From Thomas Archer Hirst   June 18th 1856

Newry | June 18^th 1856

My dear John

I was glad to get your long letter¹ dated from my study and to find from it that you are enjoying yourself at our house. I hope you will stop there as long as you can enjoy it for it gives us both pleasure to think that its quiet beauty is not unappreciated in our absence but is in its own way contributing to your enjoyment peace of mind and bodily health. I am sorry to say the change of air has not yet had so favorable an effect upon Anna as I hoped. Although she is certainly a little stronger yet the cough and expectoration are just as usual. In a few days now we shall leave for Dublin² and if the weather will but change and become warm and sunny I hope she will improve there. If you will send me a letter to Haughton³ I will call upon him as soon as I arrive in Dublin and see what can be done for Queenwood. Of course looking at it from the Queenwood point of view (not forgetting Debus and Wright) I regret the conclusion to which you have come, but I perfectly agree with your reasons for coming to such a conclusion. The only doubt I have is that in considering the matter over you may have been devoting more time to Queenwood than would be absolutely necessary. It would be a great benefit to Queenwood to have your council and presence now and then even if you took no active part in its management. Could you not pursue your own work in the neighborhood and do as you did last year?⁴ Recollect what an immense advantage to Queenwood was your presence there last year. After what you have said I could not advise you to take any prominent part in tuition or connect your name with Queenwood publicly but if you could visit there for a month or so it would be an admirable thing. Before this time Wright will have talked to you on the subject and will have probably urged what I am now enquiring. As to the moral charge of the lads at Queenwood I know that Wright having once undertaken it will never be able to continue at Queenwood and neglect it. With Haas and Edmondson it would be otherwise. Now you could stir them up and your earnestness on the subject would stimulate them for many months. This is all I would ask you to consider again. Besides if I am fortunate enough to meet with an earnest young fellow to take my place he would require a certain initiation into the duties I have above alluded to and no one could impress upon him the importance of those duties as well as you could, no one could influence him as much or encourage him as well to accept such responsibilities.

Debus is well capable of lending a helpful hand in the government of the place if you could but give him a little more practical tact. If you could be present when he commences to do so, watch him and tell him candidly (no body else dare) what things he should do and avoid doing it would be well. I too think that there are forces still in Queenwood which will carry it on for some time to come especially if they are now and then controlled. Your proposal about occupying my leisure time has occurred to me too and should I find that I could say what would be of use I would try the experiment. But I do not think that the world would well receive what I should have to say about our schools. What leisure time I have after securing bread & lodging I shall devote to my mathematics. Let me know your intended movements for the next month or two, are you not going to take a trip somewhere? The weather here is very changeable and very unfavourable for Anna. Tell me how the Queenwood Concert &c went off and what you did.

Yours affection[ate]ly T.A. Hirst

Do you know John I often think that I shall be better able to say something on the subject of Education after a little while than just at present. After working so long on the darkest side of education I am rather afraid that I should take too gloomy and despondent a view of the subject. At present my theory of education consists almost entirely in the prevention and care of one fatal habit.⁵ Do you think the time has come to tell the world this and to assert what is taking place in every school in the kingdom? Known it must be at sometime or other but whenever the exposure is made one ought to be able to follow it up and to give all necessary evidence. In fact a regular war against the thing must be raised and to be successful ones forces should be properly organized. Queenwood would probably have to suffer. Such questions as these require mature consideration and make me doubt sometimes whether the time has arrived to act.

RI MS JT/1/H/226