EDUCATION

Dean Stanley and Père Hyacinthe

Stanley was appointed to the Deanery of Westminster in 1863, and the lamentations of theRecord, the organ of ultra-orthodox Evangelicalism, gavePunchhis opportunity:—

That the wisdom and justice of the appointment of Canon Stanley to the Deanery of Westminster might be clear to everybody, theRecordgives its certificate that such appointment is "a melancholy fact." Disapprobation by theRecordhaving been thus signified, of course every sensible person must now be convinced that the Dean is the right man in the right place.

Comments of this sort add to the liveliness of newspaper controversy, but they do not conduce to the popularity of those who indulge in them. But at any rate they are an improvement onPunch'sreferences to the "viperine expectorations" of the editor of theTabletin earlier years.

The welcome extended to Père Hyacinthe in 1869 showed thatPunchwas not restricted in his sympathies to Protestant heretics only. But we fear that his welcome was not entirely disinterested. In his verses on "Hyacinthus Redivivus,"Punchattacks Pius IX for favouring Père Hyacinthe as long as he was a winning card, and then rending him as a heretic. The lines are friendly, but reading between them one can detect a warning to M. Loyson to shun the dangers that beset the fashionable preacher in New York, whither he was then bound. We cannot resist the feeling thatPunchwas more pleased by the Pope's embarrassment in dealing with this modernist than anxious to see Romanism reformed from within.

In the high affairs of Church and State the year 1868 was a great landmark. After a long debate Gladstone's Resolutions on Irish Disestablishment were carried against the Government on April 5. The discussions were followed closely inPunch's"Essence of Parliament," and two interesting points are brought out. Disraeli maintained that the House had no mandate, as we now say, to deal with the Irish Church. They ought not to be asked at eight days' notice to repeal the Union. On the other hand, Gladstone argued that it would be ultra-democratic, if not anarchic, to say that Parliament could not act without appealto the constituencies. The Government were beaten by 328 votes to 272, but remained in office till the autumn, when they appealed to the country. By the return of a Liberal majority Gladstone was left free to introduce the first instalment of his scheme for pacifying Ireland. This view is clearly set forth inPunch'sdoggerel stanzas headed, "Out and In":—

Gone is Dizzy,From the busyCares of State repose he can.In comes GladdyWho of PaddyMeans to make a loyal man.

Gone is Dizzy,

From the busy

Cares of State repose he can.

In comes Gladdy

Who of Paddy

Means to make a loyal man.

Punchacquiesced in the measure, but showed some anxiety lest it should be interpreted as a concession to Fenian intimidation. His cartoon, which bore the inscription "Justice to Ireland," shows the figure of Justice blindfolded, with sword and scales, enthroned in the background. In front and at her feet Gladstone, laying the Irish Church on a flaming altar, says: "This is a sacrifice to Justice, not to Papists or Assassins. And if they——" Turning their backs on him are a sulky-looking priest and a Fenian desperado levelling a gun. The Bill for Disestablishing and Disendowing the Irish Church was introduced by Gladstone on March 1, 1869. A month laterPunchpublished another cartoon entitled, "Disendowment and Disarmament." Here a Fenian says to a priest: "Be jabers, your Riv'rence, it's spoilin' our thrade they are entirely"; and his Riv'rence replies: "Thrue for you, me boy." During the course of the debates the "Essence of Parliament" contains an entry with an unpleasantly familiar ring:—

Thursday(April 29). Another and another Irish murder. The desire of Members to know that the Government is doing something cannot be blamed. The Irish Secretary stated that the Executive would proceed with the utmost vigour, but deprecated the entering into details. There is a Ruffian called the Mayor of Cork, who has presided at a dinner to two of the released Fenian convicts, and who eulogized O'Farrell, who wounded the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr. Gladstone said that the fellow's language could not be too severely condemned.

Queen talking to a womanA CHANGE FOR THE BETTERGhost of Queen Elizabeth: "Agreed, have they? Ods boddikins! Gads my life, and marry come up, sweetheart! Inmytime I'd have knocked all their addlepates together till theyhadagreed!"

A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

Ghost of Queen Elizabeth: "Agreed, have they? Ods boddikins! Gads my life, and marry come up, sweetheart! Inmytime I'd have knocked all their addlepates together till theyhadagreed!"

