CHTERSIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE yionslyLBAUMER THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE ^•^v/Tc*-^ LORD'S THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE BY IAN HAY AUTHOR OF "A SAFETY MATCH " WITH ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM PASTEL DRAWINGS BY LEWIS BAUMER BOSTON LE ROY PHILLIPS First Edition published October nine- teen hundred fourteen; reprinted May n ineteen fifteen Printed in Scot i and by Ballantvne, Hanson, <5r> Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh TO THE MEMBERS '. OF {. _ THE MOST RESPONSIBLE ' ^* ' ■'- THE LEAST ADVERTISED THE WORST PAID AND THE MOST RICHLY REWARDED PROFESSION IN THE WORLD THE LIST OF CONTENTS I. THE HEADMASTER .... page I H. THE HOUSEMASTER 35 HI. SOME FORM-MASTERS .... 57 IV. BOYS 91 V. THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE . .121 VI. SCHOOL STORIES 149 VII. "MY PEOPLE" 175 VIII. THE FATHER OF THE MAN . . .205 THE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS reproduced from drawings by Lewis Baumer LORD'S Fro7itispicce THE HEADMASTER OF FICTION . . page i6 THE SCHOOLBOY OF FICTION ... 32 THE DAREDEVIL 48 THE LUNCHEON INTERVAL: PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN WHO HAS SCORED FIFTY RUNS 64 THE FRENCH MASTER : (I) FICTION, (II) P'ACT 88 THE INTELLECTUAL 104 THE NIPPER 120 THE FAG: "SIC VOS NON VOBIS" . . 152 THE SCHOOLGIRL'S DREAM . . . .176 RANK AND FILE 192 THE MAN OF THE WORLD , , . .208 NOTE These sketches originally appeared in '■'■Blackwood's Magazine" to the proprietors of ivhich I am indebted for permission to reproduce them in book form. IAN HAY CHAPTER ONE THE HEADMASTER THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE CHAPTER ONE THE HEADMASTER FIRST OF ALL THERE IS THE Headmaster of Fiction. He is invariably called "The Doctor," and he wears cap and gown even when birching malefactors — which he does in- termittently throughout the day — or attend- ine a cricket match. For all we know he wears them in bed. He speaks a language peculiar to himself — a language which at once enables you to recog- nise him as a Headmaster; just as you may re- cognise a stage Irishman from the fact that he says "Begorrah!",or a stage sailor from thefact that he has to take constant precautions with his trousers. Thus, the "Doctor" invariably ad- dresses his cowering pupils as "Boys!" — a form of address which in reality only survives nowadays in places where you are invited to "have another with me" — and if no audience of boys is available at the moment, he address- es a single boy as if he were a whole audience. To influential parents he is servile and oleag- inous, and he treats his staff with fatuous pomp- osity. Such a being may have existed — may exist — but we have never met him. 3 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE What of the Headmaster of Fact? To con- dense him into a type is one of the most diffi- cult things in the world, for this reason. Most of us have known only one Headmaster in our lives — if we have known more we are not likely to say so, for obvious reasons — and it is diffi- cult for Man (as distinct from Woman), to ar- gue from the particular to the general. More- over, the occasions upon which we have met the subject of our researches at close quarters have not been favourable to dispassionate char- acter-study. It is difficult to form an unbiassed or impartial judgment of a man out of material supplied solely by a series of brief interviews spread over a period of years — interviews at which his contribution to the conversation has beenlimited to a curt request that you will bend over, and yours to a sequence of short sharp ejaculations. However, some of us have known more than one Headmaster, and upon us devolves the sol- emn duty of distilling our various experiences into a single essence. What are the characteristics of a^-r^^/ Head- master? Instinct at once prompts us to premise that he must be a scholar and a gentleman. A gentleman, undoubtedly, he must be; but now- 4 THE HEADMASTER adays scholarship — high classical scholarship — is a hindrance rather than a help. To super- vise the instruction of modern youth a man requires something more than profound learn- ing: he must possess savoir faire. If you set a great scholar — and a great scholar has an un- fortunate habit of being nothing but a great scholar — in charge of the multifarious interests of a public school, you are setting a razor to cut grindstones. As well appoint an Astronomer Royal to command an Atlantic liner. He may be on terms of easy familiarity with the move- ments of the heavenly bodies, yet fail to under- stand the right way of dealing with refractory stokers. A Headmaster is too busy a personage to keep his own scholarship tuned up to concert pitch; and if he devotes adequate time to this object — and a scholar must practise almost as diligently as a pianist or an acrobat if he is to remain in the first flight — he will have little leisure left for less intellectual but equally vital duties. Nowadays in great public schools the Head, although he probably takes the Sixth for an hour or two a day, delegates most of his work in this direction to a capable and up-to- date young man fresh from the University, and 5 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE devotes his energies to such trifling details as the organisation of school routine, the super- vision of the cook, the administration of just- ice, the diplomatic handling of the Governing Body, and the suppression of parents. So far then we are agreed — the great advant- age of dogmatising in print is that one can take the agreement of the reader for granted — that a Headmaster must be agentleman, but not nec- essarily a scholar — in the very highest senseof the word. What other virtues must he possess? Well, he must be a majestic figurehead. This is not sodifficult as itsounds. Thedignity which doth hedge a Headmaster is so tremendous that the dullest and fussiest of the race can hardly fail to be impressive and awe-inspiring to the plastic mind of youth. More than one King Log has left a name behind him, through standing still in the limelight and keeping his mouth shut. But then he was probably lucky in his lieutenants. Next, he must have a sense of humour. If he cannot see the entertaining side ofyouthful de- pravity, magisterial jealousy, and parental fussi- ness, he will undoubtedly go mad. A sense of humour, too, will prevent him from making a fool of himself, and a Headmaster must never 6 THE HEADMASTER do that. It also engendersTact, and Tact is the essence of life to a man who has to deal every day with the igrnorant, and the bigoted, and the sentimental. (These adjectives are applicable to boys, masters, and parents, and may be ap- plied collectively or individually with equal truth.) Not that all humorous people are tact- ful: bitter experience of the practical joker has taught us that. But no person can be tactful who cannot see the ludicrous side of things. There is a certain Headmaster of to-day, jusdy celebrated as a brilliant teacher and a born or- ganiser, who is lacking — entirely lacking — in thatpriceless giftof the gods, asenseof humour, with which is incorporated Tact. Shortly after he took up his present appointment, one of the most popular boys in the school, while leading the field in a cross-country race, was run over and killed by an express train which emerged from a tunnel as he ran across the line, within measurable distance of accomplishing a record for the course. Next mornincr the order went forth that the whole school were to assemble in the ereat hall. They repaired thither, not unpleasantly thrill- ed. There would be a funeral oration, and boys are curiously partial to certain forms of emo- 7 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE tionalism. They like to be harangued before a football -match, for instance, in the manner of the Greeks of old. These boys had already had a taste of the Head's quality as a speaker, and they felt that he would do their departed hero justice. They reminded one another of the mov- ing words which the late Head had spoken when an Old Boy had fallen in battle afewyears before underparticnlarlysplendid circumstanc- es. They remembered how pleased the Old Boy's father and mother had been about it. Their comrade, whom they had revered and loved as recently as yesterday, would receive a fitting farewell too; and they would all feel the prouder of the school for the words that they were about to hear. They did not say this aloud, for the sentimentality of boys is of the inarticul- ate kind, but the thought was uppermost in their minds. Presently they were all assembled, and the Head appeared upon his rostrum. There was a deathlike stillness: not a boy stirred. Then the Head spoke. "Any boy," he announced, "found trespass- ing upon the railway-line in future will be ex- pelled. You may go." They went. The organisation of that school 8 THE HEADMASTER is still a model of perfection, and its scholarship list is exceptionally high. But the school has never forgiven the Head.and never will so long as tradition and sentiment count for anything in this world. So far, then, wehave accumulated the follow- ing virtues for the Headmaster. He must be a gentleman, apicturesque figure-head, and must possess a sense of humour. He must also, of course, be a ruler. Now you may rule men in two ways — either with a rapier or a bludgeon ; but a man who can gain his ends with the latter will seldom have re- course to the former. The Headmaster who possesses on the top of other essential qualit- ies the power of being uncompromisingly and divinely rude, is to be envied above all men. For him life is full of short cuts. He never argues. '' Lecole, cest moi,' he growls, and no one contradicts him. Boys idolise him. In his presence they are paralysed with fear, but away from it they glory in his ferocity of mien and strength of arm. Masters rave impotently at his brusqucrie and absolutism; but A says secretly to himself: "Well, it's a treat to see the way the old man keeps B and C up to the collar." As for parents, they simply refuse to 9 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE face him, which is the head and summit of that which a master desires of a parent. Such a man is Olympian, having none of the foibles or soft moments of a human being. He dwells apart, in an atmosphere too rarefied for those who intrude into it. His subjects never regard him as a man of like passions with them- selves: they would be quite shocked if such an idea were suggested to them. I once asked a distinguished alumnus of a great school, which had been ruled with consummate success for twenty-four years by such a Head as I have described, to give me a few reminiscences of the great man as a man — his characterist- ics, his mannerisms, his vulnerable points, his tricks of expression, his likes and dislikes, and his hobbies. My friend considered. "He was a holy terror," he announced, after profound meditation. "Quite so. But in what way?" My friend thought again. * ' I can't remember anything particular about him," he said, "except that he was a holy terror — and the greatest man that ever lived!" "But tell me something personal about him. How did his conversation impress you?" lO THE HEADMASTER ''Conversation? Bless you, he never convers- ed with anybody. He just told them what he thought about a thing, and that settled it. Be- sides, I never exchanged a word with him in my life. But he was a great man." "Didn't you meet him all the time you were at school?" "Oh yes, I piethim," replied my friend with feeling — "three or four times. And that re- minds me, I can tell you something personal about him. The old swine was left-handed! A great man, a great man!" Happy the warrior who can inspire worship on such sinister foundations as these! The other kind has to prevail by another method — the Machiavellian. As a successful Headmaster of my acquaintance once brutally but truthfully expressed it: "You simply have to employ a certain amount of low cunning if you are going to keep a school going at all." And he was right. A man unendowed with the divine gift of rudeness would, if he spent his time answering the criticisms or meeting the objections of colleagues or parents or even boys, have no time for anything else. So he seeks refuge either in finesse or flight. If a par- ent rings him up on the telephone, he murmurs II LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE something courteous about a wrong number and then leaves the receiver off the hook. If a housemaster, swelUng with some grievance or scheme of reform, bears down upon him upon the cricket field on a summer afternoon, he adroitly lures him under a tree where another housemaster is standing, and leaves them there together. If an enthusiastic junior discharges at his head some glorious but quite impractic- able project, such as the performance of a past- oral play in the school grounds, or the enforce- ment of a vegetarian diet upon the School for experimental purposes, he replies: "My dear fellow, the Governing Body will never hear of it!" What he means is: "The Governing Body shall never hear of it." He has other diplomatic resources at his call. Here is an example. A Headmaster once called his flock together and said: "A very unpleasant and discreditable thing has happened. The municipal authorities have recently erected a pair of extremely ornate and expensive — er — lamp-posts outside the resid- ence of the Mayor of the town. These lamp- posts appear to have attracted the unfavourable notice of the School. Last Sunday evening, 12 THE HEADMASTER between seven and einrht o'clock, they were attacked and wrecked, apparently by volleys of stones." There was a faint but appreciative murmur from those membersof the School to whom the news of this outrai^^e was now made public for the first time. 13 ut a baleful flash from the Head's spectacles restored instant silence. "Several parties of boys," he continued, "must have passed these lamp-posts on that evening, on their way back to their respective houses after Chapel. I wish to see all boys who in any way participated in the outrage in my study directly after Second School. I warn them that I shall make a severe example of them." His voice rose to a blare. " I will not have the prestige and fair fame of the School lowered in the eyes of the Town by the vulgar barbarities of a parcel of ill-conditioned little street-boys. You may go!" The audience rose to their feet and beean to o steal silently away. But they were puzzled. The Old Man was no fool as a rule. Did he really imagine that chaps would be such mugs as to own up? But before the first boy reached the door the Head spoke again. 