A dispute has broken out at Eton between one of
the Assist- ant-Masters, Mr. Oscar Browning, a popular Master of fifteen
years' standing, and the Head Master, Dr. Hornby, as to the abrupt dismissal of the former by the latter, after a fashion which Mr. Browning is advised is illegal, as well as unjust and oppres- sive. Mr. Browning's statement of the case is before the public, and we have made some remarks on it elsewhere. But Dr. Hornby's case is not before the public, and it is, indeed, Mr. Browning's chief grievance that Dr. Hornby has not only not made public, but not even communicated to him (Mr. Browning) the reasons alleged to the Governing Body of Eton for Mr. Browning's dismissal,--seme of which were almost certainly moral charges against Mr. Browning. One of these alleged reasons is said to be unveracity ; another, that Mr. Browning had violated, and was intent on violating, the rule against any assistant-master having more than forty boys in his. house. But if Mr. Browning's defence is to be trusted, nothing is more certain than that so far as that rule was violated by him, it was violated with the consent of his superiors, and that when the consent of his superiors was withdrawn, Mr. Browning, though very reluctantly, and not without pertinacious remon- strances, acquiesced. As far as we can make out, the true ground of the dismissal was a growing repulsion, believed and alleged to be of the moral kind, between the Head Master and Mr. Browning ; but Dr. Hornby, instead of dismissing him without reason assigned, or on the general ground of the incom- patibility of their views and aims, produced certain charges which he gave Mr. Browning no opportunity of rebutting. So far both he and the Governing Body were clearly in the wrong, whatever may be thought of Mr. Browning's case, which is not without its weak points. In the meantime, the contest rages furiously, and Eton suffers in the diminished respect felt by one party for the head of the school, and by the other party for the authority of the staff.
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