HARROW

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 190, 13 August 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

HARROW

THE SCHOOL ON THE HILL By T.C.L.) If you worm your way through the traffic from the Mansion House up Uheapside, across Holborn viaduct, along Oxford Street for a while and then turn sharply to your right you are in the semi-genteel Euston Road. From there it is not far to the entrance to Camden Town, a dreary neighbourhood, north-west of which is Willesdcu, where mean streets begin to open into more pretentious thorough fares. Still going north-west, the houses improve in character, and here and there are spaces not yet devoted to bricks and mortar. The road winds a little, leaving the Wembley playgrounds and the young town that has sprung up since the 1924 exhibition on one side, rises fairly steeply for some distance, and 12 miles from the city the traveller finds himself in what was once the country town of Harrow-on-the-llill, but is now to all intents and purposes a London suburb, and a beautiful suburb at that. There are other ways oi reaching Harrow, and if the electric or railway trains are used, the visitor has to be careful that he chooses the right route. There are South Harrow, North Harrow, Har row-on-the-Hill, Harrowweald (“the folds of Harrow” but now a thickly populated suburb). But it is “The Hill” that is oldest and most famous and most interesting. Hero among beautiful gardens and woods that run from the pivotal point like so many spokeshaves of a wheel are to be found Harrow church and Harrow school. The church is a fine old building, some of it dating from the 14th century. In the churchyard is a flat tombstone to which Byron, when a schoolboy at Harrow, used to betake himself when his pride and his lameness and his poor health sent him “stumping up the hill like a ship without a rudder,” as his headmaster’s wife put it, to fight out his black hours alone in the churcliyard. Inside the church are many fine “brasses,” one of them in honour of “John Lyon, yeoman, of the neighbouring parish of Preston,” founder of Harrow School. Though Lyon obtained from Queen Elizabeth in 1571 a charter for a school at which “the poor children of Harrow might be taught,” it was not until James I. had been King of England for seven years that the first scholars attended. The school maintained its exclusively “charitable” characteristic all through the troublous Stuart days, but with the Restoration came the admission of “foreign” or outside pupils, and from that date the success of the school has been unhindered. The school buildings to-day are mostly modern. There is one block, “the Fourth Form Room,” that was built in Stuart days. In this the visitor is shown the names of old boys who afterwards became famous. Like other English important schools, the control of Harrow is very carefully arranged. The headmaster is appointed by the Lord Chancellor, and the Board of Governors elected partly by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the influence of “old boys” of the school is strong, and partly by the senior assistant masters. The school is no charity institution to-day. On the contrary, no boys arc admitted except of a certain social standing, and the fees seem tremendous to those accustomed to New Zealand standards for boarders at secondary schools. The buildings at Harrow are mostly in brick. Scattered over a wide area on both sides of the street, they are nearly all mid-Victorian, and efficiency more than architectural beauty appears to have guided the designers. The chapel is a beautiful building, and there is a fine Big School Hall which is given the dignified name of “Speech Room.” On its walls hang portraits of famous old boys, and the list is one of which any school might bo proud. Their association with the school has made its traditions, but it is the sight of their names, hacked schoolboy fashion, in the benches and walls in the old fourth-form building that quickens interest most. Here is Byron’s effort, and looking at it wakens memory not so much of the poet’s stormy career as of the lame boy from a homo made miserable by a father’s profligacy and a mother’s temper. Heir to a title, full of pride of race, yet cramped by penury, the result of others’ extravagances—was it any wonder his manhood was so stormy and his life such a blond of the sordid and sublime? Harrow forgets jhe weakness and remembers its son who has an imperishable name in British literature and who died for freedom’s sake.

The English public schools—called “public” schools because they are the most exclusive scholastic institutions in the world—are typical of the nation, and therefore conservative to the backbone. Hence the queerncss of the straw hats worn by the boys. Tn winter as well as in summer their extraordinary head-gear is affected — tilted on one side, broad of brim, shallow of depth, of no practical value ns a head covering, even in summer, and requiring not a little skill to maintain its balance. It is ns well that Eng land is usually free from wind, or the loss of hats nt Harrow would be considerable. These straw hats are a relic of the past and therefore n precious heritage that the Harrovians would no more dream of relinquishing than would the pupils of Christ’s Hospital nt Horsham (the blue coat school) think of giving up their picturesque but uncomfortable garb of long blue cont and yellow stockings that were worn bv their predecessors nt school during the 15th centurv.

Harrow, of course, is “strong on games.” Its annual cricket match with Eton is a London function. Tn football it has its own game, a kind of mixture of Rugby and Soccer. It is fflnyed by teams of elevon, though occasionally these are larger, the ball goes through the goal posts to score a “base.” The ball must not be handled, but may bo "aught from a kick when the catcher must kick H or drop it and begin dribbling. Players must keep behind the ball, and the art of

the game is in keeping control of the ball in dribbling. The game has never “caught on” outside the school. Per haps that is an added attraction for old and present Harrovians. Before 1771 Harrow was famous for its skill in teaching the use of the bow and arrow. Competitions were regularly held, ami the graduates were regarded as amongst the most efficient bowmen of the times. Their sports grounds, or tields, are a conspicuous part of the life of the schools, and arc amongst the most beautiful amt picturesque of the school grounds ot the Kingdom. As with the school build inga themselves they have, like Topsy. “just growed ” and are scattered about the town, but, again the Harrovians would not have it otherwise. Let Eton and Rugby have their grounds nest! ing around their schools; Harrow is content to be different and pursue its own way—and it is the way of tradition.