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thrown into the scale of the dead languages, and the study of pure mathematics? The fault lies, therefore with the Government, which has not reformed these endowments; and the remedy, as it appears to me, is that these endowments should be emancipated from this narrow application, so that the emoluments that are to be obtained for learning, may be impartially distributed among all the branches of human knowledge—not proscribing the subjects to which I have alluded, but not giving them these invidious preferences over all the rest. The same thing applies to our public schools. They are really adventure schools, kept by masters for their own profit. There is a foundation which forms the nucleus, and that foundation is generally for the purpose of teaching Latin and Greek, and that overrules and dominates the schools. The remedy is in the hands of parents; but these schools have got a goodwill such as no other institution in the country has got. A man that has been at a school, however badly taught he has been, however much he has been flogged, always goes away with an affection for it. He forgets his troubles. It is a time that appears to us all very pleasant in the retrospect; and as these troubles are to be undergone not again by himself, but by his son, he always sends him there. No doubt, if we could only secure a fair stage and no favour for all the different branches of instruction, the thing would remedy itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not think it is any part of the duty of Government to prescribe what people should learn, except in the case of the poor, where time is so limited that we must fix upon a few elementary subjects to get anything done at all. I think it is the duty of the parents to fix what their children should learn. But then the State should stand impartial, and not by endowments necessarily force education into these channels, and leave those others dry. And, therefore, what I would press is, that somehow or other the endowments should be so recast as to give all subjects—physical science, modern history, English history, English law, ancient languages, ancient literature, ancient history, ancient philosophy all a fair and equal start. You will say, How is it possible for this to be done? I don't presume to say
