HIGHER SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES IN FRANCE HIGHER SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES IN BY MATTHEW ARNOLD London MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited A FRENCH ETON OR MIDDLE-CLASS EDUCATION AND THE STATE A LIVELY and acute writer, whom English society, indebted to his vigilance for the exposure of a thousand delinquents, salutes with admiration as its Grand Detective, some time ago called public attention to the state of the College of the Blessed Mary' at Eton. In that famous seat of learning, he said, a vast sum of money was expended on education, and a beggarly account of empty brains was the result. Rich endowments were wasted; parents were giving large sums to have their children taught, and were getting a most inadequate return for their outlay. Science, among those venerable towers in the vale of the Thames, still adored her Henry's holy shade; but she did very little else. These topics, handled with infinite skill and vivacity, produced a strong effect. Public attention, for a moment, fixed itself upon the state of secondary instruction in England. The great class, which is interested in the improvement of this, imagined that the moment was come for making the first step towards that improvement. The comparatively small class, VOL. XII I B |