and I will not indulge in the enumeration of lists of these. But I will permit myself two remarks.

The intercourse that takes place between the members of the Committee of the Headmasters' Conference and of the Preparatory Schools' Association has already been, and promises to be to an ever increasing degree, productive of most beneficial reforms in every sphere of secondary education-physical, moral, and mental. It has also, I believe, shown to both sides the immense value of a sympathetic appreciation of the aims, methods, and difficulties peculiar to each, and of the recognition of the great fact that the two classes of schools are so closely connected with each other as to be really one-the Preparatory Schools being in all respects (save that they are, with rare exceptions, not actually attached to particular Public Schools) simply junior departments of the latter.

This is much to have effected. But there is something to add to this. The Association found the Headmasters of Preparatory Schools isolated members of a profession, with no coherence whatever. It has introduced them to one another through various agencies too various and too subtle to enumerate. It has been, and will continue to be increasingly, the means of bringing together and forming friendships of the closest description among men who, though engaged in a common great work, would, but for it, have never known one another at all. It has created precisely that element, the lack of which was such a grievous defect among Preparatory School Masters-it has created solidarity, and a sense of a common public spirit. Before the existence of the Association each man was usually pursuing his own work in his own way, and devoting himself to his own school, ignorant of the work, aims, difficulties, mistakes, successes of others, giving nothing to them, receiving nothing from them. All this is now changed. The friendliness of the intercourse with one another, the desire on the part of all to communicate to others anything experience has shown to be of value to themselves, the new sense of comradeship and good fellowship -this has been, in the judgment of the present writer, the most precious gift that the Association has bestowed upon the Preparatory School Masters of England.

I have dwelt specially upon this side of the influence of the Association, partly because I believe it to be the most important and the most interesting feature, partly because it is a feature more likely perhaps to be passed over than others of a more superficially prominent kind. If I have insisted specially upon this, it is not that I do not fully recognise the value of the work of the Association in other, and more public, more noticeable directions.

There are, then, as has been stated above, probably about 400 Preparatory Schools of the strict type. There is much "honourable curiosity" to be satisfied regarding these schools. Where are they situated? What are the numbers at each? How are the equipped? What manner of men are the masters, heads and assistants, and how furnished for the work they have to do? How are they paid, the one and the other? And the buildings—

are these, in their main features and their details, adapted for their purpose? What are the subjects taught, and what are the methods of teaching? Are these modelled closely and mechanically upon those in use at the Public Schools? Or is there some disposition shown to adopt a more or less independent attitude?

Such are a few, taken indifferently, of the many questions that occur at once to anyone desirous of obtaining some accurate information regarding the Preparatory Schools of Great Britain. To supply such information is the object of the volume to which these general remarks are introductory.

III. THE PLAN OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.

For the guidance and better information of the reader, it may be well to add some remarks concerning the credentials of the contributors to the volume and the general scheme upon which most of the papers have been framed; and lastly, concerning the materials upon which the writers have based their contributions.

The writers of the articles, with certain exceptions to be noticed presently, are Preparatory School Masters, engaged at the present time, or up to within the last year or two, in the practical work of their respective schools, and are mostly men of long experience in that work. They are dealing therefore with subjects of which they have intimate personal knowledge from within. This fact, taken in conjunction with the constructive scheme of the papers themselves, will, it is hoped, give to the contributions a special value and interest. Hearty thanks are due to those who have contributed these papers. For men with plenty of leisure at their command it would have been an onerous undertaking. But for men whose time is almost incessantly at the disposal of others, hour after hour, and whose work frequently involves much minute attention and much anxiety, to find time during the school term to perform an additional task of such a nature as this was a very difficult matter. Consequently in most cases a considerable portion of the summer and winter holidays has had to be devoted to the business. The time and labour necessary for an adequate treatment of most of the subjects has been great, and it has been bestowed with no stint. It is impossible to resist the remark that the ungrudging, unsparing devotion of so much disinterested labour, at such cost to themselves, upon work of a public character such as this augurs well for the future of the schools-the Preparatory Schools of Great Britain-over which such men preside. For these men represent their profession.

The scheme has, of course, been adopted merely as a general direction, to be used by each contributor in his own way, and with such modifications as befit his subject. The scheme is as follows:In dealing with his subject each writer states, with as much completeness as is attainable, the actual condition of things prevalent in Preparatory Schools at the present time, adding, if possible, his own individual practice or predilections in the matter. Further, a statement is usually added, within the limits of a sober

optimism, of what seems to the writer to be a fairly practicable ideal, in advance of the present practice.

With regard to the materials which the writers have had at their command, in many cases the experience of the writerthe experience, it will be remembered, of an expert-would furnish him with an ample stock of materials upon which to found his deductions. But there are other subjects upon which it has seemed to be either necessary or highly desirable to go beyond the experience open to any individual schoolmaster howsoever experienced. In such cases a method has been pursued which has, it is hoped, secured a body of exhaustive information likely to prove of the highest interest and service to all who care to acquaint themselves with the subjects treated.

There has been issued to all the members of the Preparatory School Association, and to some other Preparatory School Masters not included in the Association, a series of statistical inquiries bearing upon some of the most important subjects that concern Preparatory Schools. These questions are in themselves so exhaustive and cover so much ground that it has been thought advisable to put them in an appendix, and we venture to recommend to the reader their careful perusal.

It will be seen that, in addition to the actual information asked for on matters of fact, a request has been added for expressions of opinion, both of a particular and a general nature. There has resulted a store of information of high educational value. This information has been dealt with by the writers of the papers dealing with the respective subjects, and has been embodied in their presentment of them.

