upon this observation the dean made it a proverbial saying of his, "We are all such as our conversation is, and come habitually to practice what we frequently hear." This apothegm, or wise saying of dean Colet, is remembered by Erasmus in his elaborate collection of Adages; and is preferred before any of the sentences of the ancient philosophers. On this solid foundation, with a Governing Body removed from the temptation of devoting the funds from their legitimate purpose, and with a liberty of action to meet the altered circumstances of a progressive society-with teachers, books, subjects, and methods of study, in advance of any existing school, St. Paul entered at once on a work of beneficence which entitles its founder to a high place among the benefactors of his country and his race. In the long and brilliant array of Paulines, trained by Lilly and his successors, we distinguish such names as the Norths, [Sir Edward, Francis, Lord Guilford, Dr. John, Sir Dudley, Frederic, Lord North, the premier from 1770 to 1782,] John Leland, William Camden, John Milton, Samuel Pepys, Benjamin Calamy, Roger Cotes, John the Great Duke of Marlborough, Sir Philip Francis, Bishop Hooper, Bishop Bradford, Halley the astronomer, Bishop Fisher, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Charles Wetherell, Lord Chancellor Truro, Professor Jowett, &c., &c. Few public schools can claim to have educated more men who figure prominently in English history than this foundation of John Colet, and with such modifications in its governing body, and in the fundamental ordinances as this wise man anticipated to be necessary and provided for making on the advice of "good lettered and learned men," it will still contribute largely to the scholarship and statesmanship of England. List of the High or Upper Masters of St. Paul's School. 1512. William Lilly, continued 10 yrs. 1657. S. Cromleholme, contin. 15 yrs. Educational Staff in 1865. High Master,-Rev. Herbert Kynaston, D. D. Sub Master,-Rev. J. H. Lupton, M. A. French Masters,-M. T. Pagliardini, M. Stievenard. The Royal Commisioners recommend the appointment by the Court of Assistants, of a Lecturer on Natural Science; and that the High Master be author. ized to appoint a German teacher, and masters of Drawing and Music, and that half-yearly prizes be given for proficiency in these subjects, and in Natural Science. II. REPORT OF HER MAJESTY'S COMMISSIONERS-1864. History. The Commissioners do not go largely into the history of this school -quoting Erasmus's authority that "it was the best school in his time," and that it reached its palmy state in the time of Dr. Sleath, (1814-1838,) but that of late it has fallen off in its share of academical distinctions. Endowments. The income of the property conveyed by deed and will of Dean Colet to the Mercers' Company, for the support of this school, at the time of the foundation, was £118, 4s. 7d, he having expended on the buildings £4,500. The income for 1860 was £9,549, 16s. 5d. Of this sum, £2,370 only were paid out as stipends to the masters. The Mercers' Company claim that they are beneficially interested in the surplus, which has now accumulated to a very large sum, and which might quadruple the educational objects of the foundation. Government of the School. The Governing Body of the school is the Master, Wardens, and Fellows of the Mercers' Company, who annually choose "two honest and substantial men, called Surveyors of the School," whose main business seem to be, to enter the school on certain fixed days four times a year to pay the masters their quarterly stipends. The Governing Body can take the advice of "well-litterate and learned men, to supply any default as time and place and just occasion shall demand." The examinations are conducted by experts specially appointed, but with no authority beyond recommendations. Masters and their stipends. In place of the high master, sub-masters, and chaplain of the original ordinances, there are at present seven masters; four classical, one for mathematics, and two for French. The present stipends paid out of the school revenues are as follows: "In addition to the above, the high master has the rents of two houses at Stepney, a residence for himself" contiguous to the school, "with rates, taxes, and repairs found him, and a gown every year." The other three classical masters have likewise residences, the rates and taxes of which are paid for them, and a 46 gown every year." As the original number of eight classes fixed by the founder has been retained to the present day, it follows that each classical master, the high master included, has the entire charge of two classes of from fifteen to twenty boys each. The Commissioners recommend the appointment of an additional classical master, to give the head master ample time for general superintendence and occasional examinations of the school. They also advise that provision be made for instruction in German, music, drawing, and natural science. And that all the teachers constitute a School Council, and that the head master have the appointment of his own assistants, who are now, including the head mas ter, appointed annually by the Board of Assistants, and removable at their pleasure. Scholars. Every boy is a scholar on the foundation, from the moment