Lyttelton were not less effective than keen; and his successor is unsurpassed as a preacher to boys. While the care and reverence in the conduct of services steadily increases, some critics are ill content with the cathedral form; but, judiciously curtailed by the extra-diocesan independence of the Foundation, it still remains the most English of all types and safest from either extreme. We hope it will be faithfully maintained. Great pains are taken with the music, and the cooperation of the boys is encouraged. The more frequent opportunities of Holy Communion and the voluntary attendance at Intercession Services encourage the hope that with so much naturalness and simplicity there is also a true spirit of devotion. It is noted by Mr Lionel Cust that with the relaxation of ecclesiastical restrictions has come more, not less, genuine religious feeling.

We have now made some comparison of the athletic, the intellectual and the moral life of the school before and after the 19th century. It remains to attempt an estimate of the causes of its acknowledged preeminence, apart from the peaceful beauty of the place, the charm of its surroundings and traditions, the splendour of its equipment, and its dedication by the Founder.

The Eton system rests largely on a vague law of liberty and on three, or perhaps more, definite arrangements. These are, separate rooms for the boys, the tutorial relation, and the position of the Headmaster. The first, though considerably more expensive in building and service, by allowing privacy makes for development of character. Where boys are herded together and kept perpetually employed, there is not the same chance for the private grace of individuality. The dormitory may be safer for morals and safer for health while it is clean and uninfected, but, if a breakdown does occur, there is infinitely worse mischief than where private rooms afford isolation for invalids and mollia tempora fandi' to an anxious or encouraging tutor.

Of the Tutorial system the gist is this. From entrance to leaving the boy should be attached to the supervision of one master 'in loco parentis.' The tutor and the new boy, working together many hours daily, get to know each other pretty thoroughly, and, if each be a good sort,

they become real friends. Then, all through the school, the tutor would surpervise his pupil's work and have charge of his literary and religious training. This was one advantage of the classical curriculum. When specialising came in, the boy had to be transferred to a new teacher. In such cases the tutor no longer sees so much of his work nor watches so closely his development. Thereby one of the bulwarks of the system is weakened. This cannot be helped; it is impossible in the face of modern requirements and new legislation to maintain the old curriculum. What we hope is that width and variety will compensate, and that those who continue their classical work will be less hampered and more proficient as well as wider than before. Still there are who believe that no modern instrument of education rivals the Classics for efficacy, convenience or economy, and that therefore the great endowed schools should remain fortresses of the Humanities, with every encouragement for the pursuit of other voluntary studies in the time saved from excessive athletics. But this presupposes a love of learning not yet frequent in this country. It is part of the office of schools to implant it.

Another peculiarity of Eton should be noted-the tutor's reports. It is and was the custom to write to the parent every holidays a careful letter-not a table of marks and school order, but a thoughtful analysis of character and progress showing much insight and study. The value to the parent can hardly be overestimated; it draws together parent, pupil and tutor, and, though a laborious task, is well worth the sacrifice of the first few days of the holidays. For a specialist, of course, its value is impaired because the tutor knows less about him. The problem is how to retain the old intimacy in the face of modern requirements. Again, the old plan of employing as masters none but old Collegers, though perilously narrow, did secure a tradition of unity and attachment which had much to do with the strong affection of most Etonians for their school. When masters are so many and so often quite new to the place there is danger to this os at present, as we have noted, Old Etonians when they meet are said to surpass all others in cordiality. There is an incredible crowd of salutations and festivals

to celebrate the Fourth of June and even Founder's Day all over the world. We do insist on this testimony and on the great value of this affection. It arises from happiness and a reverence for which no scientific improvement would be compensation. What we want is to get the latter without risk to the former.

Finally, the Headmaster at Eton is not saddled with a boarding-house. His relations with both boys and masters are impartial, his pecuniary position fairly assured, and he has time for governing his kingdom and also keeping in touch with the public life of the country. Mr Clutton Brock in an excellent handbook ('Eton'; Bell, 1900) rightly urges the limitation of the excessive numbers of the school, but would wrongly measure it by the possible extent of the Headmaster's acquaintance with the individual. The numbers should be limited, but the space in Chapels and the accommodation of the boarding-houses and school-rooms seem more to the point than the Headmaster's knowing all the boys. A bishop should rule his diocese through archdeacons and incumbents, a vice-chancellor his university through heads of houses or senate, a viceroy his realm through council and officers. To know every boy may be right for what is called the Arnold tradition; it is outgrown at Eton and neither possible nor particularly useful. The influence of Dr Warre and Dr Lyttelton has been, and that of Dr Alington will be, very great, but the Headmaster's government should not come between the tutor and his pupil or between the parent and the boy, but should be exercised through the house-masters, his assistants, the sixth form of his division, and the house captains, or by edict from school office, or by his use of the pulpit. This position of the Headmaster his independence of boarders and his relation to the tutors and the boys-is a palladium of the school.

