But the antipathy to change and the temptation to a display of erudition have always proved too strong an obstacle to improvement; and when the writer was last present at this anniversary, the ancient precedent was still in force, and the Court of the Merchant Taylors and general company listened in respectful silence to interlocutions or monologues as mysterious to them as the Writing on the Wall. III. William Dugard, head-master from 1646 to 1660, so far as his light and information were capable of carrying him, did, no doubt, good service to the Company and institution with which he was during so many years associated. But, on the ground of misconduct and negligence, his employers thought proper, on the 27th December 1660, to discharge him from the place of chief schoolmaster, giving him, however, till the following Midsummer to find another appointment. Dugard states in _An humble Remonstrance Presented to the Right Worshipfull Company of Merchant-Tailors, Maii 15, 1661_, that the Company assigned no cause for their proceeding; but he says at the same time: "It is alleged in your Order, _That many Complaints have been frequently from time to time made to the Master and Wardens of the Company, and to the Court, by the parents and friends of the young Scholars, of the neglect of the chief-Master's dutie in that School, and of the breach of the Companie's Orders and Ordinances thereof_." To this Dugard replies that he had never heard of any complaints in all the seventeen years he had filled the post, and he declared his readiness to submit in silence if any parent could prove aught against him. He had been in the profession, he said, thirty-three years, and "in all places wherever I came, I have had ample testimonials of my faithfulness and diligence, and my scholars' proficiency." The writer attributes his fall to the presence among the members of the Court of persons unjustly hostile to him, who had represented that the school was suffering from his administration, and would go down unless some timely remedy was adopted.