chester) of Henry VI.'s plainly-worded and unequivocal statutes !

Although, as we have seen, Henry VI. instituted and endowed Eton College primarily for the poor and needy scholar, yet in his lifetime provisions were also made for the instruction in grammar of filii nobilium (nobles' sons), pueri commensales (patrician boys) who were not, however, to be placed on the foundation. His intention was to bridge the gap between high and low in social gradations.

Imagine, to-day, the Royal founder's manes returning from the land of the shades. Walking nocturnally in the lush meadows by Thames side, it piteously rubs its eyes; gapes in astonishment; for it beholds a grand patrician seminary, the splendidly endowed charity a mere adjunct of the "poor poor" whose barbarian fathers have and enjoy emoluments far beyond the income tax limit.

In 1870, under the Act of 1868, a Commission appointed a governing body consisting of the Provost of Eton, the Provost of King's College, Cambridge, five representatives nominated respectively by Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Royal Society, the Lord Chief Justice, and the masters and four representatives chosen by the governing body. By this body, in 1872, the foundation was made to consist of a provost and ten fellows (not priests, but members of the governing body), a headmaster, lower master, seventy scholars, and chaplains.

To-day, scholarships at Eton are tenable till the age of nineteen, their holders to be educated and maintained each year out of the funds of the college. The examination is competitive, and the standard such as can be attained only after an education at a costly preparatory school. To the seventy very valuable scholarships, of which twelve vacancies occur each year, there are attached yearly charges of £23 IOS., together with other extras quite outside the pocket of a poor person. Oppidans pay £230 for their board and lodging, and entrance fee for the school fund of £21. Eton's pupils number over 1,000.

"The charms of idleness at Eton are many and seductive" (1864, Report, 2, 139; 4, 403). Clergymen, professional men, members of Parliament and country gentlemen form the staple of the class which Eton sends. out" (John Walter, M.P.). "The large majority of the average boys from Eton, being sons of wealthy parents, are extremely ignorant of subjects requiring steady work" (Dean Liddell). The majority of boys at Eton are Oppidans, and "as a body the Oppidans are boys who have not to work for their bread, and many of their parents tell them so" (1864, Report, 3, 95).

"Owing to the general idleness of Eton Oppidans,' said Oscar Browning, a well-known ex-master of Eton, giving evidence before the Bryce Commission on Secondary Education, 1892-5, "an Etonian who is desired by his parents to work and distinguish himself is generally sent into college, although his pecuniary position may not justify such a step. In due time a colleger obtains an Eton scholarship at King's. . . . It thus happens that the son of wealthy parents will not infrequently have enjoyed for 10 years,"-this witness then mentioned a sum which is equivalent to about £3,000 to-day at the enhanced value of these scholarships.

A very interesting picture of modern life at Eton has been given by the late Mr. Clutton Brock. The collegers, he says, live in the college buildings and dine and sup in the college hall. They are distinguished from the rest of the boys by the heavy gowns of broad cloth which they wear in school, in hall, and at "absence," and the surplices which they wear in chapel. The other odd thousand boys are called Oppidans, and live in masters' houses. Candidates for scholarships must be between twelve and fourteen, and must pass a stiff examination in Latin composition, in prose and verse, Latin and Greek grammar, translation from Latin and Greek authors, mathematics, and a general paper. Such an education can only be acquired at an expensive preparatory school."

The collegers live and sleep in comfortable buildings, and have good and plentiful food.

At this most "conservative of schools," a boy's corrected exercises are shown up twice, once to his tutor and once to his form master, this being, apparently, a survival of a usage in the days when private tutors came up to the college with new boys of aristocratic birth, and might require such checking. The peculiarity of Eton is the tutorial system, whereby, during the whole of his career at school, a boy is under the care of one particular master, called his tutor. Every boy is also, of course, under the control of a changing form master.

Most of the work at Eton is done out of school and in the pupil room, where, under the eye of the tutor, each boy has to prepare the lessons set him by his form master. It is the routine for the tutor to look over and correct the copies of Latin verses, and for the boy to copy out the verses, incorporating his tutor's corrections, and then to show up both verses as he did them with all their original errors, and the fair copy, to his division master. Besides this, the tutor holds "two private schools a week, one on Sunday, which is usually occupied not so much with the reading of light literature as of books of 'serious purpose,' such as Milton's Paradise Lost."