John Bright, who had joined the administration as President of the Board of Trade, donned a court uniform and (ifPunchis to be believed) actually danced a quadrille at a Court Ball with the Princess of Wales as partner, is applauded for his eloquence in the House and rebuked for his unbridled vehemence outside it. Ministers mustn't bully, but think of their colleagues. They must, in short, wear a muzzle, and if Bright could not bear to wear one, he certainly had no right,Punchargued, to be where he was. The debates in the Commons were fiery and protracted, and those who regarded the measure as one of confiscation secured important concessions, but the battle was really joined in the Upper House. Lord Derby maintained anon possumusattitude, but the eloquence of Magee (then Bishop of Peterborough) and the arguments of Cairns did not avail to prevent thirty-six Conservative Peers from voting with the Government. But, even so, the Lords' amendments threatened a constitutional crisis, only averted by the compromise arrived at by Granville and Cairns in July, 1869. The Bill became law and was put into operation on January 1, 1871. ThatPunchentertained misgivings as to its effect in encouraging intimidation may be gathered from his cartoon, "How not to do it," in which "Pat" threatens Britannia with unspeakable things if she does not release those noble patriots, the Fenian prisoners.

"Mr. Disraeli's Religion"

The prevalence of religious cant and snobbery and sensationalism is frequently chastised in the 'sixties and 'seventies. In the spring of 1866Punchcopies an advertisement in which a young man wished "to find a home with a pious family, where his Christian example would be considered sufficient remuneration for his board and lodging." And in January, 1870, he pilloried an even more glaring example of complacent and well-connected religiosity: "A Gentleman, born and bred, kinsman of an Earl ... will preach Christ." The infection of the pulpit by sensation is deplored in 1867à proposof an announcement in theIslington Gazette:—

"Caledonian Road Chapel.—Next Sunday Sermons will be preached, afternoon, by Mr. Geo. B. Clarke, a Black Brother, from Jamaica, Son-in-law of the late excellent Paul Bogle. Evening,by Mr. Henry Varley the Butcher, from Notting Hill, whose 'words sink, like flame-tipped darts, into the souls of his hearers.'"

It is easy to make too much of isolated instances of self-conscious and self-advertising rectitude. There is far greater justification for the animated protest whichPunchregistered against the attempts made to discredit Disraeli at the time of his first Premiership on the score of his religion or irreligion. Disraeli had to some extent anticipated this criticism when in his first speech as Premier, on March 5, 1868, he said that he knew that in his position there were personal and peculiar reasons which would aggravate the burden and augment the difficulties. On thisPunchmade the following comment:—

People can interpret these words as they please. Those who give them a significance connected with birth, and who have intelligence enough to take a large view of pedigree, may note that they were uttered by a man descended from one of the Hebrew families expelled from Spain by the Inquisition, and who settled in Venice as merchants.

The campaign of curiosity met with no encouragement fromPunch, who returned to the subject a few weeks later under the heading, "The Modern Inquisition":—

Perhaps the Premier, who has now got to make a Bishop of Hereford, will write one more letter and satisfy the British Booby on the subject of "Mr. Disraeli's Religion," which appears to afflict divers. Scarcely a day passes but some new conjectural impertinence, or some particularly unnecessary information is tossed out. Mr. Disraeli knows thatPunchhas not refrained from a great lot of good-natured allusions to the nationality of which the former is so justly proud; and it is possible that we may have many another cartoon of which he will be the smiling or scowling hero. But we protest—and we are as good a Protestant as Mr. Hardy—against sneaking into a gentleman's study, and taking notes as to whether Prayer Book, Missal, Watts's Hymns, Koran, or Shaster, be most thumbed, and publishing inferences. We do not see whose business it was to announce that Mr. Disraeli had no particular religion until he was five, and that he was then taken by Samuel Rogers to Hackney Church, especially as we believe the latter statement to be false, Mr. Rogers and his father having been regular attendants at the Unitarian Chapel at Hackney, of which the celebrated Dr. Pricewas, in older days, Minister. Nor do we see why the pastor of Hughenden should gratify vulgar curiosity by proclaiming that the Premier has been a regular Church-goer for seventeen years, and was a Communicant at Easter. Is this England or America? We do not habitually admire French legislation, but the late edict against ransacking Private Life is not without its merits. Somebody will be asking about our religion next, and will need all his own to bear the consequences.

In earlier yearsPunch, as we know, had overlooked Lord Shaftesbury's great services as a practical philanthropist in view of his Sabbatarianism. But he had learned to dissociate Lord Shaftesbury from the "snuffling sect" of Puritan killjoys, and in 1868 indulges in a eulogy of his Protestant zeal against Popery and Ritualism. The ballad on the insurrection in Spain, in the early winter of that year, shows no abatement ofPunch'sdistrust of Romanism. The end of the Temporal Power in 1870 was welcomed as the logical, inevitable, and desirable consummation of Italian unity: it made Italy, not the Vatican, mistress of Rome, and it was in keeping with the consistent policy of the paper that the Pope's pretensions as a peace-maker in 1871 should be roughly disputed. England, it is claimed, was the true pacificator of Europe, and Professor (afterwards Sir John) Seeley's observations in "How to keep the Peace" suggest the possibility of a League of Nations.

