Eton, on the north bank, opposite Windsor, and really a continuous
town with that which nestles close to the castle walls, is on our way
from Slough. The red-brick buildings of the school, forming a fine
foil to the lighter-colored and more elegantly designed chapel, are on
our left, the principal front looking over a garden toward the river
and Windsor Home Park beyond. We become aware of a populace of boys,
the file-closers of England's nineteenth century worthies, and her
coming veterans of the twentieth. We may contemplatively view them in
that light, but it has little place in their reflections. Their ruddy
faces and somewhat cumbrous forms belong to the animal period of life
that links together boyhood, colthood and calfhood. Education of the
physique, consisting chiefly in the indulgence and employment of it in
the mere demonstration of its superabundant vitality, is a large
part of the curriculum at English schools. The playground and the
study-room form no unequal alliance. Rigid as, in some respects, the
discipline proper of the school may be, it does not compare with the
severity of that maintained by the older boys over the younger ones.
The code of the lesser, and almost independent, republic of the
dormitory and the green is as clear in its terms as that of the
unlimited monarchy of the school-room, and more potent in shaping the
character. The lads train themselves for the battle of the world,
with some help from the masters. It is a sound system on the whole, if
based, to appearance, rather too much on the principle of the weaker
to the wall. The tendency of the weaker inevitably is to the wall, and
if he is to contend against it effectively, it will be by finding
out his weakness and being made to feel it at the earliest possible
moment.

[Illustration: TOMB OF BURKE.]