must be still further taxed. It would be most unjust to attribute this strange parsimony either to laziness or selfishness; the fellows have, we believe, spared neither trouble nor expense where the benefit of these would be reaped exclusively by the collegers; but the deficiencies of a system are obvious, which thus perniciously narrows the scope of the best intentions. Let us now turn to the case of the assistants. It is against them that the heaviest complaints have been brought; against their quality, their number, and their work. With regard to the first count there has been considerable exaggeration. It is, no doubt, an evil that they should all up to a late period have been taken from a single college at Cambridge, and that a small one; but no Cambridge man would have questioned the classical reputation of King's. Obscure it may be called, as it made no appearance in the class lists, and was so much cut off from the rest of the university; but a slight reference to the list of university scholarships and prizes in the Cambridge calendar-the only honours formerly open to King's men-will speedily place its merits on their true footing. The Triposes were, a few years ago, thrown open to the King's men; and, though it was some little time before they entered with alacrity into the novel competition, they are now bidding fair to stand second to none in classics, as the classical Tripos list for 1860 shows. Here we find four King's men, out of the six who went in, in a first class consisting of eleven, two of these four being first and fourth. The size, however, of the college is quite inadequate to the supply of masters to a school like Eton; which Dr. Goodford has seen, and consequently introduced the principle of selecting indifferently out of the whole number of old Etonians. We hope, however, that he will go further than this, and do away with all restriction of choice altogether-that he will not be bound by the irrational prejudice which, grotesquely parodying any but an place." "Eton man in an Eton It is not merely that, even under his system, the supply of fit candidates barely equals the demand. The best scholarship will not compensate for the general narrowness produced by such a selection, a narrowness tending to perpetuate routine, however obsolete, and oppose reforms, however desirable. That there should be a preponderance among the assistants of Etonians, who can best understand and appreciate the system under which they were trained, is natural and right; that all others should be excluded, unnatural and wrong. In the other two complaints, which, in fact, amount to one-that the number of assistants is too small and consequently their work too great-there appears to be more truth. They are led to take so many private pupils, that they cannot give to each the attention that the parents have a right to expect. This probably arises, as we before observed, from the fact that this "private business," as it is called, is the only lucrative part of an assistant's work. No doubt, Dr. Goodford has done much by making a rule, that no new master shall have more than forty pupils; but we wish he had put the limit lower, and made the rule apply to all. We sympathize with his motives in not distubing old masters who had already more; but it does seem a peculiarly inappropriate application of the principle of vested interests. If the limit was a lower one, say thirty, there would be about five more assistants required, and the incomes of all would be diminished : to compensate, we would propose an increased rate of payment for schoolwork, which would also remedy the already noticed inequality in the ratio of the two kinds of payment. This might be easily done if a portion of the money now absorbed by the fellows were set free; but, as long as the system remains unaltered, there is no chance of it. But, further, supposing the new masters procured, where are they to be lodged? Here again the obstructiveness of the would require new house with a pupilroom; and it is well known that every available house at Eton, within the narrow bounds that the authorities prescribe, is occupied. Now a large part of the land within these bounds is the property of the College. Is there any hope that they will swerve from the principles on which they have hitherto gone?— viz. not to enlarge the bounds, not to build, and not to give any facilities for building. Every one knows what a ruinous speculation house-building is, when undertaken without a large supply of experience and capital; and can sympathize with any Eton master who may have his net income considerably diminished, and his anxieties increased, by being tempted to engage in it without these qualifications. Such work is exactly that which this wealthy unoccupied corporation is called upon to undertake; and we cannot but regret that its principles or prejudices lead it to throw this work on the shoulders of busy individuals. Again, Sir J. Coleridge draws, with perhaps unconscious irony, the following ideal of what might take place, if the assistants had less drudgery, and more time for self-cultivation, and could hold reunions for mutual converse and counsel. "I presume," he says, "that "such a movement on their part "would be met in a congenial and "co-operative spirit by the higher "authorities; the college library should "be thrown open to them-there "could be no better place for their "meetings and they should be ad"mitted into free and friendly council "in whatever improvement was con 66 templated for school or college." We dare say that the Eton fellows ignore, as a body, the assistants, out of whom they have immediately risen. We know that they have refused, though solicited, to admit them to the college library; and that the most Utopian assistant, would not, in his wildest moments, dream of being admitted to "free and friendly council," &c. We must now close our remarks on deeply regret, if what we have said should cause pain to any one, but we have thought it best to speak plainly. We believe that the actual fellows of Eton are entitled to our highest respect; which, of