our public schools a purely literary training is given, and that the results are deplorable. This is not so. The majority of Englishmen consider that more harm than good would be done by a wholesale and radical revolution of our public-school curriculum. We have the authority of the Duke of Wellington for saying that "the best education for the military and all other professions is the common education of the country." We wish to see our sons walking in the old paths, with a few stumbling-blocks removed. To the philosopher of any nation (not excluding our own) the spectacle of the Englishman going through the world with rifle in one hand and Bible in the other is laughable; but to Englishmen, who are neither logicians nor idealists, it is not. We wish to see his skill with the one and his faith in the other strengthened and increased. If asked what our muscular Christianity has done, we point to the British Empire. Our Empire would never have been built up by a nation of idealists and logicians. Physical vigour is as necessary for the maintenance of our Empire as mental vigour. We are girt round with rivals, each armed to the teeth. A struggle with any one of these would tax our resources to the utmost. Unlike each of the first four Universal Monarchies, the Monarchy of the British Empire depends on its own strength, and not on the weakness of its neighbours. Our Empire owes her world's dominion to the pens, swords and purses of her sons, not to the lack of spirit in her rivals. It is only fitting that our own Fifth Monarchists should be reared for rule from their cradle, and that Eton should send out generation after generation of boys who, like Wellington and Roberts, have been trained to uphold "the canopy of empire." If before the necessary reforms were carried out, Eton was not what can be technically called a good school, she has always been a school to inspire the majority of her boys with some kind of honourable ambition. All honour then to her and to those who go forth from her gates to do their duty to their Queen and Country. Whether Etonians or not, we can all join in what has become the famous warcry of her sons-Floreat Etona! CHAPTER IX. HARROW. Long long life to the bell and to its ringing! E. BOWEN. IN 1571 Queen Elizabeth's "beloved subject, John Lyon, of Preston, Yeoman, by instinct of charity (the Divine Providence foregoing), founded a certain Grammar Schoole, with one Schoolmaster and Usher within the village of Harrow-on-the-Hill." So runs the Charter granted by good Queen Bess in the 14th year of her reign. Nineteen years later (1590) John Lyon promulgated in his will the Statutes for the future government of his school. He also drew up "Observations for the Ordering of the School." One cannot fail to be struck with the precision with which the Founder has notified his wishes. He mentions the books that are to be read; Greek was only to be read in the fifth or top form. No Greek poet is mentioned, except Hesiod, and no English author. The two classical authors who are now the most read (Homer and Horace) are omitted from the course. Hesiod was still read by Harrow boys when Samuel Parr was in the School. Neither the Church of England, nor the Protestant, nor the Reformed Faith are alluded to, but "the Christian religion" is to be taught, and a lecture "out of Calvin's or Nowell's Catechism" to be read to the scholars. The Master is exhorted to make a moderate use of the rod, and "after one year's painstaking" to send away any boy who makes no progress with his work. In both these provisions, and in providing for physical exercise, John Lyon showed himself in advance of his day. The play of the scholars is "to drive a top, to run, to shoot, and no other." Every boy is ordered to possess "bow shafts, bow strings and a bracer to exercise shooting." The Statutes of other Public Schools do not contain so wise a provision. Our yeoman Founder may have pondered on the words of the great educationalist of his day, Roger Ascham, "that the scholehouse should be in deede as it is called by name, the house of play and pleasure, and not of fear and bondage." The practice of archery was coeval with the foundation of the school, and was probably due to the influence of Ascham, whose treatise on Archery was then regarded as a classic. The author had dedicated it to Henry VIII. and had received a pension for writing it. Both Ascham and Lyon would have appreciated David Stow's pregnant phrase "the playground or uncovered schoolroom." It is clear that some famous teachers, even in the 16th century, had a weakness for athletics. John Lyon intended his school to be a Free School for the parishioners of Harrow, but he also showed that it was not his intention to erect a merely parochial one. He declared that the Master might receive over and above the inhabitants of the parish "so many Foreigners as the whole may be well taught and the school