13 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "I may mention," he added very gently, "that the attack upon the — er — lamp-posts was wit- nessed by a gentleman resident in the neigh- bourhood, a warm friend of the School. He was able to identify one of the culprits, whose name is in my possession. That is all." And quite enough too! When the Head vis- ited his study after Second School, he found seventeen malefactors meekly awaiting chast- isement. But he never divulged the name of the boy who had been identified, or for that matter the identity of the warm friend of the School. I wonder! One more quality is essential to the great Headmaster. He must possess the Sixth Sense. He must see nothing, yet know every- thing that goes on in the School. Etiquette forbids that he should enter one of his col- league's houses except as an invited guest; yet he must be acquainted with all that happens in- side that house. He is debarred by the same rigid law from entering the form-room orstudy- ing the methods and capability of any but the most junior form-masters; and yet he must know whether Mr. A. in the Senior Science 14 THE HEADMASTER Set is expounding theories of inorganic chem- istry which have been obsolete for ten years, or whether Mr. B. in the Junior Remove is accus- tomed meekly to remove a pool of ink from the seat of his chair before beginning his daily labours. He must not mingle with the boys, for that would be undignified; yet he must, and usually does, know every boy in the School by sight, and something about him. He must never attempt to acquire information by obvi- ous cross-examination either of boy or master, or he will be accused of prying and interfer- ence; and he can never, or should never, discuss one of his colleagues with another. And yet he must have his hand upon the pulse of the School in such wise as to be able to tell which master is incompetent, which prefect is un- trustworthy, which boy is a bully, and which House is rotten. In other words, he must possess a Red Indian's powers of observation and a woman's powers of intuition. H e must be able to suck in school atmosphere through his pores. He must be able to judge of a man's keenness or his fitness for duty by his general attitude and conversation when off duty. He must be able to read volumes from the demean- our of a group in the corner of the quadrangle, 15 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE from a small boy's furtive expression, or even from the timbre of the singing in chapel. He must notice which boy has too many friends, and which none at all. Such are a few of the essentials of the great Headmaster, and to the glory of our system be it said that there are still many in the land. But the type is changing. The autocratic Titan of the past hasbeen shorn of his locks by twoDel- ilahs — Modern Sides and Government Inter- ference. First, Modern Sides. Time was when A Sound Classical Educ- ation, Lady Matron, and Meat for Breakfast formed the alpha and omega of a public school prospectus. But times have changed, at least in so far as the Sound Classical Education is con- cerned. TheHeadmasterof the old school, who looks upon the classics as the foundation of all education, and regards modern sides as a sop to the parental Cerberus, finds himself called upon to cope with new and strange monsters. First of all, the members of that once de- spised race, the teachers of Science. Formerly these maintained a servile and apologetic ex- istence, supervising a turbulent collection of young gentlemen whose sole appreciation of i6 XPW THK UKADM ASTER OF FICTION THE HEADMASTER this branch of knowledge was derived from the unrivalled opportunities which its pursuit af- forded for the creation of horrible stenches and untimely explosions. Now they have uprisen, and, asseverating that classical education is a pricked bubble, askboldly for expensive appar- atus and a larger tract of space in the time- table. Then the parent. He has got quite out of hand lately. In days past things were different. Usually an old public-school boy himself, and proudly conscious that Classics had made him "what he was," the parent deferred entirely to the Headmaster's judgment, and entrusted his son to his care without question or stipulation. But a new race of parents has arisen, men who avow, modestly but firmly, that they have been made not by the Classics but by themselves, and who demand, with a great assumption of you-can't-put-w^-off-with-last-season's-goods, that their offspring shall be taught something up-to-date — something which will be "useful" in an office. Asrain, there is our old friend the Man in the Street, who, through the medium of his favour- ite mouthpiece, the halfpenny press, asks the Headmaster very sternly what he means by 17 B LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE turning out "scholars" who are incapable of writing an invoice in commercial Spanish, and to whom double entry is Double Dutch. And lastly there is the boy himself, whose utter loathinof and horror of education as a whole has not blinded him to the fact that the cultivation of some branches thereof calls for considerably less effort than that of others, and who accordingly occupies the greater part of his weekly letter home with fervent requests to his parents to permit him to drop Classics and take up modern languages or science. The united ao^'itations of this incono'ruous band have called into existence the Modern Side — Delilah Number One. NowforNumberTwo. Until a few years ago the State confined its ebullience in matters educational to the Board Schools. But with the growth of national educ- ation and class jealousy — the two seem to go hand-in-hand — the working classes of this country began to point out to the Government, not altogether unreasonably, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. "Why," they inquired bitterly, "should we be the only people educated? Must the poor always be op- pressed, while the rich go free? What about these public schools of yours — the seminaries i8 THE HEADMASTER of the bloated and pampered Aristocracy? You leave us alone for a bit, and give them a turn, or we may get nasty!" So a pliable Govern- ment, remembering that public-school masters are not represented in Parliament while the working-classes are, obeyed. They began by publicly announcing that in future all teachers must be trained to teach. To give effect to this decree, they declared their intention of immedi- ately introducing a Bill to provide that after a certain date no Headmaster of any school, high or low, would be permitted to engage an assist- ant who had not earned a certificate at a train- ing college and registered himself in a mysteri- ous schedule called 'Column B,' paying a guin- ea for the privilege. The prospective schoolmasters of the day — fourth-year men at Oxford and Cambridge, inexperienced in the ways of Government De- partments — were deeply impressed. Most of them hurriedly borrowed a guinea and regis- tered in Column B. They even went further. In the hope of forestalling the foolish virgins of their profession, they attended lectures and studied books which dealt with the science of education. They hecD.inG a^^ac/z^s Sit East End Board-Schools, where, under the supervision 19 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE of a capable but plebeian Master of Method, they endeavoured to instruct classes of some sixty or seventy babbling six-year-olds in the elements of reading and writing, in order that hereafter they might be better able to elucidate Cicero and Thucydides to scholarship candid- ates at a public school. Others, however — the aforementioned fool- ish virgins — whose knowledge of British polit- ics was greater than their interest in the Theory ofEducation, decided to 'waitandsee.' Thatis to say, they accepted the first vacancy at a public school which presented itself and settled down to work upon the old lines, a year's seni- ority to the good. In a just world this rashness and improvidence would have met with its due reward — namely, ultimate eviction (when the Bill passed) from a comfortable berth, and a stern command to go and learn the business of teaching before presuming to teach. But un- fortunately the Bill never did pass: it never so much as reached its First Reading. It lies now in some dusty pigeon-hole in the Education Office, forgotten by all save its credulous vic- tims. The British Exchequer is the richer by severalthousandguineas, contributed by aclass to whom of course a guinea is a mere bagatelle; 20 THE HEADMASTER and here and there throughout the public schools of this country there exist men who, when they first joined the Staff, had the mys- terious formula, " Reg. Col. B.," printed upon their testimonials, and discoursed learnedly to stupefied Headmasters about brain-tracks and psychology, and the mutual stimulus of co- sexual competition, for a month or two before awakeninof to the one fundamental truth which governs public-school education — namely, that if you can keep boys in order you can teach them anything; if not, all the Column B.'s in the Education Office will avail you noth- ing- That was all. The incident is ancient history now. 1 1 was a capital practical joke, perpetrat- ed by a Government singularly lacking in hum- our in other respects; and no one remembers it except the people to whom the guineas belong. But it gave the Headmasters of the country a bad fright. It provides them with a foretaste of the nuisance which the State can make of itself when it chooses to be paternal. So such of the Headmasters as were wise decided to be upon their cruard for the future ao^ainst the blandish- ments of the party politician. And they were justified; for presently the Legislature stirred 21 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE in its sleep and embarked upon yet another enterprise. Philip, king of Macedon, used to say that no city was impregnable whose gates were wide enough to admit a single mule-load of gold. Similarly the Board of Education decided that no public school,however haughty or exclusive, could ever again call its soul its own once the Headmaster (of his own free will, or overruled by the Governing Body) had been asinine enough to accept a "grant." So they approach- ed the public schools with fair words. They said: — "How would you like a subsidy, now, where- with to build a new science laboratory? What about a few State-aided scholarships? Won't you let us help you? Strict secrecy will be ob- served, and advances made upon your note of hand alone" — or words to that effect. The larger and better -endowed public schools, conscious of a fat bank-balance and a long waiting list of prospective pupils, merely winked their rheumy eyes and shook their heavy heads. ''Timeo Danaos,'' they growled — ''et dona ferentesT When this observation was translated to the 22 THE HEADMASTER Minister for Education, he smiled enigmat- ically, and bided his time. But some of the smaller schools, hard pressed by modern com- petition, gobbled the bait at once. The mule- load of gold arrived promptly, and close in its train came Retribution. Inspectors swooped down — clerkly young men who in their time had passed an incredible number of Standards, and were now receivinof what was to them a princely salary for indulging in the easiest and most congenial of all human recreations — that of criticising the efforts of others. There ar- rived, too, precocious prize-pupils from the Board Schools, winners of County Council scholarships whichentitled them to a few years' "polish" at a public school — apolish but slowly attained, despite constant friction with their new and loving playmates. But the great strongholds still held out. So other methods were adopted. The examination screw was applied. As most of us remember to our cost, we used periodically in our youth at school to suffer from an "examination week," during which a mys- terious power from outside was permitted to inflict upon us examination papers upon every subject upon earth, under the title of Oxford 23 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE and Cambridge Locals — the High, the Middle, and the Low — or, in Scotland, the Leaving Certificate. These papers were set and cor- rected by persons unknown, residing in Lon- don; and we were supervised as we answered them not by our own preceptors — they stamped- ed joyously away to play golf — but by strange creatures who took charge of the examination- room with an air of uneasy assurance, suggest- ive of a man travelling first-class with a third- class ticket. In due course the results were declared; and the small school which gained a large percentage of Honourable Mentions was able to underline the factheavilyinitsprospect- us. These examinations were, if not organised, at least recognised by the State; and once they had pierced the battlements of a school an In- spector invariably crawled through the breach after them. Henceforth that school was subject to periodical visitations and reports. N aturally the H eadmasters of the great pub- lic schools clanged their gates and dropped