Eton, with what many people think is doubtful wisdom, still
allows boys to be entered for it at birth, or even before birth - (I know at least - two little girls who can claim to have been down for Eton). But however quick off the mark a parent is, his chances of getting a guaranteed vacancy can seldom have been slenderer than they are at the moment. In an age which has more or less decided that public schools are an anachronism, which forces them to raise their fees to unprecedented heights and which has crippled financially most of the class traditionally associated with them, it seems odd that the demand for an Eton education (which is, or anyhow is thought to be, the most expensive of the lot) should be brisker than it ever has been. An Eton master, discussing this apparent anomaly the other day, put it down partly to the growing practice of paying the fees in advance out of capital. If you pay school fees out of income, he pointed out, the saving you make by sending a. boy to a cheaper school bulks quite large against the depressing background of an annual budget. But hardly anybody can pay public school fees out of income nowadays and once you have decided to raid your capital most people become slightly devil-may-care and a saving of two or three hundred pounds is reduced to the dimensions of a ha'porth of tar. I should think there is probably something in what he said.
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