can conveniently contain." In 1810 the Parishioners appealed to the Court of Chancery, complaining that they were deterred from sending their children to the school where they were entitled to a gratuitous education, "partly from the ill-treatment they receive from such Foreigners and partly from the apprehension of their acquiring expensive habits by an association with persons of rank and fortune superior to their own." Fortunately for the fame of Lyon's School-may we not say for the good of the whole community-the matter 1 Quoted by Gilbert Wakefield in his Memoirs. * Vesey's Chancery Reports, Vol. xvii., pp. 498—–507. came before Sir William Grant, Master of the Rolls, one of the greatest judges that ever presided over an English Court of Justice. He considered the case of Harrow identical with that of Rugby. Each had been founded in Queen Elizabeth's reign as a Free Grammar School for the inhabitants of the locality, and each in process of time had grown into a great Public School. This is, I believe, the first instance in which the phrase "public school" is to be found in any reported judgment. He did not consider the alleged conspiracy against parish boys satisfactorily made out. The evidence was no doubt legally defective on this point of domestic polity. Yet even at this distance of time there are still rumours of what the parish boys suffered at the hands of "foreigners." Under Dr. Sumner the son of the local chemist rose to be head of the school, but in spite of reaching that august position he was much teased about the paternal shop. The father had beggared himself by supporting the Jacobite cause; the son grew into the famous Whig, Dr. Samuel Parr. Sir William Grant was an unconscious evolutionist and declined to restrict John Lyon's school within parochial limits. As the Governors entered into full possession of the Founder's endowment on 27th August, 1608, the reader may wonder why the important questions which Sir William Grant had to decide had not been asked before. The fact is that, though Harrovians celebrated the Tercentenary of their School in 1871, they were actually celebrating the bicentenary of her existence as a Public School. During the first century, Harrow was a parochial Grammar School. The majority of the boys were the sons of parishioners, and gratuitously educated. The normal number of these free scholars was forty. In 1671 some assistance was given by the Governors towards fitting up the Master's house for the better accommodation of his Boarders, but some fifty years had to pass before a "foreigner" conferred distinction on his old school. This "foreigner" was George Bridges Rodney, the schoolfellow of Bruce, the traveller. The conqueror of de Grasse left Harrow at the age of twelve in 1730. Rodney's Head Master was Thomas Bryan, an Old Etonian, under whom the school had its earliest season of prosperity, the numbers mounting up in 1721 to 144. Bryan died in 1730 and the numbers dwindled until another Old Etonian, Thomas Thackeray, became Head Master. Samuel Hood (afterwards first Lord Hood), who succeeded Rodney in the chief command in the East Indies, was also an Old Harrovian. He went to the Hill soon after Rodney had left it, and did not enter the Navy until he was 16 years of age. No school in England has produced a finer brace of sailors. Another brave sailor, Lord Charles Beresford, delivered two or three years ago a lecture on the Navy to Harrow boys in their Speech Room. An Old Harrovian calls my attention to the fact that he did not on that occasion refer to Rodney and Hood. Had he done so, he would (in the slang phrase) have "brought the house down." Lord Loughborough, the Lord Chancellor, told a story of one old schoolfellow murdering another, who (many years before) had "peached" on him at school and got him expelled. This story is improbable; let us hope it is not true. On the other hand, there are many well-authenticated instances of schoolfellows assisting each other either by refusing any remuneration for their professional services, or by declining to hold a brief against them. An even more gracious duty fell to the lot of Sir Francis Basset, an Old Harrovian. He moved an address on 27th June, 1782, that a lasting provision be made for Admiral Rodney. For this service the Admiral wrote him that he felt himself "honoured by the real friendship he had manifested towards him and his family" A tall granite obelisk on the summit of Carn Brea Hill records the memory of Basset as "a munificent contributor to charitable institutions throughout the Empire." This is an early instance of the use of the word "Empire" in a public monument. By the close of the 18th century "Empire" had not become the household word in Englishmen's mouths that it is at the close of the 19th century. Born in the same year (1757) as his schoolfellow 1 Munday's Life and Correspondence of Admiral Lord Rodney, Vol. ii., p. 335 |