A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



No bounds being set to numbers, the boys under 

 Dr. Warre passed the thousand, attaining 1,007 

 in 1891, and the then high-water mark, 1,035, 

 in 1896. Dr. Warre saw out the igth century. 



At the beginning of the 20th century, in 

 Dr. Edward Lyttelton, Eton has turned once 

 more to Cambridge, though to Trinity, not to 

 King's, for its head master. His success, first as 

 a house master at Eton, and then as head master 

 at Haileybury, and the position he had taken in 

 educational discussions, had marked him out as 

 the certain successor to Dr. Warre on his retire- 

 ment in 1905. 



Among recent buildings most prominent is the 

 red-brick stone-pedimented palace in the style of 

 Charles II, the new boarding-house of Mr. E. L. 

 Vaughan, called Wotton House, fronting on 

 Timbralls, otherwise Tymbershaw, otherwise 

 Sixpenny. It is one of the most striking build- 

 ings which meet the eye on approaching Eton 

 from Slough. 



A building destined for a school library in a 

 rococo Renaissance style, with a dome somewhat 

 after that of the church of Santa Maria della 

 Salute at Venice, is in course of erection on the 

 opposite side of the road to Wayneflete's ante- 

 chapel. A stronger contrast than the new presents 

 to the old building could not have been devised. 



Theory has not been without results in prac- 

 tice. There has been an introduction of scien- 

 tific gymnastics among the younger boys. 

 Germane to this is a system of physical mea- 

 surements and of medical inspection of all 

 new boys. In intellectual matters a great deal 

 of cautious experiment is going on in regard to 

 the curriculum ; large modifications have been 

 made to give scope to what is called specializa- 

 tion for the older boys. This has involved an 

 increase in the staff, and of course increased 

 expense. Meantime current controversies are 

 causing much thought and discussion on the 

 methods of teaching the older subjects, classics 

 and mathematics, especially the former, and at- 

 tempts are being made to restrict within practical 

 limits the aim of teaching Greek as well as Latin 

 to average boys. The difficulty in doing this is 

 considerable when a large number of masters are 

 concerned, but in general it may be said that 

 there is a great improvement in the adaptation of 

 methods and subject-matter to boys of different 

 intelligence. French is now taught almost 

 entirely by experts, and more time is given to 

 the subject than used to be the case, so long as a 

 boy learns it. But nothing in these matters can 

 at present be looked upon as final, since in addi- 

 tion to difficulties in the school there are perpetual 

 changes in outside examinations. The subject 

 of handicraft, as an alternative to book-work, 

 is being gently introduced, and music is given 

 more opportunity than it had. In regard to the 

 general tone of industry there has been an extra- 

 ordinary improvement in the last twenty years, 



and part of the problem now is how to diminish 

 the strain on the younger boys, and on nearly all 

 the masters. 



It is idle in a sketch of these dimensions to 

 attempt to sum up or gauge the growth of Eton 

 or its influence on England. To enumerate its 

 famous men would be to give a catalogue of the 

 most distinguished names in public life, and in 

 the Army and the Navy, and many other pro- 

 fessions. Such an enumeration is as impractic- 

 able as an attempt to estimate how much these 

 distinguished persons owed to Eton, and how 

 much to birth and nature. Suffice it to say 

 that throughout the century, as the largest school 

 in the country, recruited from the highest and 

 richest class, it has occupied the position of 

 facile princeps among the public schools which 

 was held in the i8th century by Westminster, 

 and before that was a matter of rivalry among 

 the three graces, Winchester, Eton, and West- 

 minster. In a century in which not less even 

 more, perhaps than in previous centuries the 

 governor-generalships and the great offices in the 

 State fell to the abler scions of great houses and 

 their associates, it is not so much surprising that 

 Marquess Wellesley, Governor-General in India 

 and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; the Duke of 

 Wellington and Earl Roberts, Commanders-in- 

 Chief wherever English blood was shed ; Fox 

 and Canning, Gladstone and Mr. Balfour, Lord 

 Rosebery and the late Sir Henry Campbell- 

 Bannerman, Prime Ministers, have issued from 

 Eton to the highest posts in civil or military life. 

 The wonder rather is that Eton has not monopo- 

 lized these posts altogether. More remarkable 

 is it that in the domain in which more than any 

 other success is influenced by no considerations 

 but those of the work itself, the domain of poetry, 

 Eton has produced the two greatest lyric writers 

 of the i gth century, Percy Shelley and Algernon 

 Swinburne. In the sphere in which achieve- 

 ment is due mainly to personality and strenuous 

 persistency, that of the law and the Church, Eton 

 has, as might be expected, been less successful ; 

 two Chief Justices, Denman and Coleridge, were 

 Etonians, but no Chancellor and no bishop or 

 archbishop of the first rank. But of late years 

 Eton has been as strenuous as other public 

 schools. 



That the future historian may not complain 

 that the Eton day of the aoth century is un- 

 known, we will endeavour to set it down. The 

 normal school week consists of twenty-two hours. 

 For the SixthForm and First Hundred these hours 

 are allotted as follows : Divinity, one hour ; 

 Latin and Greek, seven hours each ; English, 

 three hours ; while what are called extra studies, 

 which mean and include Mathematics, French, 

 German, Science, and Drawing, and various 

 specifications in Classics occupy the remaining 

 three hours. The hours are divided among the 

 days thus : Divinity, on Sunday (questions on 



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