A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



Dallas hurled a stone at him in school. Keate 

 demanding who it was, Dallas got up and said : 

 ' It was me, sir, and I beg your pardon,' and 

 nothing further was said. 



Those boys who wished to learn learnt from 

 the 32 private tutors who looked after them out 

 of school. Keate himself was a good scholar, 

 and his Vlth Form lessons in ' chambers,' the old 

 head master's chamber by Long Chamber, were 

 said to be inspiring. But the books used were 

 still limited to those of James's day, somewhat en- 

 larged, the Scriptures Graeci and Scriptorti Romani. 

 An immense amount of verse was done, and that 

 secured good scholarship. The best training was 

 that of the boys themselves of themselves in the 

 magazines they started, the College Magazine, the 

 Horae Otiosae, W. M. Praed's Apis Matina in 

 1820, the Etonian in 1821, the Eton Miscellany in 

 1828, and the Eton College Magazine in 1832 ; 

 still more in the plays that they performed ; and, 

 above all, in the debating society, officially known 

 as the Eton Society, commonly called ' Pop.' 

 This was started in 1811 by C. F. Townshead, 

 who died at the age of twenty-two when a 

 candidate for Parliament for Cambridge 

 University. Its members were at first called 

 literati, and the name of ' Pop ' is said to be due 

 to the twenty original members having first met 

 at Mrs. Hatton's, a cook-shop or popina, where 

 they breakfasted once a week. The successes of 

 Etonians at the universities showed that it was 

 possible to learn there if you had a turn for 

 learning, and probably the learning was all the 

 keener for being almost wholly a voluntary 

 effort. 



It was at this time also that games began to 

 take their present form. In 1818 cricket matches 

 began with Harrow, when Harrow won ; and in 

 1826 with Winchester, when Winchester won. 

 In 1826 and 1830 there were boat races with 

 Westminster. 



In 1834 Keate, being a canon of Windsor, 

 retired to a Windsor living in Hampshire. The 

 boys made him a presentation of plate costing 

 jTooo, at which he was so overcome that he 

 could only acknowledge it by lifting the redoubt- 

 able cocked hat which he wore as his official head 

 covering, and which he hurled on the floor on 

 taking leave of the assistant masters, never to be 

 worn again. 



The senior assistant master, Edward Craven 

 Hawtrey, member of an old Etonian family, 

 succeeded Keate. A heavy fall from 627 boys 

 to 486 took place, whether from the change of 

 man or from an outburst of criticism of the Eton 

 system is not clear. Hawtrey introduced some 

 reforms, especially that of a reduction in the 

 size of the forms, placing the masters in separate 

 class-rooms, and giving each form a separate 

 master specially responsible for it. Provost 

 Francis Hodgson, who was forced on the college 

 by the Crown after Goodall's death in 1840, 



was more efficient as a reformer. He reformed 

 college at a cost of , 14,000, giving separate 

 rooms to 49 seniors, and improving the food, 

 while he made admission depend on competitive 

 examination, with the result that instead of being 

 half empty, and a place to be shunned by every- 

 one not driven to it by dire poverty, it is now 

 sought after a great deal too much. When the 

 sons of Speakers and cabinet ministers, and 

 still more, men rich with revenues that do not 

 die with them, are found in it, the intention of 

 the founder seems to have been departed from as 

 much as in the days when it was handed over to 

 the lackeys of the great and the petty tradesmen 

 of the rich. 



In 1851 mathematics were made a part of the 

 regular curriculum, and six mathematical masters 

 appointed. The numbers rose from 444 in 

 1835 to 777. 



Provost Hodgson died prematurely in 1852, 

 and Hawtrey, the head master, succeeded him. 

 Charles Old Goodford, an assistant master, 

 ' honest, righteous, brave, prudent, but sleepy, 

 weak in health, and unpolished,' became head 

 master. He enlarged the area of selection of 

 masters by no longer restricting them to Kings- 

 men or to collegers. In 1861 the Public Schools 

 Commission was appointed. The same year 

 saw the earnest of future innovations in the be- 

 ginning of the new schools or classrooms, a red 

 brick building in the Tudor style, on the oppo- 

 site side of the Slough Road to Upper School. 

 Hawtrey died in i86i,and Goodford became 

 provost in his place, the provostry being now 

 regarded as almost a perquisite of the head 

 master. Edward Balston, an assistant master, 

 afterwards Archdeacon of Derby, succeeded. He 

 was not a man to initiate reforms, and when the 

 Public Schools Act was passed he retired. Under 

 this Act a new governing body was substituted 

 for the provost and fellows, consisting of the 

 provosts of the two colleges, nominees of the 

 two ancient universities, of the Royal Society, of 

 the Lord Chief Justice, and of the Eton masters, 

 and two to four co-optatives. In 1871 they 

 made new statutes, repealing the old, which had 

 in fact ceased to be observed. The chief change 

 was the partial severance of the connexion with 

 King's, that college being no longer confined to 

 Etonians, though Eton has the preference for 

 half the scholarships. Of late years these have 

 so much declined in value that often the full 

 number from Eton is not filled up. 



The new head master, John James Hornby, 

 was the first for nearly 200 years who was 

 not a Kingsman or a colleger or an assistant 

 master. An oppidan and an Oxonian, at Balliol 

 he had obtained a first class in classics in 1849, 

 and rowed in the Oxford eight ; and as a fellow 

 of Brasenose he had attained distinction. He 

 had also been a tutor at Durham University. 

 As second master at Winchester in 1866 to 1868 



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