A STUDENT'S STUDY.
"HORSE-BOXES" AND "WASHING-STOOLS."
AT THE GATE OF CHAMBER COURT.
CHAPEL AND PART OF DORMITORIES.
The details of daily life at Winchester are not easy to understand. The "college," as, in fact, each of the "houses," is divided into chambers or "shops," as the boys call them. In each of these lives a community of say a dozen boys, over which three Prefects preside. The sleeping-rooms are locked up, except at night. In the study-room each boy has a desk, which he calls his "horse-box." The Prefects have tables, placed in commanding positions. These are called "washing-stools." In the college there are seven chambers, occupying "Chamber Court," the main quadrangle; and all about are ranged the domestic buildings belonging to the college—the slaughter-house, the bake-house, the kitchen, and the brew-house. In Chamber Court also are the rooms occupied by the masters and their families, and the magnificent college dining-hall and chapel. All these buildings stand to-day almost precisely as they were built five hundred years ago—that is, a hundred years before Columbus discovered America—with this difference, that the flint walls are so stained by time that they reflect the sunshine in many subdued and mellow shades.
There are, however, a few relics of dead customs. At one side of the court you will find the remains of the ancient conduit. Here, on the stone pavement and in the open air, five centuries of boys have taken their morning baths, summer and winter. Bathing could not always, however, be as regular as in these days when travelling Englishmen pack their clothes in leather-covered bath-tubs instead of in a trunk. A dozen years ago bath-rooms were fitted up within-doors, in rooms formerly occupied by learned Fellows of the College. On a wall is the painting of the "Trusty Servant," with its verses.
The old lavatory of the college was called "Moab," while the shoe-blacking place was called "Edom." I wonder how many American school-boys are as familiar as those old English boys must have been with the Psalm that says "Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe." The ancient brew-house in outer court is still used, but when I took luncheon in Hall with the Prefects they rather sniffed at the beer made in it. Under King William, however, it inspired this song: