periodically in our youth at school to suffer from an "examination week," during which a mysterious power from outside was permitted to inflict upon us examination papers upon every subject upon earth, under the title of Oxford

and Cambridge Locals—the High, the Middle, and the Low—or, in Scotland, the Leaving Certificate. These papers were set and corrected by persons unknown, residing in London; and we were supervised as we answered them not by our own preceptors—they stampeded joyously away to play golf—but by strange creatures who took charge of the examination-room with an air of uneasy assurance, suggestive of a man travelling first-class with a third-class ticket. In due course the results were declared; and the small school which gained a large percentage of Honourable Mentions was able to underline the fact heavily in its prospectus. These examinations were, if not organised, at least recognised by the State; and once they had pierced the battlements of a school an Inspector invariably crawled through the breach after them. Henceforth that school was subject to periodical visitations and reports.

Naturally the Headmasters of the great public schools clanged their gates and dropped their portcullises against such an infraction of the law that a Headmaster's school is his castle. But, as already mentioned, the screw was applied. The certificates awarded to successful candidates in these examinations were made

the key to higher things. Three Higher Grade Certificates, for instance, were accepted in lieu of certain subjects in Oxford Smalls and Cambridge Little-go. The State pounced upon this principle and extended it. The acquisition of a sufficient number of these certificates now paved the way to various State services. Extra marks or special favours were awarded to young gentlemen who presented themselves for Sandhurst or Woolwich or the Civil Service bringing their sheaves with them in the form of Certificates. Roughly speaking, the more Certificates a candidate produced the more enthusiastically he was excused from the necessity of learning the elements of his trade.

The governing bodies of various professions took up the idea. For instance, if you produced four Higher Certificates—say for Geography, Botany, Electro-Dynamics, and Practical Cookery—you were excused the preliminary examination of the Society of Chartered Accountants. (We need not pin ourselves down to the absolute accuracy of these details: they are merely for purposes of illustration.) Anyhow, it was a beautiful idea. A Headmaster of my acquaintance once assured me that he believed that the possession of a complete set of Higher

Grade Certificates for all the Local Examinations of a single year would entitle the holder to a seat in the reformed House of Lords.

In other words, it was still possible to get into the Universities and Services without Certificates, but it was very much easier to get in with them.

So the great Headmasters climbed down. But they made terms. They would accept the Local Examinations, and they would admit Inspectors within their fastnesses; but they respectfully but firmly insisted upon having some sort of say in the choice of the Inspector.

The Government met them more than half-way. In fact, they fell in with the plan with suspicious heartiness.

"Certainly, my dear sir," they said: "you shall choose your own Inspector; and what is more, you shall pay him! Think of that! The man will be a mere tool in your hands—a hired servant—and you can do what you like with him."

It was an ingenious and comforting way of putting things, and may be commended to the notice of persons writhing in a dentist's chair; for it forms an exact parallel: the description applies to dentist and inspector equally. However,

the Headmasters agreed to it; and now all our great schools receive inspectorial visitations of some kind. That is to say, upon an appointed date a gentleman comes down from London, spends the day as the guest of the Headmaster; and after being conducted about the premises from dawn till dusk, departs in the gloaming with his brain in a fog and some sixteen guineas in his pocket.

He is a variegated type, this Super-Inspector. Frequently he is a clever man who has failed as a schoolmaster and now earns a comfortable living because he remembered in time the truth of the saying: La critique est aisé, l'art difficile. More often he is a superannuated University professor, with a penchant for irrelevant anecdote and a disastrous sense of humour. Sometimes he is aggressive and dictatorial, but more often (humbly remembering where he is and who is going to pay for all this) apprehensive, deferential, and quite inarticulate. Sometimes he is a scholar and a gentleman, with a real appreciation of the atmosphere of a public school and a sound knowledge of the principles of education. But not always. And whoever he is and whatever he is, the Head loathes him impartially and dispassionately.

Such are some of the thorns with which the pillow of a modern Headmaster is stuffed. His greatest stumbling-block is Tradition—the hoary edifices of convention and precedent, built up and jealously guarded by Old Boys and senior Housemasters. Of Parents we will treat in another place.

What is he like, the Headmaster of to-day?

Firstly and essentially, he is no longer a despot. He is a constitutional sovereign, like all other modern monarchs; and perhaps it is better so. Though a Head still exercises enormous personal power, for good or ill, a school no longer stands or falls by its Headmaster, as in the old days, any more than a country stands or falls by its King, as in the days of the Stuarts. Public opinion, Housemasters, the prefectorial system—these have combined to modify his absolutism. But though a bad Headmaster may not be able to wreck a good school, it is certain that no school can ever become great, or remain great, without a great man at the head of it.

Time has wrought other changes. Twenty years ago no man could ever hope to reach the summit of the scholastic universe who was not in Orders and the possessor of a First Class

Classical degree. Now the layman, the modern-side man, above all the man of affairs, are raising their heads.

Under these new conditions, what manner of man is the great Head of to-day?

He is essentially a man of business. A clear brain and a sense of proportion enable him to devise schemes of education in which the old idealism and the new materialism are judiciously blended. He knows how to draw up a school time-table—almost as difficult and complicated a document as Bradshaw—making provision, hour by hour, day by day, for the teaching of a very large number of subjects by a limited number of men to some hundreds of boys all at different stages of progress, in such a way that no boy shall be left idle for a single hour and no master be called upon to be in two places at once.

He understands school finance and educational politics, which are even more peculiar than British party politics. He combines the art of being able to rule upon his own initiative for months at a time, and yet render a satisfactory account of his stewardship to an ignorant and inquisitive Governing Body which meets twice a year.

He is, as ever, an imposing figure-head; and if he is, or has been, an athlete, so much the easier for him in his dealings with the boys. He possesses the art of managing men to an extent sufficient to maintain his Housemasters in some sort of line, and to keep his junior