Eton College

“ Before the reforms made in College in 1845 most of the King’s scholars, it must be confessed, were more of the class intended by Henry VI. than has since been the case. In latter years many Collegers have belonged to well-to-do or even rich families, whereas the Foundation was specially intended for poor boys. In the early part of the nineteenth century a certain proportion of those in College were the sons of Eton or Windsor doctors or solicitors, royal servants, or successful tradesmen. Besides these there were sons of Eton masters and boys of impoverished country squires. ”

“ He had been a youthful Colleger himself, and probably considered that the whole thing was merely a too enthusiastic performance of an old Eton tradition, which in his eyes excused a good deal.
In school work the Collegers then, as now, easily maintained an almost unchallenged supremacy. Almost without exception the sons of poor parents, accurately grounded and imbued with the idea that education was a real preparation for life, they knew that they would have to make their way in the world by their own exertions, for which reason to be “a sap” in College was quite an ordinary thing. ”

“ How comes it that during the hundreds of years in which priests and fellows of Eton College have retired from hard work to college livings and leisure, not one of them has ever done anything whatever for either scholarship or divinity—not one? ”

“ Oppidans also were then very young, a child aged four and a half being admitted in 1820. At that time a boy could rise to the top of the school merely by seniority, due importance not being attached to hard work and sound scholarship. The “trials” were then more or less nominal, but the curious thing is, that in spite of all this Eton produced some very fine classical scholars, while [48] the vast majority of the boys were better acquainted with Latin and Greek than their successors who went to Eton when a more exacting curriculum came into force. ”

“ A study of an illustration of Winchester School serves to support this conception. The most prominent feature of the college buildings was the church. Divine worship was to be effectively rendered daily. Grouped round the church were the cloisters and the chambers, the dwelling places for the poor scholar clerks. The more closely the building is examined, the more clearly is its relation to the monastic ideal realised.
The influence of the monastic ideal is even more evident in connection with the foundation of Eton College, the second of our great public schools in respect of date of origin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At present, however, the summer evenings are once again peaceful as of yore—a happy state of affairs which should delight every true lover of Eton, for it is beneath the rays of a setting sun that the tranquil charm of the old red-brick walls and weather-beaten buildings makes itself especially felt. |SWINBURNE’S LINES| At this time of year is it, more than any other, that the crowning glory of the place—the playing fields fringed by the silver winding Thames—present such a superb scene of placid beauty, whilst College close by whispers from its towers “the last enchantment of the Middle Age.” ”

“ Such a bull was granted, and in 1448 the University itself consented, by an instrument given under its common seal, that the College, in the matter of discipline as distinguished from instruction, should be entirely independent of the University. By the limitation also of the benefits of this foundation to scholars only of Eton, the founder, perhaps unconsciously, certainly disastrously, created an exclusive class of students endowed with exclusive privileges, an anomaly which for more than four centuries marred the full efficiency of Henry’s splendid foundation. ”

“ Soon the famous Eton College comes into view on the northern bank of the river—an institution dear to the memory of many English schoolboys. The village consists of a long, narrow street which is extended across an iron bridge to Windsor, on the southern bank of the Thames. Henry VI. founded the "College of the Blessed Mary of Eton beside Windsor" as early as 1440. The older parts of the buildings are of red brick, with stone dressings and quaint, highly ornamental chimneys, and they are clustered around two quadrangles. Here are the Lower and Upper Schools and the Long Chamber. ”

“ Amongst public schools Eton admittedly occupies a unique position. Every one admires the beauty of its surroundings, whilst to those possessed of imagination—more especially, of course, if they are Etonians—the school and its traditions cannot fail to appeal.
In addition to many of its associations being connected with glorious chapters of English history, the old quadrangle, chapel, and playing fields possess a peculiar charm of their own, due to a feeling that the spirit of past ages still hovers around them. ”

“ Election Saturday, the glories of which have now departed for ever, was a great day not only for those in College, whom it more immediately concerned, but for the whole school. At two o’clock the Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, attended by two examiners called “Posers,” drove into Weston’s Yard. The arrival of his yellow coach, drawn by four smoking horses, always produced great excitement. Meeting the Provost of Eton, a kiss of peace was exchanged (abandoned in Dr. Hawtrey’s days for a handshake) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ With respect to most modern criticisms which have been levelled against the system of education, it must be remembered that in their efforts to [228] 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 ”

“ Under these the college, hitherto a close corporation of Eton collegers, was thrown open to the world. In the furthering of these reforms and in guiding their progress with justice and moderation, lay the principal achievement of Austen Leigh's life. As provost, he presided over the college with striking success during a period of its history remarkable for intellectual growth. He was an active member of the governing body of Eton College from 1889, and from 1890 did equally good service as a governor of Winchester College. ”

