the Sixth Form will play against a team selected from all the other forms. There are not so many games between different schools as in America, although every year there is a football or cricket game between Eton and Winchester. Sometimes ten thousand people assemble to watch the cricket-match, which may last two days. The football game at Rugby is the basis of the

Rugby game in America, but most of the English schools play the Association game.

Our visit to Eton is made during the summer vacation (July and August). If we were here in term-time we might see some of the boys walking about the grounds, looking odd enough in their short Eton jackets, broad white collars, and high silk hats. In their games, however, they wear suits of gray, white, or blue flannel, called "flannels." Caps are given as marks of honor to the school teams.

Years ago the boys used to cut their names on the doors or panels. One can see now the names of Byron, Shelley, Pitt, Fox, Gladstone, and thousands of others, which were cut when these great men were schoolboys at Eton or Harrow. To-day no one is allowed to do this. If he wishes to leave his name, he gives a chair which is placed in the assembly hall (" speech hall," it is called by the school), and his name in gilt letters is printed on one of the panels.

Every school makes much of its school songs, and the songs of Harrow are perhaps the best of all. The great song, or anthem, of Harrow is almost as good as "Old Nassau" or "Fair Harvard," — perhaps the English boys think it is better than either. Two of the stanzas are as follows:

Forty years on, when afar and asunder,
Parted are those who are singing to-day,

When you look back and forgetfully wonder

What you were like in your work and your play:
Then it may be there will often come o'er you
Glimpses of notes like the catch of a song;
Visions of boyhood shall float there before you,
Echoes of dreamland shall bear them along.

Chorus:

Follow up! Follow up!

Till the field ring again and again

With the tramp of the twenty-two men !

Follow up! Follow up!

Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind as in memory long.

Feeble in foot and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?
God gives us bases to guard and beleaguer.
Games to play out, whether earnest or fun,
Fights for the fearless, and goals for the eager,
Twenty and thirty and forty years on !

SCHOOLS FOR GIRLS

101

There are no schools in England for girls like these great public schools for boys. Until recently, if a girl wished to go to college, she was prepared in a private school or by a tutor. Lately, however, as colleges for girls have increased, a stock company, The Girls' DaySchool Co. Limited, has been formed, and preparatory schools for girls have been established at London, Nottingham, Clapham, and many other cities.

QUESTIONS

Describe some characteristics of the Thames River, and its basin. Why is it so important a river?

Where are royal visitors to England entertained? Describe the most interesting features of the place.

For what are Greenwich and Woolwich especially noted? What is an English "public" school? Mention four of these schools.

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK

Mention five reasons why England needs a large navy.
Describe a visit to Hampton Court.

Imagine yourself a pupil at Eton College and write to at friend a brief descriptive letter of school life there.

CHAPTER VIII

TOWNS AND

DOWNS IN THE SOUTH

London at Night - Down the Thames - Gravesend--Margate - Bleak House The Singing Sands The Garden of England - Maidstone - Chatham — Canterbury Dover-The Channel Crossing The Downs Hastings

Brighton Portsmouth - The Channel Islands Southampton - Isle of Wight New Forest.

It is dark when we return to London. But the great city is a blaze of light, and nearly as many people are to be seen in the streets as in the daytime. One of the English poets has called London "the city of dreadful night," because so many men there turn night into day, and are seen only in the hours between sunset and sunrise. "London never sleeps" is another expression frequently heard.

After we return to our hotel, we are again busy with the maps and routes of southern England. Realizing that we cannot go to all the towns that we should like to see, we are carefully selecting the most important places to visit. Our plan is to go to Dover, on the southeastern coast, and from that ancient harbor pass westward from one thriving city to another, until we shall have gone to Land's End, the extreme point of southwestern England. Traveling northeastward again, we expect to return to London by the way of Bristol. In this manner our journey will be almost a circle, and will give us a comprehensive picture of the people, the cities, and the life of southern England.

Some of our party prefer to journey by train to Dover, stopping at several places on the way; while others decide to go to the mouth of the Thames by boat. We shall accompany the latter party.

ON THE THAMES

103

In the summer, steamers leave London every day, carrying passengers to the resorts at the mouth of the Thames. It is high tide when we embark, and as we make our way down the river we meet hundreds of vessels being piloted upstream to London. All the way from London to Gravesend, the Thames presents a busy, stirring scene. Vessels coming and going, great docks and warehouses, parks and gardens, weave themselves into the changing picture. We are alert with interest as we watch several eight-oared shells, rowed by vigorous crews of boys and young men. On the docks we notice many children playing. Perhaps it is all the outing these little city-dwellers ever have.

Gravesend, we are told upon our arrival, is the place where pilots board incoming vessels and guide them up the narrow channel of the Thames to London. From the steamer we catch a glimpse of the narrow, crowded little streets in the lower part of this busy town, which is the head of the London shipping. An American fellow traveler on board our boat informs us that Pocahontas was buried here, and that only two miles away is Gad's Hill where Dickens lived and died.

Our boat passes on into the broader waters of the Thames's mouth, while the shores recede farther and farther from us. We can now see, from the stakes and buoys, how narrow the river channel is. At last we arrive at Margate, where we obtain a splendid view over the mouth of the Thames. We land and find ourselves in a place of twentyfive thousand inhabitants. Margate is a popular summer resort, as are also Broadstairs and Ramsgate near by. It is evident that the thousands of visitors here spend most of their holiday out of doors. In the evening we join the throng which is walking back and forth on the long pier, feeling a little as if we were on the board-walk at Atlantic