It went on not only from week to week, but from half-year to half-year. If a boy were a single second late at a single roll-call, his name was struck off the list, and he had to begin again. “Neither illness nor engagement of any kind was a valid plea for absence.” It was his duty not to get ill, and it was the duty of his friends not to call him away from school on any grounds whatever. If there was any marrying, christening, or dying to be gone through in his family, it should be gone through in holiday time. In this “almost superstitious punctuality” I was myself brought up till I went to the University. There, as I well remember, I received a kind of shock when I found my superstition treated with scorn. The first time that I went to the lecture-room, I entered it on the first stroke of the hour. My tutor received me with a look of mild wonder; but, happily, he spared me his reproof. Ten minutes later in came the rest of my companions. It was some days before I could break through the frost of custom, and summon up resolution to be unpunctual. When, however, I found out how worthless the lectures commonly were, I recognised that even the custom of punctuality may be more honoured in the breach than in the observance. The rank of the boys was fixed each week, and fixed on a different arrangement:— “For one week the rank of each boy depends upon his progress in Greek, as far down the school as that language is taught. Those who do not learn Greek follow according to their proficiency in some other study. Latin determines the order for another week, geometry for a third, and so forth. Most of the studies determine the arrangement for a single week each; but a few, which are very important, decide it for two distinct weeks in each half-year.” This peculiar arrangement is thus defended:— “It is of great importance that the pupil should, very early in life, have an opportunity of tasting the pleasure of success; and, in order to ensure so desirable an end, we have been careful to attach rank to excellence in each department, sometimes ranging our pupils in the order of classical attainments; then as mathematicians; then according to manual excellence; and, lastly, according to their general conduct and behaviour. Thus each boy in his turn attains rank and consideration in that branch of study wherein nature has fitted him to excel, and where comparatively moderate efforts will ensure success.” Twice each half-year the rank of the boys was determined by their conduct:—