the rush and crush of troops of the merriest mortals, in all the abandon of holiday-making. This toll-bar draws heavy tribute from myriads who prefer the road to the rail in visiting the Crystal Palace. Odd Fellows' and Foresters' gatherings, Concerts and Flower-shows, Firework nights and Gala days, Good Fridays and Choral Festivals, are all red-letter occasions for the Penge Road toll-bar. It treasures, too, the sunny memory of the Garibaldian ovation, and of the visit by the Viceroy of Egypt, the heir to the Pharaohs and Ptolemies. But the climax is still to be told. Abdul Aziz Khan, the successor of the Solymans and Amuraths, in his transit from the Crystal Palace to Dulwich, drew after him to this pike a stream of carriages which occupied six hours in passing through. A repetition once a week, all the year round, of such a flood of silver tribute would afflict the governors with an embarrassment of riches, and possibly drive them to start a middleclass girls' school, for lack of any unsatisfied requirement which could absorb more unappropriated cash.

THE FUTURE.

Sir Roundell Palmer enunciated, some months since, the proper work of the old Grammar Schools in the present and after times to be "how best to adapt themselves to the wants of the localities in which they are situated, or rather of the communities to whose wants they are subservient." This is not in accordance with the dictum of pundits of the law of a somewhat earlier date, but it is in entire agreement with the conclusions of sound common sense nowadays all over the world. Dulwich College has already addressed itself to the task which the ex-Attorney-General commends as the fittest aim of all the old foundations. A fair measure of success has marked its new career. It has allied itself with the Universities in one direction, and with the busy haunts of commerce in the other. The older studies are carried on side by side with the so-called modern subiects. Four of its alumni are now using its curtailed

exhibitions at the Universities, and each of them has gained in open competition an additional exhibition or scholarship at Oxford or Cambridge. In less ambitious ordeals, too, many younger Dulwichians have achieved very creditable success. These results have been attained under great disadvantages. Both schools are filled to overflowing, and are constantly turning applicants away. Yet their total numbers reach only 220, so greatly are they "cribbed, cabined, and confined" in a set of small and inconvenient rooms. More masters are needed, both for the subjects not yet taught, though laid down in the scheme, and for aiding the present staff in gathering a harvest too great for so few labourers. The advanced state of the new buildings affords the prospect of speedy relief from one main hindrance to development. The yearly income of the charity is rapidly augmenting. It was only 8001. per annum at the founder's death, and even less in those troublous times when the Fortune Playhouse was suppressed, with all other theatres (1647), and became a source of prolonged embarrassment to the impoverished foundation. In the century following Alleyn's death, the income had reached only 1,3007.; in another century it had grown to about 7,000l. Ten years ago it was between 9,000l. and 10,000l. A still more rapid rate of increase has since set in. It may now be stated in round numbers at 13,000l., with a constantly increasing rent roll. The gross income for some years past has greatly exceeded 13,000l., and has even averaged as high as 16,000l. for each of the three years ending with December 1866. But something like 3,000l. out of this 16,000l. was made up of interest on the purchase-money paid by the railways for College land taken, and on other deposits and accumulations which will all disappear in the new buildings. The severance of a large total acreage for railways, schools, and a church has nowise depressed the ever-elastic rent-roll. The part that is left pays more than the whole before it was cut up. Numerous leases, dating

from the early years of the century, will shortly run out, and greatly enhanced. rents will be obtained. More and more grass-land is taken up each year for building, and ground-rents are not light in Dulwich.

The pensions and allowances to the members of the old foundation have dwindled from 6,2807. in 1858, to less than 4,000l. in the past year. These and similar facts give fair warrant to the assumption that before the close of our century, Dulwich College will possess an unencumbered net income of fully 20,000l. per annum, irrespective of school fees. That splendid revenue, too, will form only an approximation to the yet more princely income which is in store for the foundation at a date when boys now in the schools shall have attained the evening of their days. Nor is it beyond the bounds of the practicable (if Parliament will give its sanction to the attempt) to bring the yearly income up to 30,000l. in fewer years than will suffice for junior boys now in the schools to take their places in the highest form. Land in the neighbourhood of Dulwich fetches from 7007. to 1,000l. per acre. Twelve hundred acres of the College estate, with the houses on them, if sold in sections year by year during the next ensuing seven or eight years, would realize more than a million sterling. The College would still retain ample room and verge enough in its residue of freehold land and buildings for all the possible requirements of the foundation. The purchase-money invested in Government securities, or in Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and Indian bonds after the practice of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Asylum-would yield from 35,000l. to 40,000l. per annum. The governors would be relieved from a large portion of the responsibilities of their trust; the estate and establishment charges always heavier on charitable trusts than on private property-would be largely curtailed; and the rising generation would share with posterity in the full fruition of Alleyn's rich foundation. On the other hand, there

is the weighty reason against capitalizing the estate, that land near London has probably not attained its maximum value. That thought must give the governors pause. But the sale of one hundred acres only would yield the means, in the interest on the purchasemoney, leaving the capital intact, of paying the annuities to the members of the old foundation without touching ordinary income.