course, only makes our case stronger. It only shows the universality of the rule that men are sure to be injuriously influenced by being placed in unfortunate relations. Few men, suddenly transferred from a sphere of confined drudgery to 1,0001. a year, and nothing to do, would be likely to become useful members of society. Few men, who had grown old within a narrow circle of traditions, would avoid overestimating their value; and few men, with these and other disabling circumstances, would be likely to make good governors to a school like Eton, which, more than any other, ought to keep pace with the advance of the age. That a Royal Commission will be called for, sooner or later, to revise the Eton constitution, we do not doubt; we only hope that it may be sooner rather than later. When it is appointed, the first thing it will have to consider will be whether the fellowships are to exist at all in their present state; and if so, whether their value, their number, the work attached to them, and the share they confer in the government of the school, are to be left unaltered. Of course, an obvious suggestion is, that some additional definite work should be given them; but it is hard to see how this is to be done. Even the function of preaching in chapel which they at present fulfil, seems hardly adapted for them. Dr. Arnold's view-now generally acted upon-was that the head master should be also the preacher; and this plan, if occasionally sermons from assistants are admitted, is surely the. best. The difficult task of influencing boy-nature through sermons can only be well performed by those who are brought into daily contact with their hearers. And as to anything else, when Sir John Coleridge suggests that the fellows should conduct the half yearly examinations, and also im general subjects of interest, we cannot help feeling that his mind has entirely wandered from the dull reality in pursuit of a pleasing ideal. Any attempt of this sort would, we think, only make the need of a radical change more keenly felt. When this time of change comes, every respect will be paid-it always is -to vested interests; but we hope that no inopportune reverence for obsolete forms, and the letter of the founder's will, may prevent the utmost being done to make Eton more fit for the glorious work she has undertaken-that of educating the aristocracy of England. We have not yet spoken of the provost; and we have not indeed much to say about him. The most ruthless reformer could not have the heart to prevent the realisation of the charming picture, which Sir J. Coleridge draws of him; nor need the most conscientious one object to a single sinecure, of this kind, in the gift of the Crown, which might always be so well bestowed. One likes to think of some old diplomatist or statesman, world-worn and longing for retirement, here devoting himself to study, and to the infusion of a new and cheering element into the social life of Eton. There would always be many an old Etonian-perhaps one who, though earnest and talented, had not been thoroughly successful in the great struggle of the world-who would thankfully hail this opportunity of returning to dwell in the lovely and beloved spot, where he might quietly, and without effort, be of so much real service.1 There is one more point deserving especial notice. It is the fact, observed with regret by several old Etonians, that the scholastic attainments of the oppidans, as compared with the collegers, have lately so markedly declined. To inquire into the causes of this, and to attempt its removal, would be among the first duties of any revising Commission. 1 It is interesting to be told that the saddened and humbled spirit of the fallen Bacon yearned after this office. Had King James granted his request, it would have derived fresh lustre, from the most signal instance on record of fame lost in the forum and won The decline is to a great measure only comparative, being due to the improvement effected in the foundation by throwing it open to competitive examination; but it is also positive, we fear, to some extent. Sir J. Coleridge is disposed to attribute it vaguely to general neglect. But two definite causes can be assigned for it: first, the want of any incentive for the oppidans to work, while the collegers have their progress continually tested by successive examinations, up to the time of their leaving the school; secondly, the fact that the concentrating into one body, separate from the rest of the school, talent and application above the average, tends to injure these qualities among the rest, by forming a contrast between talent and application on the one hand, and wealth, rank, and idleness on the other; and this contrast itself, when once formed, tends perpetually to increase. With regard to the first of these causes, two remedies may be suggested: first, the foundation of exhibitions for the oppidans, to be held at school. These exhibitions must evidently be considered merely as honours and rewards of merit, and not at all as charities, or their effect will be neutralised. Next, the prizes for essays, poems, &c. may be made more operative as a stimulus to work, by giving them more publicity, and more éclat. A simple method of doing this would be to publish the successful compositions, as is done at the universities, and at some schools. The second cause seems to show that the reforms of the foundation, most commendable in themselves, have not produced unmingled good. It is hard to see how to remedy it thoroughly, except by doing away altogether with "college," as it now exists, i.e. by transforming it into a number of scholarships, perfectly open (so that the stigma, to which boys are peculiarly sensitive, of receiving charity, might be removed), and by destroying as much as possible the social separation that now exists between foundationers and non-foundationers. It will of course be said, that it would be throw them open to the rich; but practically it is found in similar cases, that they are only even apparently wasted to a very slight extent. For, among the educated classes, the poor are so much