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    540 The Leader and Saturday Analyst. | J...

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    REBECCA AND TJIE TURNPIKES., *' THrHO wa...

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    ~——Etm\L-Im^I0ns-^^^ — We Know Pretty We...

    ments are and what are not admissible , is sure to become a : * prominent one , now that school-work is being brought to tbe ordeal which will disgrace sham and superficial teaching . It is no longer a question between the schooln . aster and ¦ ¦ the- parent merely , but between the schoolmaster arid the public ; and the former has aright , in justice to himself , to insist upon certain points as well as the parent If the parent demands a certain standard of acquirement , the master has a right to demand that the subjects shall be limited in which that standard of attainment is expected ; and he has further a right to decline being in any way responsible for the attainments of any pupil who has not been under his care three , or at the very least two years ; he has an absolute indul and all

    right , also , to prohibit all demands for gence , interference with discipline ; his character is publicly at stake , and he cannot afford to sacrifice it for the whims of fathers and mothers , so they must be careful of tlieir choice of a master , whom they will be obliged to trust implicitly . The examiners , too , have their duties ; they ought to examine on sound and searching , but liberal principles , looking at the substance of knowledge , not at pet grammars , formula ? , and systems . They ousjht to make public not merely the successes , but the disgraceful failures of those who are brought to them for examination ; they ought to reject all candidates under the age of fifteen at the lowest , and to decline proceeding with an examination where they discover an evident want of ordinary natural capacity in the examinee . These conditions would be fair for all parties ; we should have many wholesome

    results . Parents would choose their schools according to certain principles , and with reference to certain wants and a certain destination . They would be more careful in their demands , and schoolmasters more sparing in their professions ; boys would not be subject to eternal changes of school and system ; the public would be better served , parents less disappointed . There is one thing especially th-tt the latter must give up , —a demand for depth and width too , otherwise the charge of cruelty to their children will rest on themselves , not on the masters , whose sense and safety will he , indeed , in a downright refusal of a very multifarious education .

    When these middle-class examinations first came into vogue we remember that there was a complaint in the Times of the extra hours of work in consequence . Of course this is the natural result , if parents demand a multitude of _ acquisitions and considerable perfection in all of them , especially if , in addition , they insiston las discipline . Itational demands on the part of parents may be satisfied ~ "By moderate and reasonable exertionf on the- part of pupils , and moderate discipline on the part of teachers . A sood searching system of examination is equally incompatible disciftne d

    with a maudlin tenderness in parents relaxing- p ^ ana mawkish vanity requiring for their children a dozen different fie ds of display . Every parent may reasonably expect from a lad of decent capacity , and sixteen years of age , good spelling , good writing , a fair knowledge of geography , of one ancient and one modern language , of the main outline ; of English history , arid of the more important eras of the histories of France , Rome , arid Greece . These should form the groundwork of the secular knowledge of every middlerclass boy of sixteen , whatever may be his special destination : add Greek or mechanics , or an Oriental language , as required . What we have JreYe—indicated may , we are sure , be acquired with moderate industry on the part of the boy , and fair exertion on the part of the master , if lie knows his business , With six or seven hours' work a day . The master should choose his own discipline ; and . in most cases we feel quite sure that this discipline ne £ d not be very severe . We have been led to make these few plain remarks from a certainty that in consequence of the many prcemia now dependent on examination , schools are likely to be worked at high pressure . The grand use of these competitive and middle-class examinations is , or ought t 6 be , their universality ; not merely designed to offer to schoolmasters the opportunity of displaying their pattern-cards and model boys , but to offer to parents the opportunity of ascertaining that any or all of their sons have attained , at any rate , a respectable prDfiqiency in those points in which their teachers have professed to give them instruction . The ' schoolmasters' trick of making their plny _ and getting their credit out of a few clever lads , is not confined to England ; and we quote a confirmatory passage in which the Frenchman , Jules Janin , utters his complaints of one of his own instructors . After' asserting that the professor was utterly indifferent to all but the quick prize-boys , he adds , " My professor had need of no more tlmn a glance at my capacity to judge that I was not a runner worthy of his attention . He pushed me on to tt bench , with about some thirty of my fellow pupils , equally useless with myself for his projects and his lessons . " Many a pupil of our plausible large schools , despite their high name und frequent university distinctions , might , in after-years , on reflecting on his school career , utter the same complaint of a system which Junes Janin here justly calls " la chose la plus miserable du monde . " If our examinations do not in a . measure rectify this * , iljey will indeed have been established in vain j they will neither do justice to parents , nor will they forward , as they onght to do , the earnest effort of tho present a ^ o to bring forward real mevit in spite of aristocratic and , indeed , of all unworthy personal influence .

    540 The Leader And Saturday Analyst. | J...

    540 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . | June 9 , 1860 .

    Rebecca And Tjie Turnpikes., *' Thrho Wa...

