Some eminent Victorians: personal recollections in the world of art and letters; . g any veryextended classical education. It was, indeed, de-signed for boys of the middle class, of whom I wasone, but it was remarkable in this sense, that it wasgoverned on principles of conduct that differedmaterially from those accepted in other schools ofthe time. The Hills held peculiar theories upon theeducation of boys. Corporal punishment was athing altogether unknown, and the severest penaltyeven upon the most hardened offender consistedin nothing worse than a course of compulsoryexercise. There was a P
Some eminent Victorians: personal recollections in the world of art and letters; . g any veryextended classical education. It was, indeed, de-signed for boys of the middle class, of whom I wasone, but it was remarkable in this sense, that it wasgoverned on principles of conduct that differedmaterially from those accepted in other schools ofthe time. The Hills held peculiar theories upon theeducation of boys. Corporal punishment was athing altogether unknown, and the severest penaltyeven upon the most hardened offender consistedin nothing worse than a course of compulsoryexercise. There was a Prefect, specially told offto take out every day, in what in happier circum-stances would have been their play-time, thosemalefactors who had failed to conform to thediscipline of the school. And yet, under this mild regime, discipline wasnever lax, both Mr. Arthur Hill and his son Hill, who succeeded him soon after Ientered the school, possessing in a rare degree thepower of evoking a sense of responsibility in thoseelder pupils who controlled the schools conduct. I. G. BIRKBECK HILL To face fiage 7. INTRODUCTORY 7 think only once in the period of my school-daysdid a case occur in which the headmaster had needto resort to the final penalty of expulsion. Dr. Birkbeck Hill was, in a special sense, a manwho won the affection of his pupils. He came tous from Oxford, where he had been the friend ofMorris and Swinburne, and I remember the firsttime that I saw one of those newly designed wall-papers, which were destined afterwards to play soimportant a part in the movement initiated byRossetti and Morris, was in the dining-room ofBruce Castle School. Dr. Birkbeck Hill was a man of considerableliterary taste and literary power. He was contribut-ing at that time, though it was not generally known,some brilliant light articles to the Saturday Reviewunder the editorship of Mr. Harwood, and he verysoon attached himself to that devoted study of which finally provided
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