Page:A Few Words on the Future of Westminster School.djvu/13

 (b) Action may be expected soon to be taken upon the Report of the Middle Class Schools Commission, which, while it will set some rich foundations free to compete on equal terms from their existing sites with the above-named schools, may be expected to give rise to a different class of schools, the comparative absence of which hitherto, in any satisfactory form, has tended to increase the numbers who have been glad to avail themselves of schools of the Public School type.

More positive reasons are not wanting which have been urged in favour of retaining the School upon its present site. If less frequented than of old by the sons of old Westminsters, it has met the wants of an increasing number of London parents, and in their behalf it is pleaded that the schools at present existing in London are not more than are required, and that they ought to be retained for the benefit of the resident population. As an additional recommendation of this view, it is further urged that the situation of Westminster is eminently convenient of access by railways and public conveyances; the neighbourhood has been greatly improved in recent years, and still further changes in the same direction are in prospect. The School has ever enjoyed a singular immunity from serious epidemics, with the single exception of a fever in Dean Buckland's time, which was clearly caused by a mismanagement of the sewage.

If, then, it be determined that the School remain on its present site, the question arises whether any alterations in its present constitution, with regard either to the arrangement of hours or the use made of the endowment-funds, are desirable, in order to make it as efficient as possible in its character of a school of the highest