To be summoned as an assistant by Dr. Hornby, and at a few days’ notice (his arrangements were frequently made in desperate haste), was to be thrown very suddenly upon one’s own resources; for, an appointment once completed, he showed no further interest in the matter, and did not even trouble himself to provide a school-room in which his latest lieutenant should teach: that the number of Divisions exceeded the number of rooms was a trifle which did not engage his attention. A novice had therefore to consider himself rather lucky when he was able to secure, for his first term or two, even an apartment so ill equipped for educational purposes as a sort of cupboard, situated under the stairs that led to the headmaster’s room, and popularly known as “The Dog-Kennel.” Here, with a class of about forty boys, a pleasant summer school-time had to be spent. It was a curious sensation, which I suppose all teachers of large classes must have felt, to be confronted by serried ranks of boys whose faces were entirely strange, though their names were entered on the list which lay, like a map, upon the desk. Some time was required before each name could be correctly fitted to the face; and in this process any abnormality of feature or size in individuals, which might constitute a landmark, was a great help. A red-haired boy, or a fat boy, served to punctuate a row; and that classification of boys (I forget who made it) into the beef-faced and the mealy-faced was a thing to be kept in mind. Such were the auspices under which an Eton master was in those days started on his career--shut up in the Dog-Kennel with a horde of young barbarians, whom, in the circumstances, it was hardly possible to instruct, and not very easy to control. There were a few masters at Eton, as doubtless at other public schools, who had a real gift for teaching; also a few, like our friend “Swage,” who were unable to maintain any semblance of authority. Between these two extremes were those, the great majority of us, who, while courteously and respectfully treated by the boys, and having pleasant relations with them, could not in strict truth flatter themselves that, except in special cases, they had overcome the natural tendency of boyhood to be idle. So much has been written about the defects of the Eton system that it suffices here to say that while a reputation for cleverness was maintained by a few of the boys, mostly King’s Scholars, the bulk of the school was inflexibly bent upon other activities than those of the mind.