reserved to Arnold to revolutionise education itself. If further explanation of this, beyond that which has been already offered, seems requisite, there is but one remark to be made. It was in the greatness of Arnold that the difference lay.

I once asked Dean Stanley, Dr. Arnold's pupil and biographer, as to the place to be assigned to Arnold in the roll of remarkable men. He replied:" Comparing him with the great men I have known personally, and through their lives, writings, and deeds, I consider Dr. Arnold a historical star of the first magnitude."

It will not, I am sure, be felt that the above is offered as anything approaching a complete account of the means adopted by Arnold to reform the Public Schools of England. What these were in detail can be appreciated only by a careful reader, not merely of his life, but of his writings-his writings not on educational matters alone. But I am confident that the root of the matter lay in what is stated above. Distrust was the main cause of the disease, and distrust was exorcised by trust.

Less than this could hardly have been advanced consistently with any serious attempt to substantiate the statement that the author of the Preparatory Schools was Arnold. To Arnold, to Arnold almost alone, was due the substitution of confidence in the Public Schools for the deep distrust and, in some quarters, dread and abhorrence of them felt by many of the more thoughtful and serious parents of that period. Hence the increase of their popularity and an increased demand for them, in consequence of which arose the demand for schools preparatory for them.

But the subject cannot be dismissed here. Something yet remains unexplained. Granted the simple historical fact of the greatly increased demand for Public School education during the closing period of Arnold's headmastership-a demand, as I firmly believe, almost entirely due to Arnold's work and influence there yet remains the question, why should not this demand have been satisfied by an increased supply of Public Schools? Why should not parents have been content, as was customary before, to send their sons to the Public Schools direct from home at a very early age? In answering this question, it will be seen that the main cause of the change of opinion, which led parents to put off the period of sending their boys to a Public School to a somewhat later age, is to be traced again largely to the influence of Arnold.

In the first place, Arnold actually discouraged boys entering Rugby before they were twelve years old, thus rendering it necessary that many boys who would otherwise have come to Rugby straight from their homes should go to some other school beforehand. "I have always advised people not to send their boys as boarders under twelve, but have never applied the same advice to foundationers living under their parents' roof."

Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, Vol. II., p. 133, 9th edition, 1868. (Letter to Mr. Justice Coleridge.)

And there can be no doubt what kind of school Arnold would have preferred this to be. He would have preferred it to be a school which took only young boys-a Preparatory School in the strict sense of the term. This seems to be clear from two

considerations.

1. We find Arnold actually supporting a school of this typeLieutenant Malden's.

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2. Undoubtedly Arnold's keenest interest in the education of boys lay in the formation of their moral character. He has even been charged with sacrificing the intellectual side in his zeal to promote the moral. Whether this be so or not, and I should be prepared to prove the negative were this the place for such a discussion, there is no doubt about the fact of the intensity of his interest in what is sometimes designated the moral problem. With what seemed to be in his case a really unerring sagacity, he recognised that, in dealing with this moral problem, a different kind of treatment was necessary for, speaking roughly, the boy over and the boy under thirteen or fourteen. Further, it is quite impossible that he should have failed to perceive that, in the application of his new law of liberty and confidence to the boys of a Public School, some modifications must necessarily be made in the case of boys who came to him almost straight from the nursery. Anyone more than quite superficially acquainted with Arnold's methods of approaching boys is aware that it was almost entirely to the older ones that he appealed, and that the presence of quite little boys, little children, at Rugby must have been felt by him to be completely out of place. It is quite evident-and to none would it be more evident than to Arnold-that, if the 300 boys who were at Rugby were to get the maximum benefit from Arnold and Arnold's noble methods, there should be excluded from the school boys of tender age. Hence it does not surprise us to find, as we have found, that Arnold was a supporter of a Preparatory School of the strict type, and dissuaded parents from sending their boys to Rugby at the early age which was customary in those days.

Such, then, would seem to be some of the reasons naturally presenting themselves as accountable for the origin of Preparatory Schools. A few words must be added explanatory of the extraordinary rapidity of their growth within the last quarter of a century-a growth compared with which, in its rapidity and extent, there are few things equally striking in the history of English secondary education. It is not, as might possibly seem to be the case, to be accounted for by simply pointing to the contemporaneous growth of Public Schools. The growth of the latter during the same period, though great, has been completely out-distanced by that of the Preparatory Schools. I believe the following to be among the main reasons.

The general institution of scholarship examinations, and, to some extent, the entrance examinations at the Public Schools undoubtedly worked towards this end. To get one of the specially

coveted scholarships it is almost necessary that a boy should be educated at a Preparatory School where such things are understood. And from such a school an ordinary boy is far more likely to take a good place at a Public School than if he were educated at home or privately.

Another and possibly the chief reason for the vast increase in the Preparatory Schools during about the last twenty-five years is to be found in the larger numbers of boys accommodated at most of the great Public Schools. It has in these later years become quite plain to almost all parents and schoolmasters, including, of course, Public School Masters, that to send a very young boy, as was customary years ago, to a Public School containing about 600 boys is a very unwise proceeding. Probably most Public School Masters would to-day advise that a boy should not be sent to a Public School before the or fourteen.

age of thirteen

It is not proposed here to do more than allude in passing to this fact of the enormous increase in the numbers of the boys at most of the great Public Schools. It is a fact which must never be ignored by anyone who wishes to form a correct opinion upon either Public or Preparatory School education, and it is a fact which has received far less attention than it deserves. It has profoundly altered and complicated many of the problems of Public School education, and it has, accordingly, extended its effects also to Preparatory Schools. At present attention is called to it only in so far as it has to do with this particular subject of the increased demand for Preparatory School education.

