HA1LEYBURY.*
" HAILEYBUItY College," we read in a well-known gazetteer bearing the date of 1888, " is an institution for the education of young men intended for the Indian Civil Service." This piece of information is not quite up to date ; the " institution" was closed in 1858 when " john Company's " rule came to an end ; but it recalls an interesting fact. It was something for a new school to start with a genius loci provided for it. Its noblest function was to furnish men for the service of the State, and that the " Old College " had done with no small success, as the roll of its alumni will testify. There was an interval of three years or so during which the fate of Halley- bury was doubtful; but the matter was practically settled early in 1862, and the first prospectus of the school was issued on March 27th in that year. It was opened in the following September, and in its second term had reached the respectable number of a hundred and three boys. One of the first arrivals—they were always proud of the distinction of never having been "new boys "—found the name of his aunt carved on one of the trees. She had been the formosa Amaryllis of one of the "young men intended for the Indian Civil Service." The first Head-Master was A. G. Butler; it was an admirable choice, and though failure of health limited his tenure to five years, he gave the new school the best of starts.
We cannot attempt to follow the book through its detailed account of school personalities, activities, and achievements. It has done well in many departments of life, claims a good share of honours in Oxford Class Lists and Cambridge Tripos, and is represented ou the Bench, Episcopal and Judicial. Not the least of its distinctions is the Obelisk, erected in 1903, in memory of thirty-five " O. H.'s " who lost their lives in the Boer War (out of a total of three hundred and fifty who went to the front). The book, meant, of course, in the first instance, for "Old Boys," should please a wider public with its record of endeavour and success.
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