Let us then give home education a chance and see what can come of that, and let our nurses be French and German, so that the children may learn these languages with their earliest breath; and, moreover, let us in some measure educate our children for what they are going to be. It is no manner of use to give those who are to be in trade the same teaching as that required for the learned professions; and I venture to state that if a man has to take to trade the sooner he does it the better. Eighteen ought to see him in harness of a light kind, but harness all the same; and I furthermore state boldly that it is absolutely waste of time and money and everything else to send boys abroad to school. They never do any good there, and they may get into most frightful mischief. If boys must be sent to France or Germany, take them yourselves, otherwise you may be quite sure that both time and money are wasted. I am not speaking without book, and I have never heard of one school, either in France or Germany, where the education was of the least use, neither will it be until more schools follow the example of Clifton, and form settlements abroad on the lines of our public schools; though even then I am inclined to adhere to my own opinion and urge on parents, whose sons require to know French and German thoroughly, to go to both places themselves, and stay a couple of years in each in some good town. If they do they will achieve their object, and their boys will command far higher prices in the labour market than those can who do not know any languages except their own, and a certain amount of Latin and Greek, which, it seems to me, they learn only to forget as soon as ever they can manage to do so.
But if parents will not hear of home education they must most carefully select the preparatory school, and they must manage to afford in addition a first-rate public school, for nothing can possibly be worse than a cheap or inferior place of education; and it is an astonishing fact to me that in such an important matter as is education one requires as a rule so little guarantee that we actually receive what we are paying for.
No one can be a lawyer or doctor without credentials; anyone who likes can open a school, and command scholars too. Why should not the State interfere here?--it is very fond of interfering dreadfully on far less important matters--and say boldly that no one shall have a school at all until he has qualified himself in the eye of the State, and is diplomaed or hall-marked in such a manner that one can tell at once whether he is fitted for the work or not? Until this is done I much fear that preparatory schools will not improve to any great extent, and that the middle classes will continue to send their children to people who are utterly unfit for the work they have undertaken. A personal reference from some parent, often enough from one who knows little indeed about his children, and possibly a few letters after the name, are considered quite sufficient guarantee by most people that they are obtaining all that they are paying for.