“A little circumstance connected with this room, and a certain date that I fear I may have mentioned more than once or twice?” “Oh, to be sure,” said the Dean; “haven’t I said a dozen times to my wife, ‘There’s but one thing that Clough plumes himself on--that the Fathers’ and Mothers’ Club was born in his dining-room!’” “But why to-night more than any other night?” “Why, to-night is the hundredth anniversary of that great event!” A good-humoured smile passed round. “Yes, gentlemen, I know I’m house-proud, and give you leave to laugh. But would not you cherish an old-fashioned house in a by-street, when it’s the one thing that links you to history?” “But, my dear fellow, why in the world should this Club with the stuttering initials (how I hate initials!) be glorified? It does not get in my way, as a head-master, it’s true; but, mind you, a man can’t play up to his Busby in the face of it! There was a man for his calling! How he’d walk over your ‘F. M. C.’s.’ Fumble! aye, that’s the word. Knew ‘F. M. C.’ reminded me of something.” “I’m slow to see how our Club links us with history, certainly,” murmured Dr. Brenton reflectively. “Why, in this way: if the Club did not initiate, it certainly marked a stage in the progress of the great educational revolution in which we have been moving for the last hundred years. Wait for two or three centuries, and you will find this revolution of ours written down as the ‘New Education’ just as some one gave the happy name of the ‘New Learning’ to the revival of letters in the Dark Ages.” “Sorry to disoblige you, but I’m afraid none of us sees his way to more than a century of waiting, though it be to verify the statements of his best friend. But go on, old fellow, I’m with you! Make the ‘revolution’ plain sailing for us.” “Thanks, Hilyard; your sanction emboldens me. But which am I to ‘go on’ with, the word or the thing?” “A distinction _with_ a difference. If I say ‘the thing,’ off we go to the Dark Ages themselves; and shall come out to find the ladies cloaked and hooded in the hall!” “A thing endurable to us elder Benedicts.” “Now, Doctor! As if you weren’t tied to Mrs. Oldcastle’s apron-string every minute you’re not in school. Fanny and I follow you for encouragement when we feel our bond growing slack.” “To order, gentlemen, to order! or we shall get neither word nor thing. We shall all want to put in an oar anent ‘my wife and I.’” “Brenton’s right. Seer, take up thy parable, and go ahead!” “Who would contemn a behest of the Church?” (with a bow which threatened a candle-shade, deftly saved by Hilyard.) “I go ahead; I’m not to talk about the thing, but the name. Why I call this, which has been working itself out in the last hundred years or more, an educational _revolution_. In the first place, what was called ‘Education’ a century since and what we call Education are essentially different things.”