The blame must, I fear, fall first upon the Universities. I am not
speaking of the education there provided for the honour men, which
is often excellent of its kind; though it must be confessed that
the keenest and best enthusiasm seems to me there to be drifting
away from the literary side of education. But while an old and
outworn humanist tradition is allowed to prevail, while the studies
of the average passman are allowed to be diffuse, desultory, and
aimless, and of a kind from which it is useless to expect either
animation or precision, so long will a blight rest upon the
education of the country. While boys of average abilities continue
to be sent to the Universities, and while the Universities maintain
the classical fence, so long will the so-called modern sides at
schools continue to be collections of more or less incapable boys.
And in decrying modern sides, as even headmasters of great schools
have been often known to do, it is very seldom stated that the
average of ability in these departments tends to be so low that
even the masters who teach in them teach without faith or interest.

It may be thought of these considerations that they resemble the
attitude of Carlyle, of whom FitzGerald said that he had sat for
many years pretty comfortably in his study at Chelsea, scolding all
the world for not being heroic, but without being very precise in
telling them how. But this is a case where individual action is out
of the question; and if I am asked to name a simple reform which
would have an effect, I would suggest that a careful revision of
the education of passmen at our Universities is the best and most
practical step to take.

And, for the schools, the only solution possible is that the
directors of secondary education should devise a real and simple