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awarded for prolonged School-attendance alone, so as to be enjoyed immediately upon the performance of that condition. But would not the practical result be even far more beneficial? Could we not secure, in fact, not only a longer attendance at School, but also a better employment of the after-School life, so that not only should there be more time in which to plant the seeds of knowledge, but greater security that whatever has been planted will be saved from perishing? I conceive that both of these desirable results would be accomplished by the plan in question; and that thus what at first sight may appear to be a drawback from the value of the scheme, in its bearing on the educational problem, is really an additional advantage.
(1.) For, in the first place, although these situations cannot be bestowed as the rewards of longer school-attendance merely, yet the point is, whether—if prolonged School attendance were found to be practically the most certain method of obtaining a nomination—the desire of contending for a prize at a future time would not be sufficient inducement to insure in many cases the adoption of this means of attaining the wished for opportunity. Would not many parents of lads 14 years old, when scheming for their settlement in life, be glad to look forward to the chance of their employment five or six years afterwards in the Post Office, Excise, or Customs? and would they not therefore be induced, for the sake of increasing this chance, to continue the school instruction for (say) two years more? A parent of this class is not without shrewdness in such calculations, and probably he would argue with himself, acutely enough, that if he took his boy away at once, the chance of a nomination would be almost worthless; while by keeping him at school a little longer, he would not only be helping him to a chance of a prize, but would be furnishing him with instruction which, even if he should be unsuccessful in the attempt, or indisposed to make it, could not fail to be useful to him in whatever occupation he might then select.
(2.) But, not only by thus inducing a prolongation of School
