a request made for a presentation for the son of a man of letters who was in straitened circumstances, I should not think myself bound to subject the

child to the usual test."-Evidence, 927, 936.

But in very few cases are nominations made in such conscientious accordance with the spirit and intent of the founder.

In some points St Paul's is what many parents would consider a model school. There is no fagging, and no flogging. "That truly British institution, the rod," is, to Mr Commissioner Vaughan's astonishment, unknown in those happy precincts. There is only its weak substitute, the cane. Even that instrument, however, in able hands, had been made in former times to do a good deal of duty. Now, only six formal cuts are administered, always on the hand; but when the present head-master first entered upon his duties, he found a good deal of what cricketers call "lively hitting to all parts of the field" going on-"especially about the legs and back; so much so, that "the noise alone formed a great obstruction to the progress of the school duties." The reason why the young Paulines are neither fagged nor birched lies in the fact of the school being exclusively a day-school. When boys only associate with each other in the schoolroom, under the immediate eye of the masters, and separate immediately afterwards for their several homes, any system of fagging would be neither possible nor desirable; and any exceptional instances of the kind the master would very properly check: so also, having little or no connection with the school except during lesson hours, the only offences which usually come under the master's eye are those of idleness or disorder; the moral discipline of the boys must be supposed to rest wholly with the parents, and those graver moral offences, to which the

punishment of flogging in most public schools is now almost exclusively confined, can very rarely come under the master's cognisance. Of course, a mere day-school education in a city like London, and where the boys, as at St Paul's, spend perhaps two hours of the day in going to and returning from school, with an additional hour's break in the middle of the day, when they are allowed to go wherever they please to get their lunch or dinner, is liable to the serious objection that the gravest moral misconduct may go on without either master or parent being aware of it. In fact, Dr Kynaston fairly disclaims for himself any real responsibility for his scholars in any respect except their school-work; "he has not an opportunity of observing the moral conduct of the boys, except in their general propriety of demeanour, and in matters of discipline between the master and the boys." ."* This, with the want of social intercourse in the boarding-house and the play-ground, which has been already noticed, is the point in which London dayschool life falls so far short of the best public-school training. Such school friendships as are formed depend, it is confessed, somewhat on the accident of "going home the same way," or some other chance association. Yet with all these disadvantages, one is pleased as well as surprised to find that it used to be said of the Paulines at the universities, that they "hung together more than other schools;" though it was "perhaps because they went up only three or four together, not like a large school, where they send up thirty or forty.'

St Paul's is lavish in prizes and exhibitions to the universities-too lavish, in proportion to the amount of competition for them, as the head-master boldly complains, and as the Commissioners fully agree. There are usually not more than five or six boys who go off to college

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every year (a strangely small proportion, when it is considered that the 153 scholars are "almost invariably" the sons of clergymen or professional men West End boys"), and all of them get exhibitions. The captain of the year gets one of £120, for four years, tenable with any scholarship at any college in either university; the next has one of £100 to Trinity, Cambridge; the next £80, and the Court give as many of £50 each as may be required, to any one that the examiners say is fit to go to the university." Besides this liberal provision, the Court of Assistants is in the habit of giving an honorarium to those who, after leaving school, obtain scholarships or honours at the universities, or what the Commissioners term certain supposed distinctions in public competitive examinations." Not less than £160 was expended under this head in the year 1860. The Secretary, in drawing up the report on these points, relieves his mind from the dryness of detail by a touch of satire not uncongenial to him. He observes, in the name of the Commissioners, that "the principle of giving a boy an exhibition on the mere certificate of the examiners that he is not absolutely unfit to hold it, is to us a novel one;" and that " to bestow a sum of money upon a young man as a reward for having obtained a considerable addition to his income, is a proceeding the reasons of which are not selfevident." The truth is, the school trust has so much money that they do not know what to do with it. They have a present available surplus of at least £2500 per annum, with a prospect of £2000 more if the school lasts until 1888; and it is due to the Court of Assistants to say that they have for some time been considering what is best to be done with it; whether to increase the numbers of the school on its present site which would be very difficult, and not very desirable-or to remove it altogether into the country, or to retain the present

school, increasing it to 200, and add a second affiliated school for boarders at a distance from town. But the Commissioners recommend the sale of the present site, where the noise of the traffic seriously interrupts the work of the school, and which is said also to affect the health of the boys, and the erection of a new school for 500 boys in some such locality as Pentonville or the new Victoria Street; still maintaining Dean Colet's foundation for the purposes for which he plainly intended it-"a day-school to which the dwellers in London were to have access for the purpose of acquiring the highest literary culture." They think, with the Bishops of London and Manchester, that the need of such schools in London is at least as great as ever, and that "the want of a more thoroughly grounded and higher element in the secondary classes of our professions is producing in some quarters slow but irremediable mischief." They recommend no addition to the 153 scholars on the foundation, but that the election should be strictly competitive, and that the non-foundationers, whose numbers would be so largely increased, should be eligible to all the exhibitions, which might then be at least doubled in number. With these reforms, it is their opinion that the school "might and ought to become the first in London, and one of the first in Great Britain."

