I have been obliged to communicate with the _Punch_ men in reference to
Saturday, the 20th, as that day of the week is usually their business
dinner day, and I was not quite sure that it could be conveniently
altered.
Jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose, and that it
shall, and therefore consider the play as being arranged to come off on
Saturday, the 20th of next month.
I don't know whether I told you that we have changed the farce; and now
we are to act "Two o'clock in the Morning," as performed by the
inimitable B. at Montreal.
In reference to Bruce Castle school, I think the question set at rest
most probably by the fact of there being no vacancy (it is always full)
until Christmas, when Howitt's two boys and Jerrold's one go in and fill
it up again. But after going carefully through the school, a question
would arise in my mind whether the system--a perfectly admirable one;
the only recognition of education as a broad system of moral and
intellectual philosophy, that I have ever seen in practice--do not
require so much preparation and progress in the mind of the boy, as that
he shall have come there younger and less advanced than Willy; or at all
events without that very different sort of school experience which he
must have acquired at Brighton. I have no warrant for this doubt, beyond
a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion of its great probability. On
such slight ground I would not hint it to anyone but you, who I know
will give it its due weight, and no more and no less.
I have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher classical
studies, and the books they read. It is the usual course, and includes
the great books in Greek and Latin. They have a miscellaneous library,
under the management of the boys themselves, of some five or six
thousand volumes, and every means of study and recreation, and every
inducement to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be
imagined. As there is no room just now, you can turn it over in your
mind again. And if you would like to see the place yourself, when you
return to town, I shall be delighted to go there with you. I come home
on Wednesday. It is our rehearsal night; and of course the active and
enterprising stage-manager must be at his post.
Ever, my dear Macready,
Affectionately yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. George Cattermole.]
_August 27th, 1845._