A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE harvest of death this week has been heavy. The Times on Monday contained obituaries of the Dean of Westminster (the ticket I received on Wednesday for Lord Keynes' memorial service bore the signature of the Dean, who had died on Sunday), Dr. J. L. Paton, former High Master of Manchester Grammar School, and Dr. Edward Thompson ; and that of Mr. St. John Hornby, the cul- tured presiding genius of the firm of W. H. Smith, followed on Tuesday. Space unfortunately forbids more than the barest tribute. J. L. Paton was a great headmaster of a great school, which had for by no means the chief of its distinctions the fact that it regularly rivalled Eton for the richest haul of open scholarships at Cambridge. No small part of that was due to the ground-work Paton laid ; but Old Mancunians will think of him more, I imagine, as a builder of character than as a shaper of scholars ; he lived long enough in retirement to see his own successor succeeded. Edward Thompson was a man on whom a volume might well be written ; perhaps it will be. He had some vogue as a novelist, but it was, of course, as an authority on India that he was known and will long remain known. The book he wrote in partnership with G. T. Garratt (the bulk of the work being Thompson's), Rise and Fulfilment of British Rule in India, will long stand as the recognised authority on the subject with which it deals. Thompson did much to smooth out misunderstanding between Britain and Hindu India. His weakness was in taking too little account of Muslim India. He has died just when the possible realisation of his hopes for India is dawning.
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