The school attached to Sutton's Hospital of the Charter-House differs in one essential point from St Paul's; all the boys on the foundation are boarders. These are now fifty-four in number, who receive gratuitously board, lodging, education, medical attendance, and clothing. They are nominated, subject to a mere formal examination, by the sixteen governors (amongst whom are the two Archbishops) in rotation, excepting that, under a late arrangement, two scholars in every year are selected by competition. Every foundation scholar

who chooses to go to the universities receives, on passing a moderate examination at the age of eighteen, an exhibition of £80 per annum, to any college, for four years: or an outfit of £100 is given him, if he goes into the army or navy, or otherwise requires such help. Besides the foundation scholars, there have usually of late been between forty and fifty boarders, and about the same number of day-boys. But at one time, in consequence of what seems to have been a sudden and

temporary popularity, the numbers rose in a remarkable manner; in the year 1825 there were as many as 480. The cause of this sudden rise and collapse is explained in the very amusing and characteristic evidence of the present Dean of Peterborough - an old Carthusian, and late head-master of the school:

"I was a boy in the school, in 1818, at the height of its prosperity; Dr Russell had just introduced the Bell system. The Bell system was turning a public school into a national school, making the boys teach each other and govern each other. It had a wonderful effect at first; it captivated people most immensely.

We were drawn up before the governors, examiners, and visitors to question each other; we were drilled to handle particular sets of questions, which were to

be answered before the examiners, Dr Mant and Dr Doyley, who were, to boys' ideas, a little soft. I was præpostor myself at one time, and I had been trained to ask these questions, as well as to give these answers, and these gentlemen went away wonderstruck.

Our parents were taken in ; they saw what appeared to them the results of this wonderful teaching, and said nothing could be equal to it; but when the sons became old enough themselves to go to the university, and to judge of it, then down fell the school. Each separate form had a cocky little boy who was put at the head of the class, and who taught the rest of the boys. Dr Russell reigned Jupiter Tonans over the whole of the school, working himself brilliantly and indefatigably. He thought the work of the school was going on beautifully,

but he was certainly taken in by apparent results. On one occasion, I remember the sixth form were dancing to

a chorus of Dante instead of construing a play of Sophocles, as he thought. There was a præpostor of one form who, being a little mite, but a clever scholar, was put by Dr Russell at the head of his class, but he said it was torture to him above everything; he felt all the responsibilities of his place. Dr Russell would call out, 'Fifth form, where is your præpostor?' 'Please, sir, here he is!' and they would hold him up by the neck. You cannot wonder if after that the school fell."-Evidence, 544-546.

In the next ten years the numbers had sunk to ninety-nine. The larger

numbers were more than the school or the boarding-houses could fairly accommodate, and some of the bedrooms were crowded fearfully."

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these days, as proportioned to the number of boys. The Commissioners consider this somewhat too great an indulgence, especially as it follows upon ordinary school faults, if a boy's name is found in the "black book" three times in one week.

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The recommendation of the Report is, that Charter-House, as being chiefly a boarding-school, should be removed into the country, its foundation scholarships being thrown open, as in other cases, to general competition. Archdeacon Hale, the "Master" (not schoolmaster) of the Hospital, would strongly object to both. He argues, with some truth, against this perpetual competition, that "there is no reason whatever to believe that the founder proposed to educate only clever children :" certainly, if all these old benefactions are to be thus disposed of, it is time that some modern benefactor should arise to found an hospital, like old Sutton's, for the stupid ones. Opening" foundations may, in a certain sense, be merely limiting them to boys who have already the advantage over their fellows of natural genius, or opportunities of superior early instruction. If the electors who have these valuable prizes in their gift would only regard them conscientiously as public trusts; if gentlemen who are perfectly able to give their sons an independent education would abstain from shameless solicitation for what is, after all, a charity, a larger reform would be effected than all these competitive examinations will ever effect. After all, it is a hard case that a hard-working clergyman or professional man, with half-a-dozen children, or a widow thrown upon her own resources with a young family, should be excluded from these educational aids because their boys do not happen to be geniuses.

It remains to say a few words on the excellent school maintained by the Merchant Taylors' Company. It has no foundation, strictly

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speaking; the Company even deny any legal obligation to maintain the school at all; "they consider that no one could challenge their act if they were to abolish it altogether." It is, in point of fact, a private school, though it has usually ranked amongst the public ones. "If we choose to expend £2000 a-year on it," says the Master of the Company in his evidence, well and good; but if we choose to put that money into our own pockets, we may do so." Expending, however, as they do, something more than this sum annually in salaries to masters and the general maintenance of the school, they are enabled to reduce the total schoolcharges to each boy as low as £10 per annum. This does not include board, with which, in fact, the school arrangements have nothing to do: as in the case of St Paul's, the boys either board at home or wherever their parents choose to place them. Some of the masters take boarders (which is not the case at St Paul's); but this is entirely a matter of private arrangement. The education given is so good, and the terms so low, that the nominations, which are given by the "Master, Wardens, and Assistants" of the Company in rotation, are pretty eagerly sought after by professional men and the higher class of tradesmen. Probably the great attraction, in many cases, lies in the liberal endowments which the school has received in the way of scholarships and exhibitions. Though the Oxford Commissioners, and the Privy Council together, have made sad havoc with Sir Thomas White's magnificent foundation at St John'swhich formerly made Merchant Taylors' the richest school in England-there still remains to it a very considerable share of university good things. It has no longer its thirty-seven fellowships, virtually entered upon immediately on leaving school, and tenable for life, which it enjoyed up to 1862; these have shrunk, under the Privy