men. In French, it has been unkindly remarked, ange is always masculine, bête always feminine: there is no belleange, no bête-noir: and so "Writer-on-school-method" is always masculine. This should be seen to. Lancaster,

Bell, Pestalozzi, Fröbel, Herbert Spencer-are there no she-prophets? If "Man marks the earth with ruin, his control" should stop short of girls' schools.

Far be it from me to dispute the point here.

It may be on account of this inability to understand girl, that I have only one anecdote in stock for my 50,000 daughters:

The Squire's wife at Exhurst is not pleased with the manners of the girls, since that Miss A. took charge of the school. The other day Her Excellency met Mary Hodge in the lane, and did not meet with due reverence. She went on to Mrs. Hodge's cottage, and made complaint: "I met Mary in the lane just now, and she didn't curtsey to me, and I do think, &c., &c."

"Well, ma'am," said Mrs. Hodge, deprecatingly, "you see curtseying's gone hout now; but if you'd 'a sloped to our Mary, I'm sure she'd 'a sloped to you."

Dear girls! I have no stories to tell of them; but though they did not lend themselves to humorous treatment, they were very delightful; and there was not one among the whole 50,000 who would have changed me for Tabitha Brown, or Priscilla Jones, or Minerva Robinson.

CHAPTER XVIII

INSPECTORS

66

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."
-Daniel xii. 4

NOT so much Inspectors, as H.M. Inspectors: that distinction was always present to the mind of a selfrespecting H.M.I. The indoor staff fell back on the imaginary peerage, which they called "My Lords": the outdoor staff went straight to the fountain of honour. And when on some sudden emergency I called at the house of an exceedingly deaf Rector (who had forgotten my face) and shouted through a trumpet that I was THE INSPECTOR, I was a little hurt to be asked "WHAT OF?" I fear he ranked me with my esteemed colleague in the other nuisances branch.

There were strange rumours thirty years ago of the all but regal position assumed by the pioneers of inspection. And no doubt they received much encouragement in country districts. In one corner of Boeotia I found a surprising instance of this homage. I had spent the night at "The Lion" at Littletown; the accommodation was humble, but sufficient; the bill presented in the morning was aspiring, and more than sufficient. I suggested some abatement and got it. Two or three years afterwards my successor proposed to sleep at the

"Lion," but prudently enquired beforehand whether they were likely to make him comfortable. The landlord assured him there was no cause for alarm; he had been patronised by Royalty. On further enquiry it appeared that the Royalty was ME. L'état, c'était moi.

Thanks

to large envelopes, "On Her Majesty's Service," addressed to H.M. Inspector, and unsoiled with the common postage stamp, I had been raised to Royal rank, and the reputation of the hotel and its charges had risen accordingly. I fear those loyal spirits are more cautious

now.

In a leading article in The Times I read one day that a fact, which the writer had just discussed, occurred at a time "when Inspectors of Schools were really men of mark." And about the same time I read in a novel by a lady writer that the objectionable young man of the story had got "one of those appointments which require no special capacity, such as an Inspectorship of Schools." In the latter case I took pains to find out in what Inspector's district the lady lived and I discovered that her tyrant was one of the most amiable and most exemplary of men. Among other qualifications for the post he had the voice of a turtle-dove afflicted with tonsilitis; and as a preacher -he was in Holy Orders-he was inaudible at a distance of twenty feet from the pulpit. It is recorded of him that one Sunday, after he had been preaching in a strange church, the verger, or beadle, met one of the clerical staff, who had been engaged elsewhere, and said, "You 'aven't missed much to-night, sir; we 'ad a bee in a bottle."

I cannot think how this colleague can have offended the lady unless she sat under him. Her criticism betrays a sense of personal resentment.

The complaint that things and persons are not what they were is familiar. It must have frequently been made by Eve, after her change of residence, and in the family of Noah it would be the merest commonplace. "What pterodactyles we used to have before the

Flood!"

for instance, gave lustre to the office.

But there is some justification for the lament of The Times. There were two or three Inspectors of Schools who were more distinguished than any whom I have known in later years. Dr. Temple, and Matthew Arnold, But the former was Inspector, chiefly of Training Schools" (Life, Vol. I., p. 97) for only two years; and the latter was— to put it in most courteous terms-more efficient on the literary side. "Mr. Arnold inspects our school in Westminster," a London school manager said to me. "Of course we are much honoured, and the managers make a point of attending to meet him. He arrives in the course of the morning; shakes hands with the managers and teachers; and talks very pleasantly for a few minutes; then he walks through the classes between the desks, looking over the children's shoulders at some exercises, and so makes his way to the door, and we see him no more."

His letters in his Life give some plausibility to the story his heart was not in the work, and the drudgery was distasteful. But he wrote admirable Reports in the Blue Books: there is a volume of these collected Reports before me, and I think no one reading them would detect any lack of experience in the writer. He did what we were strictly forbidden to do, and what we lesser lights were afraid to do; he freely criticised the Code, and freely suggested improvements. And throughout there

ran the three threads of humour, irony, and hard commonsense. Is it possible that my London friend slightly embellished his account? When managers got bad reports, they were dreadfully untruthful.

Mr. M. Arnold's other mission in the world of education was to supply the Office with amusement. The most detestable of our obligations was to compile a weekly diary, forwarded to Whitehall every Saturday, showing the daily employment, and the daily expenditure on travelling expenses-which the Treasury repaid. "Vex not thou the poet's mind" said his great contemporary; and it may be that such minds require special consideration, when striving to deal with prosaic details.

"Who knows what things unknown' I might have bodied Forth', if not checked by that absurd Too-too?"

sang Calverley, when his neighbour played on the "crumpled horn." And in the office the Too-too was represented by a clerk, whose mission in life was to return these diaries to negligent Inspectors with pertinent or impertinent queries. "Why not travel by train instead of taking a cab?" "Why go round by C. to get to B. ?" and so on. When in my latest days forty-five of these hateful diaries came to me weekly, I began to see the standpoint of the clerk: but in 1875 the Senior Inspectors had no such offensive duties: "they themselves were custodianed."

Arnold's district consisted of Westminster and Edmonton, a ridiculous grouping. His official address was "The Athenæum," and he lived, I believe, at Esher. By the Treasury rules, if his work at Edmonton required his attendance for two or more consecutive days, he was bound after the first day to spend the night there, or to