trary is the case they are burthened with a very heavy exercise on every half holiday, Tuesday excepted, which they are required to produce in the morning afterwards. And I can assure my reader, to escape this exercise, they would freely go without their half holiday. The hours, therefore, which many, inflamed with an ignorant rancour against publick schools, have supposed devoted to idleness and play, are, in reality, the most busy and instructive of any! The whole afternoon of the half holiday is spent in labousing the exercise for the next morning, which is first done in a foul book, and thence copied on a half sheet of paper, and presented to the usher, or master, before breakfast on the ensuing day. It is for want of examination that publick schools are accused of idleness. The ushers, as I have before said, are paid partly out of the funds, which are not, however, sufficient for their support; they have a guinea, therefore, yearly from every boy in the form to which they belong; and, as all the boarding houses must necessarily have an usher to keep peace and order among the boys, he obtains the same sum from each belonging to the house where he himself resides; and has besides many other ways of augmenting his salary. The ushers are generally clergymen, and all at present, I believe, are handsomely provided with church livings, or are fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. They are men of extensive learning and high respectability, and, without lessening their authority, live on the most friendly terms with the boys. 2d. I come next to consider the town boys. I must define them by negatives. They are such as are pot king's scholars, who are inde pendent of the foundation, and who may be admitted or dismissed at the master's pleasure. They either belong to boarding-houses, or, if their friends reside near, live at their own homes, and then, except in school hours, are not subject to the jurisdiction of the masters or the ushers, which the boys who live in the boarding-houses are. In every respect these day boys have the same advantages of education with the rest, and may pass through the school, and obtain all its profits for the moderate sum of six guineas per annum! These boys are held in equal respectability with the others; there is no difference that I know of; and many of the opulent families who reside all the year in London, prefer sending their children in this manner. Never after this let us hear of the expense of a publick school education in Great-Britain. - 3. I now come to the king's scholars. This foundation is very different from that of any other school. They are forty in number, and are supplied by an annual election from the town boys. Thus every king's scholar must necessarily have been a town boy, though no town boy, unless chosen, can be a king's scholar. The foundation draws to itself, as a centre, all the talents, the industry, and respectability of the whole school. It is where every father wishes to see his son; where greater attention is paid both to their morals and learning, since the superintendence over them is necessarily more strict. It is where the sons of the first families in the kingdom have been educated; where a Busby trained up his scholars; whence Cowley, Dryden, Smith, Halifax, and all the illustrious men of that age issued, and whence most of those of the present have imbibed the early seeds of education. Interest forms no part of their introduction into the college. It is open to talents alone, and a fair competition once a year, takes place between the boys who are candidates for the foundation. They generally stand out, as it is termed, from the fifth form, and commence their competition about two months previous to the time, when the seniour boys on the foundation are preparing for their election to Oxford or to Cambridge. A great number contend for admission, and about eight, or more, according to the vacancies, are admitted. The king's scholars wear caps and gowns to distinguish them, are never above the age of fourteen when admitted; they remain four years on the establishment, and then are either elected students of Christ Church, Oxford, or are chosen to Cambridge, where they mostly succeed to a fellow ship. The king's scholars live in what is called the dormitory, but whether from caprice, pride, or I know not what, do not choose to receive all the profits of the foundation, but are content to dine in the college hall only, and have their other meals from the boarding-houses, of which they are termed half-boarders. Thus the education, as a king's scholar, is very little cheaper, though, on many accounts, much to be preferred. The dean and sub-dean of Christ Church attend once a-year, at Whitsuntide, to take their equal portion of the seniour candidates for election, as do likewise the master of Trinity, and some fellows. They have their choice alternately, but as it is esteemed more advantageous for the boys to be students of Christ Church, the Cambridge electors always wave their right of claim, and accept of those, whom the dean of Christ Church, who bestows the studentships, does not elect to his own college. The election to Oxford is always a mere matter of interest, superiority of talents is totally out of the ques tion. But the boys who are studious and prudent, may improve the advantages of an election to Cambridge to an equal, and sometimes superiour profit. 