From Bath we passed over to Winchester, taking in a corner of the New Forest _en route_. After we had seen the great cathedral and college at Winchester, we walked to St. Gross, which is a home for old men. I have forgotten how old it is, but the custom of receiving pilgrims remains unchanged through all the many years. Each "pilgrim" is given a piece of bread and a mug of ale at the porter's lodge. We pilgrims were not hungry enough to enjoy either. I had a letter to the head master, who, unfortunately, was away, but one of the house masters received us kindly and showed us about. Of course the talk turned on education and the relative merits of English and American schools. Our guide had never been in America, but if you think that prevented him from having definite views on American methods of education, you do not know the English! He was inclined to admit that what he called our "board schools" were, perhaps, in some respects better than the English, but when it came to the question of "public" schools--such as the Phillips Academies at Exeter and Andover, or St. Paul's or Groton, he found it difficult to speak what he believed to be the truth and at the same time be polite. So he contented himself with saying that the English standard is much higher; which, I fear, cannot be denied. I asked him what boys of fifteen were reading in Latin, and when he replied, "Cæsar and the first books of Virgil," I said it would be the same with us. But when he explained that by "reading" he did not mean merely translation into English, but also retranslation into Latin in the style of the author, and added that boys must be able to write good Latin prose of their own composition, I gave up! I asked him how he accounted for the fact that the standard was higher with them than with us. He said because English boys studied harder and longer hours than our boys do. He thought the three months' holiday fatal to continuous progress. "Then," he added, "your boys go to school too late. English boys are sent to a preparatory school at nine--often at eight--years of age, so they acouire habits of study before yours begin."