rls were
lodged in the old Grey Friars; the next Christmas Day (1552), the
children, 340 in number, "all in one livery of russet cotton," lined
the road as the Lord Mayor and Aldermen passed in procession to St.
Paul's Cathedral. "The next Easter they were in blew [blue] at the
Spittle [hospital], and so have continued ever since"; and from these
"blew" clothes the school has taken one of its names--the Blue-Coat
School. Its other name is Christ's Hospital.

Hundreds of boys have worn the long blue gown and yellow stockings, and
some of them have become famous men. I will tell you the name of only
one of these, Charles Lamb; for he has written about the school as he
knew it, and perhaps you have read Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare"; he
and his sister Mary wrote them.

Facing page 32 is a picture of Blue-Coat boys, with {37} their gowns
tucked up, playing football. Until a short time ago, people in the
busy street called Holborn could look through the bars which separated
the playground from it, and watch the boys at play. They can do this
no longer, for the old buildings have been pulled down, and part of the
ground they stood on has been bought for the General Post Office; and
in the year 1902 the school, like the Charter House School, moved away
into the country, to Horsham.

From the beginning it was meant for girls as well as boys; old papers
about it always speak, not of the _boys_, but of the "_children_ of
this House." Boys and girls seem to have lived there, to have dined
together in Hall, and even at one time to have shared a classroom for
writing-lessons; part of the girls' work was to learn to make their own
and the boys' clothes. They too wore a quaint dress with white caps
and wide collars, but they gave it up long ago; and long ago, in 1778,
they left London; their school is at Hertford. It has never been as
famous as the boys' school.

Now I must tell you a little about King Henry's other gift to London,
St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It is now one of the largest of the London
hospitals, and has become very famous as a school where young men are
taught and trained to be doctors; perhaps your doctor was once a
student there.

A great part of the Priory church was pulled down as soon as it fell
into the hands of Henry VIII., and for many years the rest of it was
neglected and allowed to fall almost into ruins. Even in the
nineteenth {38} century, stables, coach-houses, and store-rooms stood