Preface

In these days, with Council Schools everywhere, and the education of the children almost entirely in the hands of the State, it is well to call to mind the splendid voluntary efforts which Churchmen and others have made in the past to rescue the juvenile population from the darkness of ignorance and to provide the young with a "sheet anchor" by instilling into their minds some knowledge of those great truths of our Mother Church without which it is believed no true education is possible. There is also a tendency to reduce all schools to a dead level which would appear to be calculated to destroy or seriously injure the individualism of a school. Variety in management and curricula is desirable and is agreeable to the spirit of most English institutions. To reduce everything to one dead level by cast iron rules and red tape -, would be deplorable.

With a view of encouraging all "Lambethans", past, present, and future, to take a greater interest in the oldest school in Lambeth these pages are written, and the records of the School should stimulate all to fight for the right to continue to have taught within its walls those principles dear to its founders. In the old Trust Deed are the following words:- "The boys are to be educated in the knowledge and practice of the Christian religion as professed and taught in the Church of England and set forth in the Catechism of the said Church."

No account of Lambeth Boys' School can be written without an acknowledgement to the Rev. J. Cave Browne) M.A., sometime Curate of the Parish Church, who published in 185 l a history of the School. I am indebted to Mr. Browne for some of the earlier facts, but much, indeed, nearly all of the present account has been written from the various records and minute books now preserved among the School archives. In conclusion, I would wish that "The Old Lambethan Society" may flourish exceedingly and keep up the old traditions of the past in such a manner that the present boys may feel proud to belong to such an ancient and honourable foundation.

J. E. WOOD.

Christmas, 1906.