FOOTNOTES:

[24] Dickens: Little Dorrit.

[25] And so Macduff: “He has no children.”

—Macbeth, Act IV. sc. iv.

CHAPTER XVIII
INSPECTORS

“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 self-respecting 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 Bœotia 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 pterodactyls we used to have before the Flood!”

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, for instance, gave lustre to the office. 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 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 common-sense. 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 refrain from charging his train and cab fares home again. Being a poet, of course he returned home, and charged his fare every day. “The knight of the Blue Pencil,” as he called his enemy, sharpened his blue pencil, and wrote—“Mr. M. Arnold, H.M.I. Why not stay at Edmonton?” And the great man plaintively replied: “How can you expect me to stay at Edmonton, when John Gilpin[26] couldn’t?” The account was passed.

I imagine that his rule was lenient. A colleague told me how they sat together at Whitelands Training College (where the girls have the rude wind of education tempered to them by the study of Ruskin, and the cultus of the maypole) and listened to “Recitation,” which at school we called “Lines.” The prosaic colleague, looking over the poet’s marks, noticed that every girl had got the highest mark possible, and he commented on this monotony of excellence. Arnold merely purred—“they are such charming girls.”

Of these two great men Dr. Temple represented the clerical inspector, who in those days inspected the National schools: Arnold and a few more laymen took the Protestant Dissenters, and the British and Foreign Society’s Schools. A still smaller body visited the Roman Catholics. The clerical inspectors were men who had aspirations above parochial work, and souls above common-room life. The laymen were men who wanted a fixed income and congenial work, and saw neither floating on the surface of any of the ordinary professions. It must be borne in mind that inspecting schools was only part of the early inspectors’ work: they were missionaries over all the land, and did much to stir up men and bodies of men to take an interest in education. Men of high attainments and diplomatic powers would be most valuable at such times, and if the country got them, whether clerical or lay, the country was fortunate.

There were others famous in the land besides the two above mentioned; Brookfield, Bellairs, Fitch, many more. There were also some very inefficient persons. A clergyman who dislikes the profession which he has adopted, is not necessarily the best man for the profession which he chooses for his second string. A layman who sees no prospect of success in the learned professions, need not be the best critic of the teaching profession. On the whole I think it safe to say that if we have fewer men of remarkable talent, we have fewer men of remarkable unfitness.

There were many anecdotes of the giants of old. In one county stories of the eccentric Mr. Goodheart still survive. A country rector told me some:

“Mr. G. frequently stayed here for the inspection of my school. In those days there was no such system of pupil-teacher examinations as you have now (he referred to the monthly examinations, long since dropped): the Inspector examined the candidates at their own schools, or at any convenient centre, and set his own questions. He always came to the parish school here on a Monday: slept here that night, and took St. George’s school next day, examining the pupil-teachers where he could. One year he asked me to allow the P.T.’s of both schools to come up to the Rectory at 6.30 to be examined, and of course I agreed. I was only thankful that he didn’t fix 6.30 A.M. When they came, he put them in my study; gave them questions on paper in Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, and History; and then joined me at dinner.”

“What?” said I; “and left them in the room with all your books?”

“Oh yes: he wouldn’t trouble himself about a little thing like that. Well, we dined, and we had some wine that he liked, and then he told stories about My Lords: you all do that, don’t you? And time went on. About ten o’clock the study bell rang, and the parlourmaid came in with a grin, and a message: ‘Please might the teachers go home?’ Old Goodheart had forgotten all about them.

“At St. George’s his proceedings, which never varied year by year, would have surprised you. He went first to the Boys; heard some Reading; picked out some pieces for Dictation; and gave the master a lot of Arithmetic cards to deal out. Then he went to the Girls, and did the same. Lastly he went to the Infants, where he chatted with Miss Buxom, who was a great favourite of his, till 12 or so. He wound up by returning to the Boys’ and Girls’ schools, and collecting all the Dictation and Arithmetic which had been done in his absence: also he marked the slates. The school was done.”

This took away my breath for a minute. Every “pass” was worth four shillings up to 1876, and the teachers usually got half the grant. They would not help the children, as a rule, though I have twice seen that done; but would they prevent copying?

The Rector’s eyes twinkled: “Well, we used to get better grants and better reports too from old Goodheart than we do from you.”

Odd trick: honours easy.

There were many legends also in three districts of the Rev. Mr. Bluffer, H.M.I. He was of the common-room don type: formerly, and still gourmet: formerly rough to undergraduates; now rough to managers, teachers, and children; but withal combining a certain human element and a liberal hand in spending his own money. “Why,” I once asked, “did not the managers rise up, and demand Bluffer’s head on a charger?” And the answer was, that the old sinner would at times wash down his advice and criticisms with cheques in aid of struggling schools.

There was need of some washing. The Secretary of the Department told me, some time after Bluffer’s death, a story of H.M.I.’s behaviour in school. The master was an elderly man of the village pedagogue type, and his fumbling ways were a little irritating to an official in a hurry. The first class wanted reading books, and the old man went off to fetch them; searched in one cupboard unavailingly; found them in another; collected them; piled them up in his arms, and limped back.

“Look alive, man!” shouted Bluffer, with a vigorous slap on his fat thigh. The master jumped: down went the books, and the children roared.

The manager, who told the story to the Secretary, was a peer of the realm, and a wealthy one. I think if he had kicked Bluffer out of the room—say 40s. and costs—and had let the Government grant go hang, he would have enjoyed himself more on his death-bed—and thereafter.

But yet, as I said, there was a human element in Bluffer. From another country school after the inspection the mistress wrote to her former headmaster:

“Her Majesty’s Inspector has been here. He was in a lovely temper. When he had done, he kissed all the boys, and all the girls: then he kissed the pupil-teachers; and last, but not least, he did not omit your humble servant.”

“On ne s’arrête pas dans un si beau chemin,” said Mr. Pleydell, when he saluted Julia Mannering after Lucy Bertram. It reminds one also of the old cottager who learned for the first time that Solomon had had all those wives: “Lor, sir, what blessed privileges them early Christians had.”

Bluffer’s last district was in a large town, and a friend of mine was a manager of a school therein. When the day of inspection arrived, the rector was away, and my friend, being senior curate, was left to receive the great man. He knew Bluffer by reputation, and with commendable prudence enquired at the Inspector’s London club what, as Mr. Weller would put it, “was his partickler wanity.” It was oysters, and oysters accordingly were laid in. On the appointed day the curate approached the official, explained his position as vicegerent, and proffered hospitality. The inspector hesitated: to lunch with a curate was hazardous, and, indeed, pessimi exempli: but this curate was a Fellow of his college, and had “sat at good men’s feasts, and from his eyelid wiped a tear” when the cook fell short of excellence; it was a long way to the hotel: on the whole he thought he would venture.

“And when he came to my lodgings,” the curate reported, “and saw the oysters laid out on the table, and the brown bread and butter, his face lit up with a heavenly smile, and the report was excellent.”

No such mitigating features were noted in Snarler’s reputation. Perhaps it was malice that attributed to him the appalling statement, “I never feel that I have done my duty in school unless I have left the mistress in tears.” It is not likely that he made the statement, or that, if he did, he meant it. But such stories are not told of amiable men. “Men must work, and women must weep,” but the actions, if concurrent, must not be causal. “It is better that women should greet than bearded men,” was Ruthven’s theory; but his methods were considered rough, even in Edinburgh, even in the sixteenth century.

Let it not be supposed that the modern type of inspector is wholly free from folly and vice. I could unfold several tales, but de viventibus nil nisi bonum is a safe motto. Whether ancient or modern, in my somewhat lengthy experience, H.M.I. is not generally beloved. At one time I used to attend an annual dinner, where the great majority of guests were clerical. They would come to me, one after another, with the same story:

“Are you still inspecting schools? Still in the same district? Do you know our man, Mr. M. or N.?”

“No; we never meet our colleagues outside the Division.”

“Ah, dear me: I wish you would come to us instead. Our man is very unpopular; requires so much in the way of improvements. Why, what do you think he did last March?” &c., &c.

It was pleasant to think that on that summer day all my school managers were wandering about England, making the same complaint about me.

It is a pleasant profession for a peaceably-minded man. If I were asked to state its principal charm, I should say it is Irresponsibility. The income is moderate, but sufficient and certain. In the dim and distant future looms a pension, assuring bread and butter. The standard of comfort, therefore, is assured: unfruitfulness of honest work does not threaten poverty; Patients, clients, customers, cannot leave one.

But the chief comfort is that there is no personal worry. A doctor grieves that his patients die; a barrister gnashes his teeth at the blind stupidity of judges and juries, who heeded him not; a parish priest lies sleepless o’ nights, sorrowing for the wickedness of Crooked Court, notably for the backsliding of hopeful converts. But the entire collapse of the arithmetic in Crooked Court Board School would not deprive the “irresponsible, indolent reviewer” of a moment’s rest. The work is often very heavy, but it is not work that kills: it is worry.