The end of this period was marked by the passing of a great divine, a famous bishop and the greatest of missionaries. In the memorial verses printed on April 13, 1872,Punchrecognized the true saintliness, the love of truth, the nobly righteous indignation of F. D. Maurice:—

The life of love he lived, the truth he spoke,The seeds of good he sowed on earth remain.In many brave hearts, eased from Evil's yoke,The fruitful soul of Maurice lives again.

The life of love he lived, the truth he spoke,

The seeds of good he sowed on earth remain.

In many brave hearts, eased from Evil's yoke,

The fruitful soul of Maurice lives again.

Incidentally it is noted that Maurice never received any preferment, bishopric, canonry, or deanery.

Wilberforce and Livingstone

The lines given below on Wilberforce, who is coupled with Lord Westbury, are largely inspired by thede mortuisnote. The writer begins by recording the worst that had been saidof both—the slyness of the sleek priest, the sneers and scorn and mincing tones of the bitter lawyer. But now we know better, and recognize that the dove was blended with the serpent in both:—

And so, Life's judgment set to right by Death's,Lay busy Bishop and keen Judge to rest;And, by their coffins, think with bated breaths,How good the worst of us, how bad the best.

And so, Life's judgment set to right by Death's,

Lay busy Bishop and keen Judge to rest;

And, by their coffins, think with bated breaths,

How good the worst of us, how bad the best.

Mr. Punch in a cartoonA PAN-ANGLICAN WASHING DAYChorus of Old Washerwomen: "There! Take'em away—we can't be worrited with them things."

A PAN-ANGLICAN WASHING DAY

Chorus of Old Washerwomen: "There! Take'em away—we can't be worrited with them things."

"If the seventy-five members of the Pan-Anglican Synod have not a single word to say upon any of the great questions, theoretical or practical, which concern the very existence of the Church of England, their impotent caution and misplaced decency will do more to endanger it than any external attack with which it is at present threatened."—Pall Mall Gazette.]

Writing of Livingstone, always one of his heroes,Punchdoes not agree with the view that his was a wasted life, or thata greater work of reclamation was to be done at home, and applauds the unselfishness, fearlessness, and vision of one who died in sight of evening rest and honours fairly won:—

By their own scale great souls gauge things and men;Their ways and weights are not our weights and ways;Only their vision goes beyond our ken,Reaching to larger lights—diviner days.

By their own scale great souls gauge things and men;

Their ways and weights are not our weights and ways;

Only their vision goes beyond our ken,

Reaching to larger lights—diviner days.

It was in this larger vision thatPunchfound the Church of England wanting, and when the first Pan-Anglican Synod met in 1867, he took as the text of his cartoon the acid comment of thePall Mall Gazettejust quoted.

The question of Public Worship Regulation was already in the air, though it did not lead to legislation until the return of the Conservatives to power. On July 12, 1873,Punchpublished a cartoonà proposof the protest against Ritualism and the Confessional. Mr. Miall, M.P., a leader of the Liberation Society, is shown with two archbishops expressing his delight to find them so earnestly co-operating with him for the destruction of the State Church. A fortnight laterPunchcomplained that Dr. Thomson (the Archbishop of York) had misread the cartoon. WhatPunchreally meant was to suggest that by neglecting the representations of real Churchmen, and by tolerating the antics of Ritualism, the hierarchy were playing into the hands of the Church's enemies. But he still hoped that the Archbishops would stiffen their backs and carry out the spirit of Tait's threat against those who brought their toys to church. So when Archdeacon Denison, who supported the Confessional, denounced certain Bishops for their ultra-Protestantism,Punchsuggested that Denison's friends should present him with a triple cap (with bells).

[7]Within our own times the milking of cows on Sunday was objected to by Scottish Sabbatarians.

The worst of education, as Peacock remarks, is that there is no beginning and no end to it. But the subject is set about with other pitfalls and difficulties. It is one of the most important things in life; its annals have been adorned by great and even heroic names; yet the calling has never been free from gibes at the dominie and the gerund-grinder. And again, by the irony of fate it has been responsible for an unconscionable amount of dull and pedantic and cranky literature. There is no greater benefactor than a good schoolmaster; there is no greater bore than the "Educationist."Punch, though a comic journal, has not escaped the infection in dealing with the subject, but it is to his credit that on the whole he has resisted the temptation to indulge in untimely facetiousness, and has not been afraid to be serious when the occasion demanded.

