consideration of the school courses in the different German states. To secure the choice of a good master is indispensable; but this might be safely left to the local trustees after the State had determined the class of persons out of which a choice must be made. The State should require all candidates for such schools to have passed with credit through certain normal schools or in the case of candidates for Latin schools, to have had such an education as should be deemed a sufficient general test of a candidate's qualifications. In the latter case, however, unless the right of confirming the election were vested in some competent authority, it is easy to see that the power of election might be abused. In other departments of administration some people at the present day have a strong objection to central boards; but such a board is absolutely necessary to secure the efficiency of our endowed schools. Connected with this board, and subject to its direction, there should be travelling inspectors, with full powers to visit and examine any school, but nothing further. Their reports would be made to the central board. We would not give to the board itself any other powers than those of enforcing the course of instruction prescribed, and requiring regular public examinations to be made, and annual reports to be forwarded by the trustees to the Board of Education. The power of displacing a master ought, perhaps, to be in the hands of the local trustees, with an appeal to the Board; but this is a question that requires a careful consideration, and particular cases might require the direct interference of guardians of public education.

In examining the history of endowed schools in England, we find that a change has taken place which is not an improvement. At present it is rare to find a head master of an

endowed school who is not a clergyman; but every person may call to his recollection instances where some of the richest schools (such as Manchester, for example) have had a layman at their head. We are not at present aware of any endowed school of note where the master is not a clergyman, though it is well known that generally a layman is equally eligible. This appears from the will of the founder* in some instances, from the fact of laymen having often been elected in others, and also from the fact of laymen being sometimes elected on the condition (imposed, we believe, nearly always by the sole pleasure of the trustees) of subsequently taking holy orders. To this abuse of the power of trustees, for such it undoubtedly is, we attribute in a great degree the decline of many endowed schools. By choosing none but clergymen, we exclude a large body of candidates; at the same time we increase the inducement, already sufficiently strong, to the taking of holy orders-a measure neither useful to the church nor advantageous to the individual. The clergyman also has a profession of his own, and if he has bestowed due care on preparing himself for it, or if he discharges his clerical functions in the way that he ought, he certainly cannot have had time to prepare himself for the life of a schoolmaster, nor can he have leisure to discharge its duties. In making this assertion, we maintain, that in order to teach well, a man must have both knowledge, and experience in teaching. Under a proper system, no man would be eligible to a mastership in an endowed school till he had gained some experience in the management of boys under a person of more years and practice than himself. It may be urged that many clergymen have time sufficient to attend to their duties and to an endowed school also; but this cannot be admitted. A clergyman may find time to take a few private pupils in the country, and we think that those who thus employ their leisure often do wisely for their own happiness, and at the same time render good service to their country as teachers: or a clergyman may establish a private school of his own; which however has nothing to do with the question under consideration, But the management of an endowed school is a different thing: the nature of the trust requires the whole of a man's time, and is not consistent with any other engagement.

* Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's School, London, required by his Statutes, that neither of the masters of that school, if in orders, nor the chaplain, shall have any benefice with cure or service which may hinder the business of the school. The inference is, that the founder was indifferent whether the masters of his school were clergymen or laymen, but he appointed a chaplain in order to secure the efficiency of the religious instruction, which he did not consider to be within the province of the masters of grammar.

JULY-OCT., 1834.

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It may be further urged, and we admit the fact, that many clergymen are very well adapted to be schoolmasters. It may be said also, that at present, if clergymen were not elected, a layman of inferior acquirements must often be placed at the head of an endowed school. But this is no reason for excluding laymen from being candidates for endowed schools, which is now practically the case nearly all over England; nor is there any reason to suppose that there will not be a sufficient supply of lay candidates as soon as it is known that a preference is not given to a clergyman. One effect would immediately follow from making these places open to lay candidates. Many young men now take orders with the view of qualifying themselves for such places, who certainly would not be ordained if they saw any other mode of gaining a livelihood: it will be generally admitted that this is a practice which ought to be discouraged. In our opinion no clergyman should be eligible to the mastership of an endowed school: he has already a profession sufficiently laborious, and why should he take on himself another?

