boys of 14 or 15 years old who had spent 5 or 6 years in grammar.' Not that Eton is peculiar in this respect. For in all the schools it is the same. In spite of all the talk about education, childishness in subject and in thought is prolonged to the verge of manhood.

"While the contemporary of Milton, or of Shakespeare, or of Chaucer would have been declaiming in Latin on foreknowledge absolute,' or such high themes, the Public School boy of the present day is learning a jingle of jargon to distinguish the gender of frons a brow, from frons a leaf, or stumbling through a story about the scholastic who cried out on the boiling snails for singing when their houses were burning."

He goes on to say: "True, life for the average boy is not the time spent in the pupil-room or school, but in the playing fields or on the river." Some of us, at this juncture, may recall that Matthew Arnold, to the old "barbarian" who mumbled about the "battle of Waterloo having been won on the playing fields of Eton," replied that many of the national disasters had been "lost" there also.

There are now about 1,045 pupils in the school domiciled in twenty-four houses, taught by forty-seven masters. Discipline, in the ultimate resort, is still maintained by an appeal to the virtues of the birch, which, says the same writer (Dr. Leach), is "still administered in the ancient way, the victims still being personally conducted to the headmaster by one of the præpostors." It is worth noting that Shelley and Algernon Swinburne were old Etonians.

In regard to the scholarships at King's College, Cambridge, Eton has still the preference to half the scholarships, though, so it is said, " of late years the scholarships have declined in value," and are not often filled up by the full number from Eton. For the last 150 years and at present (1925) the provostry has been and is regarded as a retiring pension for the headmaster.

According to the report of the Clarendon Commissioners,

Alas, disasters have been prepared in those playing-fields, as well as victories; disasters due to inadequate mental training-want of application, knowledge, intelligence, lucidity." (Matthew Arnold.)

the average emoluments of the provost totalled yearly £1,876; those of a fellow, £851; all, of course, exclusive of the lucrative benefices which both might hold. They recommended that henceforth (from 1865) the provost should have an annual stipend of £2,000, and a house specially assigned to him; and five stipendiary fellows elected by the whole body to have each a fixed stipend of £700 per annum, and a house or lodgings within the college. The headmaster's net emoluments for the year 1861 were £6,572 6s.

Eton College, according to the same report, is possessed of large landed and other property, the receipts of which total £20,000 per annum-property consisting of manors, rectories, demesne lands, farms, messuages, tenements, pensions, quit rents, public funds, etc. It was computed that to this income there was a probable accession of £10,000 each year, increment of expiring leases.

By the Foundation Statutes each scholar was allowed Iod. per week for commons. A piece of cloth of a prescribed price and quantity was to be delivered to him at Christmas, to provide him a gown for holiday and for ordinary wear during the ensuing year; he was also entitled to such supply of clothing, bedding, and other necessaries as should not exceed 15s. (contemporary money) in value. The possession of lands, tenements, or other property worth above 5 marks a year, incurable disease, or mutilation, illegitimate birth, or birth out of England, were among the disqualifications. No one was to be elected who had not completed his eighth, or exceeded his tenth year; but in the case of exceptionally promising students the electors could extend the age to eighteen years.

limit

In accordance with the Commissioners' recommendations, local nomination subsequently gave way to national competition in regard to the "King's Scholars "--but not plebeian competition. The seventy "collegers or King's Scholars, nominally "poor and needy," those for

whom Eton was supposed to have been founded, did not, even as recently as 1855, profit by the general development of the property, for the augmented revenues were monopolised by the provost and fellows, and the expenses of a colleger were not much less than those of an oppidan" (the more independent patrician student). It often occurred that not fifty scholars were on the foundation at one time, and having regard to the fact that in 1865 the annual expenses of the "poor and needy" colleger reached £50, we must ask pardon for once more repeating that these King's scholars, Pauperes et Indigentes, of the nineteenth century, were not quite poor, within the meaning of the founder's interpretation! Until quite recently such a scholar had, on leaving Eton, to present the headmaster with £5. Before 1861, a colleger automatically succeeded to a fellowship at King's College, Cambridge; it was worth at least £3,000, and was a sure provision for life. The entrance examinations were farcical. No wonder, then, that University fellowships were regarded as family birthrights; they had become family jobs.

