I do not say that in years
to come there should not again have been a school as great as this, or
greater; but this I am sure of, that we were in the very last week of the
life of this present school; that at the beginning of the week, when it
was decided to go, there was news from different quarters that made it
absolutely certain that another Monday would have seen no school here.
For a school is not a mere machine which can be set going to order, and
which anybody who happens at the time to have the mastery of can deal
with like a machine. "I can call spirits from the vasty deep," says
Shakespeare in one of his plays; and the rejoinder comes, "Why, so can I,
or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them?"
(Laughter and cheers.) Now that is just what they won't do; and we
simply had no choice; we lay absolutely helpless before the fact that
ruin stared us in the face, and we could not stir hand or foot to stop it
unless we had been able then to find a door of escape. This present
school was at an end, and neither I nor some others amongst us could have
set foot again in Uppingham as our home.
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