Page:A Few Words on the Future of Westminster School.djvu/9



practical issue of how best to constitute Westminster School permanently on its present site, has long been partially suspended by the uncertain prospect of its removal into the country. That idea first gained currency in consequence of a meeting of old Westminsters, held under the presidency of the late Dean, in 1860. It subsequently received the partial sanction of the Public Schools Commissioners in their Report. It may however be fairly said, that in neither case was the idea examined very closely in detail with a view to the practical carrying of it out: the opinions passed afiected only the desirability and not the practicability of the scheme. For instance, in neither case was any estimate made, either of the whole endowment fund at the disposal of the School, or of the proportion of it which it was desirable should be expended on the purchase of ground and the erection of suitable school-buildings. This indecision was no doubt due to the fact that the School, as a school, had then, as is the case too now until the present Public Schools Bill becomes law, no property or endowments which it can deal with as its own; but it is plain that, if there really exists any reasonable hope of this idea being ever