In 1909, the late headmaster of Eton, Dr. Edward Lyttelton, permitted an "agitator," from the chapel steps in the great quadrangle, to "address the school on the subject of unemployment." Of course, it was objected that the majority of Eton boys and their parents do not want to be inoculated with the virus of Socialism, syndicalism, or any other ism of a plebeian origin, and superior personages with sanguine features, very visibly inscribed with woe and anger, were not wanting to point out the desecration of broaching theories of this kind in the thrice-sacred seminary of the "governing classes." But, really, there was no need for all this fluttering of frenzied spirits, for the "agitator's address" agitator's address" merely provoked

giggles among his audience.

Considering that parents must be possessed of considerable wealth who send their sons to Eton, it is not surprising that "most Etonians do well in after life."

G.E.S.

H

Moreover, poverty, as one of the qualifications for scholarships, and making for the eleemosynary character of the foundation, has been abolished.* The new statutes treat of Eton simply as a place of education. It is no longer an abode of learned men, as it once was. In fact, there is nothing to prevent the son of a MULTI-MILLIONAIRE from to-day competing for and gaining a scholarship (with emoluments attached thereto) at the college.

A new quadrangle and Lower Chapel was built at Eton by Sir A. Blomfield, 1889-91, and there are also new schools completed in 1863. Behind the altar in the college chapel is a splendid tapestry, executed by the "firm" of Wm. Morris from the designs of Burne-Jones, whilst a picture of Sir Galahad by Watts hangs on its western wall.

The Clarendon Commission, to which uncomplimentary reference has been so often made in these pages, really owed its origin to a newspaper campaign. To this impetus had been given by a fairly severe criticism which Eton had been subjected to by " Jacob Omnium " in the Cornhill Magazine of March, 1861.

As a consequence, in 1872, the whole body of Henry VI.'s statutes, relating to the government of the college, were repealed, subject to the safeguarding of the vested interests of the functionaries affected thereby. "But," says Sir H. Maxwell Lyte, "even at college meetings they only rank pari gradu with the newly-constituted rulers of Eton, who, in order that a continuity which does not exist in reality should be preserved in name, have received the old title of fellows. The last traces of the college of priests are destined to disappear before long, the provost himself being exempted from the necessity of being in holy orders."

According to the original statutes, the PROVOST of Eton was to receive yearly free commons, a stipend of £50, and £25 as Rector of Eton, 12 yards of cloth, and allowances in food, livery, money for a page or gentleman and two

*Our italics.

yeomen. He "should occupy rooms-the rooms on the west of the college hall," and have precedence and plenary authority over the college, together with the cure of the souls of the college and Eton parishioners. He was not to be absent more than six weeks yearly, except on college business; was not to hold any benefice within seven miles of Eton; and if found guilty of wasting or alienating the college revenues, of gross incontinence, negligence, or crime, or afflicted with incurable contagious disease, he was to be removed. On superannuation, a provost would receive from the college an annual pension of £20, provided he had a benefice not exceeding £20. After Easter, and in November and October each year, a progress through the college lands was to be made by the provost or a fellow (the provost compulsorily performing this in person every alternate year at least).

The FELLOWs each at his admission "shall swear not to favour the damnable heresies and errors of John Wyclif or Reginald Pecock."* He shall receive yearly £10 and 6 yards of cloth, which he must not sell, pledge, or give away, till it be at least one year old. Taking the vows of a religious order, absenting himself from Eton for more than six weeks in any year (except on college business), or holding property of more than £10 a year value were valid causes for deprivation, as also heresy, magic, perjury, simony, theft, personal violence, adultery, and opposition to the statutes. Sick pay during illness and £10 yearly if proved incurable were also granted to a fellow.

The registers and account rolls were to be preserved in chests in a room over the college gate, of which room the bursars (two fellows receiving 5 marks for their pains) should each have a key. The college seal was to be kept in a chest with three locks, of which keys were to be held

* Although Pecock had, as a right reverend orthodox mediæval divine, held up the standard of the Church against the Wycliffites, he yet got into sad trouble and unsanctified odour with the ecclesiastical authorities by maintaining the supremacy of reason in matters of orthodox faith!