amount of practical knowledge, which, if they do not allow it to get altogether rusty, can be of use to them in its direct application to their after-life, as well as in its indirect influence.  To meet some such views as these, the heads of our best schools are allowing considerable latitude of subjects in their upper classes; but in most cases it would probably be better for the man if the boy’s future career, being once settled, and his own and his parents’ tastes consulted, the decision as to what optional subjects he should pursue were left with the head-master, the parent, of course, retaining a right of veto.

But I am lapsing into an educational dissertation, and must hasten back to colonial school-work.  Leaving out of consideration exceptionally clever boys, the average of learning at our better grammar schools is higher than in middle-class ones, which form the fairest standard of comparison obtainable, but lower than at public schools.  The four or five top boys in the upper sixth would invariably be in the sixth at Harrow or Rugby:  at times eight or ten would.  The rest of the upper sixth would probably be well up in the upper fifth, or in what at Rugby is called the ‘Twenty,’ while the lower sixth would compare with the lower half of the upper fifth, and higher half of the middle fifth.  Here I am taking as our standard our three or four best schools, all of which, except the Sydney Grammar School, are Victorian.  The two South Australian colleges and other leading New South Wales establishments fall far below this standard.

I think I alluded before to the want of preparation for secondary education, and the interruption of the age-equality of the schools by the advent of boys of fifteen and sixteen, who have to be put in the first or second form Between them, these two causes lower the age-standard so much that one must, on the average, estimate that a colonial boy is two years behind an English one in point of education.  This is most visible at the beginning of school-life, where, as you will have noted, the first form averages over thirteen years old, but is partially made up by the superior rate of progress if the boy remains long enough.  At seventeen he should not be more than a year behind his English contemporary.

The setting up of the matriculation examination as a standard up to which the average boy strives to make his way, has undoubtedly had a beneficial effect.  Being a reachable proximate ideal, it works strongly upon every boy’s amour propre, egging on the average and lazy to work, and by a system of honours holding out hopes of distinction to the able.  The practice of giving text-books for it encourages cram, and its width allows of shallowness; but, to counteract this, distinction in any particular subject is very highly marked.