Other influences have, of course, been at work tending towards the same end. But those already stated will, I believe, be found to be the really important and determining ones.

It remains to mention one other reason which has been often brought to my notice as accounting largely for the vast exodus of boys from their homes to Preparatory Schools. It is sometimes said that the cause lies largely in the unwillingness of parents to undertake the trouble and responsibility involved. in having their boys educated at home, or even at day schools, and the main reasons given for such unwillingness are the absorbing calls of business or pleasure or both. It cannot be doubted that there are parents to whom such criticisms are applicable. But my own belief is that one of the main causes of this exodus during the last twenty or thirty years is the intense desire of parents to do the best for their children. Their estimate of what is the best for them may, it is needless to say, not always be correct. This may affect the children, but it does not affect the question. I do not believe there has ever been a time in which so much pains was taken by parents, so much thoughtful, anxious, patient consideration given, to enable them to carry out what seems to them to be best for their children. Their opinion as to what is best for their children varies to an untold degree. The variety of such opinions is so great, and the motives determining the final selection of a school are so

interesting, sometimes so diverting, sometimes so disconcerting, that a small volume might well be written on the subject. But the fact of this keenness of interest in their children's future is undoubted, and it is full of hope and encouragement. It is already producing far-reaching effects upon effects upon Public and Preparatory School education, and is destined to produce still greater ones. Multitudes of parents who, if they consulted merely their own selfish parental affections, would elect to keep their children at home up to the age when they go to a Public School are unable to do this, consistently with what they believe to be in their children's interests. Health, means for sufficient competition in both physical and intellectual pursuits, due preparation-physical, mental, moral-for the plunge into the bewildering numbers of the great Public Schools, the continuous watchfulness of one careful and skilful man during perhaps the most formative period of a boy's life-these are only some of the considerations which, according to my own observation and knowledge, do at the present time influence parents in sending their boys to Preparatory Schools, and in selecting particular schools. The field for such selection is certainly wide enough to satisfy every conceivable desire on the part of anxious parents, and to meet every conceivable idiosyncracy on the part of their boys.

II. THE NUMBERS AND ORGANISATION OF PREPARATORY

SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND.

The aims of Preparatory Schools, the work they are doing and are destined to do, the manner in which they are equipped for doing it, and the results of all this as represented by the boys as they leave them, and the men that these boys become the product of the Preparatory Schools-all this forms the subject matter of detailed and special treatment in the various papers that follow. But for the better appreciation of such detailed treatment some general information on certain points and aspects of the subject may perhaps be most usefully conveyed by some remarks of an introductory character.

And first with regard to the numbers of the Preparatory Schools. It must be at once understood that any calculation on the subject must be taken as only approximately accurate, for the materials for a precise estimate do not at present exist. As the result of a careful investigation conducted on behalf of the Association of the Headmasters of Preparatory Schools about three years ago, and allowing for developments in the interval, it is calculated that there exist in Great Britain at the present time about four hundred Preparatory Schools, of the strict type as defined by the Association. As forming a necessary preliminary condition for membership of the Association the definition, with the condition of membership, is as follows:"Any School which, according to its prospectus, consists only of boys under fifteen, and prepares them for the schools represented in the Headmasters of Public Schools' Conference, or

for the Royal Navy, shall, subject to the approval of the Committee, be entitled to representation at the Conference of the Association."

The present position and the future aspirations of the Preparatory Schools would be quite inadequately understood without some account of the Association to which allusion has just been made.

A meeting of Headmasters of Preparatory Schools was held in London on March 30, 1892, to discuss Preparatory School cricket. The success of the meeting suggested the idea that united conference and action on the part of Preparatory School Masters was very desirable. Accordingly a meeting was held in London on December 23, 1892, at which fifty Headmasters were present. It was resolved unanimously

1. That an Association of Headmasters of Preparatory Schools be now formed.

2. That the Association be represented by a committee of fifteen.

3. That all questions affecting the organisation of the next year's conference be left in the hands of the committee.

From that time the Association has held an annual conference in London at the end of the Winter Term. At the present time the members of the Association number about 280, among whom are the Headmasters of almost all the leading schools. The constitution and aims of the Association cannot be better expressed than in the following quotation from its prospectus:The Association was founded in the year 1892. Its objects have been defined as follows:

(1.) To draw more closely together the Head Masters of Preparatory Schools, and organise their opinion.

(2.) To advance the interests of education as affecting those schools. (3.) To provide a recognised channel of communication with the Public Schools and with other educational bodies.

An Annual Conference of the Association is held at the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

The affairs of the Association are conducted by an Executive Committee of fifteen members, five of whom retire in rotation every year and are not, for one year, eligible for re-election. The Hon. Secretary and the Hon. Editor of the Preparatory Schools' Review, both of whom are appointed by the Committee, are additional ex-officio members of that body. The duties of the Executive Committee are:

(1.) To make arrangements for Conferences of the Association, and to select subjects for discussion.

(2.) From time to time to invite, formulate, and circulate the opinions of members on educational matters.

(3.) To receive suggestions from members and to give advice and

information if appealed to.

The organ of the Association is the Properatory Schools Review, the first number of which appeared in 1895. It is under the management of an hen. editor responsible to the Committee.

Work of great value has already been done, and much remains to be done, by the Association. Its objects, as defined above, have been fulfilled already to a degree only known to those who have interested themselves in it from the beginning. It is, I know, easy to lay too much stress upon measures brought forward, discussed, and passed by such a body,