ested the presence of Celtic blood. He
was educated at Blackheath School, and afterwards at King's College
in London, whence he proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge. In
1860, after a career at the University, distinguished both in the
way of honours and in respect of the reputation he won among his
contemporaries, he became a master at Harrow, and thenceforth
remained there, leading an uneventful and externally a monotonous
life, but one full of unceasing and untiring activity in play and
work. He died on Easter Monday 1901.

Nothing could be less like the traditional Arnoldine methods of
teaching and ruling boys than Bowen's method was. The note of those
methods was what used to be called moral earnestness. Arnold was grave
and serious, distant and awe-inspiring, except perhaps to a few
specially favoured pupils. Bowen was light, cheerful, vivacious,
humorous, familiar, and, above all things, ingenious and full of
variety. His leading principles were two--that the boy must at all
hazards be interested in the lessons and that he should be at ease
with the teacher.

A Harrow boy once said to his master, "I don't know how it is, sir,
but if Mr. Bowen takes a lesson he makes you work twice as hard as
other masters, but you like it twice as much and you learn far more."
He was the most unexpected man in conversation that could be imagined,
always giving a new turn to talk by saying something that seemed
remote from the matter in hand until he presently showed the
connection. So his teaching kept the boys alert, because its variety
was inexhaustible. He seemed to think that it did not greatly matter
what the lesson was so long as the pupil could be got to enjoy it. The
rules of the school and the requirements of the examinations for
which boys had to be prepared would not have permitted him to try to
any great extent the experiment of varying subjects to suit individual
tastes; but he was fond of giving lessons in topics outside the
regular course, on astronomy for instance, of which he had acquired a
fair knowledge, and on recent military history, which he knew
wonderfully well, better probably than any man in England outside the
military profession. When the so-called "modern side" was established
at Harrow, in 1869, he became head of it, having taken this post, not
from any want of classical taste and learning, for he was an admirable
scholar, and to the end of his life wrote charming Latin verses, but
because he fe