of other similar establishments, of which I have had no experience. I am certain, however, that there is no school where, at the present day, the authorities take a more personal and careful interest in the moral and physical wellbeing of the boys; and this is rendered more practicable at Winchester than at most other public schools, owing to the number being limited to about two hundred, instead of being allowed to expand till it becomes rather a cluster of small schools than one solid establishment.[1] If any of my own contemporaries ever glance over these pages, I hope they will experience a pleasure in having some scenes brought again before their minds’ eye with which they were once familiar, but of which the remembrance had become fainter and fainter, as they have gradually been shadowed over by the duties and struggles of after-life; though I fear that any such satisfaction will be damped by the feeling of how much better they might have been described by an abler pen.[2] I cannot expect that my book will be noticed by anybody except Wykehamists, yet, in case it should ever attract the notice of any one who is altogether unacquainted with Winchester, I have given a description of the geography of the buildings (in chap, ii.) and the institutions of the school, lacking which the book would have been entirely without meaning to them;—all such dissertations the Wykehamist will, of course, skip. I have, however, omitted giving any account of the history, antiquities, and architecture of the College, all of which have been amply described in several works with which Wykehamists are very well acquainted, and which others can easily procure if they desire any such information. I simply propose as my task some account of the inner life of the boys as it was, “Consule Planco,” illustrated by a picture of the trials and amusements of a junior.