Whilst Eton has occasionally produced some very fine scholars—the Marquis Wellesley was a case in point—it cannot be said that the traditions of the school are very favourable to learning, which to a large proportion of Etonians has seemed of less importance than the acquisition of worldly wisdom. More than a hundred years ago De Quincey noted the peculiar tone which prevailed amongst Eton boys, who showed a premature knowledge of the world far exceeding that possessed by the scholars at any other school. The graceful self-possession of the boys attracted his attention, but he thought them lacking in self-restraint. Such an accusation, however, could not justly be made in more modern days, when a sort of genial unconcern has come to be regarded as one of the principal characteristics of the typical Etonian, who, preferring anecdote to argument, is profoundly convinced that amongst human institutions his school stands easily first.

With respect to most modern criticisms which have been levelled against the system of education, it must be remembered that in their efforts to teach, the masters are handicapped by one or two fundamental difficulties not easy to surmount.

Eton, in a much larger proportion than any other school, has contained, and does contain, the children of rich parents, boys of good birth and large expectations, most of whom realise very early in life that there is no absolute necessity for them to work; consequently something like a leaven of indolence permeates the school, the tone of which it is, perhaps unjustly, said has of late years been impaired by an increasing number of sons of millionaire parvenus, who are allowed extravagant sums by parents anxious to forward the social success of their offspring by any kind of means. Such parents for the most part have no real wish that their boys should be educated at all, and send them to Eton simply to form friendships and to be turned into gentlemen; or perhaps merely because Eton enjoys the reputation of being a fashionable school. Be this as it may, the number of rich boys sprung from the commercial, or rather financial, classes has undoubtedly increased, whilst foreigners now flock to Eton in ever-swelling numbers. As a result tales, probably untrue, have been circulated of wealthy boys achieving a spurious popularity owing to their pockets being constantly replenished from home, whilst, according to one incredible rumour, the sons of certain rich speculators, imbued with an hereditary faculty for money-making, have, on occasions, not hesitated to loan portions of their abundant funds at an extravagant rate of interest. The writer, be it understood, does not for a moment say that such a state of affairs really exists, but the fact remains that such things have been whispered, of course with no increase to the prestige of the school. It is not healthy for boys to be allowed unlimited pocket-money, and men of moderate means—belonging to what may be called “old Eton families”—do not care to expose their sons to the contamination of mingling with schoolmates of alien blood whose sole claim to consideration lies in their parent’s enormous wealth. In addition to this, quite a number of foreign boys are sent to be educated at Eton, which has occasionally not proved altogether advantageous to the best interests of the school.

Modern Eton as it is to-day may be said to have originated from the recommendations of the Public School Commission, which began its work in 1861, at which time a wind of change was blowing about old places in England, with the result that many a weather-worn relic went down before it. As a result of the labours of this body, the charm of the school’s celestial quiet was broken, some of the evidence taken having revealed an unsatisfactory state of affairs which seemed to call for drastic change. It was, for instance, conclusively shown that the masters had more on their hands than they could do, and some did not make any scruple about complaining. “We are enormously overworked,” said one. “There is no time,” said another, “for society, for meeting each other, for relaxation, and no time, I may say, for private reading, and I consider that prejudicial to the school.” In fact, as Mr. Commissioner Vaughan put it, it seemed a characteristic of the Eton system that “the masters did too much for the boys, and the boys did too little for themselves.” The real state of affairs at Eton at that time was that an immense deal of work was got out of the masters, and little out of the boys. Since those days the number of masters has swelled to the very adequate number of sixty-five or more, exclusive of the Head and Lower Master, but the tutorial system, which has at various times aroused a good deal of adverse criticism, remains unchanged, and in all probability will continue to flourish as long as Eton lasts.

