England

miracles. Boys from all over the world come to England, to school and university, to be trained. And further, the Engli

nly fail in a very large proportion of cases to show creditable results when tested by examination paper) comes in for some merc

, into the work of administering things, governing inferiors amiably, obeying superiors cheerfully, and keeping up a high tradition of fair play and tolerance. It is that something which made a cute American,

ematics, philosophy, of "the humanities" even, but who give always the impression of having been "well brought up," who have a wise way of doing practical things, and who somehow or other manage to play no mean part in the governance of th

e a boy goes to a preparatory school with a career already mapped out for him, the Navy, the Army, or the Church, or one of the learned professions. If he is destined for the Navy he has to specialise at a very early a

oncourse of people had to settle close to the banks of a stream. The situation of the schools and universities has had its influence on the course of English education. Oxford and Cambridge, brooding in their low basins, alternately chill and steamy, are ideal places to dream in, and much more suitable for the encouragem

nth and eighth centuries the chief of England's learned men hailed from Northumbria. It was in 657 a.d. that the School of York was founded by C?dmon, first of English poets, and with the York of the early days are linked the names of the venerable Bede, "father of English learning," John of Beverley, and Wilfrid of York

mbridge University. The earliest community at Cambridge was founded by Dame Hugolina in 1092, in gratitude for her recovery from a serious sickness. Cambridge has never forgotten that feminine foundation, and whilst Oxford was cold to the h

e. A church of the Franciscan Friars was used first for university purposes. The older and more learned friars were the professors, the novices and younger friars the undergraduates. Later, the Franciscans were succeeded by the Dominicans, and still later by the Austin Friars in the control of the nascent University. Then there bega

GHS, ST. JOHN'S

t had its "unlearned population" engaged in connection with the fisheries, farming, and the pastoral industry. Near by, the great Stourbridge Fair-one of the most important in England-brought every year a great concourse of people with little sympathy to spare f

strut in their s

tramping in stra

old English bal

r opperores out

bravo, ankc

ng nothing but

ll, crowds against o

e meeting, each c

rp fighting, and sho

ms, bagpipes, and ba

and sound, here's c

ot sound sold at

rnpipe dancing, and

-puddings; and op

olos, and gallery

ts roaring, and mo

s, strollers, fat

s, jockies, thieves,

le play of the gun

ive, and pease-por

ry'd, and the b

f France, and nic

owns; who'll take a

ps-and-downs than a

on's cat, and th

ut horses, and q

unds, come, who rides,

and cakes, fine e

dog that can tel

scholars, are not

fair, where we ram

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fashion and Fren

droll, rather wre

he ballad of Ba

group of scholars there. In 1257 Hugh de Balsham, the tenth bishop of the diocese, placed and endowed at St. John's Hospital a group of secular students known as "Ely students." At this time also Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England, assigned his manor of Malden, Surrey, as endowment for "poor scholars in the schools of Cambridge, who were to live according to his directions." In the twelfth and thirteenth centu

ll 1348, Trinity Hall 1356, Corpus Christi 1382, King's College 1441, Queens' 1448, St. Catharine's 1473, Jesus 1495, Christ's 1505, St. John's 1509, Magdalene 1542, Trinity 1546, Caius 1557, Emmanuel 1584, Sidney Sussex 1595. Modern colleges are Downing College, Girton College, and Newnham College. Girton College occupies Girton Manor on the Huntingdon Road, an eleventh-c

Sterne, Thackeray, Bacon, Milton, Dryden, Cranmer, the two great Cecils, Walsingham, Cromwell, Walpole, Chesterfield, Pitt, Wilberforce, C

for Cambridge. A mimic war of wits has been waged over the fancied rivalry, of which one epigram that sticks in my memory is, that "Cambridge breeds philosophers and Oxford burns them" (I have not the exact words, perhaps, but that is the sentiment). In truth, though, Oxford has no sense of rivalry. She knows herself to be peerless, incomparable, the centre

nity) into the city mounted on a milk-white ox betokening Innocency, and as she rode along the streets she would forsooth be still speaking to her ox, 'Ox, forth'-or (as it is related) 'bos perge,' that is 'Ox, goe on,' or 'Ox, go forth'-and hence they indi

s. This prominence brought with it many troubles. It was often sacked and in part burned. These incidents despite, it grew to be a p

er halls were founded (half of the Oxford Inns are, or were, perversion of old "Halls"). William of Wykeham gave a code of rubrics which became a legacy to the whole University. He built a college for the exclusive use of scholars of the foundation. He built also bell-tower, cloisters, kitchen, brewery, and bakehou

ng of All Souls, which holds as one of its treasures Wren's original plans for St. Paul's Cathedral, was built out of

r lady or so as a rule-was often a visitor, and spent a great part of the Plague Year there, though "the Merry Monarch" showed no want of pluck or loyalty to his sore-stricken people during that time, and did

TOWER AND CO

l I could walk Lumber-street, and not meet twenty persons from one end to the other, and not 50 upon the Exchange; till whole families, 10 and 12 together, have been swept away; till my very physician, Dr. Burnet, who undertook to secure me against any infection, having survived the month of his own house being shut up, died himself of the plague; till the

own for receiving into his house a child newly brought from an infected house in London. Upon inquiry, we found that it was the child of a very able citizen in Gracious Street, who, having lost already all the rest of his children, and himself and wife being shut up and in despair of escaping, implored only the liberty of using the means for the saving of this only bab

Chalfont St. Giles (Bucks) is now preserved as an historical relic, and usually holds the attention of the rushing tourist, who

at sarcasm is based. Take Milton's Cottage for an instance. I had walked there from Chorley Wood one spring afternoon, and was enjoying idly the blooms in the little garden, when a motor rushed up, disgorged a party of hurried tourists, of which the man member had a guide-book. "Is this M

T, OXFORD,

chael's, and is away in a cloud of dust, without having gained the barest hint of the subtle persuasive charm of Oxford; without a thought of seeing St. Mary's Tower afloat in the moonlight; of hearing the choir of Magdalen; of drowsin

very first dinner in England was with the Fellows of All Souls, a feast of solemn yet cheerful splendour in four rooms, one for the dinner itself, yet another for dessert, another for coffee, and finally, another for tobacco. Another time I was at Oxford to lecture to a gathering of dons and und

nce on a barber in its honour, and gave ten shillings "to him that showed us All Souls College and Chickley's picture." He concludes, "Oxford a mighty fine place.... Cheap entertainment." Pepys wa

ut when he tried to force his Roman Catholic nominee into the presidentship of Magdalen, he could not even get a blacksmith to force a door for him. Oxford was for the Church and the Throne, but for the Chu

eably historic reputations, and the old college buildings have been modernised to the extent of admitting electric light and sanitary plumbing. But ba

a degree, but with astonishingly little knowledge. To the "Babu" type of mind in particular-that easily memorising, non-comprehending type of mind-a degree at Oxford is particularly easy of attainment. (The University, by the way, attracts very many coloured students, from I

aks-are surely the finest in all the world. Oxford history is curiously linked with trees. William of Waynflete commanded that Magdalen be built against an oak that fell a hundred years before, aged six hundred years. Sir Thomas Whiteway "lear

AND LONG WALK, FRO

the King's castle at Windsor; Harrow, on a hill a little apart from London; Winchester, nestling in the valley where, if tradition can be trusted, King Arthur once held a court; Rugby, in the Midlands, enjoying a stu