their portcullises against such an infraction of the law that a Headmaster's school is his castle. But, as already mentioned, the screw was ap- plied. The certificates awarded to successful candidates in these examinations were made 24 THE HEADMASTER the key to higher things. Three Higher Grade Certificates, for instance, were accepted in licit of certain subjects in Oxford Smalls and Cam- bridge Little-go. The State pounced upon this principle and extended it. The acquisition of a sufficient number of these certificates nowpaved the way to various State services. Extra marks or special favours were awarded to young gen- tlemen who presented themselves for Sand- hurst or Woolwich or the Civil Service brinpf- ing their sheaves with them in the form of Certificates. Roughly speaking, the more Cert- ificates a candidate produced the more enthus- iastically he was excused from the necessity of learning the elements of his trade. The governingbodies of various professions took up the idea. For instance, if you produc- ed four Higher Certificates — say for Geogra- phy, Botany, Electro-Dynamics, and Practical Cookery — you were excused the preliminary examination of the Society of Chartered Ac- countants. (We need not pin ourselves down to the absolute accuracy of these details: they are merely for purposes of illustration.) Anyhow, it was a beautiful idea. A Headmaster of my ac- quaintance once assured me that he believed that the possession of a complete set of Higher 25 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Grade Certificates for all the Local Examin- ations of a single year would entitle the holder to a seat in the reformed House of Lords. In other words, it was still possible to get into the Universities and Services without Certific- ates, but it was very much easier to get in with them. So the great Headmasters climbed down. But they made terms. They would accept the Local Examinations, and they would admit In- spectors within their fastnesses; but they re- spectfully butfirmly insisted upon having some sort of say in the choice of the Inspector. The Government met them more than half- way. In fact, they fell in with the plan with suspicious heartiness. "Certainly, my dear sir," they said: "you shall choose your own Inspector; and what is more, you shall /^_y him! Think of that! The man will be a mere tool in your hands — a hired servant — and you can do what you like with him." It was an ingenious and comforting way of putting things, and may be commended to the notice of persons writhing in a dentist's chair; for it forms an exact parallel: the description applies to dentist and inspector equally. How- 26 THE HEADMASTER ever, the Headmasters agreed to it; and now all our great schools receive inspectorial visit- ations of some kind. That is to say, upon an ap- pointed date a gentleman comes down from London, spends the day as the guest of the Headmaster; and after being conducted about the premises from dawn tilldusk, departs in the gloaming with his brain in a fog and some six- teen guineas in his pocket. He is a variegated type, thisSuper-Inspect- or. Frequently he is a clever man who has failed as a schoolmaster and now earns a com- fortable livincT because he remembered in time the truth of the saying: La critique est aisd, Cart dijficile. More often he is a superannuated University professor, with a penchant for irrel- evant anecdote and a disastrous sense of hum- our. Sometimes he is aggressive and dict- atorial, but more often (humbly remembering where he is and who is going to pay for all this) apprehensive, deferential, and quite inarticul- ate. Sometimes he is a scholar and a gentle- man, with a real appreciation of the atmosphere of a public school and a sound knowledge of the principles of education. But not always. And whoever he is and whatever he is, the Head loathes him impartially and dispassionately. 27 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Such are some of the thorns with which the pillow of a modern Headmaster is stuffed. His greatest stumbling-block is Tradition — the hoary edifices of convention and precedent, built up andjealously guarded by Old Boys and senior Housemasters. Of Parents we will treat in another place. What is he like, the Headmaster of to-day? Firstly and essentially, he is no longer a des- pot. He is a constitutional sovereign, like all other modern monarchs; andperhaps itisbetter so. Though a Head still exercises enormous personal power, for good or ill, a school no longer stands or falls by its Headmaster, as in the old days, any more than a countrystands or falls by its King, as in the days of the Stuarts. Public opinion, Housemasters, the prefectorial system — these have combined to modify his absolutism. But though a bad Headmaster may not be able to wreck a good school, it is certain that no school can ever become sfreat, or remain great, without a great man at the head of it. Time has wrought other changes. Twenty years ago no man could ever hope to reach the summit of the scholastic universe who was not in Orders and the possessor of a First Class 28 THE HEADMASTER Classical degree. Now the layman, ihe modern- side man, above all the man of affairs, are rais- in^f their heads. Under these new conditions, what manner of man is the great Head of to-day? He is essentially a man of business. A clear brain and a sense of proportion enable him to devise schemes of education in which the old idealism and the new materialism are judici- ously blended. He knows how to draw up a school time-table — almost as difficult and com- plicated a document as Bradshaw — making provision, hour by hour, day by day, for the teaching of a very large number of subjects by a limited number of men to some hundreds of boys all at different stages of progress, in such a way that no boy shall be left idle for a single hour and no master be called upon to be in two places at once. He understands school finance and educ- ational politics, which are even more peculiar than British party politics. He combines the art of being able to rule upon his own initiative for months at a time, and yet render a satisfact- ory account of his stewardship to an ignorant and inquisitive Governing Body which meets twice a year. 29 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE He is, as ever, an imposing figure-head; and if he is, or has been, an athlete, so much the easier for him in his deaHngswith the boys. He possesses the art of managing men to an extent sufficient to maintain his Housemasters in some sort of Hne, and to keep his junior staff punctual and enthusiastic without fussing or herding them . H e is a good speaker, and though not invariably in Orders, he appreciates the enormous influence that a powerful sermon in Chapel may exercise at a time of crisis; and he supplies that sermon himself. He keeps a watchful eye upon an army of servants, and does not shrink from the drudg- ery of going through kitchen-accounts or laun- dry estimates. He investigates complaints per- sonally, whether they have to do with a H ouse's morals or a butler's perquisites. He keeps abreast of the educational needs of the time. He is 2. persona grata at the Uni- versities, and usually knows at whichUniversity and at which College thereof one of his boys will be mostlikelytowinascholarship. Inthe in- terests of the Army Class he maintains friend- ly relations with the War Office, because, in these days of the chronic reform of that instit- ution, to be in touch with the "permanent" mil- 30 THE HEADMASTER itary mind is to save endless trouble over ex- aminations which are going to be dropped or schedules which are about to be abandoned before they come into operation. He cultivates the acquaintance of those in high places, not for his own advancement, but because it isgood for the School to be able to bring down an occa- sional celebrity, to present prizes or open a new winor. Por the same reason he dines out a eood deal — often when he has been on his feet since seven o'clock in the morning — and entertains in return, so far as he can afford it, people who are likely to be able to do the School a good turn. For with him it is the School, the School, the School, all the time. If he possesses private means of his own, so much the better; for the man with a little spare money in his pocket possesses powers of lever- age denied to the man who has none. I know of a Headmaster whoonce shamed hisGovernine Body into raisingthe salaries ofthe Junior Staff to a decent standard by supplementing those salaries out of his own slender resources for something like five years. And above all, he has sympathy and insight. When a master or boy comes to him with a grievance he knows whether he is dealing with -> ■ ?i LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE a chronic grumbler or a wronged man. The grumbler can be pacified by a word or chast- ened by a rebuke ; but a man burning under a sense of real injustice and wrong will never be efficient again until his injuries are redressed. If a colleague, again, comes to him with a scheme of work, or organisation, or even play, he is quick to see how far the scheme is valuable and practicable, and how far it is mere fuss and officiousness. He is enormously patient over this sort of thing, for he knows that an untimely snub may kill the enthusiasm of a real worker, and that a little encouragement may do won- ders for a diffident beginner. He knows howto stimulate the slacker, be he boy or master; and he keeps a sharp look-out to see that the wil- ling horse does not overwork himself (This latter, strange as it may seem, is the harder task of the two.) And he can read the soul of that most illegible of books— save to the understand- ing eye — the boy, through and through. He can tell if a boy is lying brazenly, or lying be- cause he is frightened, or lying to screen a friend, or speaking the truth. He knows when to be terrible in anger, and when to be indes- cribably gentle. Usually he is slightly unpopular. But he 32 <^./tl»\\\J^ THE SCHOOLBOY OF FICTION THE HEADMASTER does not allow this to trouble him overmuch, for he is a man who is content to wait for his reward. He remembers the historic verdict of "A beast, but a just beast," and chuckles. Such a man is an Atlas, holding up a little world. He is always tired, for he can never rest. His so-called hours of ease are clogged by- correspondence, most of it quite superfluous, and the telephone has added a new terror to his life. But he is always cheerful, even when alone; and he loves his work. If he did not, it would kill him. A Headmaster no longer regards his office as a stepping-stone to a Bishopric. In the near future, as ecclesiastical and classical traditions fade, that office is more likely to be regarded as a qualification for a place at the head of a De- partment of State, or a seat in the Cabinet. A man who can run a great public school can run an Empire. 33 CHAPTER TWO THE HOUSEMASTER CHAPTER TWO THE HOUSEMASTER TO THE BOY, ALL MASTERS (AS distinct from The Head) consist of one class — namely, masters. The fact that masters are divisible into grades, or indulge in acrimonious diversities of opinion, or are subject to the ordinary weaknesses of the flesh (apart from chronic shortness of temper) has never occurr- ed to him. This is not so surprising as it sounds. A schoolmaster's life is one long pose. His per- petual demeanour is that of a blameless en- thusiast. A boy never hears a master swear — at least, not if the master can help it; heseldom sees him smoke or drink; he never hears him converse upon any but regulation topics, and then only from the point of view of a rather bigoted archaneel. The idea that a master in his private capacity may go to a music-hall, or back a horse, or be casual in his habits, or be totally lacking in religious belief, would be quite a shock to a boy. It is true that when half-a-dozen ribald spir- its are gathered round the Lower Study fire after tea, libellous tongues are unloosed. The humorist of the party draws joyous pictures of 37 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE his Housemaster staggering home to bed after a riotous evenino^ with an Archdeacon, or beinof thrown out of the Empire in the holidays. But no one in his heart takes these legends seri- ously — least of all their originator. They are merely audacious irreverences. All day and every day the boy sees the mas- ter, impeccably respectable in cap and gown, rebuking the mildest vices, extolling the dull- est virtues, singing the praises of industry and application, and attending Chapel morning and evening. A boy has little or no intuition: he judges almost entirely by externals. To him a master is not as other men are: he is a special type of humanity endowed with a permanent bias towards energetic respectability, and grot- esquely ignorant of the seamy side of life. The latter belief in particular appears to be quite in- eradicable. But in truth the scholastic hierarchy is a most complicated fabric. At the summit of the Uni- verse stands the Head. After him come the senior masters — or, as they prefer somewhat invidiously to describe themselves, the perman- ent staff — then the junior masters. The whole body are divided and subdivided again into lit- tle groups — classical men, mathematical men, 38 THE HOUSEMASTER science men, and modern-lancruaore men — each group with its own particular axe to grind and its own tender spots. Then follow various spec- ialists, not always resident; men whose life is one long and usually ineffectual struggle to con- vince the School — including the Head — that music, drawing, and the arts generally are sub- jects which ought to be taken seriously, even under the British educational system. As already noted, after the Head — quite lit- erally — come the Housemasters. They are al- ways after him: one or other of the troop is per- petually on his trail; and unless the great man displays the ferocity of