Not that it was wholly wasted. A good country grammar school, neither ...

Not that it was wholly wasted. A good country grammar school, neither over-taught nor over-gamed, with a University connection and a strong local backing, gave probably as sound an education as was to be had in England: such was Wordsworth's Hawkshead, and the King's School at Canterbury where Russell Dickens looked wistfully through the gates at the boyhood he had never known, and Tiverton and Ipswich and many more.

They made good provision for the sons of the lower gentry, superior tradesmen, and farmers; a sound stock and fertile in capacity.

When they were not avail-able,

the deficiency had to be

made good by the state school of all grades, or the proprietary school.

But beneath the level of schools which were in touch with the Universities all was chaos, where those which aimed lowest seem to have done best. The rest, the rank and file of the secondary schools, under-staffed by untaught ushers, were turning out, at fifteen or so, the boys who were to

be the executive

of the late Victorian industries and professions, and could be fairly described as the worst educated middle class in Europe.

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