which this process would assure, there would be the indirect advantage of bringing all the fifth-form masters successively into communication with the several divisions. This was a marked and valuable feature of the old régime; a boy was brought up to one master for his construing, to another for repetition and for the looking over of exercises. And before he could be sent up,' he had to obtain the signed approval of three masters, and his coveted honour attested not merely a verse facility, but good conduct and attention.

The alteration by which each division was wholly transferred to a single master was a curious inversion of the proverb Exceptio probat regulam.' Because (Bishop) Chapman, who, as remove master, had his division separate to himself, managed it admirably, the inference was drawn that it would be so in all cases, and the exception was made the rule. Experience has since shown that masters are more heavily weighted, some by the work, some by the government of their undivided class; some are readier in looking over, some at construing in division; but the economy of mutual relief is gone. An element of difficulty connected with this is the number suitable for each division. The numbers are carefully, jealously limited now. They did not

use so to be; they did not need to be. In the old view and under the old management, a large division was not an evil. The prime object was to take a rapid survey of the lesson in hand, to give a comprehension of its spirit and force, and to teach the body of students through one another. Other schools, it is true, seemed scarcely to understand the method. A Rugby man asked an Eton master to explain it the reply was, 'Our principle is emulation; you trust to examination.' We venture to express an opinion that large divisions are preferable to an excess of staff, for which some are crying out, and which, perhaps, their theories necessitate. We hope to be forgiven if we fall back on the maxim of Andrew Fairservice: Ower mony masters, ower mony masters, as the field said to the harrow when every tooth gave her a tig.'

The head-master of Eton has a noble and arduous post : noble (as J. C. Hare finely puts it) because girt with duties; arduous because in things little and great, and with or without regard to co-operation, it demands eminently a clear judgment and steadfast will. His coadjutors, too, the assistantmasters, have a great position, one that calls for simple and straightforward manliness, the love of learning, and the love of work. He and they are in charge of a royal foundation, founded (to use Sir E. Creasy's description) by the truest

Christian gentleman that ever sat upon a throne'; founded for three objects, recited in the first charter, viz. for the glory of God, for the support of the Church, for the instruction and discipline of youth. Its history is one that tells of growth and development, of influence and success; it has continuously fulfilled its founder's intentions, and in fulfilling them taken its place at the head of the educational institutes of England. Must not they who succeed each other in its administration be bound in loyalty to its time-honoured traditions? a discriminating loyalty no doubt, for in natural lapse of time some uses must be outgrown or discarded, some things unknown of yore be made way for.

Napoleon, when with his army he came in sight of the Pyramids, addressed it with his characteristic enthusiasm: Soldiers, from those heights thirty centuries behold you!' Eton, with her four hundred years, not of immobility, but of active stirring genial influences, may be imagined looking down upon her sons and encouraging them to march onward in undeviating course, with resolution gathered from a glorious past, and an enthusiasm inspired by expanding hope.

Why were no such 'visions of glory' permitted to 'crowd the aching sight' of those who legislated for Eton twenty years ago? How came it that when the Royal Founder had specified three great ends to be attained by his munificence, the two first were ignored, the third alone respected? Why did they put aside the collegiate character of the foundation, transfer the duty (i.e. the daily service) of the Fellows to the scholars, and then decree the extinction of the former? A school may questionless subsist and flourish without collegiate support; again, a college and school may be co-ordinate in foundation, separate in action. Witness Eton's old rivals, Harrow and Winchester.

We heard a theorist on these matters once argue that it was a happy thing for Winchester that her Fellows had never had anything, as at Eton, to do with the school. How did the results bear out his history? Eton was a century ahead (sit verbo venia) in all practical matters of adaptation and improvement; it is no unfair inference that the action of the Fellows had contributed to the superiority. Hidden influences are not always inoperative. We are not depreciating the sister college; far from it; we speak but in the spirit of her honoured warden, R. Barter, when he gracefully apostrophized Eton in his own Hall as 'O matre pulchra filia pulchrior!' But if of two institutions founded on the same plans, for the same purposes, one preserves and one loses a characteristic feature

