Uppingham by the Sea | Page 3

fields, and gardens, all the outward
and visible of Uppingham School, became, for a term without
assignable limit, landless and homeless men, and the Headmaster
almost as much disburdened of his titular realm as if he were a bishop
in partibus or the chief of a nomad caravan. It was a sharp remedy; but
those who submitted to it breathed the freer at having broken prison,
and felt something, not indeed of the recklessness which inspires
adventure, but of the elation which sustains it:
Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark; The storm is up,
and all is on the hazard!
There was cited at this time a somewhat similar event in the history of
Rugby School. Dr. Arnold, in a like emergency, had removed the
school, or all who chose to go, in numerous detachments under the care
severally of himself and others of his masters to various distant spots,
among others his own house in the Lake country, where they spent
some two months, and returned to Rugby when the danger was over. It

was felt, however, that this incident furnished no real precedent for the
present venture. What we were proposing was not to arrange a number
of independent reading-parties in scattered country retreats. Such a plan
would hardly have been practicable with a system in which, as in our
case, the division of the school for teaching purposes has no reference
to the division into boarding-houses. It was proposed to pluck up the
school by the roots and transplant it bodily to strange soil; to take with
us the entire body of masters, with, probably, their families, and every
boy who was ready to follow; to provide teaching for the latter, not
only without loss in the amount, but without interruption of the existing
system in any branch; and to guarantee the supply of everything
necessary for the corporate life of three hundred boys, who had to be
housed, fed, taught, disciplined, and (not the easiest of tasks) amused,
on a single spot, and one as bare of all the wonted appliances of public
school life as that yet uncertain place was like to prove, of which the
recommendation for our residence would be that no one else cared to
reside there.
CHAPTER II.
--A CHARTER OF SETTLEMENT.
Habet populus Romanus ad quos gubernacula rei publicae deferat:
_qui ubicunque terrarum sunt, ibi omne est rei publicae praesidium, vel
potius ipsa res publica_.
CICERO.
HAMLET. Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?
HORATIO. Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.
HAMLET. They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that.
SHAKESPEARE.
The Trustees of the School met at Uppingham on March 11th. This was
the earliest opportunity of consulting them collectively on the

resolution to break up the school and to migrate, which had been taken
on the 7th. They sanctioned the breaking up of the school. On the
question of its removal elsewhere they recorded no opinion.
Meanwhile a reconnaissance was being made by one of our body, who
was despatched to visit, as in a private capacity, Borth, and two or three
other spots on the Welsh coasts, while inquiries were also made in
other directions.
On Monday, 13th, the Headmaster left Uppingham for a visit to the
sites which promised most favourably. A deep snow on the ground
made the departure from home seem the more cheerless, but it had
melted from the Welsh hills before we reached them. On Tuesday, the
party--which now consisted of the Headmaster, two of the staff, and
one of the Trustees (whose services on this occasion, and many others
arising out of it, we find it easier to remember than to acknowledge as
they deserve)--stayed a night at the inland watering-place of
Llandrindod, one of the suggested sites. The bleak moors round it were
uninviting enough that squally March day. But the question of settling
here was dismissed at once; there was not sufficient house-room in the
place. So next morning we bore down upon Borth.
The first sight of the place seemed to yield us assurance of having
reached our goal. The hotel is a long oblong building with two slight
retiring wings, beyond which extends a square walled enclosure of
what was then green turf; Cambrian Terrace overlooks the enclosure at
right angles to the hotel, the whole reminding us remotely of a college
quadrangle. On entering the hotel, the eye seized on the straight roomy
corridors which traverse it, and the wide solid staircase, as features of
high strategic importance. A tour of the rooms was made at once, and
an exact estimate taken of the possible number of beds. Besides two
other members of the staff, who joined the pioneers at Borth, the school
medical officer had come down to meet us, and