Every term the tutor writes home a short report of the pupil's progress to the parent. When the time comes for a boy to leave, he must take to the headmaster letters from his tutor and house master requesting the headmaster to take leave of him, without which he cannot receive his leaving book and his "bene decessit." The leaving book is a large, bound copy of Gray's poems with illustrations. It is given to every boy who is not expelled or does not leave "under a cloud."

or

Eton's athletics are peculiar. There are "wet bobs,' boating, a species of football styled the "field or the wall" game, and the "beagles," or the Eton College Hunt, in which latter sport any traveller by the Great Western Railway in late winter may chance to see Etonians engage as he passes by Slough and its meadows.

*Summarised from Mr. Clutton Brock's Eton College.

CHAPTER VIII

HARROW

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JOHN LYON'S Free GrammaR SCHOOL-HIS EPITAPH-Old Governing BODY-POOR Scholars-No GIRLS TO BE TAUGHT-" FOREIGNERS CHICANERY AND SUBTERFUGE-POVERTY STRANGELY DEFINEDSOP TO DISPossessed CerBERUS-PADDINGTON RATEPAYERS-INCOME TO-DAY-ANCIENT RECREATIONS-FAMOUS HARROVIANS-Wealth of HARROW IN 1914-DIVERSION'S CONSUMMATION.

HARROW School was founded by John Lyon, a yeoman born at Harrow, who, many years before his death, conceived the project of establishing a free school in his native village. For this purpose he, as early as 1571, procured a charter and letters patent from Elizabeth, recognising his foundation and the statutes which he proposed for the conduct of the institution, and constituting the six trustees appointed by him, and their successors elected amongst themselves a body corporate under the title of "The Keepers and Governors of the School called the Free Grammar School of John Lyon, in the village of Harrow-upon-the-Hill, in the countie of Middlesex."

Lyon seems to have been a self-made man, the architect of his own fortunes, and it appears that years before the foundation of his school he had philanthropically paid 20 marks yearly for the education of young children. He died in 1592, and was buried in the nave of Harrow Church. Above the gravestone, and in juxtaposition to his effigy in brass, is an inscription worth quoting in relation to his intentions regarding the purpose and functions of Harrow School :

"Here lyeth buried the bodye of John Lyon, late of Preston, in this parish, yeoman, deceased the 11th day of October, in the yeare of our Lord 1592; who hath founded a free grammar

schoole in the parish to have continuance for ever, and for maintenance thereof, and for releyffe of the poore, and of some poore schollers in the Universytes, repairinge of highwayes, and other good and charitable uses, hath made conveyance of lands of good value to a corporation granted for that purpose. Prayse be to the authour of all goodnesse who makes us myndful to follow his good example.'

In the year that Lyon bought lands in Middlesex, to be held, in part, for the repair of the school, the clerk of the signet proposed to levy £50 from him as a compulsory State loan. Sir Gilbert Gerard, the Attorney-General, however, successfully interposed on his behalf, representing that Lyon should not be forced to sell lands bought for the maintenance of his school.

John Lyon, as we have said, obtained his Charter of Foundation in 1571, and in 1590 he issued instructions to the governing body which he had appointed-six men of some local standing-for the erection of the school. They were to appoint as schoolmaster "an able man, not under the degree of M.A., and as usher, or under-master, a B.A." The stipend of the first was to be "£26 13s. 4d., with £3 6s. 8d. annually for firing" (contemporary monetary value, of course); the latter to receive “£13 6s. 8d. with the same fuel allowance." Lyon also provided for the distribution of £20 annually among sixty of the poorest householders of the parish; and ordered a like amount to be bestowed upon four poor scholars towards their maintenance, two at Oxford and two at Cambridge ; such scholars to be chosen out of the school, preference being given to children of his own kin, and then to such as are most meet "for towardness, poverty, and painfulness."

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The amusements allowed by Lyon to his scholars were driving a top, tossing a hand-ball, running, shooting, and no other." All were to learn the "catechism and attend church regularly."

The twenty-second rule orders that no "girls shall be received to be taught in the same school," and another