connected with the Dulwich College itself
should be filled, whenever possible, with
persons who had in such manner risen
through the school. The boys who showed
no special aptitude for book-learning were to
be taught those trades for which they seemed
most fit, and put out as apprentices, the
college paying the apprentice-fees.

Stringent regulations were made to prevent
waste of funds or neglect of duty by non-
residence or otherwise, on the part of officials
at Dulwich; and a check was put upon them
by the nomination of the churchwardens of
Alleyn's three parishes in London, as six
assistants, who were to be present at the
half-yearly audits, take part in elections, and
so act as to be generally a hindrance to the
growth of any internal abuses. Over the
whole machinery the Archbishop of
Canterbury was to watch, in the capacity of
visitor.

Now, the charity has been so managed as
to give the six assistants constant trouble,
and to bring frequently the admonitions and
instructions of archbishops into play. First,
there was an objection to spend any money
at all outside the college bounds; there was
no getting the alms-houses until the
assistants went to law about them. At present
they exist only as miserable, damp hovels in
Lamb Alley, Sun Street, Bishopsgate. Then
the six chaunters to teach music and trades
were declared against; and, although Alleyn
in his statutes distinctly and formally
excludes them from the number of the thirty
members of the college, a judicial decision
was obtained as—judges now say, a reversible
one,—to the effect that they were illegally
added to the number of the members
authorised by charter, and could not therefore
exist. Therefore, they never have existed,
and the share of the funds given to them by
the founder has not been put into "the
common chest" provided for the case of
surplus, but annually put into their own
pockets by the master, warden and
fellows, while a small proportion has gone
also to the wasteful increase of the pensions
of the twelve poor brothers and sisters.
Every year the entire surplus is in this way
eaten up. The master has grown out of
comfortable rooms and decent means into a
handsome house and undue income; the
old process has gone on, in fact; the charity
has become a warm nest for its managers and
very little else. The teachers of trades having
been got rid of, the boys have not been taught
trades, nor have the teachers given
instruction to eighty; they have, while drawing
increased income for their services, been
abiding in a very slovenly way by the twelve
boys of the foundation, who have been very
ill-taught, and of which seldom or never one
has gone to any university. Leases have
been granted foolishly, and careful audits
shirked.

When the assistants became firm in insisting
on strict audits and exact compliance
with the statutes, an attempt was made to
throw them after the chaunters, but the law
lords not only decided that the assistants
held their powers under the statute legally,
but most of them also hinted that Lord King
was wrong in having decided the provision as
to six clhaunters or junior fellows to be void.
"As to that distinction between the junior
fellows and assistants," said Lord Campbell,
"if it now arose for the first time, I am not
prepared to say what my notion of it would
be, or whether I should not say they were both
in the same category." And Mr. Justice Patte-
son said, and went some way to show that,
"if this was res integra, it would appear to
him to be extremely questionable whether
the six chaunters, as they are called, do not
stand on the same footing and have not the
same rights as the six assistants." We shall
say no more of the days of abuse and
Chancery litigation upon which Alleyn's
College of God's Gift has fallen. The abuse
is too well acknowledged to need inquiry;
what has now to be urged most emphatically
is a proper and sufficient remedy. The charity
commissioners have had two schemes in
mind, and there is one now before parliament
that we think open to grave objection.

For it is proposed almost to set aside the
charitable purpose of the institution, and to
make Alleyn the founder of an endowed
boarding-school for young gentlemen of the
upper and middle classes. There is an opinion
rather prevalent, that endowments become
wealthy like this of Dulwich, which ought to
be and when well managed, is expected to be,
worth twenty thousand pounds a-year, are
too much for the needs of the poor, and had
best go as precious gifts in aid of first-class
scholarship among the sons of gentlemen.
Therefore, at Dulwich, the poor brothers and
sisters are to be thrown into the background,
the twelve orphans transformed into twenty-
four foundation boys, are to be sunk to the
basement in a lower school, and taught only
a few rudiments, while into the foreground is
brought another Charter House School,
another Westminster or Winchester. The
chiefs of the college are to have great salaries,
a thousand and more is to go to one, eight
hundred and more to another, five hundred
to another; there are to be masters well
paid, who have also boarders' fees and other
perquisites.

Now, of all this plan we can only say, that
inasmuch as it is worse than Alleyn's, we do
not see why it should be preferred to an
attempt to preserve the spirit, while avoiding
bondage to the letter of the founder's wishes.
There are a great many absurdly devised
charities, of which the funds must be diverted
to new uses before they can be made of
service to society, but that is not true of the
design of Edward Alleyn. Though there are
plenty of workhouses in the land, its Christian
character will scarcely be the worse for