Half a century ago it was urged that the main mistake in the Eton system lay in the retention of the dead languages as the staple of school work, whilst the panacea put forward for the admitted ignorance of Young England was the adoption by the majority of boys of what is known as a “special education.” With some justice it was urged that as a boy when he goes out into the great world is unlikely to read much Greek, and even less likely to write much Latin verse, his school days had much better be occupied in learning something which is practical and useful. Whilst the classics are still the main feature of the school curriculum, a boy may now, on having reached a certain standard (usually attained about the age of 16 1/2), learn modern languages, science, history, mathematics, or continue to study Greek and Latin, according as he, or rather his parents, may decide. In addition to this, the Army class provides an alternative course of study for those about to enter upon a military career.

An entirely new feature is that a number of boys going to Eton now enter for the foundation examination, though without any idea of becoming King’s scholars should they pass. In July 1910 three of the nineteen scholars who passed into Eton entered as “Oppidan scholars.”

With regard to the modern languages mentioned above, it is to be hoped that the old Eton method of teaching has been discarded. In the past the time set apart for French was too often merely a farcical interlude, during which boys devoted all their energies to teasing the master! The old classical system would be preferable if anything of the sort survives, for, after all, even a slight knowledge of the classics is better than an imperfectly assimilated smattering of a modern tongue. In old days very thorough methods were adopted in connection with Latin and Greek. One luckless lad in Keate’s division construed Exegi, I have eaten; monumentum, a monument; perennius, harder; aere, than brass. “Oh, you have, have you?” said the Doctor; “then you’ll stay afterwards, and I’ll give you something to help digest it,” and he did. On the whole, educational authorities are still loth to exclude Latin and Greek. The Commission of fifty years ago, after hearing much evidence, were of this opinion. The Commissioners reported:—

We believe that for the instruction of boys, especially when collected in a large school, it is material that there should be some one principal branch of study, invested with a recognised and, if possible, a traditional importance, to which the principal weight should be assigned and the largest share of time and attention given. We believe that this is necessary in order to concentrate attention, to stimulate industry, to supply to the whole school a common ground of literary interest, and a common path of promotion.... We are of opinion that the classical languages and literature should continue to hold, as they do now, the principal place in public school education.

There is certainly much to be said for Latin as an aid to the acquirement of “exact expression,” but Greek is another matter altogether. According to the writer’s own experience, the majority of boys never obtained any real grip upon that defunct tongue, besides which, for all but an infinitesimal number, in after life Greek, as Mr. Andrew Carnegie has somewhat bluntly put it, “is of no more use than Choctaw.”

The old Eton system was largely composed of paradoxical omissions, and by an extraordinary fiction boys were supposed to be thoroughly acquainted with subjects such as modern geography and arithmetic, of which, in reality, they knew nothing at all.

Within comparatively recent years mathematics had no regular place in the curriculum of the school. It is true that there was an “extra” master or two who was allowed to take those who liked to be taught and charged, but he had no means of enforcing discipline, and, however irritated he might be, had no right to complain to the Headmaster. In Mr. Gladstone’s Eton days Major Hexter, who kept a boarding-house, and was styled the writing-master, taught mathematics. Only the Lower boys, however, went to him, and when they were certified as proficient in long division the Major troubled them no more. When in 1836 the Rev. Stephen Hawtrey came to the school as mathematical master he was only allowed to give his lessons as “extras,” and to the first thirty boys in the school, because Major Hexter was supposed to have a vested interest in the ignorance of the remainder. The whole thing ended in Mr. Hawtrey paying the Major a pension of £200 a year, so that the latter’s opposition to the teaching of Euclid and algebra might be withdrawn.

Even after he had obtained a more or less regular position, Mr. Stephen Hawtrey’s lot was none too happy, and this most kindly man passed many irritating half-hours in the round theatrical-looking building which some called the “Station House.” Those boys whose parents desired it were entered on the books of this establishment, but the time spent there was one rather of recreation than of study. Mischievous boys were constantly turning off the gas or letting off squibs and crackers, especially in November, which was a particularly merry season. Besides this, the unfortunate master did not receive much sympathy or commiseration from his classical superiors, being in a measure regarded as an interloper and an enemy to versification.

