Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/249

 S. Paul's School.

��237

��ers all the expenses of his fourth form jear.

We have shown that the first thought of 8. Paul's is to provide for the growth of boys in Christian manli- ness, to build up in them character. And, as the training of the soul is the most important element in true education, this has been our first con- sideration, lu the second thought, the development of the mind, we have dwelt more at length, because, in the popular estimation, this is what is meant when the word education is used. We come now to that third and important part of every boy, his body.

Looking again from Prospect, we see a sharply pointed roof : it is the Gymnasium. And now, o|)ening the ear to catcli vvhatever sound may strike it on such an afternoon as the writer has had in mind, jolly cheers and excited cries will be heard from the cricket-field, and even, if wind permits, can the words be distinctlv made out as oiie batter calls to an- other, '' Come on ! come on ! " Turn- ing our eyes well to the left of the Gymnasium, we see, here the cricket- ers in position, there tlie sudden rush of the tennis players, beyond the lov- ers of base-ball, and flying past every now and then, flashing the sunlight from its polished wheels, the bicycle which spins around the quarter of a mile athletic track. Such is the scene in the summer and fall months. Dur- ing the snow and cold of winter, mus- cles are toughened, eyes sharpened, and lungs strengthened by the sleds and toboggans on the Russian coast ; by skates and snow-shoes ; by the hydraulics, which constitute the spe- cial winter's training for the Pena-

��cook boat-races ; or on the bars and running-track, at the weights and ropes and ladders, and with the clubs, in the great Gymnasium.

Before closing, the writer would like to mention two buildings which cannot I)e seen from the hill-top, and dwell for a moment on the thoughts suggested by them. They recall the past, and point on to the future. The old country house of the founder, af- ter many an addition to accommodate the boys as their number increased from the original five, has been swept out of sight, though it never can be from memory. ]Jut the building back of it, near the pond, was untouched by the lightning-kindled fire of 1878, and that yet remains. Outwardly it is not so very much changed — still the old brownish-red building ; but within the transformation is complete. In- stead of the chemical room with its interesting cases, and the electric ma- chine at whose shock many a bov has winced and jumped after a mathe- matical recitation in davs gfone bv. instead of the old play-room where, on wet days, the cricketer continued his sport, counting runs as the ball found its way to the wires of win- dows in various parts of the room, — instead of these things there is a dormitory for thirty boys. In the story below, twice that number of the smallest study, little thinking that ten years ago it was the scene of many a triple set of nine-pin contests. The second building, too, recalls the past. The central story of its main portion was an old farmer's cottage : raised up, built under, and added to, this has been for fifteen years the " Lower School," the place where the boys in the " little study" sleep, eat,

�� �