Page:A Few Words on the Future of Westminster School.djvu/15

 precisely the same manner as at King's College School, for instance, or the City of London School.

As compared then with these two schools, the situation of Westminster is not such as absolutely to preclude recreation finding any place in the school system. It is presumed that, in the cases of King's College School and the City of London School, it is necessity rather than desirability which compels the school hours to adapt themselves to ordinary business hours in London, and to be concentrated within the hours from 9 or 9.30 to 3 or 4, with only a short interval for lunch in the middle of the day. It is not so much for the convenience of the parents as of the school that the return of the boys home at so early an hour as 3 or 4 in the afternoon is rendered necessary. In the case of Westminster, there exists, besides a gymnasium and racket-courts in Little Dean's Yard, a playground within less than ten minutes' walk, of considerable size, in Vincent Square. There is nothing to prevent the relation of day-boys to the School conforming rather to the type of the position of day-boys at country schools, who take part in the school games, than to that of boys educated at the above-named schools. The practical details of this would be morning school from 9 to 12.30; from 12.30 to 3 or 3.30 recreation and dinner; afternoon school from 3 to 5 or 3.30 to 5.30 p.m. There is reason to think that many London parents will always be glad of such opportunities of amusement as well as instruction being provided, which are none the less fully compatible with the possibility of their sons returning home at a conveniently early hour in the evening. This means of fusing the common life of the school in out-of-door life beyond school hours, while it holds out the advantages which the Public Schools in the country