with those of the Classical School. The sub-schools, however, in this department are few and comprehensive, being only two in number, one of which embraces the Sixth Form and whole Upper School, the other the whole Middle School. Again, they are not subdivided into sets or classes as are the subschools in Mathematics and Modern Languages. Each division or sub-school is taught together in one class, in which the boys are arranged in order corresponding with their divisions or classes in the Classical School. The instruction given in this School consists of subjects formerly compre. hended under the name of Chemistry, i.e., Chemistry and Electricity. Lectures, following the arrangement, and explaining the details of some approved textbook, such as 'Fownes' Chemistry,' are given twice in the week to each class. They are illustrated by experiments and diagrams, and brought home to individual boys by questions framed to test their understanding of the Lecture. Notes taken at the time of the Lecture are subsequently expanded into reports drawn up by the boys out of school, and containing sketches of the apparatus. These are shown up once in a fortnight at least, and are then corrected by the Lecturer, as a classical exercise might be by a tutor. To boys who distinguish themselves in the Natural Philosophy branch of the Christmas Examinations, in any Form, either a first or second class is awarded; the value of which, in contributing to a prize, is equal to the same grade of honor in any other branch except that of pure Classical Scholarship. Drawing and Music.-Any boy may learn drawing if he wish to do so. If on the Foundation, he pays nothing for the tuition; if not on the Foundation, he pays 41. 4s. per annum. In the case of Music, the learners, whether Foundationers or not, pay 41. 4s. per annum each. TOTAL TIME WORK. The time of a boy at Rugby School, thus allotted in the compulsory Schoolwork to attendance before his teachers in each week, amounts on an average to, Classical........about 17 Including private tuition. Modern Languages.... 2) which is variable. Total........ 22 hours. Rugby begins to stir about 6:30 in summer; that is to say, prayers begin at 7 to a second; and half an hour is not to much to dress and get into school.* In winter, first lesson is at eight; and for a month before and a month after the Christmas holidays, breakfast is taken before going into school, i.e., at 7:30. This has been found not only an effectual remedy for the old excuse of 'staying out' (going on the sick list) on a cold wet morning, but a really useful sanitary precaution. Second lesson is from 9:15 to 11:15; another from 12:30 to 1:30; then comes dinner; then third lesson and fourth (with no real interval) from 2:30 to 6. This is the work for whole school days-Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; the three alternate days are nominally half-holidays, when there is no lesson after 11:15. But the only real half-holiday is the Saturday; for the Tuesdays and Thursdays are cut up by the finishing and correcting the composition for the Middle and Lower Schools-occupying from half an hour to two and a half, according to proficiency; and upon both Tuesdays and Thursdays There is indeed a terrible bell which begins ten minutes only before morning school, and to this last moment a sleepy lower-boy (who is not an elaborate dresser) too often defers his getting there is a composition lesson from 12 to 1:30. These hours, however, are not all spent in school, and must be taken as indicating generally the time assumed to be employed in preparing the lessons as well as saying them. Besides these public lessons every boy has to find three hours a week out of his play time for his private tutor. Every third Monday is also a half-holiday, called 'Middle Week'-modern Rugbeians say, 'because it never was the middle of any thing.' Altogether, the school work claims about five or six hours per diem, on an average, from a boy below 'the Twenty;' in the higher Forms, of course, the amount varies according to individual industry. Examinations. The Sixth Form is annually examined in June by Examiners appointed by the Vice-Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge. The rest of the School at that time, and the whole of the School in December, are examined by the Masters, the Examinations comprehending all the subjects upon which instruction has been given. At the June Examination, all the boys in the Upper School below the Sixth Form are examined. They have the same papers, and the answers to each paper are looked over by the same Examiner. The marks gained by each boy are added together, and are called his Examination Marks. To these are added the Marks which he has accumulated during the half year, which are called his Form Marks. Precisely the same plan is followed in examining the Middle School. At Christmas, the Forms are examined separately as Forms. The Masters are divided into Committees of two, and each Committee examines two Forms, one high in the School, the other