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ART. III.-1. An Introduction to the Latin Tongue. For the Use of Youth. A new Edition, carefully revised and improved. Eton, 1829.

2. Græca Grammaticis Rudimenta, in usum Regia Schola Etonensis. Editio nova, accuratissime recognita. Etonæ, 1829. 3. Scriptores Romani, in usum Regiæ Schole Etonensis. Etonæ,

1829.

4. Scriptores Græci, in usum Regiæ Schola Etonensis. Editio altera recognita, et cum multis notis evulgata. A. J. W. NIBLOCK, A.B. ex Aula Sancti Edmundi, Oxoniæ. Eton, 1821. 5. Poetæ Græci, in usum Regiæ Schole Etonensis. Editio nova, recognita et aucta. Etonæ, 1828.

6. A comparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography, from original authorities, and upon a new Plan, for the use of Eton School. By A. ARROWSMITH, Hydrographer to his Majesty. London, 1828.

7. Index to the Eton Comparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography. By A. ARROWSMITH, Hydrographer to his Majesty. London, 1828.

8. A List of Eton College, taken at Election. Eton, 1829.

THE judge is condemned when the guilty man is acquitted,'

says our motto. This maxim, though some have thought it too severe, may be fairly applied in courts of literature; as these tribunals only judge persons who offer themselves for judgment on their own testimony. In some cases, however, in default of other information, we are compelled to act both as advocate and judge; and, like the Ephors of Sparta, to collect the facts, to make the charge, and decide upon its truth or falsehood. The assumption of this double character, we are aware, imposes a double necessity of attention to the fairness of our proceedings; and it shall be our endeavour to keep this obligation steadily in view, in attempting to lay before our readers an account of the system of education pursued at one of the chief Public Schools of England,-a seminary equally renowned for its antiquity, its wealth, and the number of its students.

We shall not at present enter upon the early history of the College of Eton, or examine its statutes and charters.* Our

* For which see Appendix (A) to the Fourth Report from the Select Committee on the Education of the Lower Orders, 1818. Besides the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and their several Colleges, the three Colleges of Eton, Winchester, and Westminster, are alone excepted from the Mortmain Act.

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only object is to give a faithful picture of that ancient establishment as it actually exists;-to describe the mode of education, and the system of moral and religious discipline there adopted, so as to enable our readers to form an opinion on the amount of intellectual and moral improvement to be expected from a residence in it.

The College of Eton is formed of the Provost and Fellows, who do not directly interfere in the government of the school, but have the privilege of nominating the upper and lower Masters, who have respectively the management of the upper and lower Schools. Besides these masters, there were in 1829 ten assistant masters, eight in the upper and two in the lower school. These two divisions are not, however, of equal size: thus, in the summer of last year, the former contained 556, the latter only 56 boys. The upper school is divided into four classes, or forms; viz. the 6th and 5th forms, the remove, and the 4th form. Besides this division of schools, there is also a division of orders. Seventy King's scholars, or (as they are usually termed) Collegers, are maintained gratuitously on the foundation; they sleep in three large rooms forming part of the college. The Collegers wear a dress to distinguish them from the other and more numerous portion of the boys, who are called Oppidans. These either live in Dame's houses, or in the houses of their Tutors, whom the parents or guardians are allowed to select at pleasure, and are not forced (as at Oxford and Cambridge) to take the person appointed by the head of the college. This difference of habitation naturally, in some measure, estranges these two orders, and unfortunately a considerable enmity prevails between them. King's College at Cambridge was founded in connexion with Eton, that it might receive as fellows the students on the foundation of the latter institution. As vacancies occur at King's College, those of the King's scholars at Eton who are first in the school, are nominated to the vacant fellowships. This choice is determined not by merit, but by seniority; and as seniority is obtained by long residence at Eton, and as a long residence there is sometimes a great obstacle to the acquirement of knowledge, the lot often misses the most deserving candidates. But the mischief does not end here; for the undergraduates at King's College being supposed to arrive at Cambridge with uncommon attainments, are not required to pass the University examination, which, in all other cases, is a

We believe that it is generally remarked at Eton, that the boys at the top of the forms are less well-instructed than those at the bottom.

necessary condition for taking a degree. And thus by an unlucky, and, we are bold to say, most undeserved compliment, the young Etonian fellows are deprived of all incentive to university distinction, and even relieved from the test of ordinary acquirements. Hence, as we believe, the amount of instruction communicated by lectures at King's College has been very small. Now it is from these fellows that the masters of Eton School are almost universally selected; and surely no system was ever contrived with such singular infelicity. Bred in the routine of Eton education, young men are sent to a college, inhabited solely by Etonians, where all, or nearly all, study is voluntary; and, after a few years, return to their old school to teach the things they were themselves taught, in the place and in the manner they had learnt them. If this circulus vitiosus is retained, if no attempt is made to pour some fresh blood into the diseased frame of Eton, and renew its torpid life, we cannot hope that evils which arise chiefly from the ignorance, the want of enterprise, and the amiable prejudices of its governors, will be abolished by those who have learnt no learning, and formed no habits, but those of their own college.