more numerous than the rich, and work, on the whole, so much harder, that they will always carry off more than nine-tenths of the rewards of talent and application, if impartially given; and the vast advantage accruing both to rich and poor, from this equality and universality of competition, would many times compensate the apparent waste. The parallel case of the universities naturally occurs to the mind. Every university man will feel how much it would neutralise the beneficial effect of a foundation to exclude the rich from it, and how bad a strongly marked social separation between the scholars and commoners of a college would be for both classes. The present system at Eton also fosters the too prevalent notion that the sons of the rich are really sent to school for other reasons, than to learn what the school professes to teach. We cannot imagine a more pernicious belief: especially as the attempt to keep it concealed from the boys themselves is always futile. If the parents look upon the school instruction simply as a means : of keeping the boys out of mischief, we may be sure that it will soon become, as such, quite inoperative. We are told that education is not instruction; and no doubt the spectacle of an instructed but uneducated manwhat is called a mere scholar-is most lamentable. But instruction-undertaken as a reality and not a farce-is an indispensable element in every education a truism which fathers who are men of the world, and even the muscular and social among the educators themselves, are sometimes in danger of forgetting. We have heard Eton praised for the democratic spirit that exists among the boys. The praise is perfectly just in a certain sense: but the prevailing tone in Eton, as in other public schools, may be better described as that of a broad-bottomed oligarchyan oligarchy, of course, paying no respect to the ranks, as such, of the outer world. Whether this oligarchy is based upon right principles or not, is a question of the deepest importance for the school. Let us trust that it may always be so at Eton, and that there physical strength, gymnastic skill, and social talents, may ever yield in influence to real intellectual pre-eminence and deep earnestness of character. the evening closed in, tired lawyers and merchants, on their return from the City, and the riders and drivers on their way home from the park, might have seen Holland's men laying red drugget over the pavement, and Gunter's carts coming and going, and the police "moving on" the street boys and servantmaids, and other curious members of the masses, who paused to stare at the preparations. Then came the lighting up of the rooms, and the blaze of pure white light from the uncurtained ball-room windows spread into the street, and the musicians passed in with their instruments. Then, after a short pause, the carriages of a few intimate friends, who came early at the hostess's express desire, began to drive up, and the Hansom cabs of the contemporaries of the eldest son, from which issued guardsmen and Foreign-office men, and other dancingyouth of the most approved description. Then the crowd collected again round the door-a sadder crowd now to the eye of any one who has time to look at it; with sallow, haggard-looking men here and there on the skirts of it, and tawdry women joking and pushing to the front, through the powdered footmen, and linkmen in red waistcoats, already clamorous and redolent of gin and beer, and scarcely kept back by the half-dozen constables of the A division, told off for the special duty of attending and keeping order on so important an occasion. Then comes a rush of carriages, and by eleven o'clock the line stretches away half round Grosvenor Square, and moves at a foot's-pace towards the lights, and the music, and the shouting street. In the middle of the line is the comfortable chariot of our friend, Mr. Porter-the corners occupied by himself and his wife, while Miss Mary sits well forward between them, her white muslin dress looped up with sprigs of heather spread delicately on either side over their knees, and herself in a pleasant tremor of impatience and excitement. "How very slow Robert is to-day, mamma! we shall never get to the "He cannot get on faster, my dear. The carriages in front of us must set down, you know.” "But I wish they would be quicker. I wonder whether we shall know many people? Do you think I shall get partners?" Not waiting for her mother's reply, she went on to name some of her acquaintance, whom she knew would be there, and bewailing the hard fate which was keeping her out of the first dances. Mary's excitement and impatience were natural enough. The ball was not like most balls. It was a great battle in the midst of the skirmishes of the season, and she felt the greatness of the occasion. Mr. and Mrs. Porter had for years past dropped into a quiet sort of dinnergiving life, in which they saw few but their own friends and contemporaries. They generally left London before the season was at its height, and had altogether fallen out of the ball-giving and party-going world. Mary's coming out had changed their way of life. For her sake they had spent the winter at Rome, and, now that they were at home again, were picking up the threads of old acquaintance, and encountering the disagreeables of a return into habits long disused and almost forgotten. The giver of the ball was a stirring man in political life, rich, clever, well connected, and much sought after. He was an old schoolfellow of Mr. Porter's, and their intimacy had never been wholly laid aside, notwithstanding the severance of their paths in life. Now that Mary must be taken out, the Brook Street house was one of the first to which the Porters turned, and the invitation to this ball was one of the first consequences. If the truth must be told, neither her father or mother were in sympathy with Mary as they gradually neared the place of setting down, and would far rather have been going to a much less imposing place, where they could have driven up at once to the door, and would not have been made uncomfortable by the shout |