the tiger or the wisdom of the serpent, they harry him exceedingly. Behold him undergoing his daily penance — in audience in his study after breakfast. To him enter severally: A., a patronising person, with a few helpful suggestions upon the general management of the School. He usually begins: "In the old Head's day, we never, under any circumstanc- es B., whose speciality is to discover motes in the eyes of other Housemasters. He announces that yesterday afternoon he detected a member of the Eleven fielding in a Panama hat. "Are 39 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Panama hats permitted by the statutes of the School? I need hardly say that the boy was not a member of my House." C, a wobbler, who seeks advice as to wheth- er an infraction of one of the rules of his H ouse can best be met by a hundred lines of Vergil or public expulsion, D., a Housemaster pure and simple, urging the postponement of the Final House- Match, D.'s best bowler having contracted an ingrow- ing toe-nail. E., another, insisting that the date be adher- ed to — for precisely the same reason. (He receives no visitfromF., who holds that a Housemaster's House is his castle, and would as soon think of coming to the fountain-head for advice as he would of following the advice if it were offered.) G., an alarmist, who has heard a rumour that smallpox has broken out in the adjacent village, and recommends that the entire school be vac- cinated forthwith. H., a golfer, suggesting a half-holiday, to celebrate some suddenly unearthed annivers- ary in the annals of Country or School. Lastly, on the telephone, I., a valetudinarian, to announce that he is suffering from double 40 THE HOUSEMASTER pneumonia, and will be unable to come into School until after luncheon. To be quite just, I. is the rarest bird of all. The averaore schoolmaster has a perfect pass- ion for sticking to his work when utterly unfit for it. In this respect he differs materially from his pupil, who lies in bed in the dawning hours, cudgelling his sleepy but fertile brain for a dis- ease which (i) Has not been used before. {2) Will incapacitate him for work all morn- ing. (3) Will not prevent him playing football in the afternoon. But if a master sprains his ankle, he hobbles about his form-roomon a crutch. If he contracts influenza, he swallows a jorum of ammoniated quinine, puts on three waistcoats, and totters into school, where he proceeds to disseminate germs among his not ungrateful charges. Even if he is rendered speechless by tonsillitis, he takes his form as usual, merely substituting written invective (chalked up on the black- board), for the torrent of verbal abuse which he usually employs as a medium of instruction. It is all part — perhaps an unconscious part — of his permanent pose as an apostle of what is 41 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE strenuous and praiseworthy. It is also due to a profound conviction that whoever of his col- leagues is told off to take his form for him will indubitably undo the work ofmany years within a few hours. Besides harrying the head and expostulating with one another, the Housemasters wa^e un- ceasing war with the teaching staff The bone of contention in every case is a boy, and the combat always follows certain well-defined lines. A form-master overtakes a Housemaster hurrying to morning chapel, and inquires care- lessly: "By the way, isn't Binks tertius your boy?" The Housemaster guardedly admits that this is so. "Well, do you mind if I flog him?" "Oh, come, I say, isn't that rather drastic? What has he done?" "Nothing — not a hand's-turn — for six weeks." "Um!" The Housemaster endeavours to look severely judicial. "Young Binks is rather an exceptional boy, "heobserves.(Young Binks always is.) "Are you quite sure you>^;/<9zc;him?" The form-master, who has endured Master 42 THE HOUSEMASTER B inks' society for nearly two years, and knows him only too well, laughs caustically. "Yes," he says, "I do know him: and I quite agree with you that he is rather an exceptional boy." "Ah!"says the Housemaster, falling into the snare. "Then " "An exceptional young swab," explains the form-master. By this time they have entered the Chapel, where they revert to their daily task of setting an example by howling one another down in the Psalms. After Chapel the Housemaster takes the form-master aside and confides to him the in- telligence that he has been a Housemaster for twenty-five years. The form-master, suppress- ing an obvious retort, endeavours to return to the question of Binks; but is compelled instead tolisten toa brief homily upon themanagement of boys in general. As neither gentleman has breakfasted, the betting as to which will lose his temper first is almost even, with odds slight- ly infavour of the form-master, beingtheyoung- er and hungrier man. However, it is quite cer- tain that one of them will — probably both. The light ofreason being thus temporarily obscured, 43 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE they part, to meditate further repartees and complain bitterly of one another to their coll- eacrues. But it is very seldom that Master Binks pro- fitsbysuch Olympian differences as these. Poss- ibly the Housemaster may decline to give the form-master permission to flog Binks, but in nine cases out of ten, being nothing if not con- scientious, he flogs Binks himself, carefully ex- plaining to the form-master afterwards, by im- plication only, that he has done so not from conviction, but from an earnest desire to bols- terup the authority of an inexperienced and in- competent colleague. But these quibbles, as al- ready observed, do not help the writhing Binks at all. However, a Housemaster contra mundum, and a Housemaster in his own House, are very different beings. We have already seen that a bad Headmaster cannot always prevent a School from being good. But a House stands or falls entirely by its Housemaster. If he is a good Housemaster it is a good House: if not, nothing can save it. And therefore the respons- ibility of a Housemaster far exceeds that of a Head. Consider. He is in loco parentis — with 44 THE HOUSEMASTER apologies to Stalky I — to some forty or fifty of the shyest and most reserved animals in the world; one and all animated by a single desire — namely, to prevent any fellow-creature from ascertaining what is at the back of their minds. Schoolgirls, we are given to understand, are prone to open their hearts to one another, or to some favourite teacher, with luxurious aban- donment. Not so boys. Up to a point they are frankness itself: beyond that point lie depths which can only be plumbed by instinct and in- tuition — qualities whose possession is the only test of a born Housemaster. All his flock must be an open book to him: he must understand both its collective and its individual tenden- cies. If a boy is inert and listless, the House- master must know whether his condition is due to natural sloth or some secret trouble, such as bullying or evil companionship. Ifa boy appears dour and dogged, the Housemaster has to de- cide whether he is shy or merely insolent. Private tastes and pet hobbies must also be borne in mind. The complete confidence of a hitherto unresponsive subject can often be won by a tactful reference to music or photography. The Housemaster must be able, too, to distin- guish between brains and mere precocity, and 45 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE to separate the fundamentally stupid boy from the lazy boy who is pretending to be stupid — an extremely common type. He must cultivate a keen nose for the malingerer, and at the same time keep a sharp look-out for fear lest the con- scientious plodder should plod himself silly. He must discriminate between the whole-hearted enthusiast and the pretentious humbug who simulates keenness in order to curry favour. And above all, he must make allowances for heredity and home influence. Many a House- master has been able to adjust his perspective with regard to a boy by remembering that the boy has a drunken father, or a neurotic mother, or no parents at all. He must keep a light hand on House politics, knowing everything, yet doing little, and say- ing almost nothing at all. If a Housemaster be blatantly autocratic; if he deputes power to no one; if he prides himself upon his iron dis- cipline ; if he quells mere noise with savage ferocity and screws down the safety-valve im- placably upon healthy ragging, he will reap his reward. He will render his House quiet, obe- dient — and furtive. Under such circumstances prefects are a positive danger. Possessing spe- cial privileges, but no sense of responsibility, 46 THE HOUSEMASTER they regard their office merely as a convenient and exclusive avenue to misdemeanour. On the other hand, a Housemaster must not allow his prefects unlimited authority, or he will cease to be master in his own House. In other words, he must strike an even balance between sovereign and deputed power — an undertaking which has sent dynasties toppling before now. In addition to all this, he must be an Admir- able Crichton. Whatever his own particular teaching subject may be, he will be expected, within the course of a single evening's "prep," to be able to unravel a knotty passage in yEsch- ylus, " unseen," solve a quadratic equation on sight, compose a chemical formula, or complete an elegiac couplet. He must also be prepared at any hour of the day or night to explain how leg-breaks are manufactured, recommend a list of novels for the House library, set a broken collar-bone, solve ajig-saw puzzle in the Sick- room, assist an Old Boy in the choice of a career, or prepare a candidate for Confirmation And the marvel is that he always does it — in addition to his ordinary day's work in school. And what is his remuneration? One of the rarest and most precious privileges that can be 47 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE granted to an Englishman — the privilege of keeping a public house! Let me explain. For the first twenty years of his professional career a schoolmaster works as a mere instructor of youth. By day he teach- es his own particular subject; by night he looks over proses or corrects algebra papers. In his spare time he imparts private instruction to backward boys or scholarship candidates. Pro- bably he bears a certain part in the supervision of the School games. He is possibly treasurer of one or two of the boys' own organisations — the Fives Club or the Debating Society — and as a rule he is permitted to fill up odd moments by sub-editing the School magazine or organ- ising sing-songs. He cannot as a rule afford to marry; so he lives the best years of his life in two rooms, looking forward to the time, in the dim and hypothetical future, when he will poss- ess what the ordinary artisan usually acquires on passing out of his teens — a home of his own. At length, after many days, provided that a sufficient number of colleagues die or get super- annuated, comes his reward, and he enters up- on the realisation of his dreams. He is now a Housemaster, with every opportunity (and full permission) to work himself to death. 48 mi: oaredkvil j_ewis [i Ai^Mcf Pv,- THE HOUSEMASTER Still, you say, the labourer is worthy of his hire. A man occupying a position so onerous and responsibleas this will be well remunerated. What is his actual salary? In many cases he receives no salary, as a Housemaster, at all. Instead, he is accorded the privilege of running his new home as a com- bined lodging-house and restaurant. His spare time (which the reader will have gathered is more than considerable) is now pleasantly oc- cupied in purchasing beef and mutton and sell- ing them to Binks tertius. As his tenure of the House seldom exceeds ten or fifteen years, he has to exercise considerable commercial enter- prise in order to make a sufficient "pile" to re- tire upon — as Binks tertius sometimes discov- ers to his cost. In other words, a scholar and gentleman's reward for a life of unremitting labour in one of the most exacting yet altruistic fields in the world is a licence to enrich himself for a period of years by "cornering" the daily bread of the pupils in his charge. And yet we feel surprised, and hurt, and indignant, when foreigners suggest that we are a nation of shop- keepers. The life of a Housemaster is a livino- ex- ample of the lengths to which the British pass- 49 D LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE ion for undertaking heavy responsibilities and thankless tasks can be carried. Daily, hourly, he finds himself in contact (and occasional coll- ision) with boys — boys for whose moral and physical welfare he is responsible; who in theory at least will regard him as their natural enemy; and who occupy the greater part of their leisure time in criticising and condemning him and everything that is his — his appearance, his character, his voice, his wife; the food that he provides and the raiment that he wears. He is harried by measles, mumps, servants, trades- men, and parents. He feels constrained to in- vite every boy in his House to a meal at least once a term, which means that he is almost ■ daily deprived of the true-born Briton's birth- right of being uncommunicative at breakfast. His life is one long round of colourless routine, tempered by hair-bleaching emergencies. But he loves it all. He maintains, and ultim- ately comes to believe, that his House is the only House in the School in which both justice and liberty prevail, and his boys the only boys in the world who know the meaning of hard work, good food, and esprit de corps. He pities all other Housemasters, and tells them so at frequent intervals; and he expostulates pater- 50 THE HOUSEMASTER nally and sorrowfully with form-masters who vilify the members of his cherished flock in half- term reports. And his task is not altogether thankless. J ust as the sun never sets upon the British Empire, so it never sets upon all the Old Boys of a great public school at once. They are gone out into all lands: they are upholding the honour of the School all the world over. And wherever they are — London, Simla, Johannesburg, Nairobi, or Little Pedlington Vicarage — they never lose touch with their old Housemaster. His corres- pondence is enormous; it weighs him down : but he would not relinquish a single picture post- card of it. He knows that wherever two or three of his Old Boys are gathered together, be it in Bangalore or Buluwayo, the talk will always drift round in time to the old School and the old House. They will refer to him by his nick- name — 'Towser," or "Potbelly," or "Swivel- Eye," — and reminiscences will flow. "Do you remember the old man's daily gibe when he found us chucking bread at dinner? 