cannot be regretted, just as in the field of Primary Education we cannot, on public grounds, be sorry that private schools. have, to a large extent, disappeared, and that their practical extermination is only a question of time. De minimis non curat lex. In all large centres Secondary Schools with high fees, and attended by a select social class, will, if well taught, hold their ground. The collapse of a few inferior ones cannot be allowed to have much weight in a question of such paramount importance as the organisation of middle class education.

To remark upon the anomalous position of Secondary Education, as compared with what is provided in Primary Schools on the lower, and in Universities on the upper side, is to catch up an echo that has been sounding in our ears for many a year, but, unfortunately, hitherto with little effect. That this should be so in a country which claims, and not without reason, to occupy a prominent place in the rank of educated nations, is a mystery difficult to explain, and would be a gross injustice did not those injured apparently acquiesce in it. The poor man with a Primary School usually within easy reach, and the rich man who can meet the expense of such schools as Eton and Harrow in England, or Fettes and Loretto in Scotland, have little cause of complaint; but the middle class, who, we are assured, contribute in proportion a larger amount than any other, in the shape of education rates and taxes, who cannot afford to send their children to such schools as we have mentioned, but who wish something more than can usually be had in a Board School, are left to shift for themselves in the best way they can. The payments they make in education rates benefit others, not themselves. There is surely no good reason why this should continue, no reason why the State should not approximately adapt its educational provisions to the varying circumstances of those who contribute educational funds. Not a very large portion, probably one-fifth of the rate, would meet the requirements. There is doubtless a limit which the State cannot overstep. It cannot be expected to provide from taxation such expensive luxuries as Eton and Fettes. We are willing to admit that there is a social class. for whom these schools are, if not a necessary, at any rate a

very desirable luxury. That class is usually one to whom the expense is no hardship, and they must be left to bear it. We would not be thought to undervalue the influence of a great English Public School, as moulding the character and giving a healthy tone to the embryo statesmen who there learn their first lessons, not simply in Latin, Greek, and the other branches of a liberal education, but in manliness, self-reliance, obedience to rules, and British love of fair play. By all means let such schools continue, let all take advantage of them who can, but let the middle class man of moderate means feel that he can get at a reasonable rate, and of reasonable goodness, an education suitable to his social position. Schools similar to the French Lycées and German Gymnasien and Realschulen, are not luxuries to the middle class. We have therefore a right to expect the State to establish such schools. We thoroughly agree with Professor Huxley when he says that no system of public education is worthy the name of national, unless it creates a great educational ladder with one end in the gutter and the other in the University.' Our ladder is sound at top and bottom, but the middle steps are shamefully rickety. That the middle class man is worse off in this respect than either the classes above or below him, or than the middle class of any civilised country in the world, is unquestionable. How is this anomaly to be removed? No one can doubt that it ought to be removed. The middle class year by year is contributing more largely to our governing class, and is therefore an increasingly important factor in the well-being of the nation. It is surely desirable that it should have within its reach a liberal education of the best kind, that its ideas and sympathies should be enlarged in order that it may take a broad and generous grasp of all that concerns the nation's prosperity. It may be said, that though the number of middle class M.P.s is steadily on the increase, the governing class is still mainly aristocratic. If this is so, is it not due to the fact that the middle class are deficient in the liberal culture which would enable them to make their influence felt? To secure this culture, private enterprise and the principle of supply and demand have been proved to be totally inadequate. If it is

contended that Secondary Education, like most other things, may be left to the operation of supply and demand, we reply that the principle is sound, and generally applicable, when the demand concerns keenly felt physical wants. The vendor of butter, eggs, and sugar, requires no subsidy or external support. But it is entirely unsound when the demand concerns what educated public opinion recognises as a public good, but which indifference, imperfect knowledge, or false notions of liberty are content to dispense with. It is sound when the demand is large enough, even though the want be not a physical one.

