literature, and degrading history to the standard of a second-class optional subject. History, therefore, will be shirked by any candidates who can improve their chances of success by means of better "paying" branches; so that Sandhurst will be recruited by many a cadet absolutely without knowledge of any branch even of military history.

The specific complaint of past years, in regard to this examination, has always been that encouragement was given to the bookworm at the expense of the more desirable athlete; and that it was ridiculous to put the English officer of the future through his facings in Chaucer or Spenser, or indeed in any purely literary study. In their condemnation of "English these malcontents were helping to undermine the very work that was the mainstay of youths who during their school career had scarcely attained mediocrity in classics or mathematics. It was the very branch by means of which they could hope to scramble over the last stile."

A reference to the analyses of these competitions will show that no subject was so popular as "English ;" and, if marks go to prove anything, in none was the general level of proficiency so well maintained. Let it be remembered that the great mass of Sandburst candidates is composed of those whose peculiar tastes and abilities have been more in the direction of the playing-field than the study, and that public opinion persists in pointing to such youths as the most desirable for our officers. Unfortunately for them they have belonged to the less industrious of schoolboys, and when they come to see the necessity of serious study, it is only natural they should lean towards subjects in which they have not already been proved to be wretchedly deficient. There can be no just principle in any competition which does not recognise unreservedly the existence of various degrees of ability, and many distinctions of special aptitude. It is

monstrous to assume that because a lad is not a scholar he is fit for nothing; and monstrous to condemn him for studying the very books which have been written or edited by some of the most capable men of his generation.

Easy enough is it to follow the train of reasoning that has led to the abandonment of a course of literature for army students; but it is quite impossible to understand why at least. some portion of history, embracing a Military Campaign, has not been made obligatory. This was to be looked for, not only in the interests of the service, but as a preparation for future studies at Sandhurst. Instead of this, history is classed as one of the four optional subjects; and quality is to be sacrificed to quantity by the vexatious introduction of a paper involving a knowledge of facts from the time of the early Britons to the present reign. Many will therefore avoid this part of the programme if they possibly can, and will enter Sandhurst ignorant of the names of the great adversaries of Marlborough and Wellington; never having seen or discussed the plan of a battle, and totally untrained to follow the lectures of their military instructors. Shade of the Napiers! We know, at least, how not to do it.

The second illustration is a more serious one, and deals, not with a larger body of men, but with men of a different stamp, whose intellectual aims are higher and whose ambition it is to serve their country in the Civil Service of India.

There is no doubt whatever that the literary movement aforesaid is the direct outcome of the different stages of improvement in the education of candidates for this service who were examined under Lord Macaulay's scheme of 1855. This is proved beyond all question in each successive annual report of the Civil Service Commissioners up to the year 1878. There are the volumes, duly signed and delivered to the public; each one marking a stage of progress as regularly as the

milestone on the Queen's highway. There is nothing theoretical or speculative about them; nothing but facts overwhelmingly convincing Study them side by side with the Publishers' Circulars, and we find the relation of cause and effect unmistakably marked. To be brief, the standard was gradually raised along the entire range of public education; books were published with amazing rapidity to meet the standard; and candidates in abundance met and conquered the standard.

English literature and history were encouraged by means of rewards in marks suitable to their importance, and with complete success. The classical examination included papers in Greek and Roman history, literature, and antiquities; and a fair knowledge of the literature and history of France, Germany, and Italy was expected of those who asked to be examined in the languages of one or other of these countries. The standard, in fact, was well adjusted to the important prizes to be won; and, except perhaps for the classification of modern languages, the field was a fair one for all comers. Certainly the English branches came to be the most popular. But just as this literary and scholarly movement had reached its zenith, it was discovered we were all wrong. An order from the Secretary of State for India in Council decreed that everything must be changed, and down came the precious fabric. As to the political expediency of Lord Salisbury's Minute there are certainly more "noes" than "ayes," both in England and in India; but in regard to its harmfulness from an educational point of view, the following facts must speak for themselves.

