The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

STATISTICS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 473
The system of higher education as now existent is by no means tlie outcome of
a plan laid down in advance. It is due to the initiative taken by religious bodies,
educational societies, and private individuals, and Parliament is slow to interfere
with schools not founded or subventioned by the State. At the present time
about 20,000 primary schools in England and Scotland, affording accommo-
dation to one-seventh of the population, are in receipt of Government aid, and are
regularly inspected. The number of persons unable to write is annually
decreasing as the younger generation grows up. Illiterates are most numerous
in Western Ireland, in Wales, in the Scotch Highlands—that is, in those districts
where many of the inhabitants still speak Celtic—and in certain manufacturing
districts of England and Scotland.
The number of children who attend superior schools in England is less
than in France. The English public schools and colleges, which give an edu-
cation analogous to that of the French " Lj'cees," are attended by only 20,000
pupils, whilst the corresponding French schools count 157,000 pupils. Schools of
this kind are considered higher than the grammar schools, and are looked upon as
being intended only for the rich or titled, whilst in France they are thrown open
to all the children of the middle classes, and help to recruit them.*
The State seldom interferes directly with higher education. It does not con-
cern itself with the superintendence of the educational establishments intended for
the upper classes, but leaves the supreme control of each of them to its own si^ecial
governing body. The members of the governing body are variously appointed,
e.g. the University of Oxford may send two representatives, or the Lord Chan-
cellor one, and so on. To some of the great endowed schools the State has
granted charters of incorporation : in several of them the process of eliminating
ancient abuses has been singularly slow. The use of the term "public school " is
nearly as inaccurate as it is frequent, but, to speak exactly, it means a school
possessing a charter of incorporation, and in which the advantages of the endow-
ment belong equally to all her Majesty's subjects. At Winchester, the oldest
of the public schools, there are " Foundation Scholars" and "Exhibitioners," who
are maintained wholly or in part at the expense of the institution, and, far
outnumbering them, " Commoners," whose parents pay for their board and instruc-
tion. The annual cost of keeping a boy at one of these schools averages £120.
At Eton and Harrow it is considerably more, but these two in particular are
frequented by the sons of wealthy Englishmen anxious to become acquainted and
associate with men of birth. In all the great schools, as indeed at both the great
universities, the spirit of athleticism rules supreme. While, on the one hand, the
statesmen of England, many of its bishops, judges, and leading scholars trace the
beginnings of their successes to the manly breadth of tone of a public school ;
on the
other, specimens of bigoted ignorance and despotic stupidity are but too frequent.
At the two great Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the ecclesiastical element,
until the middle of this century, largely predominated. Cambridge had originally
a great name for the study of mathematics only ; Oxford for that of the Greek
Matlhew Arnold, Furtnlghlly Rcriew, November, 1S78.