On December 15th 1868, the foundation-stone of the new school was laid by the Lord Mayor (Sir James Clarke Lawrence, Bart.), and in process of time a building four stories high, and plain almost to bareness, was ready for occupation. But with twenty class-rooms, extensive play-grounds, a laboratory, lavatories, lecture-rooms, and a dininghall where 500 boys can sit down to dinner together, its lack of architectural pretensions was lost sight of, and the parents of 1000 boys soon testified their appreciation of its utility. It cost nearly £20,000.

We had bought at the expense of £3500 a site in Southwark for a second school, but this was destined never to be built. Our resources were exhausted. The Bath Street School during its three years had absorbed over £9000, and Cowper Street required all the money that was left. It never became self-supporting after all, and the £75,000 which up to now has been expended on it has been none too little to maintain it in efficiency.

While he lived, Mr. Gassiott, the treasurer, was in the habit of defraying the annual deficiency, and without him we should have perished. He was, moreover, a munificent contributor to the erection of the Great Hall, which cost over £12,000, and was opened by Earl Russell in 1873. In later years the City Corporation and several of the Companies have helped us nobly, but my early faith in the parochial charities bore but scanty

fruit. Through the influence of Mr. Freshfield the trustees of St. Margaret Lothbury presented us with £1500 which they did not know what to do with, and we received £3000 from the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, but that is all. We are practically still unendowed, but I hope before I die to see Cowper Street beyond the reach of all anxieties and happy in an income of £1000 a year. It well deserves it. The prospects with which it set out have been to a considerable extent thwarted-and nobody is more gratified that such has been the case than I am-by Mr. Forster's Act of 1870, and the consequent gradual levelling-up of the educational condition of the metropolis. The cost of education has increased with the raising of the standard, and there is no likelihood of either being lowered.

But if our financial calculations have not been verified, there has been ample compensation in the work which the school has done. Not less than 10,000 boys have passed through it, and most of them reverence it with an affection which an Eton or Harrow boy could not surpass. There has never been any corporal punishment, and there have never been any difficulties about discipline. The religious question has never assumed any more portentous proportions than the withdrawal from prayers of a few Roman Catholics and of one little fellow whose father called himself a "free-thinker." The Bible, Old and New Testament, is taught, and Mr. George

Moore's prizes are eagerly competed for. The numbers have stood steadily at 1000 except during one term when we had 1250, and were compelled to fit up the cellars as class-rooms.

Some of the boys, whom it was impossible to restrain, have carved out for themselves distinguished careers at the Universities, others have taken to scientific pursuits, many are in the Civil Service, and thousands are honourably acquitting themselves in the commercial life of the City of London. There is no better passport to a City bank or counting-house than an education at the Middle Class Schools, and every week brings applications for promising boys. This success has been pre-eminently due to Mr. Jowitt and Dr. Wormell. After nine years' devoted work Mr. Jowitt retired to the seclusion of rural life and became Rector of Stevenage. Till I broke my back, we often enjoyed together a good run with the Puckeridge and talked over old days. For the last thirteen years Dr. Wormell, who was mathematical master from the beginning, has been Head Master, and no better one exists or could exist; he lives in the hearts of his boys and they in his.

All sorts and conditions of men have lent the light of their countenance to Cowper Street School. In 1870 the Prince and Princess of Wales honoured it with a private visit and saw the boys at their ordinary work, an example which was followed by the King of the Belgians in 1872, and by Princes Albert Victor

and George of Wales in 1874. The prizes have been distributed or addresses delivered by the Princess Louise, the Marquis of Lorne, the late Bishop of London, the late Dean Stanley, various Lord Mayors and Governors of the Bank of England, the late Lord Russell, Lord Rosebery, the late Lord Londonderry, Mr. Goschen, Mr. Robert Lowe (now Lord Sherbrooke), Lord Lingen, Sir Lyon Playfair, the Dowager Marchioness of Londonderry, Lord Reay, Lord Camperdown, and Lord Cranbrook. This year, for once, modesty deserted me and I officiated myself.

CHAPTER VII.

DULWICH.

MOST Londoners and many other people know Dulwich, still so like a village that it hardly looks suburban, but very few, I expect, are familiar with the chequered story of its growth. I cannot pretend to tell that in detail, but Dulwich and the things of Dulwich have been affairs of mine for the past thirty years and so I must say something about them.

Both the parishes in which my lot has been cast are places associated with the man to whom Dulwich owes everything, Edward Alleyn. Here in Bishopsgate, at "The Pye" which stood close to Devonshire Square, on September 1st, 1566, Edward Alleyn was born. His father, who kept the inn, was a gentleman by birth, and his mother was one of the Lancashire Townleys. The elder Alleyn dying when the child was quite young, his widow married a certain John Browne, a brother probably of Richard Browne the actor. From the latter Alleyn is said to have derived his taste and training for the stage, which,