In the series of " Handbooks to the Great Public
Schools " (G. Bell and Sons, 3s. Gd. net) we have Westminster, by Reginald Airy, B.A. A sufficiently full account of the past of the school, and such a description of its present management and work as may reasonably satisfy an inquirer, are the two things required in a " handbook," and these seem to be adequately supplied by Mr. Airy. To the outsider, of course, the interest of this kind of book lies in the gossip, so to speak, the little personal details, and the mass of anecdote that accumulates round the history of a great school that has had famous teachers and famous pupils for wore than three centuries. Here are some hundred and sixty pages about Westminster, and only two lines about " Vincent Bourne," and he is spoken of as an alumnus, his twenty years and more of ushership being neglected. Yet he was in his way the most famous teacher that Westminster ever had. "I think him," wrote Cowper, "a better Latin poet than Tibullns, Propertius, Ausonius, or any of the writers in his way except Ovid, and not at all inferior to him." But it is, perhaps, unreasonable to com- plain. There are limits of space, and for a " business " book this is excellent.
Previous page
