Fifty years after William of Wykeham founded Winchester, King Henry the Sixth founded a school at Eton, a little town across the Thames from his great palace at Windsor. The rules he drew up for governing his "college" he copied from Wykeham; and in order to give it the best possible start, he took one-half the college at Winchester--the head master, five fellows, and thirty-five scholars--and settled them at Eton. For a hundred years or so Eton was a mere daughter of Winchester; but as centuries passed it took a different character. Its site, in the very shadow of Windsor Castle, naturally secured for it royal favor. George the Third and William the Fourth took a lively personal interest in its welfare; and in late years members of the royal family, the sons of the Duke of Connaught and the little Duke of Albany, grandchildren of Queen Victoria, have come to Eton to prepare for the university. To-day the school numbers over a thousand--twice as many as Winchester--and its graduates include far more men of birth or genius than those of any other public school. Just as Winchester raised the standard of scholarship at Oxford, so Eton has made Oxford the university of the English aristocracy. [Illustration: A GROUP OF "HOUSES," THE CHAPEL IN THE DISTANCE.] The most interesting part of the buildings are the school-rooms, which stand to-day almost precisely as they were built. It gives you a queer feeling to think how many boys and how many generations of boys have sat on those benches at _Arma virumque cano_, or trying to drum the [Greek: ho], [Greek: hê], [Greek: tó] into heads that are already overflowing with dreams of fresh breezes on the river, and of the sound of the cricket-ball on the playing-fields.