4. I come now to my last con sideration, the books read, and the method of instruction pursued throughout the school. I have al ready mentioned the division of the under school into three forms, one of which I shall call a double form, namely the third, it consist ing of two distinct forms, and each being divided into an upper and lower part, as with the rest of the single forms. In the petty or first form, are taught the rudiments of Latin grammar. In the second, the boys are taught to construe Esop Phædrus, and turn some sacred exercises into Latin. In the under third, begins their first instruction in prosody. They here commence their verse exer cise, a species of education, with some so much the subject of cen sure, with others of applause, in all our publick schools. The boys read Ovid's Tristia, and Metamorphoses; Cornelius Nepos is their prose author. They turn the Psalms, and sacred exercises, into Latin verse, on Thursdays, and Saturdays, first beginning with what are called nonsense verses, and making them approach, they are able, to an union of sense and metre. as fast as In the upper third, where the under master presides, the same course of discipline is, for the most part, pursued; the exercises being only only longer, and required to be more correct. verses, of the most flowing melody, and frequently of no little poetical elevation. The Greek Testament is read in Easter week, and Grotius, with copious comments by the master, to infuse proper religious sentiments, on every Monday morning.t 5. I now come to my last consideration. The vacations are three times a-year. Three weeks at Christmas, when the king's scholars perform one of Terence's plays; the same portion of time at Whitsuntide, and five weeks at Bartholomewtide. It must be confessed, there is here no waste of time; the boys being, moreover, employed in long repetitions, and holiday tasks, during the vacation. The expenses of the boardinghouses are generally from thirty to thirty-five guineas per annum, and the utmost sum paid to the masters is seven guineas.. The upper school is divided into four forms; the fourth, the fifth, the shell, the sixth, or the upper part of it, which is called the seventh, generally filled by the seniour king's scholars. In the fourth, are read Virgil, Cæsar's Commentaries, and the Greek Testament, with the Greek grammar, not taught in any of the under forms. On Thursdays, the boys turn Martial's Epigrams into long and short verses, and on Saturdays, do a verse exercise from the Bible with the rest of the upper school. In the fifth, are read the same books, with the addition of the Greek epigrammatists, some part of Homer and Sallust. On Monday, a Latin theme, on Wednesday, an English one, or an abridgment from some prose author is read in the form; on Thursdays, they turn the odes of Horace into another metre, I will now venture to assert, generally into hexameters and pen- that no man can educate his son tameters ; on Saturdays, Bible- at a private school in so moderate exercise throughout the school. a manner, particularly if he be In the shell, the same course is sent to Westminster as a daypursued,except, that the only Greek scholar. I have now made menauthor read, is Homer. In the tion of all that occurs to me. I sixth and seventh, where the head should certainly, however, not have master presides, the higher Greek resisted this opportunity of dwelland Latin authors are all reading on the strict and most exemsuch as Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes, sometimes Eschylus: Horace, Juvenal, Cicero, Livy, Sallust, &e. It would be tedious to run over all the books, and the different times when they are introduced; it will be sufficient to add, that a boy who has passed through the sixth form will find no difficulty in any Latin or Greek author whatever. Here the verse exercises are carried to the highest perfection, and a boy will produce, for his Saturday's Bible exercise, an alcaick ode, or thirty or forty, sometimes a hundred hexameter Vol. III. No. 12. 4 I plary mode of religious education The master takes this opportunity of Grotius merely serves as a peg. of Christianity, and well-grounding the discussing the fundamental doctrines boys in them. †The upper boys, in their turns, speak publickly in the school on every Friday, sometimes in Latin, often in glish poets. ORIGINAL POETRY. For the Monthly Anthology. MONODY, TO THE MEMORY OF GEN. HENRY KNOX. WITH all of nature's gift, and fortune's claim, A warrior-chief, in victory's field renown'd, A statesman, with the wreath of virtue crown'd. In vain shall friendship breathe her holiest sigh. Yet wert thou blest. Ere age with chill delay Source of the hope we feel, the truth we know. For the Monthly Anthology. ERIN. BEHIND the misty brow of yonder hill, Brisk as the bee that sucks the fragrant dew, But hush'd the strain that gladden'd all the plain Blest was his toil with crops of golden grain, And Erin grew in wealth, and rose in name. But, ah, that pleasing rest, which wealth imparts, Too oft unnerves the frame, unmans our hearts. So far'd it now with late our honest clown; In ease repos'd he thoughtless sought the town, And loitering day by day, a prey to harm, He left unplough'd the field, unsown the farm. The moments flew. His happy days were gone, Swift as the beam that scales the saffron morn; And now gloom'd round, with chilling frost combin'd, Cold want, that ragged rustled in the wind. The storm blew bleak, and drifting fast the snow, When Erin left the vale opprest with wo; Remorse with rankling tooth his bosom tore, And wild with grief he saw his home no more. Dec. 29, 1806, |