The last writing-master as provided for by the ancient statutes was a Mr. Harris, who always resented not being allowed to wear a cap and gown like the other masters. Highly tenacious of such privileges as he could contrive to obtain, he was always well pleased when small boys touched their hats to him in the street, punctiliously returning such salutations with a grand sweep of the arm. A hater of steel pens, one of his principal occupations was mending quills and trying their nibs on his thumb-nail. He had always a quill behind one of his ears, occasionally behind both; and, being a little absent-minded, would sometimes, to the general delight, sally forth from school with his hat on and a pair of fresh-mended quills sticking out underneath. Mr. Harris taught only Lower boys, but big ones, whose bad hand-writing had attracted attention, were sometimes sent to him to learn how to write properly; this, needless to say, was looked upon as a great humiliation.

The old Eton system could not, of course, fit a boy for a commercial or business career—as a matter of fact it was never intended to do so. The modern system, on the other hand, makes something more than a pretence of equipping Etonians for any profession they may select, though, considering the traditions of the school, this is no easy task. The old idea was that, exclusive of the Collegers, a number of whom were always fine scholars, it did not much matter if the boys were taught Sanscrit or Chinese, the main purpose of an Eton education being not so much to inculcate what was vulgarly called “book-learning,” as to fit Etonians to take their place in the great world outside.

Of late years, however, the authorities have made real progress in their efforts to convert “an Eton education” into more of a reality. The facilities for study at Eton have always been good, and within recent years much has been done to improve them, with, it would seem, satisfactory results. White tickets have been invented as a final supreme punishment when yellow tickets have failed to make a culprit realise his own shortcomings, whilst the quaintly named “Tardy-book,” an institution of entirely modern origin, has been devised to strike terror into those who make a practice of being late for school.

The old haphazard methods which formerly prevailed have been discarded in favour of more business-like ways, the school office, which undertakes the distribution of much connected with the work of the school, being a thoroughly workmanlike and efficient institution. In its early days, however, a few things somehow got mislaid, which, of course, furnished unscrupulous boys who had failed to do any punishment with the plausible excuse that their lines had got lost there.

Much less idleness seems now to prevail, the boys being certainly forced to work more than was the case in the writer’s day, when so many of them, it must be admitted, learnt very little indeed, contriving to go through the school with a really surprising lack of mental effort. To such as these the only real time of danger was Trials, when they were absolutely obliged to make some attempt at working. Most idlers, however, took such an ordeal very lightly, occasionally supplementing their defective memories by various ingenious contrivances. An expert once, it is said, equipped himself as follows: Right waistcoat pocket, Greek verbs; left waistcoat pocket, Latin verbs; breast pocket, crib to Horace; right tail pocket, crib to Virgil; left tail pocket, crib to Homer; finger-nails, important dates. His ingenuity, however, was all wasted, for he was plucked. The amount of application and intelligence needful to take a good place in such examinations was formerly quite moderate.

Cunning boys had all sorts of ways of avoiding work. Some could calculate to a nicety when they were likely to be put on to construe, and learnt only a particular bit. One master for a long time made it a practice to call upon each boy in turn right through his division, with the result that they confined themselves to learning only about a dozen lines or so apiece. At last, however, the trick was discovered, and one fatal morning the master caused consternation by putting on the first boy at the end instead of the beginning. A general collapse ensued, boy after boy standing dumbfoundered and speechless, instead of rattling off his portion with glib proficiency.

