17 DECEMBER 1948, Page 5

To generations of Etonians the news of Sir Henry Marten's

death will have caused a sense of loss much more direct and personal than is usually the case when a master dies. Like all great teachers, he was an institution, but an institution so idiosyncratic on the surface and so simple underneath that it was as easy to mimic him as it was difficult not to love him. His sense of humour was often expressed in that judicious use of bathos in which Mr. Churchill excels. He was as nearly as anyone can be completely selfless, and his merits as a man as well as his supreme skill as a teacher were aptly recognised when he was chosen to act as tutor to the young Princesses. I doubt whether anyone has ever played Eton fives better than he did ; and I am quite certain that no master, at Eton or anywhere else, has ever made less effort to earn popularity of respect, nor earned them more surely. JArrus.