THE BILL OF 1830-1.--In May, 1830, after a prolonged struggle of the Governors and Master against the people, a bill was presented to parliament to enable the Governors to build a new school, to raise £50,000 for the purpose, and to regulate the school according to a scheme approved by Chancery. It was vehemently opposed by the Dissenters, on the clause directing that “no person shall be elected a governor who is not a member of the Established Church of England,” and was thrown out on the third reading in the Lords, but passed in the following year, the obnoxious clauses having been removed. In the first place, the school was to be rebuilt on the old site, at a cost of £30,000, and all branches of an English education, in addition to the dead languages, were to be taught. No boy was to be admitted under eight years of age, or retained after nineteen (no limits of age had existed hitherto); and boys, not sons of inhabitants, were to pay fees. In the second place, a new school was to be built distinct from the Grammar School, for the teaching of modern languages; while four branch schools for the free education of boys and girls of the humbler classes were to be erected before 1840, £1,000 being spent upon each. Ten exhibitions, each of £50 per annum, were created, Birmingham boys taking precedence. Ratepayers, though non-resident, might be governors, provided they were not tenants of school property, and attended once in two years. The accounts were to be published yearly, and there was also to be an annual examination of the school. THE PRESENT BUILDING.--The new building was erected from the designs of Mr. Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. The style is the latest pure Gothic in England, that which prevailed immediately before the commencement of the 16th century. “The school is entered by a spacious porch, highly ornamented: two large apartments, with oak pannelled walls and ceilings, are the school room for the commercial school;[10] the classical school is 120 feet long, 45 high, 30 wide, with a lofty angular roof, supported by a series of magnificent obtuse angled arches of the Tudor style. At the end, where the chair of the Head Master is placed, is a handsome lofty oak carved screen. The Second Master’s chair is opposite to this, and the Usher’s chairs are on the sides. There is a library and a fine bust of Edward VI. by Scheemaker.”