Page:A Few Words on the Future of Westminster School.djvu/14

 class situated in London. A 'school of the highest class' is said, because the connection with Christ Church and Trinity, as well as a universally felt desire among all old Westminsters, which is not unpardonable, seem to point indisputably to its remaining a school mainly preparatory for the Universities.

Any alterations made must depend to a considerable extent on the relation which exists between the arrangement of the school hours and the use made of the endowment fund. As regards the former, the convenience of London parents is the first element to be taken into consideration. As regards the latter, by which is understood mainly election to 'college,' and the subsequent election to Christ Church and Trinity, the first element to be taken into account is to secure the largest range of competition possible. It is evident that it would be easy to sacrifice one of these considerations to the other. But is it possible to adjust them to one another in a manner altogether satisfactory?

1. To consider the arrangement of school hours as affecting the character of the School. Under present circumstances the School is more of a boarding-school than a day-school. Besides forty boys who are boarded in college, there are about sixty boys now boarding in two other houses. The day-boys consist of two classes—half-boarders, who remain in the middle of the day and dine at one or other of the boarding-houses, and home-boarders, as they are called, for whom their parents provide dinner either at their own homes or in the neighbourhood. While the increase of the day-boy element, whether half-boarder or home-boarder, is the result now to be mainly aimed at for the School, the local circumstances of Westminster do not seem to demand that the result should be attained in