low. The two Modern Language Masters examine the whole School in Modern Languages. The four Mathematical Masters examine the whole School in Mathematics. At Christmas six Honor lists are published; namely, in Divinity, Classics, History, and Geography, Mathematics, Modern Languages, and Natural Philosophy. EXHIBITIONS, SCHOLARSHIPS, AND PRIZES. Since 1854 there are twenty-one Exhibitions of varying value (from 40l. to 802. a year,) tenable for four years at either University. Five Exhibitioners are up. The horrors of such a practice, especially on cow-fair mornings, are so vividly set forth in the following parody, that it may be well to quote it as a warning: THE SONG OF THE BELL. With hair disheveled and waste, Dress! Dress! Dress! Four minutes to the time. Vest and collar and coat, Coat and collar and vest, The stomach is faint, the hand is numbed, But we can not stay to rest. New Rugbeian (School Magazine), vol. i. p. 85. now regularly chosen every year to fill five Exhibitions of the several values of 804, 704, 60%, 50%. and 40%, tenable for four years, on the single condition of residing at some College or Hall in Oxford or Cambridge during that time. The examination is open to all who have been members of the School for three years. Besides the work of the half-year, candidates are required to bring up for examination some Classical author prepared entirely by themselves, and to translate into English passages of Greek and Latin not before seen, in addition to composition in the Classical languages. When the holder of an Exhibition ceases to fulfill the required conditions, the remainder of his Exhibition is offered to competition at the annual examination. Two Scholarships, instituted by the Masters, one of 30%. the other of 201 value, are awarded annually for pure scholarship, and are open to all boys who have not reached the Sixth Form, or who reached it only six months before the examination. Prizes for Classics, chiefly in the Sixth Form, to the total value of 531. are given annually in books. There is a Divinity Prize, value 37. 3s. a year, founded by Dr. Robertson, for boys not placed in the Sixth Form before Midsummer; and a Prize of 4l. value, for knowledge of the Bible, is open to all the School below the Sixth Form. Her Majesty the Queen has founded an annual Prize of a gold medal for an English Historical Subject. A Prize is given to any boy in every Form throughout the School who obtains a first class in the final examination at Christmas, either in Divinity, Classical Scholarship, History, or Geography; a second class also contributes to entitle its winner to a Prize, and therefore some further distinction in one of the subsidiary Schools is requisite to give full effect to this lower degree of distinction. A Prize is given in February, by the Rev. C. B. Hutchinson, of 31. 3s. value, for proficiency in History, which is open to the Twenty and the Fifth. In the Mathematical School there are several Prizes of small amount, bestowed by the Mathematical Masters. Those for Modern Languages have already been mentioned. There are also small Prizes given by the French and German Masters, for excellence in those languages; by the Master of Natural Philosophy School to the best Chemical Analyst; and a Prize by the Drawing Master, for the best Sketches from Nature, and from copies. Monitorial System-Fagging-Punishments. The discipline of Rugby School is largely dependent on the Sixth Form of boys, or, as they have always been called, 'Præpostors.' In School, it is their duty, in rotation, to keep order while names are called over; to call over names in their own boarding-houses at dinner, at locking up, and at evening prayers. They also read prayers in the evening, if the Master of the boarding-house is absent. They have powers to enforce obedience to all the rules of the School, to put down ill practices, as the breaking of bounds, frequenting of publichouses, turbulence, and drinking or smoking, by setting impositions to boys in all Forms below the Sixth, and by inflicting personal chastisement on any boy below the Fifth, of not more than five or six strokes of a stick or cane across the shoulders. As the use of the fist is forbidden, they commonly carry canes when they are on duty in 'calling over,' and, on such occasions, use them even in the Master's presence. In cases where the rarer punishment of 'licking' is resorted to, it is inflicted in private, or before the whole of the Sixth; and, for the worst sort of offenses, before the whole boarding-house; nor will any degree of age or size, on the part of the delinquent, warrant him in personally resisting the punishment. The power of a Præpostor is somewhat controlled, however, by the right of appeal to the Sixth Form and to the Head Master, which every boy possesses, and his claim to which immediately arrests the Præpostor's hand. The sixth Form, althoughly strictly charged with the superintendence of the Forms below itself, is a check also upon the members of its own body; and the same offense for which