Such, then, is the design of the papers, and such are the materials to be disposed of, in the case of those writers who are themselves engaged in the actual work with which they are dealing-who write from within. But in order to give the reader an account as complete and trustworthy as possible of the matter in hand, it has been thought advisable to call in the aid of other contributors also, who would deal with the matter from without. Failing this, there might seem to be a certain one-sidedness in the handling of the subject. It is however plain that, whilst this treatment from without is highly desirable, its desirability will be in exact proportion to the kind of information available to the writers. The men to whom alone anything approaching to precise information on the subject is possible are, of course, masters of the Public Schools. And of these, headmasters and house-masters will possess opportunities of gaining the most complete knowledge. All students of the subject, all who are desirous of seeing it from every side, are greatly indebted to the distinguished Public School Masters who have contributed papers on "The Preparatory School Product," and we beg to tender to them our thanks for the services they have thus rendered to the cause of education. Our thanks are also due to other outside contributors for their interesting and valuable papers upon some subjects closely connected with the work of Preparatory Schools.

C. C. COTTERILL.

THE MASTERS OF A PREPARATORY SCHOOL.

THE character of a boy is so profoundly stamped during the years he passes at a Preparatory School, that what manner of men the masters are is to him a matter of the very gravest concern. In the following paper an attempt is made to furnish some trustworthy information upon this subject. The subject being one upon which it may be thought that trustworthy information is difficult to get, it seems only reasonable to state what sources of information the writer possesses. For more than thirty years I have had multitudes of acquaintances and many friends among Public and Preparatory School Masters. For the last two years it has been my special business to acquaint myself with the latter, and I have special facilities, of which I have taken full advantage, for doing so. Of the thirty-two years during which I was a schoolmaster, about twenty-two were passed at Public and ten at Preparatory Schools, and I had thus some opportunity for comparing, in my own professional experience, Public with Preparatory Schools and different types of each with one another. I may, perhaps, therefore be regarded as favourably placed for having materials at my command upon which to form a judgment, and it is, I suppose, less difficult for me, being no longer engaged in the actual work of a schoolmaster, to form an unbiassed judgment on such matters than if I were so engaged.

I.

I will speak first of the Headmasters. The Headmasters of Preparatory Schools are, with rare exceptions, graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. Most of them have been Public School boys, and many of them Public School Masters. They are, therefore, as a body, saturated with University and Public School spirit. Most of them have graduated in honours, and not a few in high honours. The ages at which they assume the duties of headmastership vary from what is almost the period of boyhood -immediately upon leaving the University, with not one day of experience to the age of about fifty, with a quarter of a century's work and experience behind them. If the members of the Preparatory School Association may be taken as a fair test, the proportion of clergymen to laymen is as about one to six. The buildings which they occupy range from a single house in a row, with a couple of servants, to a princely mansion and surrounding estate, and a retinue of more than fifty servants. The boys for whom they are responsible vary from half-a-dozen to about a couple of hundred. If we turn for a moment to their financial position, their incomes must vary from something more than £15,000 to something less than £150 a year, and their profits from something that I cannot attempt to estimate, to nil. The whole subject of the finances of Preparatory Schools is treated else

where in a separate paper, but as the supposed profits of Preparatory School Masters are sometimes the occasion of unfavourable comment, a few words will be permitted to me in this context. It is true that in the past several Preparatory School Masters have retired upon large fortunes, and I suppose a few, though certainly a steadily diminishing number, will do so in the future. Such very large profits as are implied by such savings seem perhaps to be open to criticism. But the criticism must be well informed and fair. Is it? If the financial risk were very slight or nil, then such profits might seem to be hardly defensible. But if the financial risk is enormous and failure means ruin, then the thing assumes a very different aspect. And this is the precise state of the case in the large majority of such examples. I only state what I know. This is not the place for a more elaborate statement, with particulars. The savings of the large majority of Preparatory School Masters are of a very modest nature, and are not unlikely to become less as time goes on. So far, indeed, as my knowledge extends, the Preparatory School Master-contrary, I imagine, to the opinion usually held on the subject-is as a rule, more inclined to spend money upon his school than to save it.

And this brings me naturally to a point of much interest. Can it be said that these men, responsible for the training during the most impressionable period of their lives of a large portion of the boys belonging to the upper and middle classes of society, have any special characteristics to differentiate them from other men or other schoolmasters? Are there, first, any special characteristics influencing them initially to undertake this kind of work? And, second, does the work itself tend to superinduce any special stamp?

Though these men represent characteristics diverse as are the various members of their country, still careful observation and reflection do, I am sure, render it possible to disengage certain characteristics of an undoubtedly distinctive kind.

First and foremost, they are, as a class, I am quite certain---though I am prepared to find the statement received with some scepticism-possessed in a large degree of the spirit of enterprise, even in some cases to the point of extreme rashness. One instance, related to me by one of the parties concerned, may serve to explain my contention. Two Assistant Masters of the Headmaster of a very important Preparatory School were leaving him to start a school of their own, and, on the eve of their departure, went to get from him a few last words of wisdom, the result of his own long experience, to guide them in their anxious undertaking. "The first piece of advice," he said, "and the last, that I have to give you is-start by getting deeply into debt." This spirit of financial enterprise gives, I am sure, in a curious and unexpected way, a kind of extra-professional, and therefore salutary fillip and piquancy to the life of many a Preparatory School Master, contributing a dash of the adventurer to a life too apt otherwise to develop the timid, cautious, not to say somewhat small side of a man's character.