Thirty or forty years ago, it may safely be affirmed, any boy of ordinary intelligence who had received a good grounding at a private school could manage to make his way up to the higher forms without once “muffing Trials,” and yet not increase his stock of learning in the very slightest degree. He lived, as it were, upon a capital of knowledge imbibed in the very different atmosphere of some hard-working preparatory school. The enthusiasm for learning which inspired many a boy fresh from such modest seminaries was too often quickly cooled by the banks of the Thames. It was, indeed, admitted by not a few that the longer a boy remained at Eton the more lazy he became. One cheeky lad, indeed, being lectured for idleness by his tutor, who at the same time eulogised the industry of a comparatively new comer, was met by the answer, “Well, sir, I have been here three years and he only one.” The tone, at least amongst the majority of the Oppidans, was not encouraging to enthusiasm of any kind, besides which the frank absurdity of certain portions of the Eton curriculum was calculated merely to depress a boy gifted with even average intelligence. Sunday questions, for instance, instituted by Dr. Goodford about 1854, usually resembled nothing so much as a page of acrostics, the correct solution of which, whilst involving a vast amount of trouble, conduced to anything but a love of the Bible. As an aid to holy living, for which purpose, I believe, they were supposed to be devised, no more pitiful failure ever existed, the sole effects produced being unmitigated boredom and much bad language. In modern days they may have been improved, but in their original form these questions, a number of which dealt with the genealogies of Hebrew kings, were a most unstimulating exercise for the youthful brain.

In many other respects the school-work was idiotically useless and bad, a great part of it having seemingly been devised to entail a maximum of drudgery with a minimum of useful information. Above all, it lacked elasticity, little or no effort being made to encourage a boy in any particular subject for which he exhibited aptitude.

Some features of the curriculum might have been modelled upon the ancient Chinese system. What could have been more ridiculous than to make boys who could scarcely construe a simple sentence attempt to turn out Latin verse? It would have been far better to teach greater Eton—that is, the mass of more or less ignorant dunces—how to write a good letter in their own language, or driven into their brains some knowledge of modern geography, yet nothing of the sort was ever attempted.

The writing of Latin verse was one of the most time-honoured Eton traditions which had to be undertaken by every boy who emerged from the Lower Forms of the school, and every week a copy of verses was set by the masters who took the divisions of the Fifth Form. These verses had to be done by the boys as best they could, being submitted for correction to the tutors, who got the verses into shape, eliminating “false quantities” and all other mistakes, in the course of which operation they themselves often composed a good deal of Latin poetry. The revised copy was then returned to the boy, who wrote a “fair copy” out of school, and afterwards showed up both copies to the Division Master. The strain on the tutors was at times great, and unscrupulous boys, with the additional help of a clever friend, would sometimes go through the whole of their Eton career without in the least understanding anything at all about verse-writing.

Such a state of affairs exerted a demoralising effect upon the minds of earnest, well-meaning boys, who gradually came to see that certain features of their education were entirely futile. Besides this, owing to the general tone of the school, a large part of which regarded school-work as being merely a sort of useless way of wasting time, their estimation of the value of effort of all kind lessened, whilst the conviction was forced upon them that no particular kudos was to be gained by conscientious study, which they came to look upon as the peculiar appanage of “Tugs” and “Saps.”

No feat of learning on the part of a King’s scholar ever aroused the slightest surprise, it being generally assumed that “Tugs,” unlike the rest of the school, having been born “Saps,” or always made to work, could master every kind of learning with the greatest ease. The Newcastle Scholar, always a boy of high intellectual attainments, excited no interest amongst the mass of the school—the majority indeed scarcely knew who had won it, and, if asked, would generally reply, “Oh, some Colleger or other.” No aspirations to gain Balliol scholarships or places in the class-lists disturbed the serenity of the Oppidan’s mind. Such petty ambitions might excite the miserable rivalry of boys at other schools, vain mortals toiling in the lower world of scholarship, “vying with and outrunning and outwitting one another.” In such contests Eton could afford to look calmly on, secure in that “repose of character” which has for so many generations marked her students. There existed, indeed, a sort of tacit understanding that it was the business of the Collegers to do the intellectual work and to win the school and University honours, whilst the Oppidans were to prove victorious at Henley and, if possible, beat Harrow and Winchester at cricket. A great portion of the school, assuming a natural licence to be idle, had a deeply implanted conviction that reading was not in their line, and at heart believed it was rather a slow thing to do.

The general result of this unsatisfactory standard of course yielded bad results. Calmly secure in the conviction that to be in the eight or eleven was to have reached the highest pinnacle of boyish ambition, those who excelled in athletics became naturally prone to undervalue intellectual effort and attainments.

