The new statutes provided that four scholarships at King’s should be annually offered for competition to the scholars of Eton, tenable for six years, value £80 per annum, with tuition, rooms, and commons free. The injury done to the interests of Eton by the new arrangements was very great, for four scholarships per annum did not amount to the average of the old succession, which ranged from four and a half to five, while the difference between a scholarship of six years’ tenure and one which led to a Fellowship that might be held for life was so great as to be difficult to calculate. The remarkable features in these iniquitous changes were the earnestness with which they were pressed by King’s, which seemingly was anxious to rid itself of its connection with Eton--that is, as far as it could--and the weakness of Eton and its dereliction of duty to itself and its scholars in acquiescing in them without any attempt to obtain any mitigation or revision which might certainly have been effected. Henry Norris Churton, the first Colleger to be affected by the new state of affairs, declined to accept the scholarship at King’s to which he was elected in July, but Richard Durnford, elected in the same month, did accept, and thus became the first Eton scholar who went to King’s under the new statutes. A few years later--in 1871--the repeal of the entire code of statutes which had regulated Eton since the 21st December, 1443, did a good deal more towards nullifying the wishes of Henry VI. The old statutes laid down that there should be seventy _poor_ scholars--an important clause which the new ones abolished. At present, directly contrary to the Founder’s intention, there is nothing to prevent the son of a multi-millionaire from competing for an Eton scholarship. [Illustration: Sixth-Form Bench. _Lithograph lent by the Earl of Rosebery, K.G._] FOOTNOTE: [9] This appeared in the _Illustrated London News_ during the forties of the last century. VIII SCHOOL WORK Whilst Eton has occasionally produced some very fine scholars--the Marquis Wellesley was a case in point--it cannot be said that the traditions of the school are very favourable to learning, which to a large proportion of Etonians has seemed of less importance than the acquisition of worldly wisdom. More than a hundred years ago De Quincey noted the peculiar tone which prevailed amongst Eton boys, who showed a premature knowledge of the world far exceeding that possessed by the scholars at any other school. The graceful self-possession of the boys attracted his attention, but he thought them lacking in self-restraint. Such an accusation, however, could not justly be made in more modern days, when a sort of genial unconcern has come to be regarded as one of the principal characteristics of the typical Etonian, who, preferring anecdote to argument, is profoundly convinced that amongst human institutions his school stands easily first.