'Hah! There will be a bread pudding to- morrow!'" "Do you remember the jaw hegave uswhen the news came about Macpherson's V.C.?" 51 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "Do you remember his Sunday trousers? Oh, Lord!" "Do you remember how he tanned Goat Hicks for calling The Frog a ^^^/z(9«f Fourteen, wasn t itr "Do you remember the grub he gave the whole House the time we won the House-match by one wicket, with Old Mike away?" "Do you remember how he broke down at prayers the night little Martin died?" " Do you remember his apologising to that young swine Sowerby before the whole House for losing his temper and clouting him over the head? That must have taken some doing. We rooted Sowerby afterwards for grinning." "I always remember the time," interpolates one of the group, "when he scored me off for roller-skating on Sunday." "How was that?" "Well, it was this way. I had got leave of morning Chapel on some excuse or other, and was skating up and down the Long Corridor, having a grand time. The old man came out of his study — I thought he was in Chapel — and growled, looking at me over his spectacles — you remember the way? " "Yes, rather. Goon!" 52 THE HOUSEMASTER "He growled: — *Boy,do you consider roller- skating a Sunday pastime?' I, of course, looked a fool, and said, 'No, sir.' 'Well,' chuckled the old bird, 'I do: but I always make a point of respecting a man's religious scruples. I will therefore confiscate your skates.' And he did! He gave them back to me next day, though." "I always remember him, "says another, "the time I nearly got sacked. By rights I ought to have been, but I believe hegotmeoffat thelast moment. Anyhow, he called me into his study and told me I wasn't to go after all. He didn't jaw me, but said I could take an hour off school and go and telegraph home that things were all right. My people had been having a pretty bad time over it, I knew, and so did he. Iwaspretty near blubbing, but I held out. Then, just as I got to the door, he called me back. I turned round, rather in a funk that the jaw was coming after all. But he growled out: — '"It's a bit late in the term. The exchequer may be low. Here is sixpence for the tele- gram.' "This time I did blub. Not one man in a million would have thought of the sixpence. As a matter of fact, fourpence-halfpenny was all I had in the world." 53 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE And so on. His ears — especially his right ear — must be burning all day long. Of course all Housemasters are not like this. If you want to hear about the other sort, take up The Lanchester Tradition, by Mr. G. F. Bradby, and make the acquaintance of Mr. Chowdler — an individual example of a great type run to seed. And there is Dirty Dick, in The Hill. • • • • • • When he has fulfilled his allotted span as a Housemaster, our friend retires — not from school-mastering, but from the provision trade. With his hardly-won gains he builds himself a house in the neighbourhood of the school, and lives there in a state cAotiumciimdignitate. He still takes his form: he continues to do so until old age descends upon him, or a new broom at the head of affairs makes a clean sweep of the "permanent" staff. He is mellower now. He no longer washes his hands of all responsibility for the methods of his colleagues, or thanks God that his boys are not as other masters' boys are. He does not altogether enjoy his work in school: he is gett- ing a little deaf, and is inclined to be testy. But 54 THE HOUSEMASTER teachinofis his meat and his drink and his father and his mother. He sticks to it because it holds him to Hfe. Though elderly now, he enjoys many of the pleasures of middle age. For instance, he has usually married late, so his children are still young; and he is therefore spared the pain, which most parents have to suffer, of seeing the brood disperse] ust when it begins to be needed most. Or perhaps he has been too devoted to his world-wide family of boys to marry at all. In that case he lives alone; but you may be sure that his spare bedroom is seldom empty. No Old Boyevercomes home from abroadwithout paying a visitto his former Housemaster. Rich, poor, distinguished, or obscure — they all come. They tell him of their adventures; they recall old days; they deplore the present condition of the School and the degeneracy of the Eleven; they fight their own battles over again. They confide in him. They tell him things they would never tell their fathers or their wives. They bring him their ambitions, and their failures — not their successes; those are for others to speak of — even their love-affairs. And he listens to them all, and advises them all, this very tender and very wise old Ulysses. To him they are 55 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE but boys still, and he would not have them oth- erwise. "The heart of a Boy in the body of a Man," he says — "that is a combination which can nev- er o-o wronof. If I have succeeded in effecting that combination in a single instance, then I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain." CHAPTER THREE SOME FORM-MASTERS CHAPTER THREE SOME FORM-MASTERS NUMBER ONE THE NOVICE ARTHUR ROBINSON, B.A., LATE Ex- hibitioner of St. Crispin's College, Cambridge, having obtained a First Class, Division Three, in the Classical Tripos, came down from the University at the end of his third year and de- cided to devote his life to the instruction of youth. In order to gratify this ambition as speedily as possible, he applied to a scholastic agency for an appointment. He was immediately furn- ished with type-written notices of some thirty or forty. Almost one and all, they were for schools which he had never heard of; but the post in every case was one which the Agency could unreservedly recommend. At the foot of each notice was typed a strongly worded appeal to him to write {at once) to the Headmaster, explaining first and foremost that he had heard of this vacancy thj'otcgh our Agency. After that he was to state his degree {if any); if a ??te?nber of the Church of England; if ivilling to part- icipate in School games; if 7misical; and so on. He was advised, if he thought it desirable, to enclose a photograph of himself. 59 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE A further sheaf of such notices reached him every morning for about two months; but as none of them offered him more than a hundred- and-twenty pounds a year, and most of them a good deal less, Arthur Robinson, who was a sensible young man, resisted the temptation, overpowering to most of us, of seizing the very first opportunity of earning a salary, however small, simply because he had never earned any- thing before, and allowed the notices to accum- ulate upon one end of his mantelpiece. Finally he had recourse to his old College tutor, who advised him of a vacancy at Eagles- cliffe, a great public school in the west of Eng- land, and by a timely private note to the Head- master secured his appointment. Next morning Arthur Robinson received from the directorate of the scholastic agency — the existence of which he had almost forgotten — a rapturous letter of congratulation, remind- ing him that the Agency had sent him notice of the vacancy upon a specified date, and delic- ately intimating that their commission of five per cent, upon the first year's salary was pay- able on appointment. Arthur, who had long since given up the task of breasting the Agen- cy's morningtide of desirable vacancies, mourn- 60 SOME FORM-MASTERS fully investigated the heap upon the mantel- piece, and found that the facts were as stated. There lay the notice, sandwiched between a document relating to the advantages to be de- rived from joining the staff of a private school in North Wales, where material prosperity was guaranteed by a salary of eighty pounds per annum, and social success by the prospect of meat-tea with the Principal and his family; and another, in which a clergyman (retired) required a thoughtful and energetic assistant (one hun- dred pounds a year, non-resident) to aid him in the management of a small but select seminary for backward and epileptic boys. Arthur laid the matter before his tutor, who informed him that he must pay up, and be a little less casual in his habits in future. He therefore wrote a reluctant cheque for ten pounds, and having thus painfully imbibed the first lesson that a schoolmaster must learn — namely, the importance of attending to details — departed to take up his appointment at Eaglescliffe. He arrived the day before term began, to find that lodgings had been apportioned tohim at a house in the village, half a mile from the School. H is first evening was spent in making 6i LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE the place habitable. That is to say, he removed a number of portraits of his landlady's relatives from the walls and mantelpiece, and stored them, together with a collection of Early Vic- torian heirlooms — wool-mats and prism-laden glass vases — in a cupboard under the window- seat. In their place he set up fresh gods; in- numerable signed photographs of young men, some in frames, some in rows along conveni- ent ledges, others bunched together in a sort of wire entanglement much in vogue among the undergraduates of that time. Some of these photographs were mounted upon light-blue mounts, and these were placed in the most con- spicuous position. Upon the walls he hung a collection of framed groups of more young men, with bare knees and severe expressions, in some of which Arthur Robinson himself fip-ured. After that, having written to his mother and a girl in South Kensington, he walked up the hill in the darkness to the Schoolhouse, where he was to be received in audience by the Head. The great man was sitting at ease before his study fire, and exhibited unmistakable signs of recent slumber. "I want you to take Remove B, Robinson," 62 SOME FORM-MASTERS he said. "They are a mixed lot. About a quar- ter of them are infant prodigies — Foundation Scholars — who m.ike this form their starting- point for higher things; and the remainder are centenarians, who regard Remove B as a sort of scholastic Chelsea Hospital, and are fully prepared to end their days there. Stir 'em up, and don't let them intimidate the small boys in- to a low standard of work. Their subjects this term will be Cicero de Se^iectute and the j-Ucest- is, without choruses. Have you any theori'^s about the teaching of boys?" "None whatever," replied Arthur Robinson franklv. "Good! There is only one way to teach boys. Keep them in order: don't let them play the fool or go to sleep; and they will be so bored that they will work like niggers merely to pass the time. That's education in a nut- shell. Good night!" Next morning Arthur Robinson invested himself in an extremely new^ B.A. gown, which seemed very long and voluminous after the tattered and attenuated oarment which he had worn at Cambridge — usually twisted into a muffler round his neck — and walked up to 63 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE School. (It was the last time he ever walked: thereafter, for many years, he left five minutes later, and ran.) Timidly he entered the Com- mon Room. It was full of masters, some twenty or thirty of them, old, young, and middle-aged. As many as possible were grouped round the fire — not in the orderly, elegant fashion of grown-up persons; but packed together right inside the fender, with their backs against the mantelpiece. Nearly everyone was talking, and hardly anyone was listening to anyone else. Two or three — portentously solemn eld- erly men — were conferring darkly together in a corner. Others were sitting upon the table or arms of chairs, reading newspapers, mostly aloud. No one took the slightest notice of Ar- thur Robinson, who accordingly sidled into an unoccupied corner and embarked upon a self- conscious study of last term's time-table. "I hear they have finished the new Squash Courts," announced a big man who was almost sitting upon the fire. "Take you on this after- noon, Jacker?" "Haveyou got a court?" inquired the gende- man addressed. "Not yet, but I will. Who is head of Games this term?" 64 IHE I.LNCHEON INTKRVAL : !•. .1; 1 1; \i I ..) \ i;i.\ riiMAN WHO ii.\v ><((>KKi' I irn ki \^ i^CisA/ts 3-^^ ^ ^K^ SOME FORM-MASTERS "Etheringrton major, I think." "Good Lord! He can hardly read or write, much less manage anything. I wonder why boys always make a point ofelectingcongenital idiots to their responsible offices. Warwick, isn't old Etherington in your House?" "He is," replied Warwick, looking up from a newspaper. "Just tell him I want a Squash Court this afternoon, will you?" "I am not a District Messenger Boy," re- plied Mr. Warwick coldly. Then he turned up- on a colleague who was attempting to read his newspaper over his shoulder. "Andrews," he said, "if you wish to read this newspaper I shall be happy to hand it over to you. I f not, I shall be grateful if you will refrain from masticating your surplus breakfast in my right ear." Mr. Andrews,scarlet with indignation, moved huffily away, and the conversation continued. "I doubt if you will get a court, Dumaresq," said another voice — a mild one. "I asked for one after breakfast, and Etherington said they were all bao-cred." o o "Well, I call that the limit!" bellowed that single-minded egotist, Mr. Dumaresq. 