“These counters can be obtained by work of almost every description, done at any time; and there is no one scarcely who is either so deficient in talent or so indolent, but that some occupation can be found in which he will engage with pleasure. [His father, ten years before this, had written, ‘Those who do anything may, in almost all cases, perhaps in all without exception, be brought to do useful things.’] Indeed, there have been repeated instances of boys who have entered the school with the worst of characters for idleness or for stupidity, who, having been induced by example to engage in some pursuit which they could follow with pleasure and with credit, have thus acquired a taste for excellence which has extended to other things, and have ultimately risen to a very respectable rank in the school. In short, this has become the most important part of our system. The school is now, as it were, a little world. The counters are our currency; trades and professions of various kinds, from the improvisiatore and banker to the musician, punch-keeper,[51] and serving-man are carried on among us. Here may be seen the boy of talent exercising his ingenuity to obtain opulence by the most speedy and effectual means, engaged, perhaps, in the construction of some curious and difficult model, or in rendering into English verse the poetry of his favourite author of antiquity; there the industrious boy may be seen who, already rich, from the love of wealth or the love of riches, is plodding on to increase his stores; and, alas! not unfrequently may be seen the little bankrupt, asking the charity of his friends, or parting with his last marble to save himself from the terrors of a gaol. “Indeed, the whole machine of the school (for such is the regularity of our proceedings that the appellation is not misapplied) is now become so very perfect that we are able to appropriate every minute of the day to its respective use; and the bells ring, the classes assemble, break up, take their meals, &c., with such clock-like regularity that it has the appearance almost of magic. “I believe I may say that by far the greater part of the system is my own, and I am not a little proud of its effects.... The school is certainly at this time in a very high state of improvement. Our annual exhibition, which took place about the middle of June, gave very great satisfaction to the audience, and considerably raised the character of the school. The performances consisted principally of the whole of the ‘Rudens’ of Plautus and Miss Edgeworth’s ‘Eton Montem.’ For this exhibition I painted a new back-scene; it is a view on the sea-coast.” In November, 1821, he records:—