A History of Eton College - 1440-1875 #265469

An historical work on Eton admits of several modes of treatment, and commands the interest of persons of various tastes and habits of thought. According to some, it should be a biographical register of successive Provosts, Fellows, and Masters, who have guided a great national institution through more than four centuries of almost unbroken prosperity; according to others, it should trace the continuous existence of an ecclesiastical corporation, richly endowed and boasting a picturesque pile of medieval buildings; some think that it should follow the careers of a vast number of England's greatest men from the cradle to the grave; others that it should be a record of educational progress, a treatise on grammars and exercises; while yet another class would wish to see in it a faithful picture of school life at different periods, with long accounts of popular games and boyish adventures.