There was one project which lay very near to Dr. Hawtrey’s heart. Between the oppidans and the collegers there was a great gulf fixed. To bridge this over was his ambition. I have shown how Provost Hodgson and he had done much to improve the lives of the boys on the foundation. It had cost them infinite pains, and in his case great pecuniary sacrifices; of that he took little heed, for he was always open-handed, and to give was for him a necessity. By curtailing the Long Chamber and the erection of the new buildings in Weston’s Yard, and by other corollary reforms, they had given the collegers a measure of decency and comfort which they had never enjoyed before. Hawtrey thought that the time had come when, with the help of these altered conditions, he could amalgamate Eton into one uniform whole, collegers and oppidans, one body with one soul and one spirit, all invidious distinctions swept away, all jealousies stifled and done with. His plan was to get a number of boys who had already been some years in the school and had therefore made their friends among the oppidans to compete for college. He thought that in this way he would be introducing a leaven of intimacy between the two camps. In my time, at any rate, it was a complete failure. The only result was that the newcomers lost their oppidan friends, while from the old college hands they received but a cold welcome. I was one of the vile bodies upon which the experiment was tried, and that is how I lost my intimacy with Swinburne. Dr. Hawtrey’s influence with my father was immense, and for some two years I became a colleger. I can honestly say that during that time I never was inside any oppidan’s room, nor do I remember ever having an oppidan to visit me, or any other colleger. During the last year and a half of my Eton days, when I was already in sixth form, I went back to be an oppidan, and Evans’s house being full, was sent to Mrs. Voysey’s, who was a new dame. In the meantime Provost Hodgson had died in 1852, and was succeeded by Dr. Hawtrey, to my deep regret, for he was followed as Head Master by Dr. Goodford, and in a schoolroom over which that dull and drowsy man presided there was little joy.