Page:A Few Words on the Future of Westminster School.djvu/10

 accomplished, the time is more than fully come when plans should be forthcoming and estimates at hand with a view to its immediate realization. If, on the other hand, the difficulties are such as to make it unlikely, then it is of the utmost importance for the interests of the School, which have suffered not unnaturally by this long pending possibility, that the idea of removal should be distinctly renounced, and that the question of how best to deal with it on its present site should be deliberately entertained as the only practicable issue.

The question of the removal of any school from its existing site really turns on the possibility of carrying out the scheme in such a way as to give the school when removed a start worthy of its past pretensions in respect of site, buildings, &c., as compared with other schools of the same grade. An exaggerated notion of the wealth of Westminster School is not uncommon. Its case is often quoted as identical with that of Charterhouse, whose removal to a country site is now in course of being carried out. It may be well to state a few considerations tending to suggest the limits within which the removal of Westminster would be practicable as well as desirable.

1. It may be instructive to compare more closely the cases of Charterhouse and Westminster. The annual income of Charterhouse, as stated in the Reports of both the Schools Commissions, averages 8000l. This