Contending zealots, assisted by Parliamentary apathy, had effectually barred the progress of national education throughout the period treated in the previous volume. But the awakening had begun in 1858, though more than twenty years were to pass before Forster's Act was placed on the Statute Book. The debate on the Paper Duty in June, 1858, showed, at any rate, that all parties were at one in condemning this tax. Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, could not afford to remit it, butPunchread the signs of the times aright in his comment: "The House voted £563,435 for Educational purposes in order to qualify the people to read the books which the removal of the paper duty will place in their hands." It was reserved for Mr. Gladstone to make good this forecast. His famous series of Free Trade Budgets between 1859 and 1865 were quite as much the effect as the cause of national prosperity, but in 1865 "no one ventured to doubt Gladstone's financial omniscience. Everyone who paid less for his pound of tea or his newspaper could look upon him as a personal benefactor."[9]

The judicious use of opportunity rather than genius may have been the secret of Gladstonian finance; but no such reserves are called for in appraising the merits of the series of Acts dealing with national education passed during his first Premiership. If one needs a practical illustration of the immense advance made in education in ten years, one need only compare the provisions of the Act of 1870 with the account of whatPunchcalls an "anti-educational demonstration" in the Commons in July, 1860, when Palmerston was Prime Minister:—

There was a Bill for making it compulsory on the employers of the labour of children under twelve years old, to have a certificate that the child was learning to read and write, and had twenty hours of teaching per month-nothing like an hour a day. But so monstrous an Innovation frightened the House. Mr. Henley was pious, and said that people were not to eat unless they worked, but were not commanded to read and write; Mr. Buxton was humane, and said there were thousands of children too idle, wicked or stupid to learn, and their vested rights were not to be interfered with; Mr. Hardy took the old Tory view, and said that the children of the poor were taught quite enough to enable them to do the duties they were intended for; and Mr. Baynes, as a Dissenter, declared the Bill to be needless, and that the work of education was going on admirably. Yielding to these irresistible arguments, the Bill was thrown out, a majority of 122 to 51 deciding that the children of the English poor want no assistance in the battle with the World, the Flesh and the First Whig.

It was this debate, by the way, that promptedPunchto recall the derivation of Parliament by a French etymologist from the two verbsparlerandmentir.

Education Act of 1870

A good beginning had been made with the Act providing efficient inspection of endowed and Grammar Schools in 1869, but the Elementary Education Act of 1870 was a measure of first-rate importance, which has affected our national life more vitally than any other passed in the last fifty years, unless we except the People's Representation Act of 1918. From the moment of its introductionPunchrealized its far-reaching influence. On March 26, 1870, he published the cartoon, "The Three R's, or Better Late than Never." Here we see Forsteraddressing a group of small school children, town and country types: "Well, my little people, we have been gravely and earnestly considering whether you may learn to read. I am happy to say that, subject to a variety of restrictions, conscience clauses, and the consent of your vestries—you may!" The conflict that led to the final compromise is indicated by two groups in the background: one amicably gathered round John Bull; the other including a bishop, a coronetted peer, a sour-visaged minister of the Chadband type, and an austere female.

Man interviewing boyINCORRIGIBLEClerical Examiner: "What is your name?"Incorrigible: "Biler, sir."Clerical Examiner: "Who gave you that name?"Incorrigible: "Theboys in our Court, sir."

INCORRIGIBLE

Clerical Examiner: "What is your name?"

Incorrigible: "Biler, sir."

Clerical Examiner: "Who gave you that name?"

Incorrigible: "Theboys in our Court, sir."

The issues involved are set forth in a "long and grave letter" addressed byPunchto "Master Gutterblood" in town, and "Master Chawbacon" in the country. Writing as their friend and well-wisher, sincerely anxious to see them properly taught, he deplores the obstacles hitherto put in their way by the "black-coats"—Parson, Priest and Nonconformist Minister. He applauds Forster's plan, and specially condemns the action of the secularizing party who would exclude all religion from schools, since the bulk of English people were in favour of some simple religious teaching:—

Those who arenowbarring your road to school are not the Churches, but those who insist that no Church at all shall have a hand in your teaching when you have got there. I have been accustomed to think that it was the Established Church's jealousy of the Dissenters that kept you ignorant, now it looks as if you were to be kept in the dark by the Dissenters' jealousy of the Established Church, working with those who distrust and dislike equally Church and Dissent, and all forms of religious Creed.

Mr. Punch talking to policeman"OBSTRUCTIVES"Mr. Punch(to Bull A.1): "Yes, it's all very well to say 'Go to school!' How are they to go to school with those people quarrelling in the doorway? Why don't you make 'em 'move on'?"

"OBSTRUCTIVES"

Mr. Punch(to Bull A.1): "Yes, it's all very well to say 'Go to school!' How are they to go to school with those people quarrelling in the doorway? Why don't you make 'em 'move on'?"

