of the children of Bedford, his native town. A ten-acre field, though roughened with gorse, brachens, and thistles, must have been worth £10 an acre in fee simple, when he made the donation. One hundred pounds made a large sum in his day; but it was only the acorn. That furzy pasture has been covered for a century or more with a little city-full of houses, and it is now the oak under whose branches thousands of Bedford children have received an education as free as the light of heaven.
An acorn was planted in Birmingham in the same way. It is said that the inhabitants of the town and the people of King's Norton petitioned the crown for a school at the same time. In both cases the petitioners were offered land or money to the value of £20 per annum. The ready cash was preferred by the Nortonians, whilst the Birmingham men chose the land; which, like Harper's pasture on Holborn Hill, then lay mostly out of the town. But it has grown into a grand oak. It is now in the very heart of the town, and covered with its best buildings; one of which is the magnificent Exchange. The present income is about £12,000, and at the end of the century it must amount to £50,000 per annum from the leases that will drop in by that time. It has been creditable to the people of Birmingham, and a proof of their public spirit, that they have watched
