SCHOOLS 



he had won all hearts, and shareJ in and wit- 

 nessed the advantage of the reforms effected there 

 by Dr. Ridding. He was thus able to bring a 

 wide experience to bear on the difficult problems 

 with which the report of the Royal Commission 

 (published in 1865) confronted him. The re- 

 forms accomplished by him "* were so great that, 

 as Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte remarks, less differ- 

 ences are observable between the time-tables of 

 1765 and 1865 than between those of 1865 and 

 1875. Many of them were the result of the 

 recommendations of the Commission. 



1. Morning chapel was introduced ; a short- 

 ened daily service being held, attended by all 

 the school, at 9.25. Previously boys attended 

 chapel, or rather church as it was more correctly 

 called till about 1 860, at 1 1 and 3 on holidays 

 and at 3 on half-holidays. Instead of this 

 ' Absences,' i.e. ' Callings over,' were substituted. 



2. For the system of moving upwards from 

 the Vth form merely by seniority was substituted 

 admission to the first three divisions, the First 

 Hundred, by ' trials ' or examination. 



3. Extra Studies, or ' Extras ' as they were 

 called, were imposed on the ' First Hundred,' 

 every member of which might choose a subject 

 from modern languages, science, history, and the 

 less-read classical authors, on which he had to 

 spend four hours a week. For this purpose two 

 extra school hours (at 9.45 and 10.30 respec- 

 tively) were established on all half-holidays. 

 Instead of this one hour a day is now given. 

 But there has been no increase in the number of 

 hours, as stated by Sir H. Maxwell Lyte. 



4. French became compulsory for all boys 

 below the first three divisions. 



5. Science became a regular part of the work 

 of the Vth form in 1869, and of the ' Remove ' 

 in 1875. A chemical laboratory and lecture- 

 room were built at a cost of j 3,000 contributed 

 by the head master and some old Etonian friends 

 the college being at the time too poor to 

 undertake the work. The assistant masters con- 

 tributed liberally. 



6. All the mathematical, science, and French 

 masters were raised to the same status with the 

 classical. The scale of payment was rearranged. 



7. 'Dames,' or keepers of boarding-houses 

 who were not masters, were abolished. No new 

 leases of boarding-houses were given to anyone 

 not on the teaching staff. 



8. An army class was established, 1 " separated 

 from the rest of the school, so as to admit of 



"* The main authority for thii is Eton, by A. Glut- 

 ton Brock, of New College, Oxford, in George Bell's 

 Handbooks to the Great Public Schools. 



144 Sir H. Maxwell Lyte states that this separate 

 class was first instituted by Dr. Warre in 1886. Dr. 

 Warre, on his accession, discontinued the separate 

 class for a time in order to try whether the ordinary 

 school work was sufficient or not. After a trial of 

 less than two years the separate class was revived. 



more continuous instruction in the particular 

 subjects required. This, under Mr. Walter 

 Durnford's management, proved very successful, 

 and showed that boys going straight from Eton 

 could obtain the highest places in the exami- 

 nation without resorting to private tuition. 



9. Among many minor changes two may be 

 specially mentioned as departures from very old 

 customs, viz. the abolition of Leaving Money' 

 and ' Leaving Books.' Under the former of 

 these every boy had been compelled to leave a 

 fee on the head master's table when he took 

 leave of him. A capitation tax was henceforth 

 substituted for this curious custom of ' tipping.' 

 But the head master still gives every boy who 

 obtains his bent disceait a copy of Gray's Poems, 

 as a ' leaving book.' 



It had long been the custom for boys to give 

 each other leaving books. The Royal Commis- 

 sion, observing that this pleasant usage had 

 degenerated into extravagance, and had become 

 a serious tax upon parents, recommended its dis- 

 continuance. 



10. The Eton Mission in Hackney Wick was 

 started in 1880, under the Rev. W. M. Carter, 

 now Bishop of Pretoria. 



Dr. Hornby's rule lasted for sixteen years 

 from 1868 to 1884. It was a time of change, 

 and of much external criticism sometimes fair, 

 sometimes malicious perhaps the most critical 

 period through which Eton has passed in the last 

 hundred years. The danger was happily over- 

 come by the wisdom and tact of the head master, 

 to whom Provost Goodford U7 ' gave very 

 generous and ungrudging help.' The change in 

 the system of education produced no violent dis- 

 location of the teaching machinery, and when, 

 in 1884, Provost Goodford died, and was suc- 

 ceeded by Dr. Hornby, the school had passed 

 through its revolutionary period, and it remained 

 for the new head master only to improve the 

 efficiency of the system already established. 



The new head master was Edmund Warre, 

 who left Eton in 1855 for Oxford as a scholar 

 of Balliol, and in due time became a first-class 

 man and fellow of All Souls. He was, when 

 elected, an assistant master at Eton and captain 

 of the Rifle Corps. He might perhaps best be 

 described as of the school of Tom Hughes, the 

 author of Tom Brown's School Days, an apostle of 

 muscular Christianity and strenuousness. 



In 1889 the memorial stone of 'Queen's 

 Schools,' which include a science lecture-room 

 and a museum, was laid by Queen Victoria. The 

 same year the lower chapel, to hold 400 lower 

 boys, was begun, the architect being Sir Arthur 

 Blomfield ; it was opened in 1891. Of an in- 

 ferior kind of churchwarden Gothic, it can hardly 

 be considered a thing of beauty. 



'" Provost Goodford had done excellent work, and 

 introduced numerous reforms as head master. 



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