THREE ADDRESSES

TO

GIRLS AT SCHOOL

BY THE

REV. J. M. WILSON, M.A.

HEAD MASTER OF CLIFTON COLLEGE
AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE CLIFTON HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS





London

PERCIVAL & CO.
KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN
1890

PREFACE.

The following addresses were printed for private circulation among those to whom they were delivered. But they fell also into other hands; and I have been frequently asked to publish them. I hesitated, on account of the personal and local allusions; but I have found it impossible to remove these allusions, and I have therefore reprinted the addresses in their original form.

J.M.W.

Clifton College,

Sept. 1890.

CONTENTS.

I.

EDUCATION.[1]

Now that I have given away the certificates it will be expected that I should make a few remarks on that inexhaustible subject, Education. My remarks will be brief.

I take this opportunity of explaining to our visitors the nature of the Higher Certificate examination. It is an examination instituted originally to test the efficiency of the highest forms of our public schools, and to enable boys to pass the earlier University examinations while still at school. The subjects of study are divided into four groups. In order to obtain a certificate it is necessary to pass in four subjects taken from not less than three groups. A certificate therefore ensures a sound and fairly wide education. The subjects of the groups are languages, mathematics, English history, and lastly science. One concession is made to girls which is not made to boys. They are allowed to pass in two subjects one year, and two others the next, and thus obtain their certificates piecemeal. Boys have to pass in all four subjects the same year. The High School sent in seventeen candidates for the examination in two or three of the subjects—History, Elementary Mathematics, French, German, and Latin,—and fifteen of these passed in two subjects at least: and, inasmuch as seven of them had in a previous year passed in two other subjects, they obtained their certificates. The rest carry on their two subjects, and will, we hope, obtain their certificates next summer; six of them appear to be still in the school. This is a very satisfactory result. The value of these certificates to the public is the testimony they give to the very high efficiency of the teaching. These examinations are not of the standard of the Junior or Senior Local Examinations. They are very much harder. And all who know about these matters see at a glance that a school that ventures to send in its girls for this examination only is aiming very high. The certificates for Music, given by the Harrow Music School examiners, are also recognised by the profession as having a considerable value. But on this subject I cannot speak with the same knowledge.

The value of these examinations to the mistresses is that they serve as a guide and standard for teaching. We are all of us the better for being thus kept up to the mark. Their value to you is that they help to make your work definite and sound: and that, if it is slipshod, you shall at any rate know that it is slipshod.

Therefore, speaking for the Council, and as the parent of a High School girl, and as one of the public, I may say that we set a very high value on these examinations and their results. They test and prove absolute merit. Now, you may have noticed that one of the characteristics of this school is the absence of all prizes and personal competitions within the school itself; all that only brings out the relative merit of individuals. I dare say you have wondered why this should be so, and perhaps grumbled a little. "Other girls," you say, "bring home prizes: our brothers bring home prizes; or at any rate have the chance of doing so—why don't we?" And not only you, but some friends of the school who would like to give prizes—for it is a great pleasure to give prizes—have sometimes wondered why Miss Woods says "No." I will tell you why. Miss Woods holds—and I believe she is quite right—that to introduce the element of competition, while it would certainly stimulate the clever and industrious to more work, would also certainly tend to obscure and weaken the real motives for work in all, which ought to outlive, but do not always outlive, the age at which prizes are won.

Intelligent industry, without the inducement of prizes, is a far more precious and far more durable habit than industry stimulated by incessant competition. Teaching and learning are alike the better for the absence of this element, when possible. I consider this to be one of the most striking characteristics of our High School, and one of which you ought to be most proud. It is a distinction of this school. And when you speak of it, as you well may do, with some pride, you will not forget that it is due entirely to the genius and character of your Head-mistress. I believe that one result will be, that you will be the more certain to continue to educate yourselves, and not to imagine that education is over when you leave school.

Is it necessary to say anything to you about the value of education? I think it is; because so many of the processes of education seem at the time to be drudgery, that any glimpses and reminders of the noble results attained by all this drudgery are cheering and encouraging. The reason why it is worth your while to get the best possible education you can, to continue it as long as you can, to make the very most of it by using all your intelligence and industry and vivacity, and by resolving to enjoy every detail of it, and indeed of all your school life, is that it will make you—you yourself—so much more of a person. More—as being more pleasant to others, more useful to others, in an ever-widening sphere of influence, but also more as attaining a higher development of your own nature.

Let us look at two or three ways in which, as you may easily see, education helps to do some of these things.

Education increases your interest in everything; in art, in history, in