65 E LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "After all," drawled a supercilious man sprawling across a chair, "the courts were built for the boys, weren't they?" "They may have been built for the boys," retorted Dumaresq with heat, "but they were more than half paid for by the masters. So put that in your pipe, friend Wellings, and " "Your trousers are beginning to smoke," in- terpolated Wellings calmly. "You had better come out of the fender for a bit and let me m. So thebabble went on. To ArthurRobinson, still nervously perusing the time-table, it all sounded like an echo ofthe talk which had pre- vailed in the Pupil Room at his own school barely five years ago. Presently a fresh-faced elderly man crossed the room and tapped him on the shoulder. "You must be Robinson," he said. "My name is Pollard, also of St. Crispin's. Come and dine with me to-night, and tell me how the old College is getting on." The ice broken, the grateful Arthur was in- troduced to some of his colleagues, including the Olympian Dumaresq, the sarcastic Well- ings, and the peppery Warwick. Next moment a bell began to ring upon the other side of the 66 SOME FORM-MASTERS quadrangle, as there was a general move for the door. Outside, Arthur Robinson encountered the Head. "Good morning, Mr. Robinson!" (It was a little affectation of the Head's to address his colleagues as 'Mr.' when in cap and gown: at other times his key-note was informal bon- homie). "Have you your form-room key?" "Yes, I have." "In that case I will introduce you to your flock." At the end ofthe Cloisters, outside the locked door of Remove B, lounged some thirty young gentlemen. At the sight of the Head these ceased to lounge, and came to an attitude of un- easy attention. The door being opened, all filed demurely in and took their seats, looking virtuously down their noses. The Head addressed the intensely respectable audience before him. "This is Mr. Robinson," he said gruffly. "Do what you can for him." He nodded abruptly to Robinson, and left the room. As the door closed, the angel faces of Re- move B relaxed. 67 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "A-a-a-a-a-ah!" said everybody, with a sigh of intense relief. Let us follow the example of the Head, and leave Arthur Robinson, for the present, to struggle in deep and unfathomed waters. NUMBER TWO THE EXPERTS MR. DUMARESQ WAS REPUTED TO be the hardest slave-driver in Eaglescliffe. His eyes were cold and china blue, and his voice was like the neighing of a war-horse. He dis- approved of the system of locked form-rooms — it wasted at least forty seconds, he said, get- ting the boys in — so he made his head boy keep the key and open the door the moment the clock struck. Consequently, when upon this particular morning Mr. Dumaresq stormed into his room, every boy was sitting at his desk. "Greek prose scraps!" he roared, while still ten yards from the door. Instantly each boy seized a sheet of school paper, and having torn it into four pieces sel- ected one of the pieces and waited, pen in hand. ''If you do this,'' announced Mr. Dumaresq 68 SOME FORM-MASTERS truculently, as he swung into the doorway, ''yoti will be wise.'' Every boy began to scribble madly. ^*' If you do not do this,'' continued Mr. Dum- aresq, ''you zvill not be wise. If you were to do this you would be wise. If you were not to do this you would not be wise. If you had done this you would have been wise. If yoji had not done this you would not have been wise. Collect!" The head boy sprang to his feet, and fever- ishly dragging the scraps from under the hands of his panting colleagues, laid them on the master's desk. Like lightning Mr. Dumaresq looked them over. "Seven of you still ignorant of the construc- tion of the simplest conditional sentence!" he bellowed. "Come in this afternoon!" He tossed the papers back to the head boy. Seven of them bore blue crosses, indicating an error. There may have been more than one mis- take in the paper, but one was always enough for Mr. Dumaresq. "Now sit close!" he commanded. "Sitting close" meant leaving comparatively comfortable and secluded desks, and crowding in a congested mass round the blackboard, in 69 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE such wise that no eye could rove or mouth gape without instant detection. " Viva voce Latin Elegiacs!" announced Mr. Dumaresq, with enormous enthusiasm. He de- claimed the opening couplet of an English lyr- ic. "Now throw that into Latin form. Adam- son, I'm speaking to you! Don't sit mooning there, gaper. Think! Think! Come, lasses and /ads, get leave of your dads — Come on, man, come on! — And away to the maypole, hey! Say something! Wake up! How are you going to get over 'maypole? No maypoles in Rome. Tell him, somebody! ' Saturnalia' — not bad. (Crabtree, stand up on the bench, and look at me, not your boots.) Why won't 'Saturnalia' do? Will it scan? Thinkl Come along, come along r In this fashion he hounded his dazed pupils through couplet after couplet, until the task was finished. Then, dashing at the blackboard, he obliterated the result of an hour's labour with a sweep of the duster. "Now go to your desks and write out a fair copy," he roared savagely. So effective were Mr. Dumaresq's methods of inculcation that eighteen out of his thirty 70 SOME FORM-MASTERS boyssucceeded in producingflawless fair copies. The residue were ferociously bidden to an "ex- tra" after dinner. Mr.Dumaresq's "extras'were famous. He held at least one every day, not infrequently for the whole form. He possessed the one priceless attribute of the teacher: he never spared himself. Other masters would set impositions or give a boy the lesson to write out : Dumaresq, denying himself cricket or squash, would come into his form-room and wrestle with perspiring defaulters all during a hot afternoon until the task was well and truly done. Boys learned more from him in one term than from any other master in a year; but their days were but labour and sorrow. During the previous term a certain particularly backward member of his form had incurred some damage — to wit, a fractured collar-bone — during the course of a house-m.atch. The pain was consid- erable, and when dragged from the scrummage he was in a half-fainting condition. He revived as he was being carried to the Sanatorium. "What's up?" he inquired mistily. "Broken neck, inflammation of the lungs, ringworm, and leprosy, old son," announced one of his bearers prompdy. "You aregoing to the San." 71 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "Good eggY' replied the injured warrior. "I shall get off Dummy's extra after tea!" Then with a contented sigh, he returned to a state of coma. • ••••• By way of contrast, Mr. Cayley. As Mr. Cayley approached his form-room, which lay round a quiet corner, he was made aware of the presence of his pupils by sounds of turmoil; but being slightly deaf, took no particular note of the fact. Presently he found himself engulfed in a wave of boys, each of whom insisted upon shaking him by the hand. Some of them did so several times, but Mr. Cayley, whom increasingyears had rendered a trifle dim-sighted, did not observe this. Cheer- ful greetings fell pleasantly but confusedly up- on his ears. "How do you do, sir? Welcome back to another term of labour, sir! Very well, no thank you! Stop shoving, there! Don't you see you are molesting Mr. Methuselah Cayley, M.A.? Permit me to open the door for you, sir! Now then, all together! Use your feet a bit more in the scrum!" By this time the humorist of the party had possessed himself of the key of the door; but 72 SOME FORM-MASTERS having previously stopped up the keyhole with paper, was experiencing some difficulty in in- serting the key into the lock. "Make haste, Woolley," said Mr. Cayley gently. "I fear the porterhas inserted some obstruc- tion into the interstices of the aperture, sir," explained Master Woolley, in a loud and re- spectful voice. "He bungs up the hole in the holidays — to keep the bugs from getting in," he concluded less audibly. "What was that, Woolley?" asked Mr. Cay- ley, thinking he had not heard aright. Master Woolley entered with relish upon one of the standard pastimes of the Upper Fourth. "I said some good tugs would get us in, sir," he replied, raising his voice, and pulling paper out of the lock with a buttonhook. Mr. Cayley, who knew that his ears were as untrustworthy as his eyes, but fondly imagined that his secret was his own, now entered his form-room upon the crest of a boisterous wave composed of his pupils, who, having deposited their preceptor upon his rostrum, settled down in their places with much rattling of desks and banging of books. 73 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Mr. Cay ley next proceeded to call for sil- ence, and when he thought he had succeeded, said: *'As our new Latin subject books have not yet been distributed, I shall set you a short pass- age of unprepared translation this morning." "Would it not be advisable, sir," suggested the head boy — the Upper Fourth addressed their master with a stilted and pedantic preci- osity of language which was an outrageous par- ody of his own courtly and old-fashioned utter- ance — "to take down our names and ages, as is usually your custom at the outset of your infer- nal havers?" "Of what, Adams?" "Of your termly labours, sir," said Adams, raising his voice courteously. Mr. Cayley acquiesced in this proposal, and the form, putting their feet up on convenient ledges and producingrefreshmentfromthesec- ret recesses oftheir persons, proceeded to crack nuts and jokes, while their instructor laboured with studious politeness to extract from them in- formation as to their initials and length ofdays. It was not too easy a task, for every boy in the room was conversing, and not necessarily with his next-door neighbour. Once a Liddell and 74 SOME FORM-MASTERS Scott lexicon (medium size) hurtled through space and fell with a crash upon the floor. Mr. Cayley looked up. "Someone,"he remarked with mild severity, "is throwing india-rubber." Name-taking fmished, he made another at- tempt to revert to the passage of unprepared translation. But a small boy, with appealing eyes and a wistful expression, rose from his seat and timidly deposited a large and unclean ob- ject upon Mr. Cayley's desk. "I excavated this during the holidays, sir," he explained; "and thinkingitwould interestyou.I madeapointofpreservingit for your inspection." Instant silence fell upon the form. Skilfully handled, this new diversion was good for quite half an hour's waste of time. "This is hardly the moment, Benton," re- plied Mr. Cayley, "for a disquisition on geo- logy, but I appreciate your kindness in thinking of me. I will examine this specimen this after- noon, and classify it for you." But Master Benton had no intention of per- mittinor this. "Does it belong to the glacial period, sir?" he inquired shyly. "I thought these marks might have been caused by ice-pressure." 75 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE There was a faint chuckle at the back of the room. It proceeded from the gentleman whose knife Benton had borrowed ten minutes before in order to furnish support for his glacial theory. "It is impossible for me to say without my magnifying-glass," replied Mr. Cayley, peering myopically at the stone. "But from a cursory inspection I should imagine this particular spec- imen to be of an igneous nature. Where did you get it?" "In the neck!" volunteered a voice. Master Benton, whose cervical vertebrae the stone had nearly severed in the course of a friendly interchangeof missiles withaplaymate while walking up to school, hastened to cover the interruption. "Among the Champion Pills, sir," he an- nounced gravely. "The Grampian Hills?" said Mr. Cayley, greatly interested. He nodded hishead. "That may be so. Geologically speaking, some of these hills were volcanoes yesterday." "There was nothing about it in the Daily Mail this morning," objected a voice from the back benches. "I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Cayley, look- ing up. 76 SOME FORM-MASTERS "It sounds like a fairytale, sir," amended the speaker. "And so it is!" exclaimed Mr. Cayley, the geologist in him aroused at last. "The whole history of Natureis a fairytale. Castyourminds back for a thousand centuries." . . , The form accepted this invitation to the ex- tent of dismissing the passage of unprepared translation from their thoughts for ever, and settling down with a grateful sigh, began to search their pockets for fresh provender. The seraph-like Benton slipped back into his seat. His mission was accomplished. The restof the hour was provided for. Three times in the past five years Mr. Cay- ley's colleagues had offered to present him with a testimonial. He could never understand why. Mr. Bull was a young master, and an inter- national football-player. Being one of the few members of the staff at Eaglescliffewhodidnot possess a first-class degree, he had been en- trusted with the care of the most difficult form in the school — the small boys, usually known as The Nippers. A small boy is as different from a middle- 11 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE sized boy as chalk from cheese. He possesses none of the latter's curious dignity and self-con- sciousness. He has the instincts of the puppy, and appreciates being treated as such. That is to say, he is physically incapable of sitting still for more than fifteen minutes at a time; he is never happy except in the company of a drove of other small boys; and he is infinitely more amenable to \h&fortUer in 7'e than to the suav- iterhi modo^'h^ve: the enforcementofdiscipline is concerned. Above all, he would rather have his head smacked than be ignored. Mr. Bull greeted