consultative only, but the Minister was to be bound to take its opinion
on all important measures. It should be the special duty of this Council
to advise on the graduation of schools, on the organization of
examinations both in the schools and in the Universities, and to adjust
them to one another. The Universities were not to be increased in
number, but all such anomalous institutions as King's College and
University College were to be co-ordinated to the existing Universities;
and the Universities were to establish "faculties" in great centres of
population, supply professors and lecturers, and then examine and confer
degrees. Then the country should be mapped out into eight or ten
districts, and each of these districts should have a Provincial
School-Board, which should "represent the State in the country," keep
the Minister informed of local requirements, and be the organ of
communication between him and the schools in its jurisdiction. The exact
amount of interference, inspection, and control which the Minister, the
Council, and the Boards should exercise should vary in accordance with
the grade of the schools: it should be greater in the elementary
schools, less in the higher. But, in their degree, all, from Eton
downwards, were to be subject to it. Then came the most revolutionary
part of the whole scheme. Mr. Creakle and his congeners were to be
abolished. They were not to be put to a violent death, but they were to
be starved out. The whole face of the country is studded with small
grammar-schools or foundation-schools, like knots in a network; and
these schools, enlarged and reformed, were to be the ordinary
training-places of the Middle Class. Where they did not exist, similar
schools were to be created by the State--"Royal or Public Schools"--and
these, like all the rest, were to be subject to the Minister and to the
Provincial Boards. Arnold contended that ancient schools so revived, and
modern schools so constituted, would have a dignity and a status such as
no private school could attain, and would be free from the