So much for the more peculiar features of the system which has made Eton what it is. It is certain, however, that much less depends on system than on the men who work it. The boys, we said, are much better taught now than fifty years ago. Well-furnished critics like Dr A. C. Benson have insisted that far too many left Eton ignorant of Physics and Mathematics, unable to

read Latin or Greek, and with no power of self-expression, no pleasure in literature. It was too true. It can hardly be true now. Changes of curriculum, of course, leave loopholes and it must take years to fit the modern requirements into a twenty-four hour day, yet the edifice is being built up and new modifications ever introduced. Some impenetrable Philistines there will always be from idle and fashionable homes; and indeed it may be doubted whether in our leisured classes there has been any great advance in intellectual interest. Take the railway bookstall and compare the proportion of tawdry ephemerals to standard works. Look at the suggestive covers of blatant magazines. Take the theatre whence plays are ousted by revue and revue by cinema; smudged pictures prevail over letterpress in many newspapers. Rapidity of change attracts, and everything must be fast and loud and easy. Intellectual effort is to be avoided. The reprints of English classics are for a different public, and it is the workman that begins to care for education. In the face of this tendency it is not to every home that we can look, for extending to the schoolboy a serious pleasure in learning.

More depends on the home, but at school one help might be the training of the teachers, although sometimes it has been said that trained nurses lose humanity. In teachers humanity is far more important even than skill, but we see with pleasure that in his able Defence of Classical Education' so good an advocate as Mr R. W. Livingstone urges the need of training for Public School teachers. We have heard some of the staunchest Old Etonians contrast the difference between our material and that for secondary teachers in the County Schools. They point to the ability and success of the latter, and think it strange that no Headmaster at Eton has yet required his young assistants to come to him trained for their work. Some of these have had experience of other school methods or foreign travel; others have not, and learn their business by rule of thumb not without difficulty and failures. Yet it is on the quality of the staff that nearly everything depends. The appointments and the control remain the Headmaster's most important function. The worst harm done to any school is to allow the rise or continuance of a bad house.' Removal

is rare, dismissal a dreadful responsibility. But that is why Headmasters are carefully chosen and highly paid. This most formidable of duties is further embarrassed nowadays by the difficulty of bringing the best men into this rather than into more lucrative or more brilliant professions. The consequence is well put by Mr Ainger. Again, the newer type of boarding-house requires an establishment and style of living even in time of peace quite beyond the 'mundus victus non deficiente crumena,' which ought to set the example of 'plain living and high thinking' to a rising generation.

As regards the social life of the boys there is the most absolute appearance of their general happiness (and what a value is a happy boyhood!) and their love of the place. Fagging and bullying are no longer any trouble. Sometimes, in cleverer circles, an eccentric is worried by pin-pricks of chaff or by want of friends. Shelley's trials, though real, were partly self-invited and have been grossly exaggerated. Swinburne, less provocative, had by no means a bad time. And now few things are more cheering than the contentment and pleasure of the new boy in his big little world.

Some things might be amended, for instance the vexatious habit of those who can fag, obliging every lower boy at every call to leave his work and race to the caller. The maintenance of a custom so vexatious and wasteful helps one to understand how it was that 'Shirking went on so long; yet it is possible for the same person to marvel at the latter and maintain the former. Perhaps the history of 'Shirking' has some interest as a Victorian relic. It was originally a point of monkish or Spanish etiquette to show respect by not appearing in the presence of the greater man. It still continued after it had lost all remains of common sense, and it became not only a nuisance to boys and masters alike but a sort of education in falsehood and humbug. Nowadays a decent salute is the most that is expected even from a private soldier to his officer, though he is still forbidden to address the latter except through a N.C.O. A stranger sometimes asks whether the movement of a schoolboy's finger would satisfy Wilhelm Meister's requirements of reverence. It is significant that the abolition of 'Shirking,' attributed by some to Dr Goodford, by