Our inspectors of schools varied greatly:  some were quiet with the children and considerate with the teachers; others vindicated their authority by unnecessary fault-finding, upsetting the teachers and alarming the children.  In the days of our voluntary school I have seen a room full of children in a state of nervous tension, and the mistress and pupil-teachers in tears, as the result of inconsiderate reprimands and irritable speech.  My sympathies have been strongly aroused on such occasions with a child’s terror of being made an exhibition before the others.  As a boy at Harrow, in the form of the Rev. F.W.  Farrar, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, I had an unpleasant experience, though it was no fault of his and quite unintentional.  The Russian Government had sent a deputation of two learned professors to England, to inquire into the educational system of the Public Schools, with the view of sending a member of the Royal family for education in this country.  Among other schools, they visited Harrow, and Mr. Farrar’s form was one of those selected for inspection.  It was the evening of a winter’s day, when, at the four o’clock school, we found two very formidable-looking old gentlemen in spectacles and many furs seated near the master’s desk.  Great was the consternation, but Mr. Farrar was careful not to call upon any boy who would be likely to exhibit himself as a failure.  I was seated near Mr. Farrar, at one end of a bench.  He had a habit, when wanting to change his position, of moving quite unconsciously across the intervening space between his desk and this bench, and placing one foot on the bench close to the nearest boy, he would, with one hand, play with the boy’s hair, while he held his book in the other.  With horror, I found him approaching, and shortly his hand was on my head, rubbing my hair round and round, and ruffling it in a fashion very trying to any boy who was neat and careful of his personal appearance.  I could see the Russians staring through their spectacles at these proceedings; possibly they thought it a form of punishment unknown in Russia, and my feelings of humiliation can be imagined.  Finally he gave me a smack on the cheek and retired to his desk, leaving my hair in a state of chaos, though he had not the least idea of having done anything which might appear unusual to the foreigners.

Dear “old Farrar"!—­as we irreverently called him—­it was an education in itself to be in his form.  I had the uncommon privilege of moving upwards in the School at very much the same rate as he did as a master, though I fear for my school reputation none too quickly.  He first kindled my admiration for the classic giants of English literature, more especially the poets, taught me to appreciate the rolling periods of Homer, and even the beauty of the characters of the Greek alphabet.  He was a voluminous student of the best in every form of ancient and modern literature.  He always kept a copy of Milton, his favourite poet I think, on his desk, and, whenever a passage in the Greek or Latin classics occurred, for which he could produce a parallel, quoted pages without reference to the book.