belonging of right to both, we may reasonably conclude, supposing the results are different, that they were affected by the fact. There is such a thing as anachronism both in argument and action. We mean that men estimate past times by the standard of their own, and both expect unreasonable movements from the actors of an earlier day, and, through underrating what they did, go on practically to undo it. Thus it was, we submit with all deference, with the Fellows of Eton.. They were judged by the standard of a younger generation, and that after a period of unexampled activity in the Church. We plead that a process of reconstitution rather than extinction might, had it been tried, have wrought great things, and wrought them in full accordance with King Henry's will. There was a speaker in the Congress of 1884, at Reading, whose remarks were coloured by this spirit of anachronism. Speaking of Eton, he touched on the deficiency there of religious teaching in the early part of this century, when John Bird Sumner, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of the assistant-masters. Even he, though his religious con-versations with Eton tradesmen are recorded, had no Scripture lessons for his own pupils. The fact may be admitted, but may also be accounted for by the character of the age, asjust emerging from one of the deadliest epochs of English life, fearful in profligacy, dark in ignorance of all Church principles. The system of the Church, as well as that of Eton, seemed lost in lethargy. And yet in that absence of formal, there must have been a Christian, leavening at work. The next fifteen years showed Etonians of the highest character and of widespread influence for good; another fifteen years grew into the great Oxford awakening. Out of the teaching and superintendence of Sumner and his contemporaries, came such men as Patteson, the Coleridges, Lonsdale, Praed, Moultrie, Jelf, the Puseys, the Denisons, the Hamiltons, the Selwyns, Lefevre, Gladstone, Hallam. Of a tree that bore such fruit we must think according to the prophet's word: 'Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it."

In the microcosm of Eton we may expect more or less of reflection and mutual reaction from the world without; time subjects each to laws of modification and change. What we

1 In one of the many pamphlets published by Mr. Jesse, where credit is given to one of the assistants (Rev. C. Yonge) for exceptional wisdom in dealing with boy-nature, the following sentence occurs: 'I believe no boy ever told him a lie.' We quote the fact as simply indicative of the genuine training of those days. At a later date there is a nearly parallel passage in Dr. Arnold's Life, vol. i. p. 116.

ask is that all reforms, when there is demand or desire for them, should be entered on in a deliberate and comprehensive spirit, and follow as far as possible the lead of the lines anciently laid down. And there was a feature of old days which might with very solid advantage be reproduced, though it would require some boldness to reproduce it, and the very hint of it may perhaps raise a smile, and something more among those who recollect the custom in its bear-garden actuality. We allude to 'Prose' (properly prayers), the two o'clock assemblage of the fifth form in the presence of the head-master on Sunday. A rare scene it was, certainly! But wisely used and regulated it would be a golden opportunity for a vigorous master-mind to impress home truths, and to win the confidence and inspire the tone of those whom he thus met face to face. Why might not the Upper School desk at Eton be as effective as the famous pulpit of Rugby under Dr. Arnold?

In conclusion, we wish to notice one new departure of recent years which is truly admirable, and of which we may assert that it was conceived wholly in the spirit of the founder, although advancing and worked on lines of its own. We refer to the Hackney Mission, conducted by one who bears a name long known and honoured in college and school, also by the origination of truly Christian enterprise for the fallen and helpless. But, as bearing upon our ideal and estimate of Etonian work, we go on to ask, who gave the first impulse to school missions? An Etonian, and a representative one; a Montem captain, a King's scholar, distinguished in the Newcastle, prizeman at Cambridge, then second to none, if rivalled by any, as a Head-master, at Uppingham. We remember him many years since standing up in his place as Poser to speak in Election Chamber; the drift of his speech was an advocacy of certain innovations to which he foresaw opposition, but for which he guaranteed success; we remember how he rounded off his arguments with the bold energetic words, ' And we will win'; and we dare echo them in the sense of our old motto 'Floreat Etona.'

ART. V.-DR. EDERSHEIM'S 'WARBURTON

LECTURES.'

Prophecy and History in relation to the Messiah. The Warburton Lectures for 1880-1884. By ALFRED EDERSHEIM, M.A. Oxon., D.D., Ph.D., Author of Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. (London, 1885.)

DR. EDERSHEIM has certainly selected the noblest of subjects for his Warburton Lectures. He has chosen the one great event the prediction of which pervades the Old Testament and its accomplishment the New. It is the latest and by no means the least contribution to the Christology of the Old Testament. It at once suggests a comparison with Hengstenberg's great work, and a very large literature that is more or less occupied with the same theme. It is a subject which might cause the driest of theological writers to break forth into the language of eloquence and pathos. It is the one radiant glowing hope which animates the soul of the Jewish exile, and which fills the heart of the Christian with peace and joy in believing. Beyond the devout consideration of the one central figure, the subject ramifies into many stages of development and of critical discussion. It is one which especially needs a combination of wide learning and deep feeling, and both these conditions are satisfied in the case of a writer like Dr. Edersheim.

At the same time we are afraid we must add that there is a wide difference between Dr. Edersheim's conception and the execution of his work. His passages of warmth and insight are only sporadically scattered through a wealth of material which he has failed to weld into an harmonious whole. We apprehend that neither those who heard nor those who read the lectures will be as impressed and instructed as they ought to be from his discussion of this high argument. We hold that his method of treatment is radically defective, and that it would have been far better if he had adopted the plan of the Bampton Lectures, although Bishop Temple and one or two others have broken the continuity of the series in this respect. Each lecture should have a certain completeness of its own, appealing alike to the intelligence and the heart of those who hear and those who read. All critical and contentious matter should be consigned to notes and appendices. Dr. Edersheim has to some extent adopted