are dominated by the public schools for which they prepare their boys, and that this domination is exercised thru the entrance and scholarship examinations set by the public school authorities. To win a scholarship at a public school or to gain fairly advanced standing there, a boy must show by examination that he has reached a high standard of proficiency in classics and mathematics, for, practically, new boys are placed, that is, assigned to forms, on these two subjects alone. Some knowledge of the Scriptures, of geography, of history, of French, and of English grammar and composition is assumed; but, so far as marks and classification are concerned, such knowledge goes practically unrecognized. As would naturally be expected, the preference thus accorded by the public school authorities to the classics and mathematics is reflected in the time-tables of the preparatory schools. One school, for example, which makes a specialty of competing for scholarships, reports sixteen full hours a week, exclusive of time spent in preparation, as given by boys 13 years of age to the classics.

For detailed transcripts of individual time-tables, I must refer those interested to the volume of parliamentary reports already mentioned. It will be sufficient for my present purpose to give some general averages, which, while not precisely applicable to any individual school, represent fairly the prevailing usage, and to supplement these general averages by giving the actual time-table of a typical preparatory school. Accordingly, the average amount of time given in the preparatory schools by boys of from 9 to 10 years of age, exclusive of the time given to the preparation of lessons, is: to Latin, 5 hrs. 49 min. a week; mathematics, 5 hrs. 23 min.; French, 2 hrs. 49 min.; English, including language, literature, grammar, and composition, 2 hrs. 49 min.; writing or dictation, 2 hrs. 25 min.; Scripture lessons, 2 hrs. 12 min.; history, 1 hr. 57 min.; geography, I hr. 41 min.; drawing, 1 hr. 31 min.; elementary science, 57 min. The average amount of time, exclusive of the time spent in preparation, given by boys 13 years of age to these subjects, is: classics, 12 hrs. 23 min., divided between Latin, 7 hrs. 49 min., and Greek, 4 hrs. 34 min.; mathematics,

5 hrs. 38 min.; French, 3 hrs. 8 min.; Scripture lessons, 2 hrs. 3 min.; history, 1 hr. 50 min.; drawing, 1 hr. 39 min.; geography, 1 hr. 17 min.; English, including language, literature, grammar, and composition, 1 hr. 10 min. ; writing or dictation, 53 min.; elementary science, 53 min. In some schools German is alternative with Greek; but in 59 per cent. of the schools reported, German is not taught at all. The average amount of time given to German in the schools in which it is taught is 3 hrs. 41 min. a week; and in such schools, as the time required for German is less than the time required for Greek, the time gained is added to mathematics and French. The average total amount of time, including time spent in preparation, given to the foregoing subjects, is: for boys of from 9 to 10 years of age, 30 hrs. a week; for boys 13 years of age, 35 hrs. Latin is begun at the age of 9 years; Greek is sometimes not begun before the age of 12, usually at the age of II, sometimes still earlier; Euclid, by which is meant demonstrational as distinguished from objective geometry, and algebra are begun at the age of II.

No one school, it is to be noted, teaches all the foregoing subjects. For example, 3.7 per cent. of the schools reported teach no geography, and 6.2 per cent. do not teach it in the top form, that is, in the class of 13-year-old boys; 72.5 per cent. of the schools reported teach no elementary science whatever, and 87.7 per cent. do not teach it in the top form; 38.7 per cent. of the schools reported do not teach writing or dictation in the top form; in 34.2 per cent. of the schools reported, drawing is an optional subject. The averages here quoted, then, are averages made up from the totals actually returned for each subject by the 120 schools reported,

The foregoing statement, as already indicated, gives averages calculated from the returns received from 120 preparatory schools. The following time-table, which shows the number of hours given to each subject per week inclusive of the time spent in preparation, is the actual time-table of a fairly representative preparatory school for the summer term of the year 1899:

The time-tables which I have thus summarized show the number of hours given to each subject included in the regular course of study of the schools under consideration, and reveal clearly the supreme importance attached, under the ideal embodied in the requirements of the public schools, to the classics and mathematics; but they do not necessarily indicate the standard of attainment aimed at in those subjects. For information on this point we must consult the entrance requirements of the public schools, and especially we must learn how these requirements are to be interpreted. In other words, we must consult the examinations set for admission to the public schools. Moreover, as the entrance scholarship examination differs from the ordinary entrance examination in degree only, and not in kind, and as it is the scholarship examination thru which the public school determines the content and scope of the course of study for clever and average preparatory school boys alike, we may safely found our estimate of what the English

preparatory school aims to do for boys of 14 on the scholarship examination papers by which the clever boys are tested when they appear as applicants for admission to the public schools. As a precaution against too high an estimate, we may note in advance that only about 8 per cent. of the candidates for admission of a given year reach a sufficiently high standard in the examination to secure election to a scholarship.2

