Eton has for centuries been the public school of all others, where the sons of landed and of moneyed men have been educated into the belief that they and theirs stand for England, whereas, if it were not for the great optimistic, cheerfully hard-working middle-class folk, who found businesses, and employ the lower orders on the one hand, while on the other they pay rents to the landowning and governing classes, there would not be any England for them to misgovern, you know.
Eton is now so crowded with the sons of wealthy foreigners and German and other Jews, learning to be Englishmen (if that be in any way possible), that it is now something of a distinction not to have been educated there, nor to have learned the “Eton slouch,” nor the charming Eton belief that the alumni brought up under “her Henry’s holy shade” are thus fitted by Heaven and opportunity, working in unison, to rule the nation. It is a belief somewhat rudely treated in this, our day, when the world is no longer necessarily the oyster of the eldest sons of peers and landowners. And in these times, when it is said that Eton boys funk one another and fights under the wall are more or less “low,” it is no longer possible that Etonians shall have the leadership in future stricken fields—leadership in finance, possibly, seeing how Semitic this once purely English foundation is becoming; but in leadership when the giving and receiving of hard knocks is toward; no!
THE KEDERMINSTER PEW: INTERIOR.
I would, however, this were the worst that is said of Eton College in these degenerate times. That it is not, The Eton College Chronicle itself bears witness. Attention is there called to a custom of “ragging” shops, now become prevalent among the young gentlemen. This, we learn, is carried to such an extent that they will pocket articles found lying about and walk off with them, “for fun.” One of the most “humorous” of these incidents was the disappearance of cricket balls to the value of nearly £1. The assistants at the shop where this mysterious disappearance occurred had to make good the loss; so it will readily be perceived how completely humorous the incident must have been from the point of view of those who had to replace the goods. Were these practices prevalent in such low-class educational establishments as Board Schools, a worse term than “ragging,” it may be suspected, would be given them.
Two miles in the rear of Datchet is Langley, a small and very scattered village which, although unimportant in itself, has a station on the Great Western Railway. The full name of it, rarely used, is Langley Marish, which is variously said to mean “Marshy Langley,” “Langley Mary’s,” from the dedication of the church to the Virgin Mary, or to derive from the Manor having been held for a short period in the reign of Edward the First by one Christiana de Mariscis.
Few would give a second glance to the humble little church, with its red-brick tower of typically seventeenth-century type, and with other portions of the exterior quite horribly stuccoed; but to pass it by would be to miss a great deal, for it contains a most curious family pew and parish library. This library, originally containing between 500 and 600 volumes, was given by Sir John Kedermister, or Kederminster, under his will of 1631, to “the town” of Langley Marish. The worthy knight was also builder of one of the two groups of almshouses for four inmates, who were appointed joint custodians of the books. An ancient deed, reciting the gift, says: “The said Sir John Kedermister prepared a convenient place for a library, adjoining to the west end of the said chapel, and intended to furnish the same with books of divinity, as well for the perpetual benefit of the vicar and curate of the parish of Langley as for all other ministers and preachers of God’s Word that would resort thither to make use of the books therein.”
The Kederminsters first settled at Langley in the middle of the sixteenth century, when one John Kederminster, who appears to have been a kinsman of Richard Kydermynster, Abbot of Winchcombe, became ranger of the then royal park of Langley and “master of the games” to Henry the Eighth. He died at the comparatively early age of thirty-eight, in 1558, leaving two sons and three daughters. His son Edmund was father of the John Kederminster who founded the library and initiated other works here. He also was ranger of Langley Park, and was knighted by James the First in 1609, who also conferred upon him the Manor of Langley.