CHAPTER 1I.

EDUCATION IN THE PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.

There is no alleviation of the sufferings of mankind except veracity of
thought and action, and the resolute Jacing of the world as'it is when the
garment of make-believe with which pious hands have hidden its uglier
features have been stripped off —HUXLEY.
A student may possess many examination certificates and yet be only a
kind of text-book gramophone. Unless he acquires also the desive to see
and do things independently he knows nothing of the scientific spirit which
asks for new knowledge gained by individual inquiry. —ProF. R, A,
GREGORY.
Natural Science is a subject which a man cannot learn by paying for
teachers. He must teach it himself, by patient observation, by patient
common sense. And if the poor man is rot the rich man’s equal in those
qualities, it must be his own fault, not his purse’s.—~CHARLES KINGSLEY.

IN the normal course of events a boy before entering a
public school passes through a preparatory school: he
enters that school at the age of 9 or 10, and remains
probably until 13 or 14 years of age.
During these years a boy’s mind is probably more
receptive than at any other time: the opportunities which
a master has are enormous. These opportunities are
criminally wasted, and it is difficult indeed to write
one’s opinion of preparatory schools in moderate language.

Let it here be understood that these remarks and criticisms
 apply in general rather than in particular: there
are some preparatory schools—a very few—in which the
type of education supplied to the average boy is a matter
of serious concern to the master. These schools are well

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