his chattering flock with a hearty roar of salutation, coupled with a brisk command to them to get into their places and be quick about it. He was answered by a shrill and squeaky chorus, and having thrown open the form-room door herded the whole swarm within, assisting stragglers with a genial cuff or two; the which, coming from so great a hero, were dulycherishedby theirrecipients as marks of special favour. Having duly posted up thenames and tender ages of his Nippers in his mark-book, Mr. Bull announced: "Now we must appoint the Cabinet Minist- ers for the term." 78 SOME FORM-MASTERS Instantly there came a piping chorus. "Please, sir, can I be Scavenger?" "Please, sir, can I be Obliterator?" "Please, sir, can I be Window-opener?" "Please, sir, can I be Inkslinger?" "Please, sir, can I be Coalheaver?" "Shut up!" roared Mr. Bull, and the babble was quelled instantly. "We will draw lots as usual." Lots were duly cast, and the names of the fortunate announced. Mr. Bull was not a ereat scholar: some of the "highbrow" members of the Staff professedtodespise his humbleattain- ments. But he understood the mind of extreme youth. Tell a small boy to pick upwaste-paper, or fill an inkpot, or clean a blackboard, and he will perform these acts ofdrudgery with natural reluctance and shirk them when he can. But appoint him Lord High Scavenger, or Lord High Inkslinger, or Lord High Obliterator, with sole rightto perform these important duties and power to eject usurpers, and he will value and guard his privilegeswithalltheearnestness and tenacity of a permanent official. Havinof arrano^ed his executive staff to his satisfaction, Mr. Bull announced: — 'We'll do a little English literature this 79 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE morning, and start fair on ordinary work this afternoon. Sit absolutely still for ten minutes while I read to you. Listen all the time, for I shall question you when I have finished. After that you shallquestion me — onequestion each, and mind it is a sensible one. After that, a breather; then you will write out in your own words a summary of what I have read. Atten- shunT He read a hundred lines orso oiTkePassing of Arthur, while the Nippers, restraining itch- ing hands and feet, sat motionless. Then foll- owed question time, which was a lively affair; for questions mean marks, and Nippers will sell their souls for marks. Suddenly Mr. Bull shut the book with a snap. "Out you get!" he said. 'The usual run — round the Founder's Oak and straight back. And no yelling, mind! Remember, there are others." He took out his watch. "I give you one minute. Any boy taking longerwill receive five thousand lines and a public flogging. Off!" There was a sudden unheaval, a scuttle of feet, and then solitude. The last Nipper returned panting, with his lungs full of oxygen and the fidgets shaken out 80 SOME FORM-MASTERS of him, within fifty-seven seconds,and thework of the hour proceeded. Each master had his own methods of main- taining discipline. Mr. WelHngs, for instance, ruled entirely by the lash of his tongue. A schoolboy can put up with stripes, and he rather relishes abuse; but sarcasm withers him to the marrow. In this respect Mr. Wellings' reput- ation throughout the school — he was senior mathematical master, and almost half the boys passedthroughhishands — was that of a "chron- ic blister." Newcomers to his sets, who had hitherto re- garded the baiting of subject-masters as a mild form of mental recuperation between two bouts of the Classics, sometimes overlooked this fact. If they had a reputation for lawlessness to keep uptheysometimes endeavoured to make them- selves obnoxious. They had short shrift. "Let me see," Wellings would drawl, "I am afraid I can't recall your name for the moment. Have you a visiting card about you?" Here the initiated would chuckle with anti- cipatory relish, and the offender, a little taken aback, would either glare defiantly or efface himself behind his book. 8i F LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "I am addressing you, sir — you in the back bench, with the intelligent countenance and the black-edged finger-nails, "Wellingswouldcon- tinue in silky tones. "I asked you a question just now. Have you avisiting card about you?" A thousand brilliant repartees would flash through the brain of the obstreperous one. But somehow, inWellings' mild and apologetic pres- ence, they all seemed either irrelevant or fatu- ous. He usually ended by growling, "No." "Then what is your name — or possibly title? Forgive me for not knowing." "Corbett." It is extraordinary how ridiculous one's surname always soundswhen one is com- pelled to announce it in public. "Thank you. Will you kindly stand up, Mr. Corbett, in order that we may study you in greater detail?" (Mr.Wellings had an uncanny knack of enlisting the rest of the form on his side when he dealt with an offender of this type.) "I must apologise for not having heard of you before. Indeed, it is surprising that one of your remarkable appearance should hitherto have escaped my notice in my walks abroad. The world knows nothing of its greatest men: how true that is! However, this is no time for moralising. What I wanted to bring to your 82 SOME FORM-MASTERS distinguished notice is this — that you must not behave Hke a yahoo in my mathematical set. During the past ten minutes you have kicked oneof your neighbours and cuffed another: you have partaken of a good deal of unwholesome and (as it came out of your pocket) probably unclean refreshment; and you have indulged inseveral childishandobscenegestures. These daredevil exploits took place while I was writ- ing on the blackboard; but I think it only fair to mention to you that I have eyes in the back of my head — a fact upon which any member of this set could have enlightened you. But possibly they do not presume to address a per- son of your eminence. Ihavenoidea,ofcourse, with what class of society you are accustomed to mingle; but here — here — that sort of thing is simply not done, really! I am so sorry! But the hour will soon be over, and then you can go and have a nice game of shove-halfpenny, or whatever your favourite sport is, in the gutter. But at present I must ask you to curb your natural instincts. That is all, thank you very much. You may sit down now. Observe from time to time the demeanour of your compan- ions, and endeavour to learn from them. They do not possess your natural advantages in the 83 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE way of brains and beauty, but their manners are better. Let us now resume our studies." Mr. Wellings used to wonder plaintively in the Common Room why his colleagues found it necessary to set so many impositions. • ••••• Lastly, Mr. Klotz. Mr. Klotz may be des- cribed as a Teutonic survival — a survival of the days when it was de rigueur to have the French language taught by a foreignerof some kind. Not necessarily by a Frenchman — that would have been pandering too slavishly to Continental idiosyncrasy — but atleast bysome one who couldonlyspeak broken English. Mr. Klotz was a Prussian, so possessed all the necessary qualifications. His disciplinary methods were modelled upon those of the Prussian Army, of which he had been a distinguished ornament— a fact of which he was fond of reminding his pupils, and which had long been regarded by those guile- less infants as oneof the most valuable weapons in their armoury of time- wasting devices. Mr. Klotz, not being a resident master, had no special classroom or key: he merely visited each form-room in turn. He expected to find every boy in his seat ready for work upon his 84 SOME FORM-MASTERS arrival; and as he was accustomed to enforce his decrees at the point of the bayonet — or its scholastic equivalent — sharp scouts and reli- able sentries were invariably posted to herald his approach. Behold him this particular morning march- ing into Remove A form-room, which was situ- ated at the top of a block of buildings on the south side of the quadrangle, with the superb assurance and grace of a Prussian subaltern entering a beer-hall. Having reached his desk, Mr. Klotz ad- dressed his pupils. "He who rount the corner looked when op the stairs I game," he announced, "efter lonch gomshe!" The form, some of them still breathless from their interrupted rag, merely looked down their noses with an air of seraphic piety. "Who was de boy who did dat?" pursued Mr. Klotz. No reply. "Efter lonch," trumpeted Mr. Klotz, "goms eferypoty!" At once a boy rose in his place. His name was Tomlinson. "It was me, sir," he said. 85 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "Efterlonch," announced Mr. Klotz, slight- ly disappointed at being robbed of a holo- caust, "goms Tomleenson. I gif him irrecular verps " Two other boys rose promptly to their feet. Their names were Pringle and Grant. They had not actually given the alarm, but they had passed it on. "It was me too, sir," said each. "Efter lonch," amended Mr. Klotz, "goms Tomleenson, Brinkle, unt Grunt. Now I take your names unt aitches." This task accomplished, Mr. Klotz was upon the point of taking up Chardenal' s First French Course, when a small boy with a winning man- ner (which he wisely reserved for his dealings with masters) said politely: — "Won't you tell us about the Battle of Sedan, sir, as this is the first day of term?" The bait was graciously accepted, and for the next hour Mr. Klotz ranged over the hist- oric battle-field. It appeared that he had been personally responsible for the success of the Prussian arms, and had been warmly thank- ed for his services by the Emperor, Moltke, and Bismarck. "You liddle Engleesh boys," he concluded, 86 SOME FORM-MASTERS " you think your Army is great. In my gontry it would be noding — noding! Take it away! Vat battles has it fought, to compare " The answer came red-hot from thirty Brit- ish throats: "Waterloo!" (There was no "sir" this time.) "Vaterloo?" replied Mr. Klotz condescend- ingly. "Yes. But vere would your Engleesh army haf been at Vaterloo without Blucher?" He puffed out his chest. "Tellmedat, Brinkle!" "Blucher, sir?" replied Master Pringle de- ferentially. "Who was he, sir?" "You haf not heard of Blucher? " gasped Mr. Klotz in genuine horror. The form, who seldom encountered Mr. Klotz without hearing of Blucher, shook their heads with polite regret. Suddenlya hand shot up. It was the hand of Master Tomlinson, who it will be remembered had already burned his boats for the afternoon. "Do you mean Blutcher, sir?" he inquired. "Blutcher? Himmel! Nein!" roared Mr. Klotz. "I mean Blucher." "I expect he was the same person, sir," said Tomlinson soothingly. "I remember him now. He was the Russian who " "Prussian!" yelled the infuriated Mr. Klotz. 8; LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "Ibegyourpardon,sir — Prussian. I thought they were the same thing. He was the Prussian general whom Lord WelHngton was relying on to back him up at Waterloo- But Blutcher — Blucher lost his way — quite by accident, of course — and did not reach the field until the fight was over." "He stopped to capture a brewery, sir, didn't he?" queried Master Pringle, coming to his in- trepid colleague's assistance. "It was bad luck his arriving late," added Tomlinson, firing his last cartridge; "but he managed to kill quite a lot of wounded." Mr. Klotzhad only one retort for enterprises of this kind. He rose stertorously to his feet, crossed the room, and grasping Master Tom- linson by the ears, lifted him from his seat and set him to stand in the middle of the floor. Then he returned for Pringle. "You stay dere," he announced to the pair, "ontil the hour is op. Efter lonch " But in his peregrinations over the battle- field of Sedan, Mr. Klotz had taken no note of the flight of time. Even as he spoke, the clock struck. "The hour is up now, sir!" yelled the de- lighted form. 88 THE FRENCH MASTER il) I'ICTION, (ll) lACI v_e»j#5 -^h^iYtf^^ SOME FORM-MASTERS And they dispersed with tumult, congratul- ating Pringle and Tomlinson upon their pluck and themselves upon a most profitable morn- ing. But it is a far cry to Sedan nowadays. The race of Klotzes has perished, and their place is occupied by muscular young Britons, who have no reminiscences and whose pronunciation, both of English and German, is easier to un- derstand. CHAPTER FOUR BOYS CHAPTER FOUR BOYS NUMBER I. THE GOVERNMENT THERE'S YOUR JOURNEY MONEY, Jackson. Good-bye, and a pleasant holiday!" "Thank you, sir. The same to you!" replies Jackson dutifully. They shake hands, and the Housemaster adds: — "By the way, I shall want youto join the pre- fects next term." "Me, sir? Oh!" "Yes. Endeavour to get accustomed to the idea during the holidays. It will make a big difference in your life here. I am not referring merely to sausages for tea.