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Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth by John Huntley Skrine
page 44 of 95 (46%)
with some impatience, was ready for use on April 29th. On the next day,
being Sunday, we inaugurated it by reuniting under its shelter our
scattered congregations, hitherto distributed over the three largest
rooms at our disposal. It was not a noble building, being,
architecturally, a long shed of rough planks against the bowling-green
wall, which was whitewashed for the better lighting of the room. But it
was apt to the conditions of a colony, looking as it did like a log-house
in a backwoods-clearing. Internally it was well lighted and ventilated,
and just sufficient for our numbers. _Heureusement il n'y on a pas
beaucoup_. This was not the only occasion on which we were thankful for
the school's self-imposed limit of numbers. The completion of this poor
structure was a fact of which those who have but little knowledge of
school affairs will appreciate the value. It was a new burden on an
embarrassed exchequer, but not a gratuitous one. It is not too much to
say that the social life of the school would have been of a different and
lower stamp, and its organisation crude and ineffective, if there had
been no place of assembly where we could meet for common occasions, for
roll-call, prayers, addresses, lectures, entertainments--no place to
furnish the visible unity, which is so large an influence in a healthy
social life. And did the school ever feel surer of its oneness, or more
proud of its name, than when it sat on those rude benches within the
ruder walls of their makeshift great school-room?

The next day, May 1st, is the Uppingham Encoenia, the commemoration of
the Chapel opening. It forced one to contrast the wooden walls in which
the Saint's-day's service was held, with the high rooftree and the deep
buttresses, which this year would not echo the chanting procession. The
anniversary rites lapsed of necessity. An accidental piece of ceremony
marked this day; for that morning a flagstaff was erected on the terrace
in front of the hotel, and a flag run up, by the lowering of which the
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