Nothing, at first sight, appears more absurd than the ground of this exemption from the customary examinations at Cambridge. The principal studies of that university are, as is well known, the mathematics. Besides geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, for an ordinary degree, the chief books used in examination are, Paley's Moral Philosophy, his Evidences of Christianity, and Locke's Essay on the Understanding. Now, at Eton, no instruction is given in any branch of mathematical, physical, metaphysical, or moral science, nor in the evidences of Christianity. The only subjects which it is professed to teach, are the Greek and Latin languages; as much divinity as can be gained from construing the Greek Testament, and reading a portion of Tomline on the Thirty-nine Articles; and a little ancient and modern geography. In order to give our readers a notion of the extent of this education, we will describe the studies of a boy about the middle of the school, in a week in which there is no extraordinary holiday.

In a common week there is one whole holiday, on which no school-business is done, but every boy is required to go twice to chapel; one half holiday, on which there are two school-times and one chapel; and on Saturday there are three school-times and one chapel. On each of the three other days, there are four school-times, three of which last respectively for three-quarters of an hour; the other has no fixed length, but probably averages for each boy about a quarter of an hour. The school-times

would, therefore, amount to less than eleven hours in a week. The boys are, however, expected to come prepared into school; so that some time is occupied in previous study, and every boy hears the lesson construed at his tutor's house before he appears in school. A week's lessons in the fifth form would consist of about seventy lines of the Iliad, seventy lines of the Eneid, two or three pages of each of the compilations called the Scriptores Græci and Romani, thirty or forty lines from another compilation called the Poeta Græci, and twenty or thirty verses of one of the Evangelists or the Acts of the Apostles. All the poetry which is construed is learnt by heart; besides which, there is weekly repeated a lesson of the Eton Greek Grammar, and of a very excellent selection from the Elegiac poetry of Ovid and Tibullus. No other books than these are read by a boy in the fifth form; but he is required also to produce an exercise in Latin prose, generally on some trite moral subject, of at least twenty lines; twenty Latin verses, and five or six stanzas of some Lyric measure. In weeks where a saint's day occurs, an English translation of a passage of Latin prose is likewise required.

Such is a general outline of a week's occupation at Eton, which, as it certainly does not exceed on the side of quantity, might be expected to make up for this defect by its quality. In order to ascertain this point, we will shortly examine the chief books which are used for the purposes of instruction. The whole education of the school being, with the exception of a little divinity and geography, confined to classical literature, it might be expected that the grammars of the Greek and Latin languages, the necessary foundations of this knowledge, would be compiled with clearness and accuracy, and would contain, in a short compass, the most recent improvements of critics and philologists. So far, however, from this being the case, we affirm, without the least hesitation, that these two grammars, which are used not only at Eton, but, on account of the authority of Eton, at numberless other schools, are marked by almost every fault under which such treatises can labour. They contain much that is useless, and much that is inaccurate; they exclude much that is highly useful; they are written without a proper arrangement and harmony of parts: the rules are not precise, the examples are ill-chosen; and a large part of the Latin, and the whole of the Greek Grammar, is written in Latin. The simple rules for declining Latin adjectives, substantives, and verbs, did not admit of many mistakes or mysticism; but no sooner has a learner arrived at the 63d page of his grammar, than he finds sixteen pages of doggerel Latin verse, to facilitate the knowledge of the genders of nouns, and the past tenses and supines of

verbs. This attempt to teach a boy, who knows neither Latin nor verse, certain grammatical rules by means of Latin verse, seems to us so extraordinary a delusion, that we can conceive no reason why the directors of the Eton education should not at once purge their grammar of such barbarous jargon. There then follows a meagre collection of Latin rules of Latin grammar, called a syntax, and some rules of prosody, also in Latin. At the end of the volume is a literal English translation of this grammatical poetry and prose. The Greek grammar is in every respect much worse than its partner. Needless rules, and technical divisions, are multiplied without mercy. In the second page, the student, who has just learned the form of the letters, is told, that vowels are divided into long, short, doubtful, mutable, immutable, prepositive, and subjunctive, with the proper Greek term for each of these words. The desultory remarks which follow are all written in the same disheartening style; after which, the beginner soon falls upon the ten declensions, and thirteen conjugations, interspersed with numerous rules, which are made unnecessarily difficult, and contain the most glaring errors.*

We have not, however, sufficient space to criticise the merits of this Grammar (which, indeed, is beneath criticism), and will proceed to the selections from ancient authors. The book called Pocta Græci contains short extracts from the Odyssey, and the three poems attributed to Hesiod; nearly twelve Idyls, with a few Epigrams of Theocritus; a considerable portion of the extant poems of Callimachus; extracts from the Argonautics of Apollonius, and from Bion and Moschus. There are also fragments of Tyrtæus, Callinus, Sappho, Erinna, Mimnermus, Simonides, Theognis, Bacchylides, and Euripides, and the famous patriotic scolion of the Athenians. The extracts from the poets are not arranged in chronological order; the biographical notices are short and unsatisfactory; the text is not given from the best editions; and the notes are ill-adapted to the uses either of beginners or proficients. It is of great importance that the text of school-books should be as correct and plain as possible, lest the learner's attention should be distracted from the sense by disputes about various readings; and that

We are aware that it is not an easy thing to draw up a Greek Grammar; but the maintenance of the antiquated and inaccurate Grammar of Eton is perfectly inexcusable, as the small Greek Grammar for the use of schools, published by the present Bishop of London, is in every respect an excellent work, and leaves little to be desired for such a treatise.

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