To excel at games, not at work, was the ideal set before their youthful eyes; no wonder that for one who persevered in conscientious preparation of his school-work ten succumbed and became content to sink lower and lower in Trials, till at last they just scraped through a few places from the bottom. Admiration for athletics indeed was carried to an almost absurd extreme. Whilst there can be no doubt that exercise and an indulgence in manly games and healthful forms of relaxation are excellent for schoolboys, they should be regarded from a sane and proper point of view, and not held up as the sole end and aim of human existence. Curiously enough, scarcely any great men have been keen athletes during their youthful days, whilst a large proportion of those who have excelled in the cricket field or on the river have been utterly unheard of in after life, where capacity to propel a boat through the water at high speed or drive a cricket ball to the boundary counts scarcely at all. An entire absorption in games to the exclusion of practically all other interests cannot be called a healthy feature of education. Loafing, every one agrees, is a slovenly and demoralising habit, but fanatical interest in cricket, football, or the river is bad in another way, for though it may produce muscle, it may also, when carried to an extreme, produce atrophy of the brain.

In the rough old days, though sporting pursuits, like fighting, were in high repute, games do not appear to have been taken very seriously at Eton, where there was nothing approaching the modern spirit which makes heroes of the eight and the eleven. In the eighteenth century, though games were played, not a few of the more clever boys would appear to have viewed them with something of good-humoured contempt.

“I can’t say I’m sorry that I was never quite a schoolboy,” wrote Horace Walpole; “an expedition against Bargemen, or a match at cricket may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things that are very near as pretty.”

His friend Gray, though in his famous ode he touched upon the school games, expressed no particular enthusiasm for athletics:—

Gray, it should be added, originally wrote

for, extraordinary as it may appear to the modern Etonian, the hoop was formerly in high favour with Eton boys. Trundling a hoop has long been recognised as one of the best forms of exercise; indeed, the writer has been told that the present Headmaster of Eton, in his day an athlete of high distinction, being once abroad where no games could be played, in order to keep himself fit purchased a hoop and took to trundling it with great zest.

As late as the early part of the nineteenth century, during the October half, the majority of Lower School used to indulge in the somewhat infantile delights of trundling a hoop with a stout stick. The Eton hoop was made differently from the ones still used by children, being formed out of a strong ash lathe with a remnant of bark upon its surface. The inevitable collisions of hoops and their trundlers not infrequently led to hostilities, and on several occasions regular pitched battles occurred between Collegers and Oppidans. A famous encounter once took place at the end of the wall near the Chapel door, about twenty boys being on each side, one Saturday after four, big boys in front, little ones behind. Thanks to their gowns, which they adroitly twisted round one arm, the Collegers had the best of the encounter, though the Oppidans were able to draw off without having been definitely beaten. The contest excited great interest, a crowd of people watching the battle, and though the masters were fully aware of what was going on, no attempt was made to interfere. For some reason or other, however, there was no more hoop-trundling till the following year.

In long-past days another form of amusement, generally associated with childhood—marbles—enjoyed an occasional popularity amongst Lower boys, many of whom prided themselves on the variegated colours contained in their collections, whilst for a time “Bandalore”—which, as “Diabolo,” quite recently enjoyed a great vogue all over England—quite captivated the school.

Peg-tops were once in great favour, Weight, who kept a grocer’s shop and was known as “Old Tallow Weight,” doing a brisk business in such tops and the whip-cord necessary to spin them. The Rev. E. D. Stone (see page 61) says that in his day, under Hawtrey, backgammon and knuckle bones were popular in College.

