LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] THE BELOVED MASTER. (To THE EIHTOR or THE " SPECTATOR."] EIR,—I hope that the Spectator will not allow the death of Dr. J. Frank Bright to pass by without allowing some tribute, however humble, to be paid to the memory of one who has occupied so prominent a place in the worlds of teaching and wetting for the last sixty odd years. There will be many readers of your journal who came under his influence and instruction at Oxford, but there can be few left alive like myself who remember him in the far-off days of the late fifties at Marlborough College. He came there from Rugby in 1856 with a band of other masters, including the head, Dr. Bradley, to galvanize new life into the younger school, lately passed through severe teething troubles, and well indeed they accomplished their task, making it in a short space of time a worthy rival in all respects to the older foundation. It is well known how Bright founded the Modern School side at Marlborough (the first I believe of its kind), and made a brilliant success of it. He was far and away the most popular master of his time there, so big in mind and in body, gentle withal, and so cordial to all the boys, both great and small, in his form or in Isis house, and in the play-fields. He was painstaking to a degree, and long-suffering also to mediocrity, if tempered at times with a little kindly sarcasm which never did harm.
His leonine, bright face with its humorous smile lingers is the memory after sixty years, together with his delightful stutter, which added charm and zest to all he expressed and uttered in form and in pulpit. As a preacher he was brief and pithy, and what he said not only hit the mark, but remained there as an abiding influence for good. I do not think any boy would ever have called him "a beast but a just beast," as the boys in another great school used to regard a famous and grimmer Head-master of the time. Just he was, but genial and loving withal. I, for my part, away from home all my life almost never set eyes on his goodly presence again, but to me, as I am sure to all who came under his beneficent influence in these days of long ago, the memory of him and his actions will always " Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."
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