SCHOOLS ing master faced each other at the west end. There was early morning school at 7, morning school, and afternoon school from 2.30 to 4.30. The afternoon was devoted to mathematics, in which subject the writing master deputised for the head master. Evenings were spent at the Old Hospital, and, as far as work was con- cerned, in the studies, an addition of Holden's, of which there were twenty-three, four of more recent date than the others, forming two sides of the old rectangular school quad. They were heated by hot-water pipes, on which the in- mates practised an ingenious system of tele- graphy. In Holden's time, though ' no bigger than a double sentry box,* they no doubt often accommodated two boys. It was Thring who devised the formula, every boy one study. Con- siderable additions had been recently made to the Old Hospital. The original Elizabethan two-storied building, now the school library, running east and west, had been extended at the west end by the addition of a drawing-room with a bedroom over it, ' running up higher than the old roof, which only admitted very low rooms,' and at the east end by the addition of two square rooms, one above the other, the lower a library, the upper a dormitory, in the same style as the old building. Behind this on the north was the matron's sitting room and the kitchens, forming a single story to the west, then a dark sitting-room with the head master's nursery above, and lastly the dining hall with two dormitories over it, the line of buildings at the rear falling short of the length of the front at the east end. The ground floor of the Old Hospital, from west to east, comprised the master's dining room, a study, a pantry, a boy's study, and the music room ; and the first floor the master's quarters, the matron's room, and three small dormitories. All these extensions seem to have been made in Holden's time. He also added stables, converted by Thring into a gymnasium." This was the inheritance in the shape of material equipment to which Thring succeeded in 1853. "T^i^^ ideas, which acted as motive force in his work of transformation, had been developed partly as a result of the criticism of a peculiarly sincere intelligence upon a typical educational experience, partly through what was, for a man of his class, original experiment. A preparatory school of the good old-fashioned sort, where Solomon's precept was scrupulously carried out ' with a regular knotted dog-whip,"* set him in revolt once for all against harsh and repressive treatment of boys, though his adamantine com- mon sense never allowed him to drift into ' soft pedagogy."' The ' barrack-system ' of education " This account is based upon Early Days at Upp- ingham under E. Thring, 15-37. '* H. D. Rawnsley, £. Thring, Teacher and Poet, 59. ^' Thring did not allow assistants to inflict corporal punishment. He reserved flogging for breaches of I 2 prevailing in college at Eton in Thring's day, which, if it produced fine character or good scholarship, did so, to his mind, not necessarily, but by lucky accident, opened his eyes to the importance of machinery and organization. At King's College, Cambridge, he doubtless witnessed the deadening eflPects of a privilege which claimed exemption from the common routine. Later, as a curate at Gloucester, where his teaching instinct sought satisfaction in the parish schools, he learnt the secret of true method and the importance and difficulty of laying the foundations truly, working out with his young pupils a new method of approaching English grammar. With regard to this period of his training he wrote in 1886 : 'Everything I value of teaching thought and teaching prac- tice and teaching experience came from that.'^" A breakdown in health, which followed, gave him leisure to digest his views and to travel abroad, where he not only familiarized himself with German practice and German ideals but fell in love with a German girl ; the desire to make her his wife was the immediate cause which brought him to Uppingham. Thring's appointment as head master of the school is as important as any event in the history of the English Public Schools. Under him the system became fully self-conscious. Uppingham, as he refounded it, was the first Public School to be established on a plan, sketched out in its every detail in advance, and determined by the best and fullest thought and experience. His aim may be said to have been twofold : first, to train up upright Christian gentlemen, in a broad yet orthodox acceptation of the term, or, in his favourite phase, to secure truth of life or char- acter, ' setting the loving and hating on the right track ' ; and secondly, to discover the natural abilities or 'instrumental powers' of each boy and develop them to the utmost. For him these were two aspects of one aim rather than two separate and separable aims ; 'the practice which separates brain-work from religion and morality, and calls it education, is simply the devil let loose.' The schoolmaster's occupation was eminently religious ; it was labour for God or for Christ ; only if animated with an evangel- ist's fervour and unselfishness could it hope to succeed. On the intellectual and practical sides he desired to produce power and flexibility rather than to impart information. He set to work ' to smash up the idolatry of knowledge.' Principle the main discipline rules and deliberate idleness ; he thought it unsuitable for moral ofFences— lying or ' sin against God.' It prevented the clogging of the machinery of discipline, aftbrJing a quick and effec- tive way of clearing off scores in bad cases. ' In the administration of punishment passion and caprice should be eliminated.' Hence he had a fixed time for its infliction, mid-day. «» Addresses by E. Thring, 4-7. 89 37
