If the men now at the wheel are too far gone, physically and morally, there are the children. If they can be brought up to understand the nature and value of health, and the sin and disgrace of throwing it away, the supply of working class suicides may be cut off, as that of juvenile thieves is by reformatory schools. One point which should be looked to is their notion of honour or spirit. From their fathers they are apt to pick up a notion that there is something fine in recklessness of life, and contempt of early death. It is not difficult to make it clear to anybody who will listen that it makes the entire difference whether life is held lightly for one reason or for another. If it is in devotedness for Man—for one man or many—it is a fine act to risk life; and we honour accordingly the Deliverer, like Garibaldi—and the Doctor and Nurse in a plague-stricken city—and the Martyr at the stake, who dies for what he believes to be the truth, be its form of profession what it may, and the Explorers of the globe, who brave the terrors of the Pole and the Equator to enlarge our science, and thereby enrich our human life. But the recklessness of life which proceeds from self-indulgence and ignorant obstinacy has nothing fine about it, and is often found to cover a tendency to cowardice. It ought not to be difficult to enlist the sympathies of any Briton, in early life, on behalf of the true courage which faces the duty of life, and prepares for it by building up a sound body, as the power and agency of a brave mind. There is no fear for the arts of life. Steel will be ground, whether men thrive or die over the work. They need not die; and it rests with the educators of society to decree that the present generation shall be the last of such ignoble martyrs.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF LONDON.
The other day the “Old Westminsters “held a meeting to consider whether it would not be advisable to remove the school from the neighbourhood of the Abbey to some situation where the scholars could breathe the pure air of the country, instead of the heavy mixture of fog and smoke which hangs over the Westminster district for the greater portion of the year. Three centuries ago the school was admirably situated—and the desire of the innovators was but to imitate the example set by Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth when St. Peter’s College was first founded. It is an odd coincidence that this discussion should have arisen in the course of this year, 1860—for it was exactly three centuries back, that is, in the year 1560, that Queen Elizabeth really placed this noble foundation in a position to maintain itself as one of the institutions of the country. Henry VIII. was no doubt the original founder, but as his royal way was, he had played such tricks with the abbey revenues, that St. Peter’s College would soon have died of financial atrophy, but for the timely interference of his daughter. Queen Bess took the matter in hand precisely three centuries ago.
Now in the year of grace 1560, the young Westminsters who came tumbling out of school to seek for recreation after a due allowance of birch and Latin grammar, must have scampered about a very different locality from their young successors of our own day. The old abbey was there to be sure—how clean Henry VIIth’s chapel must have looked in those days!—and Westminster Hall of course, and some queer old houses in the Sanctuary; but our small forefathers must have been able to take their pastime in Tothill Fields in very different style from their descendants. The Thames, which has ever been the great source of recreation and triumph to the Westminster boys, must have glided under the shadow of the old Hall in greater purity than it now does at Halliford or Shepperton. The present Vine Street was a vineyard—for England was a grape-growing country in those days. I am afraid the streets immediately round the abbey must have been a terrible nest of thieves and vagabonds, and that the more aspiring young alumni of St. Peter’s College must always have been getting into trouble for sculking within the forbidden precincts—but once away from these, they were in the open country. The present proposal is to remove the school to some healthy locality out of town, where the boys may lay in a large stock of health at the same time that they are filling their heads with as much learning as they will contain.
Surely a great deal of cant is talked about the religio loci. Boys, with rare exceptions, don’t get sentimental about the dust and ashes of their predecessors at particular schools. When they become grown men they fancy they fancied such things—but there is marvellously little of retrospection in schoolboy nature. I was myself for many years a scholar at one of the great London schools, and amongst the great names in our archives were those of John Milton and of the great Duke of Marlborough. I cannot call to mind any instance in which I ever heard any of my schoolfellows mention their names. Not one amongst us of whom I have heard ever became a bit the more poet or warrior because these two tremendous worthies had been whipped through Lilly’s Latin Grammar under the same “dear shades” as ourselves. It is to be presumed that if John Milton—according to the old University tradition—suffered a little practical martydom at Christ’s College, Cambridge, it is not impossible that he got into trouble occasionally about the Gerunds and Supines at an earlier period of his scholastic career. I fully admit that in later years we are all of us apt to grow sentimental about the traditions of our respective schools—I merely deny that we do so whilst we remain in statu pupillari. Mr. Disraeli inverted the romantic Etonian.
The question of the removal of our public schools from the heart of London to healthier and more airy situations must soon receive a practical solution; and, as I fancy, there can be but one termination to the dispute. If there is sentiment on one side, there is reason on the other. Let the metropolitan schools by all means be removed to situations near the metropolis—so that even the day-boy difficulty may be overcome. It would not, however, be any great misfortune if the day-boys were