a Sixth Form boy would punish a lower boy, he would report, if committed by a colleague, to the whole Sixth Form, on which the Form, as a body, would request the Head Master to degrade or remove the offender. Fagging. The right to fag is limited to the Sixth Form. The three divisions next below the Sixth are exempt from being fagged, but they are not admitted to the privilege of fagging. The fixed services consist in sweeping and dusting the studies of the Sixth, attending their call at supper for half an hour, making toast, running on messages, and attending at games. At cricket a Sixth Form boy may call upon any fag to field for him, if he chooses, but this particular service is dying out. At foot-ball all fags must attend. In the 'runs,' 'hounds,' and 'brook-leaping,' they are also compelled to take part, but a medical certificate of unfitness, countersigned by the Head Master, gives exemption. Punishments.-The punishments in use are: 1. Solitary confinement for an hour, or two hours. Used only in the Lower School. 2. Caning on the hand. Used both in the Lower and Middle School; but in the Upper Forms of the latter very rarely. 3. Latin or Greek to be written out or translated, or learnt by heart. 4. Flogging, which is administered for serious offenses; such as lying, foul language, or persistence in any misconduct. From this punishment the Sixth Form is exempt by the rules, the Fifth by the courtesy of the School. 5. Request to the parents to remove the offender. 6. Expulsion; which is effected by the Head Master sending for the boy, and saying to him, 'You are no longer a member of the School.' The three first of these punishments are inflicted by the Assistant Masters; the three last by the Head Master only. Sports and Pastimes. Contiguous to the School, is the 'School-close,' of more than thirteen acres of grass on a light soil. It is open on three sides, and contains a gymnastic ground, good racket courts, and on one side of it a cold bath of spring water, which for many years has been kept for the use of the boys. The management of this close, and the regulation of the sports, are commonly committed to an Assembly called the 'Big-Side Levee,' consisting of all the boys in the Upper School, led by the Sixth. The games most popular at Rugby are football, cricket, and rackets. Football is played there under different rules from those of other public schools, and with extraordinary vehemence and spirit. The author of a visit to Rugby writes: 'There are few more lively sights than the School-close on the day of one of the great matches-the "Sixth " against the rest of the School, or the "Old" against the "Present Rugbeians." Each side plays in jerseys and flannels, with velvet caps of distinctive colors, which old Rugbeians are disposed to regard as modern vanities, but which certainly add very much to the picturesqueness of the game, and, no doubt, increase its interest in the eyes of the ladies, who, since the late Queen Dowager set the example, crowd the grounds on bright afternoons whenever a match of any special interest is to be played; sometimes, in their enthusiasm, venturing outside those mysterious posts which mark out the "line of touch," and thus occasionally getting mixed up with the combatants, to their own detriment and the general confusion.' Boarding-Houses. Inclusive of the School-house which forms part of the block of School buildings, and is kept by the Head Master, there are eight boarding-houses at Rugby. The Head Master's house was designed, and long used for the reception of fifty, but, by repeated additions within the last forty years has been madə to contain seventy-three boys. The remaining seven boarding-houses, all now kept by Assistant Masters, contain, on an average, forty-six boys each; the most capacious holding fifty, and the smallest forty-two boarders. Separate from his bedroom each boy has a study, which, while in the Lower or Middle School, he is liable to share with another boy, but of which he has undivided possession on entering the Upper School. Brothers are invariably put together; others are associated at the discretion of the boarding-house Master, who takes into consideration their position in the School, their age, character, and wishes in their choice of a companion. The usual size of a study is seven feet square. In these studies, which in the School-house are warmed by hot air, and in the boarding-houses by fire, boys of the Middle and Upper Schools prepare their lessons. Those below the Middle School learn them commonly in school, and in the presence of a Master. Each boy provides the furniture of his study, generally by purchasing what he finds in the room from the last occupant at a valuation, on which the boardinghouse Master keeps a check. Expenses for Tuition, Board, and Residence. The expenses of a boy at Rugby are: The above charges are for a resident Non-Foundationer, and are the same for a resident Foundationer, with the exception of 16. 5s. for school instruction and about half the miscellaneous charges. |