    REBECCA AND TJIE TURNPIKES ., * ' THrHO wan BeIjecoaP" said a Welsh clergyman not long ngo VV to a hopeful little boy in the Sunday * sehool . " Please , sir , " said the little fellow , proud at once of his English and of his iuforination , " she pulled down the turnpike at Cymwllyddion . " And

    why did Rebecca pull down the turnpike aforesaid ? asks the political philosopher ; and the answer wilLlead us into a disquisition upon turnpikes in general , and the manner in which roads may be best kept in repair . The plan , in this country is to levy a toll upon _ all beasts of burden and all carriages , varying as to the number ot horses and number of wheels , and extending- to cattle of all descriptions . This toll is collected on the roads themselves , and is payable at certain structures constructed by the wayside , and furnished with a bar or gate extending across the road , so as to prevent passage till the toll be paid . Each district is under the management of trustees , who form a corporation , can sue and be sued , have

    a common seal , and are enabled to do all acts of which a corporation is capable . They let the tolls at their separate gates by tender , or by auction , appoint a surveyor , and are bound to keep the roads in order in their district . There are a multiplicity of Acts ot Parliament in force on the subject , some applicable generally , and some only m particular districts ; and the working of the system has been so far good that in no country are the roads better than in our own . Nor has the introduction of railways had the effect , which was so confidently predicted when they were first established , for instead ot the highways having been allowed gradually to fall out ot repair , they are at " the present moment in better order than ever ; and not only so , but the very parish roads , which twenty years ago would have been a disgrace to Spain or Italy , are almost as good as the highways . Yet , in spite of this excellence , there is a wide-spread dissatisfaction on the subject , and Rebecca only expressed the feelinsrs of her . countrymen , in general when she pulled down the

    turnpike at Cymwllyddion . The theory of the system is that everybody should pay for what he uses ; parish roads are for parish purposes , and need be no better than such purposes roquire . For this the highway rate collected in the parish itself will be sufficient j but as * the * king ' s -highway , . ' . camino real , must be in better condition for the public accommodation , so it is right that the public should be prepared to pay lor the accommodation it requires . This desideratum is accomplished by the turnpikes with their graduated system of tolls , taking from the farmer for his cart or his flock of sheep , his herd of pigs , or his drove of oxen ; from the gentleman for his hack , his hunter , or his carriage ; froni the apothecary for his £ igy and from the parson for his sober cob , exactly in proportion to ' . •' the advantage -which each derives from thesmooth arid , levelled ( jauseway ; At first sight it would appear that the " incidence , " to

    use the technical phrase , of the tax is as fair as it could possibly be made ; indeed the very description of it seems to imply as much . He who walks , and who therefore is independent of the breadth of the way , and almost as riiuch so of its condition , will obtain all that he requires froni the highway rate , which he must pay as a householder , —arid so far as he uses any public conveyance , so far the turnpikes , like all other expenses ,-are included in his fare . Ifiie choose to have a private carriage , or to hire one for any special service , he can hardly complain that he lias to pay for his luxuries . But when we inquire as to the rates paid , and find that they vary with every district , that in some they are very high , so as to form a serious item in a farmer ' s expenditure , and even to affect the question of wages , while in others they are so low as scarcely to be felt at all , we see that the incidence ot the taxis by no means so fair as its

    ~^ re 6 ^ ppearance ~ wouW 4 ea < l-us-to ~ suppose . _ irh ^^ vary with the amount of traffic , for it is clear that where there is little of this , arid the roads must nevertheless be kept in equal repair with the most frequented arteries of the kingdom , they must be higher to make up for the deficiency . They must depend on the character of the surface . Roads in mountainous districts must cost more to make and keep in order than roads on level plains . They must depend on the nature of the soil , both because some are more naturally subject to decay than others , and because material for

    their construction and restoration is near , and therefore abundant and cheap in Some regions , while in others it has to be fetched / rora considerable distances ; and , lastly , they must depend on the facility of obtaining labour , and this of course will vary in various parts of the kingdom . In consequence of this , we shall find some counties / where the traveller will drive many miles without finding a turnpike , and when he does find one the toll will be low , while ia others the pike will recur every three or four miles , and the toll will be so high as to make the drive an expensive luxury . the

    This , of itself , is bad enough . But it is far from being whole of the evil . In great towns , and especially in the metropolis , the turnpikes become a nuisance , as well as an expense , on very many occasions . Market days in great mwket towns give ample occasion for the Christian exercise of patience 5 no small amount of inconvenience is frequently suffered by those who , to use the country phrase , " keep the markers ; " and in wet weather the damage as well as the inconvenience , is often very considerable . But this is a small tiling * in comparison with the mischiefs which they occasion in a metropolis like London . Many years ago , tho turnpike at the Elephant and Castlo had to bo removed , bocause the nuisance had

    become intolerable ; tho blockade of cart * , stages , waggons , gigs , omnibuses ^ as that which is now witnessed every morning 1 from nine or halfpast nine o ' clock to about half-past elevon , at London Bridge . Who that has ever , driven down from London to tjhe Derby can forget the conflict which ho hits witnessed lit Kennington Gate—the fighting 1 , the cursing-, the riot , the broken shufts and broken pannels , and broken heads p In fact , so great has become the inconvenience in London , that an , attempt has been more than onco made—an attempt which will soon , wo trust , be successful- ^ -to enact Rebecca . in Parliament , ami , so far as tho suburbs of the metropolis are concerned , to pull down all the turnpike gates .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 9, 1860, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09061860/page/8/