of his admission, and the number is limited to 153-a faithful adherence to the letter of the Dean's ordinance, but not the spirit-as the boys are admitted on nomination by each member of the Court of Assistants, in rotation. "The examination to which the nominees are subjected is of the most elementary description, and does not even reach the standard fixed in the original Ordinances, to say nothing of that higher standard which the altered condition of the times evidently suggests; and though we are informed that one distinguished member of the Court has introduced an important improvement in the case of his own nominees, it does not appear that this enlightened example has been followed by others. It is not too much to say that so far as regards the personal and intellectual fitness of its recipients, the benefits of a gratuitous education are conferred at hap-hazard, and with these benefits the chance, at least, of a handsome provision at the university. The contrast which this mode of appointment presents to the excellent and most successful system now in force at Eaton and Winchester is too obvious to need illustration; and without instituting comparisons which may seem invidious, it is clear that in this respect the practice of the school falls as far short of the ideas and requirements of the present age, as the directions of the founder rose above those of his own day. We may even go further, and say that the present system of admission is positively injurious to the cause of education, inasmuch as it offers a temptation to parents to neglect the early training of their children; and we have it on the authority of the high master that this temptation is but too often yielded to. "Some," he says, are occasionally brought to us even twelve years old, utterly ignorant of the first elements of the commonest knowledge." And the evil seems to be a growing one. Formerly the best boys came at eleven or twelve years of age, having previously had some good training; but now the case is reversed, and they either come a little younger, knowing nothing at all, or at the same age, knowing a little more; so that they must be taught their accidence." These evils are indeed but the natural result of the vicious system of nomination, and can only be cured by introducing some form of competition among the can. didates for admission. We should prefer that such competition should be unrestricted, as it is at Eaton or Winchester; but even in a modified form, it would be of great value; and in recommending the following scheme we are confident that we act in accordance with the intentions of the liberal and far-sighted founder. Let two examinations be held annually, to be conducted either by two of the masters, or by two paid examiners appointed for the purpose. On the occasion of each examination, let any member of the Court who may desire it, have the pri vilege of nominating two or three candidates, so as to provide a body of fifty or sixty candidates for each ten or fifteen vacancies. After the examination, let a list be formed of the candidates in the order of merit, those standing first on the list to be first admitted, and those who fail to obtain admission in the course of the half year, to have one other chance, if their patrons choose to nominate them at the next half-yearly examination. This scheme to remain in force so long as the school shall remain on its present site. We suggest eleven as the minimum and fourteen as the maximum age of candidates for admission. Classes Promotion. The scholars are distributed into eight classes, as fixed by Dean Colet, and the classes are counted from the lowest upward. The youngest boy was nine years and nine months, and the oldest eighteen and five months. The disparities of age in the middle classes is a very great injury to the principle of promotion-which depends on proficiency in classical scholarship, including, to some extent, history and geography. The Commissioners recommend that the conditions of promotion should be enlarged so as to include mathematics, and one modern language, as well as some allowance for proficiency in music and drawing. The rank stated before on the results of special examination and daily class marks in each study. The exhibitions annually awarded are as follows: One of £120 a year, tenable in any college in either university. One of £100, and one of £80, founded by Lord Viscount Campden, and ten. able only at Trinity College, Cambridge. One or more of £50 tenable, without restriction, at Oxford or Cambridge. These are awarded in accordance with results of the examination by examiners specially appointed every year, in which mathematical marks count as one to three of classical. Besides these larger exhibitions, there is one of £30, and four of £10 each, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; five of £13 a year at Trinity, and two of £10 at St. John's College-each awarded on certain conditions. Prizes are annually awarded for Greek iambics, Latin hexameters, Latin Essays and English Essays, but none for Natural Science, German, or French, Music or Drawing. Rewards are also bestowed on pupils of St. Paul who obtain distinction at the university, or in competitive examinations instituted by parliamentary authority. The Commissioners remark, that the exhibitions are too numerous and too easily obtained, and that the remedy is to change the mode and age of admis sion, and make the exhibitors tenable at any college. They also recommend that prizes should be given for proficiency in German, natural science, music and drawing. