recognition and elevation of the followers of Shakespeare's own
art, through the education of their children, was surely a monument
worthy even of that great name. He urged upon the committee that
it was certainly a sensible, tangible project, which the public
good sense would immediately appreciate and approve. This claim
the committee at once acknowledged; but I wish you distinctly to
understand that if the committee had never been in existence, if
the Tercentenary celebration had never been attempted, those
schools, as a design anterior to both, would still have solicited
public support.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, what it is proposed to do is, in fact,
to find a new self-supporting public school; with this additional
feature, that it is to be available for both sexes. This, of
course, presupposes two separate distinct schools. As these
schools are to be built on land belonging to the Dramatic College,
there will be from the first no charge, no debt, no incumbrance of
any kind under that important head. It is, in short, proposed
simply to establish a new self-supporting public school, in a
rapidly increasing neighbourhood, where there is a large and fast
accumulating middle-class population, and where property in land is
fast rising in value. But, inasmuch as the project is a project of
the Royal Dramatic College, and inasmuch as the schools are to be
built on their estate, it is proposed evermore to give their
schools the great name of Shakespeare, and evermore to give the
followers of Shakespeare's art a prominent place in them. With
this view, it is confidently believed that the public will endow a
foundation, say, for forty foundation scholars--say, twenty girls
and twenty boys--who shall always receive their education
gratuitously, and who shall always be the children of actors,