It was a fair summary of the opposing interests which clashed during the progress of the Bill through the House.Punch'simpatience is shown in the further cartoon "Obstructives." "Those people" are a group of clerics of various Churches blocking the school doorway. A fortnight laterPunchwas able to announce in his "Essence of Parliament" that the very qualified compulsion proposed by Parliament had been approved by large majorities, and to publish his third cartoon on the solving of the problem. Master Forster (with his slate) is saying to Britannia, the Schoolmistress, "Please, M'm, I've done it, M'm." And when Britannia asks, "Andhowhave you done it, William?" he replies, "Please, M'm, I've reduced all the fractions to the lowest common denomination." To this is added the stage direction "The good Boy enters the Cabinet." The Bill passed through both Houses, and when Parliament rose on August 10 and the Queen's Speech made special reference thereto,Punchcomments, "Excuse us, your Majesty, but permit us to say 'Hooray!' and to add a cheer for Mr. Forster." He welcomed a measure which affirmed the principle that the State was bound to provide gratuitous instruction for all the children in the realm, but resented the educational luxuries which leading "Educationalists" were anxious to introduce. So we find a burlesque list of these fancy subjects, including hieroglyphics, croquet, bézique, etiquette, given in the following year with the remark: "There are people old-fashioned enough to think that it might be as well to give our poor neglected children only plain joints at first—the 3 R's—and let theentréesstand over for the present." The introduction of the "Fourth R"—Religion—prompted the "Educational Epigram" a year later:—

Milk is for babes, wrote one that knew.Sectarian Educators, youWho dogmas teach which Doctors question,Are you not giving babes strong meat,So much too tough for them to eatThe upshot must be indigestion?

Milk is for babes, wrote one that knew.

Sectarian Educators, you

Who dogmas teach which Doctors question,

Are you not giving babes strong meat,

So much too tough for them to eat

The upshot must be indigestion?

Lady talking to boyTHE CONSCIENCE CLAUSERector's Wife: "And what's your father, my boy?"Boy: "My father's a 'Hagitator,' an' he says he won't have me learnt no catechism, 'r else you'll all of yer 'ear of it!"

THE CONSCIENCE CLAUSE

Rector's Wife: "And what's your father, my boy?"

Boy: "My father's a 'Hagitator,' an' he says he won't have me learnt no catechism, 'r else you'll all of yer 'ear of it!"

In the following summer we have a picture by Charles Keene of a beery working man protesting against temperance propagandism at schools, and resolving to withdraw his small son from the reach of these subversive doctrines, while humorous capital is made out of the "Conscience Clause" at the expense of the "agitator." The provision of gratuitous meals to elementary school children was not yet even mooted, butPunchstrongly supported the philanthropists who in 1867 gave weekly dinner parties in Marylebone to seven or eight hundred children, following the example set by Victor Hugo during his sojourn in Guernsey.

boy speaking to shopkeeperScene—Toy-shop.(Enter highly educated Youth of Twelve).—"Oh, I want some toy, or conjuring trick, or something that would do for an old gentleman of fifty or thereabouts; my grandfather, in point of fact,—you know the kind of thing. I dessay."

Scene—Toy-shop.(Enter highly educated Youth of Twelve).—"Oh, I want some toy, or conjuring trick, or something that would do for an old gentleman of fifty or thereabouts; my grandfather, in point of fact,—you know the kind of thing. I dessay."

Children and their Tormentors

Turning to preparatory or boarding schools, we have to note that academies of the type of "Dotheboys Hall" had not altogether disappeared, to judge by the advertisement whichPunchpilloried under the heading of "Children and their Tormentors":—

"Boarding Schoolswanted, in London, for a boy, nine years, and two girls, six and seven years old, requiring firm discipline, having become wild and unruly, through neglect occasioned by family misfortunes. No holiday could be given, as holidays destroy any good effected at school. The father, quite a gentleman, can only pay 20 guineas each. This advertisement is only intended for schools of pre-eminent efficiency for such cases, and prosperous enough to be able and willing to accept such terms, and undertake the needed task of reformation for the sake of the schools' own additional credit of success. Particulars and references, by letter only."As for its conducing to the "credit" of a school to help unnatural fathers thus to get rid of their children, surely no one but a squeers could indulge in such a thought. If through neglect at home, a child becomes unruly and requires to be "reformed," it is right that at a proper age it should be sent to school, if proper means are wanting for teaching it at home. But a girl of six years old can scarcely be so "wild" as to require, for her taming, utter banishment from home: nor can she be much bettered by being badly fed for twenty pounds a year, and, worse still, taught to grow up without knowing what "home" means.

As for its conducing to the "credit" of a school to help unnatural fathers thus to get rid of their children, surely no one but a squeers could indulge in such a thought. If through neglect at home, a child becomes unruly and requires to be "reformed," it is right that at a proper age it should be sent to school, if proper means are wanting for teaching it at home. But a girl of six years old can scarcely be so "wild" as to require, for her taming, utter banishment from home: nor can she be much bettered by being badly fed for twenty pounds a year, and, worse still, taught to grow up without knowing what "home" means.