There is one consideration with respect to endowed grammar-schools that perhaps ought not to be overlooked. It is not unfrequently the case that a master of an endowed school, which he has conducted for many years with credit, feels himself growing old without having saved enough to support him in his declining years. A provision certainly should be made for the honourable retirement of those who have devoted the greatest part of their life to the difficult task of managing a public school; and there are no means of rewarding a man so easily as by a piece of church preferment, which secures him a competent income, and gives him at the same time some importance in the eyes of the world. Many masters of public schools have retired on some preferment of this kind, or have been raised in the full vigour of their years to high places in the church, from which, if they were laymen, they would have been necessarily excluded. But though we allow some weight to this consideration, we must remember that such a provision for old age, or such promotion of deserving persons to high places in the church, does not follow as a matter of course: it depends on having powerful friends, and on many other things on which no man can safely reckon. We are not aware of any reason, unless what has been just urged is one, for making clergymen the masters of our endowed schools; nor do we think that there is any insuperable difficulty in securing a provision in all cases for retired masters, who are laymen, analogous to that which the church. in some cases makes for those who are clergymen. In many

of the richer endowed schools, such a provision might be made without any difficulty.*

To show the necessity of some efficient control over the masters and trustees of endowed schools in obscure parts of the country, we shall state a fact from our personal knowledge. We are acquainted with an instance where the curate of a small village was also the master of the endowed school. His habits in course of time became very bad, and the bishop properly suspended him from the exercise of his clerical functions; but he still held the school under the trustees, and when we last heard of him, he was in possession of the school and continued to be the instructor of the village children after he had been turned out of the church for drunkenness. Had the bishop possessed the same power over the church and school, the parish would no doubt have soon been rid of the nuisance.

PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN THE NEW SOUTHERN
PROVINCES OF RUSSIA.

No sooner was Georgia annexed to the Russian empire than the attention of the government was directed towards the education of the youth of that province, and its first governor, M. Kovaterisky, who established a school at Tiflis in 1802, may be considered as having then laid the foundation of education in Georgia. That establishment was divided into two classes. In 1804 it was superseded by a boardingschool for the nobility, according to a new plan proposed by the commander-in-chief, Prince Paul Tsitsianov. principal object was to supply the means of a suitable education for gentlemen's children, whose instruction, hitherto intrusted to ignorant and bigoted priests, had been entirely neglected. In this school the Russian and Georgian languages, religion and arithmetic, were taught, and each year eight pupils were to be sent from the institution to the University of Moscow, to pursue their studies and complete their education,

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As the intercourse between Georgia and the interior of Russia gradually increased, the progress of industry was proportionally developed in the countries south of the Caucasus, and the necessity of diffusing some useful knowledge in those countries soon began to be felt. On the proposition of Marshal Gondavitch, the mode of instruction in this school was assimilated to that of a gymnasium, and it was divided into four classes. Subsequently, General Yermolov, perceiving the mode of tuition to be no longer adapted to the wants of the country, proposed further alterations, which * Dr. Roberts, who retired from the high mastership of St. Paul's School at the age of eighty, received an annuity of 10007. from the Mercers' Company, who are the trustees for this school. R 2

were not, however, acted upon before 1819. For the Latin and German languages, the Turco-Tartarian was substituted, as being far more useful in countries containing a vast number of Nomadic tribes, who speak that idiom. To the usual course of studies were added several branches of military science, which are indispensable to the youth of a country who are intended for the most part to serve in the Caucasian army. The school, thus reorganized, has ever since continued on the same footing, and the number of its pupils has gradually increased to three hundred. According to the terms of its foundation, it offered only to the sons of Georgian noblemen the benefit of education: the other classes of the population, however, soon began to feel the want of instruction, from the increase of general prosperity and the consequent progress of civilization. The local administration took up this important subject, and made such proposals as led the Committee of Schools to draw up a set of new regulations for the establishment of public instruction in the provinces of the Caucasus, which were more in harmony with these new wants; this was sanctioned by the Emperor on the 2nd August, 1829.

These regulations directed that a gymnasium should be established at Tiflis, and also twenty district schools in Georgia, and in the provinces annexed to it.

The principal object of the Gymnasium is to supply to the nobility of Georgia, and to the Russian functionaries stationed there, the means of a suitable education for their children. All free-born children are admissible to the courses of the Gymnasium, provided they have received some preliminary education either at home or at one of the inferior schools. These courses are divided into seven classes, which include instruction in religion, grammar, Russian literature and logic, the Georgian, French, German and Turco-Tartar languages, mathematics, geography, statistics, history, natural philosophy, law and jurisprudence, writing, drawing and landsurveying. It is intended that the first class should be one for reading, writing and arithmetic, on the Lancasterian system, for the children of the Georgian nobility.

A boarding-school has been attached to the Gymnasium, in which forty pupils are brought up at the expense of the Government; but the children of noblemen, of commissioned officers, and of government clerks below the rank of superior officers are also admissible on making the stipulated payments.

Ten out of the forty government places in this boardingschool are reserved for the sons of Russian civil officers who may be employed in Georgia and Armenia: the pupils of the boarding-school attend the courses of the Gymnasium.

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