d son,
As we step in quick succession,
Cap and pass and hurry on?
One and all,
At the call,
Cap and pass and hurry on?
Here, sir! Here, sir!" etc.

"So to-day--and oh! if ever
Duty's voice is ringing clear,
Bidding men to brave endeavour,
Be our answer, 'We are here!'
Come what will,
Good or ill,
We will answer, 'We are here!'
Here, sir! Here, sir!" etc.

The allusion is, of course, to "Bill," the Harrow term for the
roll-call. These lines, for me, embody all that is best in the
so-called "Public School spirit."

In my time the distant view from the chapel terrace was exceedingly
beautiful, whilst the immediate foreground was uncompromisingly ugly. A
vegetable garden then covered the space where now the steps of the
"Slopes" run down through lawns and shrubberies, and rows of
utilitarian cabbages and potatoes extended right up to the terrace
wall. But beyond this prosaic display of kitchen-stuff, in summer-time
an unbroken sea of green extended to the horizon, dotted with such
splendid oaks as only a heavy clay soil can produce. London, instead of
being ten miles off, might have been a hundred miles distant. Now, for
fifty years London, Cobbett's "monstrous wen," has been throwing her
tentative feelers into the green Harrow country. Already pioneer
tentacles of red-brick houses are creeping over the fields, and before
long the rural surroundings will have vanished beyond repair.

"Ducker," the Harrow bathing-place, has had scant justice done to it.
It is a most attractive spot, standing demurely isolated amidst its
encircling fringe of fine elms, and jealously guarded by a high wooden
palisade, No unauthorised person can penetrate into "Ducker"; in
summer-time it is the boys' own domain. The long tiled pool stretches
in sweeping curves for 250 feet under the great elms, a splashing
fountain at one end, its far extremity gay with lawns and flower-beds.
I can conceive of nothing more typical of the exuberant joie-de-vivre
of youth than the sight of Ducker on a warm summer evening when the
place is ringing with the shouts and laughter of some four hundred
boys, all naked as when they were born, swimming, diving, ducking each
other, splashing and rollicking in the water, whilst others stretched
out on the grass, puris naturalibus, are basking in the sun, or
regaling themselves on buns and cocoa. The whole place is vibrant with
the intense zest the young fee