THE WELLINGTON COLLEGE.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 11, 14 January 1881, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON COLLEGE.

♦ The report of the Bey. W. J. Habens, Inspector of Schools, on the Wellington College, which was read at yesterday's meeting of the Board of Governors, may be dismissed with scant notice. There is really nothing in it. He tells, in an immense number of words, what we all knew perfectly well before, that the College is in a wretched state of insolvency, and that the work done is very unsatisfactory. But he qualifies the former by various theoretical calculations in regard to the prospective finances, and the latter by assuming that the masters are overworked, although he is not quite sure how or why this is the case, and hazards various guesses in support of his theory. He says, "I see no reason to think that the attainments of the masters are insufficient, but I am sure they have more work to do than they ought to have." Yet there are six masters and "professors" to 87 boys and 16 girls. Surely six men ought to be able to teach 103 pupils efficiently? Mr. Habens does not think so. He says — " The programme of work and the time-tables of the classes are, I think, quite as satisfactory as could be expected, considering that the number of teachers is inadequate to the work to be done." Mr. Habens explains that he was unable to see the school at work, as it waß holiday time, so he inspected the exercise-book and the papers prepared for the Christmas examination. la the former he found " signs of careless habits," and also " manyv/ncorreeted errors." This seems to us a, most serious indictment against the masters whose duty it was to correct the errors in the exercises. If that is the perfunctory way in which the work is done, no wonder the result is unsatisfactory. But Mr. Habens evidently trembled when he read over what he had written, for he hastily rushes into another of his usual qualifications, adding, "but I was informed that the more careful boys kept their books at home when they were not wanted in school, so that I did not see the beHt." We really fail to see how that forms the slightest justification for leaving errors uncorrected in exeroisea. Do only "careful boys" need supervision in their work ? The Inspector-General proceeds to notice "very great irregnlarity in the work of any one form in any given subject, and similar unevenne3s in the work done by one boy in several subjects." This is due, he thinks, " partly to the laziness of some of the boys, andpartlyto want of classification." He adds, " The classification appears to depend on Latin alone, and consequently boys who are very unequal in other subjects, in mathematics for example, are taught together," but he does not tell us who is blameworthy for this obviously improper system which he so timidly ventures to condemn. But even Latin, which seems to be the one thing needful (and the only one at the Wellington College) does not pass muster. Mr. Habens remarks, " considering that Latin is the subject on which the classification of the pupils depends, the attainments of the sth form in that subject are not satisfactory." We should like to know what really is satisfactory, but we fail to find it in Mr. Habens' report. He qualifies again, as usual, giving his opinion that "the low places taken in the various forms by some of the boys of longest standing are an indication of want of time to compel the attention and interest of unwilling pupils ; it is fair to assume that time rather than power is wanting." Why ? And what does the Inspector-General propose? Would he like the length of school hours extended, or the duration of each day increased to 48 hours ? He vouchsafes no explanation, no recommendation, indeed no information that anybody could not have easily obtained juet as well without the assistance of this very verbose and vacuous document. If this is all that Mr. Habens can give us in the shape of a report, he might just as well have spared himself the ■f.rnnVilo nf wrnf.incr if.