The name of "gentleman" had been strangely taken in vain a year earlier, as we gather from an extract which sounds like an echo fromThe Fairchild Family:—

THE GAME OF JACK KETCHOn Saturday last a man named Thomas Edwards was hanged for murder at Liverpool, when, according to a report of the execution which appeared in theDaily Telegraph:—"To the discredit of some person, a drag, containing gentlemen's children, was brought near the gallows."Fine fun for gentlemen's children during the Christmas holidays, to see a man hanged. Just the spectacle to amuse little boys—but perhaps there were some little girls too among these gentlemen's children. Well, in that case, the gentlemen have taken a good step towards getting their girls, as well as their boys, off their hands. Nothing is more likely than that the juvenile spectators of Thomas Edwards' death-struggles will get to play at hanging, and effectually hang one another.

THE GAME OF JACK KETCH

On Saturday last a man named Thomas Edwards was hanged for murder at Liverpool, when, according to a report of the execution which appeared in theDaily Telegraph:—

"To the discredit of some person, a drag, containing gentlemen's children, was brought near the gallows."

Fine fun for gentlemen's children during the Christmas holidays, to see a man hanged. Just the spectacle to amuse little boys—but perhaps there were some little girls too among these gentlemen's children. Well, in that case, the gentlemen have taken a good step towards getting their girls, as well as their boys, off their hands. Nothing is more likely than that the juvenile spectators of Thomas Edwards' death-struggles will get to play at hanging, and effectually hang one another.

In 1868Punchwas exercised in mind by the pernicious influence on the ingenuous youth of "penny dreadfuls," and the activities of educational faddists. Precocious pedantry, as we show on the previous page, is satirized in 1863. There is a curious foreshadowing of Madame Montessori's hostility to fairy tales in Du Maurier's "Little Christmas Dream." Du Maurier had a genius for the delineation of nightmares, and in this picture he quite excelled himself. Earlier in the same yearPunchmade excellent capital, again with the aid of Du Maurier's pencil, out of Lord Malmesbury's statement that it was useless to teach modern languages at the publicschools, "as parents can easily procure such instruction for their children by hiring foreign nurses." The artist depicts four disgusted Harrow boys, who have returned for the holidays, taking an educational walk with their German and French instructresses, while a young and untutored yokel looks on with grim amusement.

Boy pursued by fabulous animalA LITTLE CHRISTMAS DREAMMr. L. Figuier, in the Thesis which precedes his interesting work on the World before the Flood, condemns the practice of awakening the youthful mind to admiration by means of fables and fairy tales, and recommends, in lieu thereof, the study of the Nature History of the World in which we live. Fired by this advice, we have tried the experiment on our eldest, an imaginative boy of six. We have cut off his "Cinderella" and his "Puss in Boots," and introduced him to some of the more peaceful Fauna of the pre-Adamite world, as they appear restored in Mr. Figuier's book. The poor boy has not had a decent nights rest ever since!

A LITTLE CHRISTMAS DREAM

Mr. L. Figuier, in the Thesis which precedes his interesting work on the World before the Flood, condemns the practice of awakening the youthful mind to admiration by means of fables and fairy tales, and recommends, in lieu thereof, the study of the Nature History of the World in which we live. Fired by this advice, we have tried the experiment on our eldest, an imaginative boy of six. We have cut off his "Cinderella" and his "Puss in Boots," and introduced him to some of the more peaceful Fauna of the pre-Adamite world, as they appear restored in Mr. Figuier's book. The poor boy has not had a decent nights rest ever since!

Group of boys with their nursesMALMESBURY NURSESLord Malmesbury considers that it is useless to teach modern languages at the Public Schools, "as parents can easily procure such instruction for their children by hiring foreign nurses." Observe the delight of four young gentlemen who have returned from Harrow for the holidays, and discover that their parents have procured French and German instruction for them. Also observe the envy of the young and untutored clown.

MALMESBURY NURSES

Lord Malmesbury considers that it is useless to teach modern languages at the Public Schools, "as parents can easily procure such instruction for their children by hiring foreign nurses." Observe the delight of four young gentlemen who have returned from Harrow for the holidays, and discover that their parents have procured French and German instruction for them. Also observe the envy of the young and untutored clown.

A notable landmark in the annals of preparatory and public school education is reached in 1869, whenPunchquoted the following epoch-marking advertisement:—

"Grammar School, W—— R—— Wanted immediately, a Second Assistant Master, to teach thoroughly writing and arithmetic, also junior English subjects. Must be a good cricketer and round-arm bowler. Character to bear the strictest investigation. Salary £40, increasing to £60."

Punch on Co-Education

The resounding fame of W. G. Grace, who began his great career in first-class cricket in 1863, at the age of 15, and had just reached his majority, was doubtless responsible for this new educational departure. The salary was certainly not exorbitant, but the advent of the cricket-master moves no sympathy inPunch. He admits the force of the proverb that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," but asks "does not Jack at some schools play a little to excess?" and speculates on the amazement which the schoolmaster abroad would feel in reading this announcement. On the other hand, over-pressure and "cramming" were equally distasteful toPunch, who was seriously perturbed by the sensational accounts given in 1870 of the breakdown of Woolwich candidates.

Group of boys and girlsREAL EDUCATIONMr. Punchis of opinion that a polite and easy bearing towards the opposite sex (tempered, of course, with propriety and discretion) cannot be inculcated at too early an age. He therefore recommends that whenever an Institute for Young Ladies happens to meet an Academy for Young Gentlemen, they should all be formally introduced to each other, and allowed to take their walks abroad in company.

REAL EDUCATION

Mr. Punchis of opinion that a polite and easy bearing towards the opposite sex (tempered, of course, with propriety and discretion) cannot be inculcated at too early an age. He therefore recommends that whenever an Institute for Young Ladies happens to meet an Academy for Young Gentlemen, they should all be formally introduced to each other, and allowed to take their walks abroad in company.

Co-education had not yet emerged on the horizon of practical educational politics, and the plea put forward in a picture by Du Maurier for a mixed "crocodile" cannotbe seriously entertained. The artist suggests that whenever an Institute for Young Ladies happens to meet an Academy for Young Gentlemen they should all be formally introduced to one another and allowed to take their walks abroad in company. The question of corporal punishment was raised by a lively correspondence inThe Times, towards the close of 1872, on the Winchester practice of "tunding" with a ground-ash or cricket-stump. The action was general, the father of the boy whose punishment by a prefect had started the correspondence, the headmaster, Dr. Ridding, "in English less classical than queer," and sundry old Wykehamists all joining in.Punchwas at first scandalized by the brutality with which the prefects exercised their disciplinary powers, but the spirit and good sense showed by the victim caused him to modify his view:—

His punishment, while he feels it unjustHe takes without blather or ban:Yes, out of the lot who've kicked up a dust,The boy is the Man.

His punishment, while he feels it unjust

He takes without blather or ban:

Yes, out of the lot who've kicked up a dust,

The boy is the Man.

At the beginning of the same year the invasion of the public schools by the new plutocracy, as described by a correspondent in theMorning Post, who assumed the unfortunate pseudonym of "Pavidus," impelledPunchto some outspoken comment. "Pavidus" complained that the standard in tips and pocket-money had been unduly raised by the young cotton-lords—boys who came back with £5 as a minimum.Punchfinds the root of the evil in the perversion of the public schools from their original intention—to educate the sons of poor gentlemen—and suggests that if the "nobs" don't like their sons associating with young plutocrats, they should get up poor schools of their own and keep the high-bred paupers select. A similar situation has arisen since the war, but the difficulty has been solved without snobbery or squealing. Parents who cannot afford to send their sons to schools with which their families have been associated for generations, send them elsewhere, but they do not "make a song about it."

Pair of boys talking to boy on ponyHOME FOR THE HOLIDAYSArthur(on pony): "Hollo! What have you got on your heads?"Juvenile Swell: "Why, you see, every snob wears a cap or a wide-awake now; so the men of our school have returned to the old Chimney Pot!"(As paterfamilias we are sorry to say that we have observed this monstrosity many times this Christmas.)

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Arthur(on pony): "Hollo! What have you got on your heads?"

Juvenile Swell: "Why, you see, every snob wears a cap or a wide-awake now; so the men of our school have returned to the old Chimney Pot!"

(As paterfamilias we are sorry to say that we have observed this monstrosity many times this Christmas.)

University Reform

There remain the Universities, the apex of the educational pyramid. The Universities Commission was not appointed till1872. Its report on the income and property of Oxford and Cambridge was not published till October 1874, and the Universities' Act was not passed till 1877.Punch'scontributions to the discussions which arose over University Reform nearly always take the form of hostile criticism of the champions of "no change," and he devotes by far the greater amount of space to the castigation of Oxford conservatives and non-resident reactionaries. The vote on the institution of the non-Collegiate or "unattached" system in 1868 furnishedPunchwith the materials for a comprehensive indictment of all his pet Oxford aversions. In the wail of the Mediævalists, headed "An OxfordMiserere,"Punchranges himself on the side of the reformers; Sir John, afterwards Lord Coleridge, who had taken an active part in the successful movement for the abolition of religious tests in the Universities; Conington, the distinguishedLatinist and editor of Virgil; Raper, the well-known Fellow of Trinity College, who, under more than one President, was the power behind the throne; and Jowett, who with Stanley and Maurice, had always been supported byPunchin his espousal of "modernist" views.

When Mr. Meyrick, an Oxford Don, expressed his satisfaction that our Educational System was not that of the Germans,Punchwas unable to echo his complacency, and went so far as to wish that "our Dons and Fellows were but as these Germans"; but it may be pleaded in extenuation of his offence that the doctrine of "Kultur" was less vocal in the 'sixties, and that German professors and teachers were not then so firmly harnessed to the car of "Machtpolitik."Punchlittle thought that some fifty years later Admiral Tirpitz would admit that the most formidable opponent of Germany was the "polo-playing Englishman." The notion that pastime was overdone finds vent in the "Chant for College Athletes":—

How doth the busy UndergradImprove each shining hour,Loving each new athletic "fad"To show his muscles' power!

How doth the busy Undergrad

Improve each shining hour,

Loving each new athletic "fad"

To show his muscles' power!

In feats of strength and games of skillHis time must all be passed,Heedless that, 'spite of cram, he willBe sorely plucked at last.

In feats of strength and games of skill

His time must all be passed,

Heedless that, 'spite of cram, he will

Be sorely plucked at last.

Affluent College Servants

Over-athleticism, however, was not the only ground of complaint against education at the older Universities in the 'sixties. The high cost of living for undergraduates, owing to the extortion of local tradesmen and the perquisites of college servants, provoked a correspondence inThe Timesin the winter of 1865.Punchironically affected to defend the retail "profiteers." His College butler in "The Undergraduates' Rebellion" associates himself with the College Dean as the victim of a mutiny of meanness, and the accompanying cartoon rubs in the point, a stout butcher addressing an equally stout Don, engaged in cutting a loaf, with thewords, "Wery low them letters in the papers, Mr. Dean! Wery 'ard on both of us, Sir—my beef and your bread-an'-butter!"Punch'ssatire was justified by the fortunes notoriously made at the time and for many years afterwards by College cooks and butlers, whose incomes sometimes exceeded those of the Heads of Houses. More than ten years later a Christ Church "Scout" bitterly complained of the passing of the good old times. As he put it, "Instead of taking food home out of College, I has to bring it in."

[8]This probably refers to his work on the Epistles of St. Paul (1855).

[9]Oman'sEngland in the Nineteenth Century, p. 155.

Railways, their dangers and inconveniences, continue throughout this period to furnishPunchwith a never-ending theme of criticism and complaint; nor need we altogether wonder when it is remembered that it was not until 1861 that communication between guard and engine driver was established on the Eastern Counties Railway, and then at first only on express and fast trains;[10]and again, that it was not until 1873 that sleeping carriages were first introduced. The murder of Mr. Briggs by Müller on the North London line on July 9, 1864, created a scare amongst nervous passengers, which even the introduction of the corridor carriage has not altogether allayed. But, from the point of view of a Londoner, the most notable feature in railway development was the extension of intra-urban facilities which grew out of the Act of 1853, though the construction of the Underground did not begin till the spring of 1860, and it was not opened for traffic, in its original and limited range, till January, 1863. The completion of the Inner and the addition of the Outer Circle followed; the Swiss Cottage extension was not opened till 1868; but Highgate and many other suburbs remained isolated until the coming of the tubes.

The "Tuppenny Tube" was not opened till June, 1900, but nearly forty years earlier we read inPunchthat "amongst the new railway projects, it seems there is to be a tubular underground from Regent's Circus to the Bank." The plea for cheap workmen's trains to the suburbs in the spring of 1870 only surprises us now by its having waited so long to be granted.

In the realm of imaginative forecast, one may note Du Maurier's nightmare picture of aerial trains to Paris in 1870, and the burlesque charter for an aerial railway company in 1872. But the project of a Channel tunnel had long been seriously considered, though the experimental borings were not made till 1876.[11]Ten years earlierPunchhad indulged in some fantastic speculations on the result of the preliminary trials conducted by French and English engineers, with Sir John Hawkshaw at the head of the latter.

A patent for pneumatic tyres had been taken out in the 'forties; bicycles and tricycles came in at the end of the 'sixties; but twenty years were to elapse before the boneshaker and the "ordinary"—that wonderful and perilous machine—gave place to the "safety." In 1868 and 1869 references abound to velocipedes—the word "bicycle" had not yet established itself—and in the Almanack for 1869 there is a picture of a strange mechanism called the "Rantoone," a tricycle with two large wheels behind and a small guiding wheel in front. It is also mentioned in Henry Kingsley'sBoy in Grey, and Crawley'sManly Games for Boys. But the bicycle, as we know it, the most momentous addition to the resources of locomotion between the coming of the steam engine and the advent of the petrol-driven motor, was only looming in the future; it was little more than a plaything in the period under review.

THE RANTOONE

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