“ Harley Street: world famous for its distinguished and expensive practitioners of medicine, it is a short distance south-west of Regent’s Park.
Eton: one of the largest and the most famous of the English public schools, Eton College lies just below Windsor Castle in the small town of Eton in Berkshire on the north bank of Thames. The school was founded in 1440 by Henry VI.
not having a sense of proportion: Woolf herself suffered mental collapses in 1895 (when, like Septimus, she jumped out of a window) , 1904, and in 1913–15; and she again attempted to take her own life in 1913. ”

“ This, and many other acts of maternal tenderness, rendered her memory unspeakably dear to the poet, who seldom mentioned her, after her death, "without a sigh." He was sent to study at Eton College, the happy days spent in which he has so beautifully commemorated in his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College." It added to his comfort here that his maternal uncle, Mr Antrobus, was an assistant-teacher. From Eton he passed to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was admitted as a pensioner in 1734, in the nineteenth year of his age. ”

“ If by that time he had not gone to King’s College, Cambridge, he was superannuated, and had to leave Eton. At the examination at the end of every July those boys who had passed their eighteenth birthday were placed in school order of merit, and were called from thence to Cambridge at any time of the year, whenever, through death, marriage, or any cause, a vacancy occurred in the number of the seventy members of King’s College, in order to supply which King Henry VI. founded his school at Eton of seventy scholars. ”

“ The prospective advantages which a Colleger might reasonably expect at King’s College, Cambridge, were not enough to counterbalance the discomfort and degradation of existence in the great dormitory known as “Long Chamber,” besides which the expenses of a King’s scholar were little less than those of the well-fed and comfortably housed Oppidan, the cost of education on the Eton Foundation often falling not very far short of a hundred a year—a most [197] extravagant outlay considering that a Colleger was cared for no better than a charity boy. ”

“ The modern system, on the other hand, makes something more than a pretence of equipping Etonians [235] 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. ”

“ One of the most ludicrous jokes ever perpetrated upon any Eton master was played some ten years ago. At that time several new masters, not all of whom were Etonians, had been appointed, more or less, I believe, upon probation. One of these, who taught modern languages, though a clever man, was of too confiding and gentle a disposition to cope with the boys, and during school hours a scene of great disorder became the almost invariable rule. Paper darts flew all over the class-room, and every kind of queer noise was heard, though the poor man was always unable to bring the offenders to book. ”

“ Speeches, I believe, are now to take place in the new Memorial Hall, and the busts of celebrated Etonians will no longer look down upon the visitors who flock to Eton on the 4th of June. The old staircase, from the colonnade to Upper School, is one of the most picturesque portions of the College. Here it was that in old days boys promoted from Lower to Upper School were subjected to the ordeal of “booking,” being hit on the head with books as they passed up the staircase. ”

“ During his tenure of the provostship he was one of the contracting parties in the ‘Amicabilis Concordia,’ with the provost of Eton and the wardens of New College and Winchester, in which they bound themselves to render each other mutual support in maintaining the common interests of their foundations. In 1446 he refused to acquiesce in the sweeping changes proposed in the constitution of the college, by which it was to be made altogether independent not only of the bishop of the diocese, but also of the university authorities, and its benefits limited to scholars from Eton. ”

“ The allusion to worn-out elbows in the ditty given above is significant as to the poverty-stricken appearance of the Collegers, most of whom were then very sorrily dressed. Almost without exception they were boys whose parents had but small means. As a matter of fact College was never intended to be an educational refuge for rich or high-born boys, and, as a highly competent critic has remarked, “A [212] young aristocrat in a serge gown is an anomaly not contemplated by the statutes of the royal founder.” ”

“ They formerly used to occupy a seat on the low wall, in front of the college, but the present headmaster has recently interfered to expel this assemblage; they still, however, carry on their destructive intercourse with youth, by walking about, and watching their opportunity for communication. The merits of these worthies are here faithfully related, and will be instantly recognised by any Etonian of the last thirty years. 2 PROS. Eton college is governed by a provost, vice- provost, six fellows, a steward of the courts, head-master, and a lower, or second master ”

“ To Eton, then, he went; and there had the good fortune to fall into the hands of an excellent tutor, who, while he instructed him in the old Church-of-England principles of Mant and Doyley, gave his mind a religious impression, which secured him against the allurements of bad company, whether at the school itself, or afterwards at Oxford. To that celebrated seat of learning he was in due time transferred, being entered at St. Saviour's College; and he is in his sixth term from matriculation, and his fourth of residence, at the time our story opens. ”

“ I must, however, add that I never heard anything about this when I was at Eton. Another College shout was “Cloister P!” on hearing which the lowest boy within call had to fetch a canful of excellent drinking water from the famous old pump in the Cloisters, at the spout of which, in a rougher age, many generations of Collegers had performed their ablutions. Owing to the dearth of Lower boys in College for a long time past, it has been the custom that every newcomer, irrespective of his place in the school, should fag for a year. ”