Altho the papers set in other departments would also be significant and instructive, I have, in the interest of brevity, limited myself in selecting specimen entrance scholarship examinations to the two subjects which I have spoken of as rated first in importance in the preparatory school program; namely, classics and mathematics. Moreover, as the Eton scholarship examination papers, as printed in the parliamentary report already referred to, afford fuller information than the others as to the conditions under which the examinations were taken, giving the age of the candidates and the time allowed for the writing of the answer papers, I shall select the examinations offered as specimens from the Eton collection exclusively. But, in view of this limitation of the field of selection, I may add that the mathematical paper offered from the Eton collection is somewhat more elementary than certain others included in the parliamentary report. The latter, being set for boys who had specialized in mathematics instead of classics, cover trigonemtry and advanced algebra. By way of introduction to the subjoined Eton entrance scholarship papers, a few words of statistical information about the scholarships to which they lead will be of interest.

The ordinary annual fees for a boy at Eton amount to £136 IOS.; but the fees for a scholar, as the winner of a scholarship is called, are only £20 10s. The annual value of a scholarship, therefore, is £116. The scholarships are derived from endowments, and the object for which they are maintained is to attract clever boys to the school. The examination of the

In the course of the discussion of this paper, Mr. John H. Denbigh, a gentleman familiar with English conditions, said that the small proportion of candidates clected to scholarships was due to the limited number of scholarships to be awarded, not to the defective preparation of the candidates.

candidates is conducted mainly by outside examiners. There are seventy of these scholarships in all, and the seventy boys who hold them, called "scholars" in distinction from the commoners," live by themselves in a separate house called the "College." It may be interesting to note, in passing, that these seventy picked boys are not inferior to their associates in athletic prowess.

The following papers were set for boys under 14 years of age at the Eton scholarship election of July, 1899. The time allowed for each paper was two hours. The passages set for translation were unseen passages, and were unaccompanied by notes or vocabularies.

I. For Latin Prose Composition

"I have long since avowed my belief that, in accordance with God's purpose, each nation of the earth possesses a peculiar character adapted to the duties assigned to each in the great scheme of human affairs.

Thus to France was appointed by the Supreme Ruler of mankind the duty of civilizing the European world. To England it has been given to guide all other states to commercial wealth, to excellence in the useful arts of life, and to political liberty. But to Germany was delegated the highest and noblest trust. For in Germany we revere the mother of nations, the reformer of corrupted religion, the preserver of the liberties and independence of the republic of nations. Weakened as she has been for aggressive war by the division of her territory into so many states, yet in that very weakness she has found her strength in the beneficent career she was destined to pursue. Our age has seen her assumption of her proper place in the republic of letters, and we ourselves are witnesses how, in this new sphere of distinction, she has exhibited the same strength which more than a thousand years ago enabled her to lay in this island the basis of government, of which, if we are true to ourselves, a thousand years will scarcely see the overthrow."

II. Latin Translation

1. [A narrative passage from Tacitus, of which the subject is]: "The poisoned prince calls on his friends to avenge his death.

"Caesar paulisper ad spem erectus, dein fesso corpore, ubi finis aderat, adsistentes amicos in hunc modum adloquitur: Si fato concederem, iustus mihi dolor etiam adversus deos esset, quod me parentibus liberis patriae praematuro exitu raperent. Nunc scelere Plancinae interceptus ultimas preces pectoribus vestrîs relinquo: Si quos spes meae, si quos propinquus sanguis, etiam quos invidia erga viventem movebat, inlacrimabunt quondam florentem et tot bellorum superstitem muliebri fraude cecidisse. Erit vobis locus querendi apud senatum, invocandi leges. Non hoc praecipuum amicorum munus est, prosequi mortuum ignavo questu, sed quae voluerit meminisse, quae mandaverit exsequi. Flebunt Germanicum etiam ignoti: