CHAPTER VII.
In the summer of 1822 “Public Education” was published. Every effort had been made to work up the school to a high degree of excellence. “I am perfectly aware,” Rowland Hill wrote, “that much must be done before our school is fully prepared to stand the minute, and, perhaps, in many cases, invidious inspection which will take place in consequence of our inviting attention. I am also convinced of the necessity of making very vigorous improvements in my own mind. I hope I have already done much, and I am determined to accomplish more.” The Exhibition, or Speech-day, of June, 1822, had been a great success. “It was,” old Mr. Hill wrote to his eldest son, “a night of triumphant excellence.” Under the date of August 4th, 1822, Rowland Hill records in his Journal:—
“We have every reason at present to be pleased with the reception the book has met with. It has not yet received much attention from reviewers. An article has, it is true, appeared in the ‘Monthly Magazine,’ speaking of it in terms of the highest praise, and it has been noticed in terms of general commendation in several of the newspapers; but I allude chiefly to the private expression of the opinions of people of the highest literary rank The book appears to interest its readers in a very unusual manner. It seems to be spreading a kind of education mania in the world.... Jeremy Bentham is a man who will not be forgotten in the world; though neglected by a great part of his countrymen, he is held in the highest esteem by the enlightened and honest.... To him, as the author of a work on education, and as a man of the greatest influence, Matthew presented a copy of our book. A short time after he received an invitation to dine with Mr. Bentham. He was received in the most flattering manner. Mr. Bentham informed him that, when he first saw the book, disgusted as he had often been by the vague generalities of treatises on education, he threw it aside without looking into it. Shortly after, however, he opened the book, with very slight hopes of discovering anything worth reading. His attention was very soon fixed; he gave it to his reader, a young man of seventeen, who, to use Mr. Bentham’s own phrase, went ‘chuckling all the way through it.’ Mr. Bentham was so delighted with the work that he kept it on a little shelf constantly within reach, and opened it many times during dinner.”
Bentham sent a friend to inspect the school. “He certainly did not neglect his duty, for he would take nothing on credit. Such inspections as these, however, far from displeasing us, are exactly what we want.”
So favourable was the inspector’s report, that Bentham placed two Greeks at Hazelwood at his own expense. He circulated the Magazine that the boys published among his friends, and even sent a contribution to its pages in a letter franked by Joseph Hume:—
“Queen’s Square Place, Westminster,
“April 11th, 1823.
“Proposed for the ‘Hazelwood Magazine,’ with Mr. Bentham’s love to the good boys thereof, that they may consider which of the two modes of discipline is preferable.
“Extract from the Morning Chronicle, April 11th, 1823.
“‘An active Schoolmaster.—According to the ‘German Pedagogic Magazine,’ vol. 3, p. 407, died lately in Spain, a schoolmaster who for fifty-one years had superintended a large institution with old-fashioned severity. From an average inferred by means of recorded observations, one of the ushers had calculated that in the course of his exertions he had given 911,500 canings, 124,000 floggings, 209,000 custodes, 136,000 tips with the ruler, and 22,700 tasks to get by heart. It was further calculated that he made 700 boys stand on peas, 600 kneel on a sharp edge of wood, 5,000 wear the fool’s cap, and 1,700 hold the rod. How vast the quantity of human misery inflicted by a single perverse educator.’—Whitehaven Gazette.”
Bentham wrote to Dr. Parr “in high terms of the system, saying that it had caused him to throw aside all he had done himself.” He kept up his interest in the school, and some years later, in company with Mrs. Grote, at whose house he was staying, visited Rowland Hill at Bruce Castle. “Mr. Bentham,” he wrote on September 15th, 1827, “paid us a visit on Wednesday, and went away highly delighted. I never saw him in such spirits before. It is the first time he has left his home since his return from Paris (in 1825).” The fame of Hazelwood rapidly spread. The Greek Committee placed two young Greeks in the school:—