There is yet another course open for a large and speedy development of income, and that, too, without alienating a single acre. Let the governors encourage the erection of a smaller class of house than the mansions which now find most favour in their eyes. By such a policy they will at the same time confer a solid boon on the classes that most want cheap education, secure a larger yield of ground-rents on a given area, and occupy each acre with buildings more valuable in the aggregate than large houses that absorb much land at rents comparatively small. the few instances in which smaller houses have been sanctioned the groundrents

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are much heavier, in proportion to area, than those yielded by the largest houses. Some small dwellings, built in recent years, are paying at the rate of 801. per annum per acre groundrent, while first-class residences about Sydenham Hill pay only 247. There is then, in the large expanse of grass-land now let at 51. per acre, a magnificent untapped reservoir of income in the form of ground-rents. The concession of such facilities as will bring into residence on the College lands, families of the grade that most wants cheap and good schooling, will prove reciprocally advantageous, benefiting the College that gives and the tenant that takes.

An overflowing exchequer-the prime element of success in all great undertakings-is in any case assured to the College in the early future. It draws its scholars from metropolitan districts containing a population equal to that of Leeds. It may fairly aspire to become the leading middle-class school of England, exceeding all the rest in

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the multitude of its pupils, and rivalling the best of them in the range and efficiency of its instruction. stead of fearing a dearth of pupils, such as mars the success of other old foundations, it is not unlikely to be beset by larger numbers of candidates than it can take within its fold. pressure for admission has already led to the adoption of the practice of competitive examination-a scheme not free from objection as applied to the reception of young boys into the lowest forms of a school. Competition, in place of a simple pass examination, gives to affluent homes a decided advantage over those which cannot afford the expense of nursery governesses or private tutors. Wealthy men, who could afford to send their sons to Eton, are at this moment availing themselves of cheap schooling at Dulwich, while poorer men are expending sums which they can ill spare in qualifying their boys for forthcoming competitive ordeals for admission. A sprinkling of boys from affluent homes is a benefit to a middle-class school, by the superior type of their manners, demeanour, and tone of feeling. But a preponderance of rich boys is ruinous to hard work, economy, self-denial, and other homely virtues not yet out of fashion in families of moderate means.

The materials exist from which a statistical table might be drawn up proving that the cost of education, at the great Foundation Schools, has grown with the growth of their endowment, and is, at the present day, heaviest in the most-richly endowed schools. On the other hand, there are schools of deserved repute in which, though only very slender help is gained from benefactions, yet the charges are conspicuous for their moderation. The best schools in Scotland, and the City of London School, are examples of the latter sort. Is Dulwich to rank with the modern and economical, or with the ancient and

aristocratic type? Its immense income, apart from fees, should for ever secure easy access for the lower section of the middle classes-that large stratum in the social pyramid which has hitherto been least considered in educational reforms. With an attendance of 600, for which the new schools will very shortly afford accommodation, the emoluments of the head-master and under-master of the Upper School, and the headmaster of the Lower School, will place these gentlemen on a pecuniary level not below that of the best-paid among their professional brethren filling corresponding posts in the greatest schools in England, with the exception of Harrow, Eton, Rugby, and Winchester. The prospect of abundant funds for payment of a large staff of assistant-masters can hardly be considered doubtful. The best encouragement to the influx of pupils would be a speedy augmentation of the exhibitions up to the full value and number contemplated by the Act. Clever boys will flock to a school where ability is fostered and rewarded, and the reputation gained by such boys. will bring it fast into favour. peradventure, may Dulwich soon redeem its unfruitful past; and youthful genius, fostered within its fold, shalllike the angelic visitant in primæval days-shower down fruitful blessings on the place of its nurture. For a school has no more precious heritage than the reflected fame of those distinguished men, whom, in their youth, it sent forth well-equipped for the battle of life. On every ground, therefore, it is urgently desirable that the exhibitions should not be stinted even at the outset. If a rigid economy is imperative in all the other departments of expenditure-and this is not at all apparent from the printed accounts-the exhibitions, to their full number, and to the highest limit of their value, should at once come into unrestricted operation.

So,