Any profession in which the demand for the commodity it supplies is insufficient must, if left to itself-that is to the operation of supply and demand-to some extent languish. Can it be doubted that this is the case with Secondary Education? What convincing testimony on this point is borne by our thinly scattered schools, by our badly trained pupils, by our miserably paid teachers. Does not the Act now coming into operation owe its very existence to our remissness on the subject? Is it not a triumphant proof of the inadequacy of the principle of supply and demand in this connexion? That it was not effectively operative even for Primary Education, is evident from the necessity for the Act of 1872. If proof were needed that greater encouragement to both pupils and teachers would produce better work, it is not far to seek. Nothing more than this encouragement, is required to explain the pre-eminence of the Dick Bequest Counties, Aberdeen, Bauff and Moray, in both respects. The teachers are stimulated by payments from the Bequest, the University students by an ample supply of The parochial teachers of these three counties were formerly almost to a man, and to a large extent still are, graduates of good standing. The students enter the University well prepared to profit by University training. There is no reason for believing that there is inherent in the northern mind a greater demand for higher education than elsewhere. The rural character of the district, and the fewer openings into commercial life, may to some extent account for the prominence given to University studies,

bursaries.

but the explanation mainly is that an education of better quality, stimulated by rewards adapted to varying degrees of merit, and judiciously organised, is ready to hand, and therefore taken advantage of. Custom has no doubt increased the demand, and this is precisely the result which every educationist would welcome as the desirable and legitimate outcome of efficient organisation. No one can doubt that the same causes would produce the same results all over Scotland.

If the middle class, from the happy-go-lucky character of its education hitherto, has either lost sight of, or never realised the idea of what such an education should be, does legislation go beyond its province if it says we must remedy this; we cannot remain indifferent to what may result from the imperfect education and narrow views of the middle class; we must raise it to a higher educational platform, for its own and the country's good? This may, and probably will, involve a somewhat increased taxation and popular grumbling. But is this not the case with all reforms that require money? It will be said that the poor are taxed for the benefit of the middle class, while it is forgotten that at present the middle class are taxed for an education of which they cannot make a satisfactory use. But even if we admit that the complaint is not entirely groundless, we reply salus reipublicæ prima lex. And further, that it is not the middle class alone that will profit by a fully organised system of Secondary Education with bursaries open to free competition, enabling the clever sons of the poor to obtain an education at present beyond their reach. The lower class might fairly be asked to consider that they are venturing a small stake which may draw a large prize for any of their children who are fitted to win it. It would no doubt be open to a parent to say, that he had no clever children, and that he should not be asked to help those who have. To this the reply would be, that the State, in matters affecting its general welfare, has a right to demand a certain amount of personal sacrifice, that a man's having common-place children is one of the determining surroundings of his condition, in which he must acquiesce, just as a man with a large family recognises his inability to educate them all as expensively as his neighbour who has only one child. It is difficult to say which is the more surprising, that

the State, while recognising the necessity of a certain amount of education for the lower classes, should not have felt that an educated middle class was, on grounds of high policy, of at least equal importance, or that the middle class have not asked for some recognition of their claims. We should have expected the State to feel that, in a country like Great Britain where the middle class is, to a large extent, the recruiting ground of the governing class, it was of the utmost moment that the former should, by means of education, reach the social and intellectual level from which alone wise legislation can issue. We should have expected the State to feel that the middle class, in respect of both numbers and influence, was the backbone of the nation, and its culture a fair measure of the nation's strength. On the other hand, we should have expected the middle class to feel the necessity of their culture keeping pace with their material prosperity, and, having this feeling, to demand from the State that recognition in educational matters by which alone such culture can be reached.

That the State did not of itself interfere in the education of the middle class, may be accounted for by the governing class having been, till within comparatively recent times, almost entirely aristocratic, and not concerned to facilitate the elevation of the middle class to a position trenching on their own. It is therefore not surprising that matters were allowed to slide, and take whatever turn chance suggested.

Neither is it very difficult to account for the supineness of the middle class as to the improvement of their own culture. In the first place, the want of a higher intellectual tone was not felt. Material prosperity, the accumulation of wealth, the adding of field to field and ability to cope with the aristocratic class in outward display, bulked more largely in their lives than anything else. Many of them the architects of their own fortune, and poorly educated, had found that liberal education was not necessary to success in life. Even if they were dissatisfied with the education supplied to their children, they were without the means of remedying it from having no correct notion of the essentials of a liberal education. But another, and perhaps more powerful, hindrance was an objection to have their liberty