What Wellington Said

The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton.

--The Duke of Wellington

"It is probably significant," writes G. F. Lamb in The Happiest Days, "that the best-known statement on English education is connected with Sport. Ask any person you meet in the street where the Battle of Waterloo was won, and if the word 'playing-fields' is not out of his mouth before the question is finished you may be sure that he is of foreign extraction. The familiar Wellington epigram has egged on thousands of prefects to beat their juniors for not playing in or supporting House cricket and football matches; it has encouraged hundreds of thousands of spectators at Lord's and Wembley to believe that they are in some contributing doubt partly national responsible welfare ; and it is no doubt partly responsible for the enthusiasm with which the weekly football pool is conducted in a million homes."

Lamb then notes the well-known fact that Arthur Wellesley's real remark was far less martial, and last week Eton's Headmaster, Robert Birley, produced his own version. After Waterloo, according to Birley, Wellington visited his old house at Eton, where boarders in his day had been looked after by a Mrs. Naylor. Asking to see a stream in the garden, the Iron Duke explained : "I really think I learned my spirit of adventure jumping over the big black ditch at the bottom of Mrs. Naylor's garden."

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