By the stratagem of lowering the age an excuse was provided for falling back into the old grooves, and of practically reducing the standard of prize winners to one of grammar and figures. The literary and historical portions of the examination in French, German and Italian, and even in Latin and Greek, have been lopped off, and

the test in each restricted to fragments of translation and composition; and by way of dealing a death-blow to the study of English literature and history so few marks are assigned to each that already half the candidates have arrived at the conclusion that the game is no longer worth the candle. Indeed, they can no more now afford to give serious thought to history and literature, and neglect for a single week the orthodox and only remunerative subjects, than a parliamentary candidate can at the present moment abandon electioneering for ballooning. Boys are quite as self-seeking and alive to the main chance as their rulers who frame these strange laws.

It is inconceivable that so ripe an English scholar as Lord Salisbury cau have signed this decree for the depression of English with a full knowledge of what was likely, nay sure, to happen. There must, indeed, have been some most plausible and alluring arguments at work to have induced him to do in 1878 what he himself denounced with so much force only eighteen months ago.

During a discussion in the House of Lords early last year on the question, proposed by the War Office, for changes in the scheme of examination for milit-, ary students (the scheme already mentioned), his lordship appeared as the champion of English studies, and eloquently condemned the proposal as impolitic and shortsighted. Curiously enough, there was no Liberal peer present able to play a trump card in the game of party-politics by reminding the the former Secretary for India of a measure identical in purport with that before the House, for which, though not responsible for its inspiration, he was there to answer. But let that pass. The full effect of

the mischief that has set in will be

imperfectly understood without a few statistics they shall be as few as possible.

We will take the four conventional subjects:-Latin, Greek, French trans lation and composition, and Mathe

Science, it will be observed, is in a deplorably bad way; but I am concerned here only with the English side.

Everybody, of course, takes his chance with the English essay; but, as regards history and literature, we find that already fifty per cent. of the candidates are avoiding them; whereas, in the old day, before the marks were reduced, all were glad to be examined in them. The statistics show not only deliberate depression in the estimate of the relative value of history and literature to other subjects, but positive injustice in applying this estimate. How comes it that Latin, which is set at nearly three times the value of English history or literature, is made to produce six times the value of each, and mathematics five times the value? Who shall say that lads are not

actually invited to stand aloof from self-culture in their mother-tongue, when such facts as these are printed for their guidance?

If any reader be disposed to repeat the old old cry that history is but a "cram" subject, easily "got up," I would bid him know this-that not only is there a paper on the entire range of history, but a paper on the following special periods as well, in candidates any one of which examined; and that by way of "indicating the character and amount of reading that would be regarded as satisfactory," this leaflet is distributed.

are

1. A.D. 1066-1307. Stubbs's Select Charters ; Stubbs's Constitutional History; Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. v.

2. A.D. 1461-1588. Hallam's Constitutional History of England; Froude's History of England; Brewer's Henry the Eighth. 3. A.D. 1603-1715. Hallam's Constitutional History of England; Macaulay's History of England; Gardiner's History of England; Wyon's Reign of Queen Anne. 4. A.D. 1715-1805. Lord Stanhope's History; Sir T. E. May's Constitutional History; Seeley's Expansion of England; and Massey's Reign of George the Third.

And all this for what may be got out of three hundred marks, from which one hundred are docked for "superficial knowledge!" If students cannot steer clear of superficiality on such works as these, where can they turn for safety? Could any

thing be more likely to depress the study of history among boys between the ages of seventeen and nineteen than a challenge of this forbidding nature? Of course they will prefer to turn to anything, even to a few books of Euclid, than face a task weighted with so heavy a premium; especially when they ascertain that Mr. Freeman's volume consists of nine hundred large and closely-printed pages of learned comments on the Norman and Angevin kings; that Professor Stubbs's great works must be hard reading even to University schoolmen; that the handiest edition of Mr. Froude's History is in twelve volumes covering six thousand pages, though, to be sure, Mr. Froude's

six thousand pages are easier reading than half that number from most other hands; that Brewer means two ponderous tomes in one thousand pages of equally ponderous records of the life of Henry the Eighth to the death of Wolsey; and that Mr. Gardiner's monumental work on the Personal Government of Charles the First and the fall of the monarchy is not a mere handy text-book; when, in short, they cast about for selecting a "special special period" to supplement the general paper for which Mr. Green's or Mr. Bright's History must be read, and yet find that black-mail is levied in all directions, they naturally will not imperil their chances by undertaking so much unremunerative labour.

But let it be assumed that a candidate shall know his history of Period I. as completely as Professors Stubbs and Freeman, or of Period II. as completely as Mr. Froude or Dr. Brewer; he can obtain no more than full marks.

