What is a public school? The question is natural and the answer well-nigh impossible. Even the head master smiles at the oft-heard query, but he seldom attempts to give a categorical reply. He knows; but it is difficult, indeed almost impossible, for him to impart his knowledge to you-doubly difficult if you are an American.

Nor do the boys in attendance come from the public at large. Two causes prevent this-one of which is the high fees which must be paid, and the fees are high in every one of these schools. The second cause is found in the nature of the requirements for admission. A severe entrance

There is a certain Act of Parliament which seems to imply that these schools are limited to Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Westminster and Shrewsbury; but these names by no means complete the list. It is rather by a process of elimination and selection that the understanding of the place and function of a school like Rugby is to be attained.

First of all, the word "public" is misleading, for these schools are not "public" in any such sense as the word implies in America. They are not supported by the public nor are the pupils drawn from the public at large. It is true, they have certain governmental relations, but then every institution and every man on the British Isles has, in a way, a certain similar relation, so that the term neither defines

examination must be passed. Nor are the payment of charges and the successful passing of these examinations sufficient. In most of the schools there is a continual skimming of the cream of England's boyhood. Last year there were fourteen vacancies in Winchester and seventy-four applicants successfully passed, but only the first fourteen were selected. One can readily perceive what this process, when it is long continued, does for a school. A third barrier is the will of the head master, who may, if for any reason he deems such action desirable, refuse to receive a boy, no matter how promptly his fees have been paid or with what credit his entrance examinations were passed.

These schools are for boys and not for girls. No girls' school, whatever its stand

ing or quality, has been, is now, or evermore shall be classified with England's public schools.

Then, too, there are sharp limitations as to the age of the boys. In most of the public schools the average age of the entering boys is twelve, and they are eighteen when the course is completed. This law is not inflexible, but it is clearly stated in the prospectus that if a boy does not pass out of his form at a certain age, he is no longer permitted to remain as a pupil. In the school vernacular he is "superannuated."

To many the distinctive feature of a public school is its relation to the two great universities-Oxford or Cambridge or in its special relation to a certain college of the university. At Winchester this connection is with New College, Oxford, while at Eton it is with Christ Church. This peculiar relation, however, is not inflexible, and many go out from these schools to enter other Oxford colleges or go to Cambridge.

There are many Englishmen to whom the final test of a public school is found in its contrast to "private" or proprietary schools. And there are many of the latter

that give most excellent drill, and have standards as high as the best of the schools we are considering. But by no stretch of the British imagination are they looked upon as permanent. The public schools, on the contrary, in the eyes of the law and in the thought of the nation, are immortal. A school with less than a hundred boys in attendance would never be termed a public school. It may have more than the requisite number and still be only a private institution.

Although the scholarship of the public schools is of a high order and the clever boy receives special attention, a certain amount of freedom is granted which a smaller or different school would not permit. Indeed, in some of the older schools, the rules and regulations are reduced to their lowest terms. The discipline is largely entrusted to the boys themselves, and so strong is the element of tradition and the inherited sentiment of the student body that, it is claimed, a far better result is attained by this method in the character of the boy. His larger liberty makes him. free from certain ordinary requirements of a boarding school; but his restrictions are in the school body itself, and seldom does

one have the hardihood to break through its unwritten laws. When the boys of the Sixth Form the leaders of which are heroes in the eyes of the younger ones that rank easily with Æneas and Agamemnonare the ones to insist upon strict obedience to customs and rules, the result is easy to conceive. The masters may be a court of appeals or of final resort, but the ordinary life of the institution, to a large extent, is in the hands of the boys. When caning, "whopping," fagging, sports, even the hours of study, are in the jurisdiction of the chosen boys of the Sixth Form it is easily seen that rank, wealth or previous condition of servitude count for little. The horizon of the school world may not be extensive, but within its limitations it is a democracy pure and simple perhaps the simplest, purest and most brutally frank known-for in all the world there is not to be found such absolute and exact justice as boys mete out to one another.

Scholarship, however high, is never merely bookish, but virile and vital, because, whatever may be the subject studied, the indefinable life and character are supreme. And as for the teaching, the quality of which has rapidly risen in recent years, when one is informed that the annual salary of a head master is £5,000 and house, he is not surprised that the master is a good

And the achievements are wonderful. Self-confident without being self-conscious, as clear in his knowledge that he does not know certain things as he is positive in his knowledge of the things he does know, the public-school boy would be astounded at the willingness of his American cousin to "throw a bluff" in his attempts to answer questions concerning which he is in a state of darkest ignorance. The value and place of authority, the necessity of doing things before praise or even recognition is to be received, self-control, qualities of leadership or of following (and the latter is as valuable as the former, although usually omitted in an American curriculum)-all these are among the well-nigh distinctive qualities imparted in a great public school.

man if "value received" is a part of the contract.

The name and application of the English lad who purposes to enter have both been long on the lists of the house to which he wishes to be assigned. These "houses," beautiful and spacious, each in charge of a master and in which from ten to forty or even eighty boys are in residence, provide the life. In certain schools, chiefly the older ones, are dormitories; but the number of pupils received into them never exceeds seventy or eighty, and in some of the schools there are no accommodations for these

pupils at all. Every boy lives in some house, and as a rule direct application for admission is made to its master. One of the schools has a printed rule: "No applications will be received more than four years before the date of admission."

When the proper time arrives, the boy comes up for his entrance examination. Before this time he has been taught at home, or by a tutor, or has been in attendance at some preparatory school; and these preparatory schools, like certain fleas, seem to go on down ad infinitum.

"My school is no good now since 'babies' have been taken in!" lamented a sturdy British lad of nine in describing his own life in a school preparatory for Eton. His remark was the expression of his disgust