About 1770 the games[10] popular at Eton were “Cricket, Fives, Shirking Walls, Scrambling Walls, Bally-cally, Battledores, Pegtop, Peg in the ring, Goals, Hopscotch, Heading, Conquering Lobs, Hoops, Marbles, Trap-ball, Steal-baggage, Puss in the corner, Cat-gallows, Kites, Cloyster and Flyer gigs, Tops, Humming-Tops, Hunt the Hare, Hunt the dark lanthorn, Chuck, Sinks, Store-Caps, Hustle-cap.” Of football, it will be observed, there is no mention; nevertheless it was played, though not in very good repute. Fives, of course, was then played between the buttresses of the Chapel, the favourite time being before eleven-o’clock school, when a ring of spectators would assemble to watch good players. As every one knows, the pepper-box of the modern fives court takes its origin from the stone termination of the steps leading up to the Chapel door, which was copied in the first regular fives court built at Eton in 1847.

It would seem that the old Eton authorities, whilst not disapproving of games, did not attach any very considerable importance to them. In theory, indeed, boating on the Thames was forbidden, but in practice even Keate tolerated the joys of the river, though he made violent efforts to prevent any rowing before Easter, in order to prevent the boys from catching chills.

In the ’forties of the last century foot races and the three-mile steeplechase, with its almost impossible jumps and immersions, were a source of considerable interest just before Easter. The winter games were then football and hockey, the latter of which, however, only held its ground for a time, during which it was patronised by many of the swells. There was then a tradition, which still seems to exist, that it had been from time to time forbidden as dangerous; nevertheless it was played for years without either injury or any reprimand. The sticks were not rough, but smoothed and artificially bent, with blades about a foot long. There were two clubs, called upper and lower hockey; but football gradually superseded it, and the game entirely disappeared about the year 1853. With regard to the prohibition, a writer mentions (in 1832) hockey and football as the chief winter games at Eton, and says that more came away “hobbling” from the latter than from the former, but speaks further on of a boy having in his room “an illegal hockey-stick.” He observes that this fine old game had died out in England, except at Eton and Sandhurst, and adds quaintly: “It is one of the most elegant and gentlemanly exercises, being susceptible of very graceful attitudes, and requiring great speed of foot.”

As time went on, athletics began to exercise more and more influence, till in the ’sixties they attained to much the same preponderant position as they hold at Eton to-day. A few, however, viewed the growing worship of skilfully trained brute force with unconcealed dislike. In the early ’seventies of the last century a little magazine, called the Adventurer, contained an article signed E. G. R. called “Eton as it is,” which scathingly attacked the growing deification of muscle rather than brain:—

“While in the world around us, for which we are here preparing ourselves, a vast worship of intellect universally prevails, at Eton it is the worship of the body which enslaves the whole community. What, in our estimation, is mind, intellect, hard and successful cultivation of the faculties? Nothing. What is cricket, rowing, athletics, football? Everything. And our School is meanwhile being degraded almost to the level of an Athletic Club.... Idleness holds sway everywhere, and such idleness! As a man who has never had dealings with the Chinese can have but a faint idea of what swindling is, so a man who has never been at Eton has but a poor conception of what idleness is.”

This protest was not, however, well received by the school, the Adventurer being expelled from the rooms of “Pop,” which, curiously enough, on its foundation in 1811 by Charles Fox Townshend as a political and literary society, had only elected the captain of the boats in order to show that the members had no prejudice against athletics.

Its tone was distinctly Conservative. Fourteen years later, in Mr. Gladstone’s day, only one member, a Colleger, was suspected of having Liberal tendencies. Originally “Pop” was located in the upper room of Mother Hatton’s “sock shop.” In 1846, when the house, together with another, was formed into Drury’s, “Pop” migrated to the yard of the old Christopher. The site of Drury’s is now covered by part of that huge and incongruous building—the “Memorial Hall.”

The early members of “Pop,” it is curious to find, were originally known as the Literati, their first debate, held on February 9, 1811, dealing with the question of whether the passage of the Andes by Pizarro or the passage of the Alps by Hannibal was the greater exploit. No political event within fifty years was permitted as a subject for debate. Mr. Gladstone, who was elected a member in 1825, made his maiden speech before this Society, the subject being “Is the Education of the Poor on the whole Beneficial?”