Then let it be likewise assumed that the same candidate shall have reached the level of a Warton or a Craik in the history of English litera ture, how would he fare in contrast with a rival who in the mathematical papers, beginning with arithmetic and ending with the differential and integral calculus (not a very high standard), shall also make full marks? This would be the result:

sibility of a perfectly accurate adjustment of the relative standard that is considered equitable; but the previous tables show that in the actual process of distributing marks "English is made to fall yet another fifty per cent. Need more be said?

The old argument that classics and mathematics should take precedence, owing to the length of time that is spent on them, is only an argument in favour of the comparatively few who are blessed with classical or mathematical ability. Almost the same amount of school-time has to be given to them, will he nil he, by lads of no real aptitude for them, whose abilities, indeed, lean in a diametrically opposite direction. Ought they to pay a double penalty for their misfortune by being practically excluded from all chance of preferment in the public service By all means welcome loyally and liberally the best classical and mathematical students, for they are the representatives of the best teaching in all our chief seats of learning; but do not let us any longer wilfully shelve well-disposed workers in other useful directions.

Very tardily we are recognising responsibilities that are unspeakably important by giving increased encouragement to the study of modern languages. With our country swarming with German clerks (they are here in their tens of thousands), bringing with them a competent knowledge of French and English, doing excellent work at a low rate of wage, claiming and readily obtaining priority of choice over less useful Englishmen in our own houses of business, we are sadly in need of this crumb of comfort. Why are we, then, taking away with one hand what we are giving with the other? Surely our resources are not so scanty that, in order to provide for the necessities of embryonic modern linguists, we must contrive, after all that has been done for them, to thrust the history and literature of England into the background!

W. BAPTISTE SCOONES.

THE following pages record some first impressions of the United States during a short visit in the autumn of last year. It is with not a little misgiving that they are offered to the public. So many eminent men have been to that country lately, so much has been said and written of their experiences, by themselves and others, that the question must almost inevitably arise, What can be left for one, who boasts none of their eminence, to say? Indeed, I fear, very little. Yet I try to console myself with the reflection that no object looks quite the same to different eyes, and that there are many, very many, objects in America.

In the company of two friends I sailed from Liverpool one Saturday evening in the windy month of September, and early on the ninth morning of our voyage we made the harbour of New York. The sun was rising in the orange-coloured east; on the western horizon grey level banks of mist brooded over the still sleeping eity. Its towers and pinnacles, indistinctly seen through the dim vapour, looked full of majesty; the city itself on the bosom of the still waters might have been a home of beauty and poetry. Soon some fishing craft came out of the harbour trimming their white sails to the breeze; then a tender followed, on board of which we steamed to the custom-house quay.

About two hours after landing the examination of our luggage was completed, and we found ourselves in a commodious two-horsed cab in which we were jolted slowly along what must, I suppose, in courtesy be called the paved streets of New York. In the matter of street paving in America the resources of civilisation are by no means exhausted. Nothing worse than

the state of the roadway in New York is easily conceivable; nothing more hideous than the general aspect of the city on close inspection is humanly possible. Great square, clean, ugly blocks of buildings present themselves in uniform and tasteless repetition throughout the wearisome monotony of the "long, unlovely streets." The side-walks are disfigured with telegraph-posts; the sky is almost darkened with the dense net-work of the wires interlacing overhead. New York is nothing but half-a-dozen streets running north and south for twelve or fifteen miles, and no streets in the civilised world are less attractive or so ill adapted for the purpose of swift and easy transit. A few hours in New York is sufficient to enable you to do adequate justice to its deformities; a little longer time is required if you wish to examine the most characteristic product of America, the humanity which is found in its streets.

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No type of national life is more distinct than that of the American. You cannot mistake a genuine Yankee for the representative of any other nationality under the sun. In spite of the immense influx of emigrants from Europe this remains true. The country has an vorous appetite for fresh colonists, and a digestion which absorbs and assimilates them all. It takes an Irishman or a German landed in the States perhaps a shorter time, an Englishman or Scotchman perhaps a longer time, to become an American; but they are all transformed at last. It is not so easy to tell in what the change consists, as it is to remark the difference. Physically there is deterioration. The climate withers all; the face becomes dry and pinched, the movements slow and languid; the