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine on the London Schools, remarks: 66 "St Paul's is lavish in prizes and exhibitions to the universities-too lavish in proportion to the amount of competition for them, as the head master boldly complains, and as the Commissioners fully agree. There are usually not more than five or six boys who go off to college every year, (a strangely small proportion, when it is considered that the 153 scholars are almost invariably" the sons of clergymen or professional men-"West End boys,") and all of them get exhibitions. The captain of the year gets one of £120, for four years, tenable with any scholarship at any college in either university; the next has one of £100 to Trinity, Cambridge; the next £80, and the Court give as many of £50 each as may be required, "to any one that the examiners say is fit to go to the university." Besides this liberal provision, the Court of Assistants is in the habit of giving an honorarium to those who after leaving school obtain scholarships or honors at the universities, or what the Commissioners term "certain supposed distinctions in public competitive examinations." Not less than £160 was expended under this head in the year 1860. The Secretary, in draw ing up the report on these points, relieves his mind from the dryness of detail by a touch of satire not uncongenial to him. He observes in the name of the Commissioners that "the principle of giving a boy an exhibition on the mere certificate of the examiners that he is not absolutely unfit to hold it, is to us a novel one;" and that "to bestow a sum of money upon a young man as a reward for having obtained a considerable addition to his income, is a proceeding the reasons of which are not self-evident." School Hours-Recreation. The school hours have been reduced from eight to six, an interval of only half an hour being allowed between the morning and afternoon session-which is too short for lunch and play. For boys coming from a distance a mid-day meal on the premises should be provided, and for all pupils, opportunities of out-door recreation in the intervals of school should be secured. Discipline. The relations of boys to each other and to the masters in a dayschool are much simpler than in a boarding school. The same writer in Blackwood's Magazine, (for October, 1864, above quoted,) on this point of discipline, observes: "In some points St. Paul's is what many parents would consider a model school. There is no fagging, and no flogging. "That truly British institution, the rod," is, to Mr. Commissioner Vaughan's astonishment, unknown in those happy precincts. There is only its weak substitute, the cane. Even that instrument, however, in able hands, had been made in former times to do a good deal of duty. Now, only six formal cuts are administered, always on the hand; but when the present head master first entered upon his duties, he found a good deal of what cricketers call "lively hitting to all parts of the field" going on— "especially about the legs and back;" so much so, that "the noise alone formed a great obstruction to the progress of the school duties." The reason why the young Paulines are neither fagged nor birched lies in the fact of the school being exclusively a day school. When boys only associate with each other in the school room, under the immediate eye of the masters, and separate immediately afterward for their several homes, any system of fagging would be neither possible nor desirable; and any exceptional instances of the kind the master would very properly check: so also, having little or no connection with the school except during lesson hours, the only offenses which usually come under the master's eye are those of idleness or disorder; the moral discipline of the boys must be supposed to rest wholly with the parents, and those graver moral offenses, to which the punishment of flogging in most public schools is now almost exclusively confined, can very rarely come under the master's cogniZance. Of course, a mere day school education in a city like London, and where the boys, as at St. Paul's, spend perhaps two hours of the day in going and returning from school, with an additional hour's break in the middle of the day, when they are allowed to go wherever they please to get their lunch or dinner, is liable to the serious objection that the gravest moral misconduct may go on without either master or parent being aware of it. In fact, Dr. Kynaston fairly disclaims for himself any real responsibility for his scholars in any respect except their school work; "he has not an opportunity of observing the moral conduct of the boys, except in their general propriety of demeanor, and in matters of discipline between the master and the boys." This, with the want of social intercourse in the boarding house and the play ground, which has been already noticed, is the point in which London day school life falls so far short of the best public school training. Such school friendships as are |