The future Prime Minister took great pains to improve himself as an orator, going, it is said, to rehearse his “Pop” speeches in Trotman’s gardens, on the site of which the old fives courts were afterwards built. To the end of his days he continued to take great interest in the “Eton Society.” His correspondence as to its records, in which every speaker has written his speech, has been amusingly described by Lord Rosebery, who on succeeding the great statesman in office one day received a letter in which the Grand Old Man expressed himself much distressed because during a recent visit to the rooms of “Pop” he had seen a picture of a recent Derby winner over the chimney-piece. A generation, wrote Mr. Gladstone, which had such depraved tastes could not, in his opinion, be fitted to have the custody of the invaluable records of the Eton Society, and he therefore begged Lord Rosebery to address the authorities at Eton on the subject. The state of affairs of which Mr. Gladstone complained, did not cause the recipient of his appeal so much disquiet, for the Derby winner which hung over the “Pop” mantelpiece was Lord Rosebery’s own horse, Ladas, which won the great classic race in 1894.

Lord Rosebery, who, even in his Eton days, was a most effective debater, is another member of “Pop” who has risen to high distinction. Retaining a singularly keen interest in everything connected with his old school, he it was who made the most eloquent and witty speech at the dinner in the Memorial Hall, where, on July 14, 1911, 400 Etonians, the vast majority old members of “Pop,” met to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Society’s foundation. In the aforesaid speech he very happily described “Pop” as being a noble companionship like the Garter, not always given for merit, but a high companionship with illustrious tradition to which anybody might be proud to belong.

Though athleticism has now in a great measure dominated the “Eton Society,” it must be confessed, as another distinguished old Etonian, Lord Curzon, said at the same dinner, that neither title, means, nor athletic distinction per se ever enabled a man to get inside the walls of “Pop.” There must be something else—he must be what the world calls “a good sort,” and it is well that this happy state of affairs still remains unchanged. On the same occasion Lord Curzon pointed out that Eton had laid a vigorous hand on India, six out of the last seven Viceroys having been old Eton boys, whilst that illustrious veteran Lord Roberts was also an old Etonian.

In the course of the nineteenth century the importance of the captain of the boats has gradually grown, and at the present day his personality dominates Eton. He occupies a unique position, being envied and admired by the Upper part of the school and regarded as a sort of superior being by Lower boys.

When, about half a century ago, a Royal Commission was taking evidence as to the state of affairs prevailing at Eton, it was elicited in evidence that “the captains of the boats and the eleven were scarcely ever distinguished in scholarship or mathematics.” One master indeed declared that he had “not observed any boys, during a short experience, distinguished both in intellect and athletic pursuits.” Young Lord Boringdon, himself one of the “eight” for two years, was “afraid that the crews of the boats were generally distinguished for want of industrious habits.” Cricket the Commission pronounced to have been found “hardly compatible with high scholarship.” Although the Collegers formed the larger proportion of the oldest boys in the school, they were seldom in the eleven, because they were unwilling to spare so much time from the school work as was considered necessary for practice.

In my own Eton days, thirty years ago, the captain of the school—head of Sixth Form—was nobody at all in the eyes of the Oppidans. Few of them indeed knew him by sight, and fewer still felt any curiosity to do so. As far as I remember he enjoyed no particular privileges except the right of presenting a new Headmaster with a birch tied up with ribbon of Eton blue. The captain of the Oppidans held a slightly better position, a sort of idea prevailing that there must have been something extraordinary about him or he would not have risen so high in the school, Oppidans as a rule not being generally considered very clever or apt to work.

Next to the captain of the boats in popular estimation came the captain of the eleven, who in his own circle commanded a good deal of attention, and of course stood infinitely higher than any boy distinguished only for intellectual attainments. The members of the eight and eleven followed after, together with a few other “swaggers,” who on account of their prowess at football, rackets, running, fives, and sometimes even rifle shooting, were regarded with a certain degree of reverential awe.

Of late years, however, a more satisfactory state of affairs has prevailed, not a few prominent athletes and oarsmen having shown considerable mental capacity.