pressed in exceedingly plain language that conception of Eton as an intellectual infirmary, which had been long before presented to the public with characteristic vigour by Jacob Omnium: That such opinions should be held by any one actually at Eton gave much scandal to the authorities, and greatly increased the vigilant suspicion with which they are wont to look upon all school periodicals except that interesting reproduction of the weaker qualities of the sporting paper known as the 'Eton College Chronicle.' From the perusal of a little volume called 'Out of School at Eton,' we gather that the extinction of the 'Adventurer' was more than a nominal loss. In the summer half of 1871 was formed a club called the Eton Literary and Scientific Society, for the purpose of discussing once a fortnight a paper to be written by one of its members. Probably no one who does not understand Eton will believe that this tolerably harmless association, which had every desire to live on good terms with persons uninterested in literature and science, met with great opposition from one of the most influential masters, and was only preserved from summary extinction by the efforts of some less bigoted colleagues. It is curious that the

belief in the pernicious effects of education, which is practically extinct among agricultural labourers, should still survive in the minds of persons nominally engaged in teaching. The literary society has, however, flourished in spite of magisterial opposition, has received lectures from several eminentpersons, and is not known to have injuriously affected the morality or the physique of its members.

It was once said by an outspoken pessimist that boys recognised no vice except stealing. That is a hard saying, and we fear that if it includes the theft of books and umbrellas it is scarcely accurate. Cruelty, if it be very gross and obvious, cowardice, provided it be not moral, and lying to anyone but a master, may, perhaps, fairly be added to the list. Even when so reinforced it is not a formidable one, and would, perhaps, hardly answer the requirements of any moral philosopher, to say nothing of the divine. We suppose that Eton is in this respect much like any other large boarding school for big boys. Until it shall be recognised that to take a boy permanently away from his home, from the influence of his father, his mother, and his sisters, and to cast him into a society totally unlike any

thing which he will meet with in the world, where he will prematurely discover much of which he had better be ignorant, and remain ignorant of much which it is literally of vital importance that he should know, is not a natural method of education; the standard of schoolboy morality is no more likely to be raised than is the roughness of schoolboy manners to be softened.' The curiously artificial offence known as sneaking arises directly from the absence of that confidence between man and.boy which naturally exists in a home, but cannot be counterfeited in a school; and the system which makes every master the 'natural enemy' of every boy, though it tends to the preservation of certain 'rules of the game,' is not favourable to the regular observance of a rational morality. We believe that Eton boys, as a rule, are rather shocked by swearing, though perhaps they would not be prepared to stigmatise it as a distinct offence. Drunkenness is very lightly regarded, for it is not considered part of a boy's education to learn the

1 This passage may seem inconsistent with the hopes for Eton's future, expressed at the end of this essay. We regard, however, the boarding-school system as certain to continue in this country, while at the same time considering it to be bad in principle. Hence the apparent contradiction.

medical evidence for the consequences of alcoholic excess. A boy is flogged and degraded if he gets drunk; but he probably thinks that he is punished on theological grounds which he may not understand. The scholastic mode of dealing with questions of morals creates an artificial atmosphere of mystery and suspicion which is not favourable to a sound and healthy morality. The subject is an extremely difficult and delicate one, and ill adapted for public discussion. We therefore leave it without further

remark.

So long as Parliament shall see fit to exempt public schools, on the ground of their superior dignity and position, from the supervision to which national schools are subject, we cannot hope to be rid of the scandalous possibility that a lad may leave Eton with a poor smattering of two dead languages, and in almost absolute ignorance of his own. But as no one denies that a classical education has its advantages, it may be worth while to consider briefly what has been Eton's success in her own peculiar sphere. The effects of a classical training upon the average man have, perhaps, been insufficiently regarded, nor are they particularly easy to estimate. We all know Mr. Riley, who

'had received a tincture of the classics at the Great Mudport Free School, and had a sense of understanding Latin generally, though his comprehension of any particular Latin was not ready. Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his juvenile contact with the "De Senectute" and the Fourth Book of the "Eneid;" but it had ceased to be distinctly recognisable as classical, and was only perceived in the higher finish and force of his auctioneering style.' Substitute Eton for Mudport, and parliamentary for auctioneering, and you will not have far to go before you meet Mr. Riley in the flesh.

The Fourth Book of the 'Eneid' is a great work of creative imagination, and we shall not be suspected of alluding to it when we say that 'the wiser mind grieves less for what age takes away than what it leaves behind' of the learning acquired at a public school. But it should be remembered that, if really well-informed men have forgotten most of what they learned at school, it is what they then learned which has enabled them to acquire their present knowledge. It does not much matter what a clever boy learns, so that it be something hard. At least, it does not matter in regard to