Amongst public schools Eton admittedly occupies a unique position. Every one admires the beauty of its surroundings, whilst to those possessed of imagination—more especially, of course, if they are Etonians—the school and its traditions cannot fail to appeal.
In addition to many of its associations being connected with glorious chapters of English history, the old quadrangle, chapel, and playing fields possess a peculiar charm of their own, due to a feeling that the spirit of past ages still hovers around them. There is, indeed, a real sentimental pleasure in the thought that many of England’s greatest men laid the foundations of brilliant and successful careers amidst these venerable and picturesque surroundings. No other school can claim to have sent forth such a cohort of distinguished figures to make their mark in the world; and of this fine pageant of boyhood not a few, without doubt, owed their success to the spirit of manly independence and splendid unconscious happiness which the genius of the place seems to have the gift of bestowing.
No other school exercises such an attraction over its old boys as Eton, with many of whom the traditions of the place become almost a second religion. “I hate Eton,” the writer once heard an individual who had been educated elsewhere frankly say, “for whenever I come across two or three old Etonians, and the subject is mentioned, they can talk of nothing else.”
In addition to many of its associations being connected with glorious chapters of English history, the old quadrangle, chapel, and playing fields possess a peculiar charm of their own, due to a feeling that the spirit of past ages still hovers around them. There is, indeed, a real sentimental pleasure in the thought that many of England’s greatest men laid the foundations of brilliant and successful careers amidst these venerable and picturesque surroundings. No other school can claim to have sent forth such a cohort of distinguished figures to make their mark in the world; and of this fine pageant of boyhood not a few, without doubt, owed their success to the spirit of manly independence and splendid unconscious happiness which the genius of the place seems to have the gift of bestowing.
No other school exercises such an attraction over its old boys as Eton, with many of whom the traditions of the place become almost a second religion. “I hate Eton,” the writer once heard an individual who had been educated elsewhere frankly say, “for whenever I come across two or three old Etonians, and the subject is mentioned, they can talk of nothing else.”
