Science lectures formed another branch of the intellectual treats that were provided for the school; but Science was still rather under a cloud at that date. I recollect the title of but one discussion, and that only because I happened to be able to throw some light on the geological problem with which it dealt. I was living in a small house (once famous as “Drury’s”), which had a much higher one on either side; and as it was the practice for the boys in neighbouring houses to bombard each other with any missiles or minerals that might be handy, my garden became a sort of “no-man’s-land” between the two rival fortresses, and its surface was enriched with a very varied deposit. When, therefore, a lecture was announced on the question, “Will coal be found in the Thames valley?” I was able to solve the problem affirmatively by the production from my own premises of some remarkably fine samples. It would doubtless have shocked Dr. Hornby if any one had suggested that there was a lack of religious instruction in that most conservative of schools. Chapel services there were in plenty; and a Greek Testament lesson on Monday morning; and “Sunday Questions” to be answered in writing; and “Sunday Private” to be attended in the Tutor’s pupil-room; and Prayers every evening in each House. Yet the general tone of Eton was far from being religious, even in the conventional meaning of the term; for the many superficial observances did not affect the deep underlying worldliness of the place. It was Vanity Fair on Sundays and week-days alike. There was an Eton story of a servant in a private family who, when the bell was rung for evening devotions, was overheard to cry in a weary voice: “Oh, dear! _Why_ do gentry have prayers?” The reference to “gentry” shows the light in which such ceremonies are regarded downstairs. In the same way, the religious teaching in schools is looked upon by the boys as imposed on them for purposes of discipline. It was not the boys only who found the Chapel services very tedious; for most of the masters were laymen, many of them unorthodox, and for these it was no agreeable duty to be victimized both on Sundays and on Saints’ Days for the sake of keeping up appearances before the school. Calculations are sometimes made of the number of years spent in prison by some hardened criminal or “gaol-bird.” Why does no one tell us how many hours, amounting to how many years, some zealous church-goer, or pew-bird, has spent on such devotions? Without claiming that distinction, I calculate that during some twenty years spent in connection with public school and University I passed several thousands of hours in church and chapel.