^ Try and think out all that it implies." Then follows a brief homily. Jacksonknows it by heart, for it never varies, and he has heard it quoted frequently, usually for purposes of derision. "The prefect in a public school occupies the same position as the non-commissioned officer in the Army. He is promoted from the ranks; he enjoys privileges not available to his former associates; and he is made responsible to those above him not merely for his own good be- 93 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE haviour but for that of others. Just as it would be impossible to run an army withoutnon-com- missioned officers, so it would be impossible, under modern conditions, to run a public school without prefects." Jackson shifts his feet uneasily, after the im- memorial fashion of schoolboys undergoing a "jaw. "But I want to warn you of one or two things," continues the wise old Housemaster. Jackson looks up quickly. This part of the exhortation is new. At least, he has never heard it quoted. "You will have certain privileges: don't abuse them. You will have certain responsibilities: don't shirk them. And above all, don't endeav- our to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. You will be strongly tempted to do so. Your old associates will regard you with sus- picion — even distrust; and that will sting. In your anxiety to show to them that your promo- tion has not impaired your capacity for friend- ship, you may be inclined to stretch the Law in their favour from time to time, or even ignore it altogether. On the other hand, you must beware of over-officiousness towards those whoarenot your friends. A little authority is a dangerous 94 BOYS thing^. So walk warily at first. That's all. Good night, old man." • • • • • • They shook hands again, and Jackson re- turned soberly to his study, which he shared with his friend Blake. The two had entered the School the same day: they had fought their way up side by side from its lowest walks to a position of comparative eminence; and their friendship, though it contained no David and Jonathan elements — veryfewschoolboy friend- ships do — had survived the severe test of two years of study-companionship. Jackson was the better scholar, Blake the better athlete of the two. Now, one was taken and the other left. Blake, cramming miscellaneous possessions into his grub- box in view of the early departure on the morrow, looked up. "Hallo!" he remarked. "You've been a long time getting your journey-money. Did the old Man try to cut you down?" "No . . . He says I'm to be a prefect next term." "Oh! Congratters!" said Blake awkwardly. "Thanks. Has he madeyou one too?" asked Jackson. "No." 95 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "Oh. What rot!" Presently Jackson's oldest friend, after an unhappy silence, rose and went out. He had gone to join the proletariat round the Hall fire. The worst of getting up in the world is thatyou have to leave so many old comrades behind you. And worse still, the comrades frequently persist in believing that you are glad to do so. Such is the cloak of Authority, as it feels to a thoughtful and sensitive boy who assumes it for the first time. Of course there are others. Hulkins, for in- stance. In his eyes the prefectorial system was created for his express convenience and glori- fication. He opens his study door and bawls: "Fa-a-a-ag!" A dozen come running. The last to arrive is bidden to remove Hulkins' boots from his feet and bring slippers. The residue have bare- ly returned to their noisy fireside when Hulk- ins' voice is uplifted again. This time he re- quires blotting-paper, and thelast comer in the panting crowd is sent into the next study to purloin some. The rest have hardly regained their fastness when there is a third disturbance, and there is Hulkins howling like a lost soulfor 96 BOYS matches. And so, with infinite uproar and waste of labour, the great man's wants are supplied. It does the fags no harm, but it is very, very bad for Hulkins. Frisby is another type. He is not afraid of assuming responsibility. He is a typical new broom. He dots the i's and crosses the t's of all the tiresome little regulations in the House. He sets impositions to small boys with great profusion, and sees to it that they are shown up punctually. If it is his turn to take roll-call, he descends to the unsportsmanlike device of waiting upon the very threshold of the Hall until the clock strikes, and then coming in and shutting the door with a triumphant bang in the faces of those who had reckoned on the usual thirty seconds' grace. He ferrets out the misdemeanours of criminals of fourteen, and gibbets them. He is terribly efficient — but his vigilance and zeal stop suddenly short at the prospect of a collision with any malefactor more than five feet high. Then there is Meakin. He receives his pre- fectship with a sigh of relief. For four years he has led a hunted and precarious existence in the lower walks of the House. His high-spirit- ed playmates have made him a target for miss- 97 G LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE iles, derided his style of running, broken his spectacles, raided his study, wrecked his collec- tion of beetles, and derived unfailing joy from his fluent but impotent imprecations. Now, at last, he sees peace ahead. He will be left to him- self, at any rate. They will not dare to rag a pre- fect unless the prefect endeavours to exert his authority unduly, and Meakin has no intention whatever of doing that. To Frisby, Office is a sharp two-edged sword; to Meakin, it ismerely a shield and buckler. Then there is Flabb. He finds a prefect's lot a very tolerable one. He fully appreciates the fleshpots in the prefect's room;and hefeels that it is pleasant to have fags to whiten his cricket- boots and make toast for his tea. He maintains friendly relations with the rest of the House, and treats small boys kindly. He performs his mechanical duties — roll-call, supervision of Prep, and the like — with as little friction as possible. But he does not go out of his way to quell riots or put down bullying; and when any unpleasantness arises between the Prefects and the H ouse, Flabb effaces himself as completely as possible. Finally, there is Manby, the head of the House. He is high up in the Sixth, and a good 98 BOYS all-round athlete. He weighs twelve stone ten, and fears nothing — except a slow ball which comes with the bowler's arm. To him govern- ment comes easily. The House hangs upon his lightest word, and hislieutenants go about their business with assurance and despatch. He is a born organiser and a natural disciplinarian. H is prestige overawes the unofficial aristocracy of the House — always the most difficult section. And he stands no nonsense. A Manby of my ac- quaintance once came upon twenty-two young gentlemen in a corner of the cricket-field, who, having privily abandoned the orthodox game arranged for their benefit that afternoon, were indulging in a pleasant but demoralising pas- time known as "tip-and-run." Manby, address- ing them as "slack little swine, a disgrace to the House," chastised them one by one, and next half-holiday made them play tip-and-run under abroilingsunandhis personal supervisionfrom two o'clock till six. A House with a Manby at the head of it is safe. It can even survive a weak Housemaster. Greater Britain is run almost entirely by Man- bys. Taking it all round, the prefectorial machine 99 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE works well. It is by no means perfect, but it is infinitely more efficient than any other machine. The chief bar to its smooth running is the in- herent loyalty of boys to one another and their dislike of anything which savours of tale-bear- ing. Schoolboys have no love for those who go out of their way to support the arm of the Law, and a prefect naturally shrinks from being branded as a master's jackal. Hence, that ideal — a perfect understanding between a House- master and his prefects — is seldom achieved. What usuallyhappens is that when the House- master is autocratically inclined he runs the House himself, while the prefects are mere lay ficTures; and when the Housemaster is weak or indolent theprefects take thelawinto their own hands and run the House, often extremely effi- ciently, with as little reference to their titular head as possible. He is a great Housemaster who can co-operate closely with his prefects without causing friction between the prefects and the House, or the prefects and himself. Butsometimes anintolerable strain isthrown upon the machine — or rather, upon the most sensitive portions of it. Look at this boy, standing uneasily at the IQO BOYS door of his study, with his fingers upon the handle. Outside, in the passage, a riot is in pro- gress. It is only an ordinary exuberant "rag": he himself has participated in many such. But the Law enjoins that this particular passage shall be kept perfectly quiet between the hours of eight and nine in the evening; and it is this boy's particular duty, as the onlyprefect resid- ent in the passage, to put the Law into effect. He stands in the darkness of his study, nerv- ing himself The crowd outside numbers ten or twelve; but he is not in the least afraid of that. This enterprise calls for a different kind of courage, and a good deal of it. Jackson is not a particularly prominent member of the House, except by reason of his office: others far more distinguished than himself are actually partici- pating in the disturbance outside. It will be of no avail to emerge wrathfully and say: "Less row, there!" He said that three nights ago. Two nights ago he said it again, and threaten- ed reprisals. Last night he named various of- fenders by name, and stated that if the offence was repeated he would report them to the Housemaster. To-night he has got to do it. The revellers outside know this: the present turmoil is practically a challenge. To crown all, lOI LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE he can hear, above the din, in the very fore- front of battle, the voice of Blake, once his own familiar friend. With Blake Jackson had reasoned privily onlythatafternoon,warninghim that the House would go to pot if its untitled aristocracy took to inciting others, less noble, to deeds of law- lessness. Blake had replied by recommending his late crony to return to his study and boil his head. And here he was, leading to-night's riot. What will young Jackson do? Watch him well, for from his action now you will be able to forecast the whole of his future life. He may remain mutely in his study, stop his ears, and allow the storm to blow itself out. He may appear before theroysterers and utter vain repetitions, thereby sal vinghisconscience with- out saving his face. Or he may go out like a man and fulfil his promise of last night. It sounds simple enough on paper. But consider what it means to a boy of seventeen, possessing no sense of perspective to tone down the mag- nitude of the disaster he is courting. Jackson hesitates. Then, suddenly: "I'll be damned \{\ take it lying down!" he mutters. He draws a deep breath, turns the handle, I02 BOYS and steps out. Next moment he is standing in the centre of a silent and surly ring, jotting down names. "You five," he announces to a party of com- paratively youthful offenders, "can come to the prefect's room after prayers and be tanned. You three" — he indicates the incredulous Blake and two burly satellites — "will have to be reported. I'm sorry, but I gave you fair warning last night." He turns on his heel and departs in good order to his study, branded — for life, he feels convinced — as an officious busybody, a pre- sumptuous upstart, and worst of all, a betrayer of old friends. He has of his own free will cast himself into the nethermost Hell of the school- boy — unpopularity — all to keep his word. And yet for acts of mere physical courage they give men the Victoria Cross. NUMBER n. THE OPPOSITION To conduct the affairs of a nation requires both a Government and an Opposition. So it is with school politics. The only difference is that the scholastic Opposition is much franker about its true aims. 103 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE The average schoolboy, contemplating the elaborate arrangements made by those in auth- ority for protecting him from himself — rules, roll-calls, bounds, lock-ups, magisterial discip- line and prefectorial supervision — decides that the ordering and managementofthe school can be maintained without any active assistance from him; and he plunges joyously into Oppos- ition with all the abandon of a good sportsman who knows that the odds are heavily against him. He breaks the Law, or is broken by the Law, with equal cheerfulness. The most powerful member of the Oppos- ition is the big boy who has not been made a prefect, and is not likely to be made a prefect. He enjoys many privileges — some of them quite unauthorised — and has no responsibilit- ies. He is one of the happiest people in the world. He has reached the age and status at which corporal punishment is supposed to be too degrading to be feasible: this immunity causes him to realise that he is a personage of some importance; and when he is addressed rudely by junior form-masters he frequently stands upon hisdignity and speaks to his House- master about it. His position in the House depends firstly upon his athletic ability, and 104 e«i.S THE INTELLECTUAL BOYS secondly upon the calibre of the prefects. Given a timid set of prefects, and an unquestioned reputation in the football world, Master Bull- ock has an extremely pleasant time of it. He possesses no fags, but that does not worry him. I once knew a potentate of this breed who im- provised a small gong out of the lidof a biscuit- tin, which he hung in his study. When he beat upon this with a tea-spoon, all within earshot were expected to (and did) come running for orders. Such as refrained were chastised with a toasting-fork. Then comes a great company of which the House recks nothing, and of whom House his- tory haslitde to tell — the Cave-Dwellers, the Swots, the Smugs, the Saps. These keep with- in theirownlurking-places, sedulously avoiding the noisy conclaveswhichcrowdsociablyround the Hall fire. For one thing, the conversation there bores them intensely, and foranotherthey would seldom be permitted to join in it. The role of Sir Oracle is strictly confined to the ath- letes of the House, though the Wag and the Oldest Inhabitantare usually permitted tooffer observations or swell thechorus. But the Cave- Dwellers, never. The curious part about it is that not by any 105 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE means all the Cave-Dwellers are "Swots." It is popularly supposed thatany boy whoexhibits a preference for the privacyof his study devotes slavish attention therein to the evening's Prep, thus stealing a march upon his more sociable and less self-centred brethren. But this is far frombeingthe case. Many ofthe Cave-Dwellers dwell in caves because they find it more pleasant toread novels,or writeletters,ordevelopphoto- graphs, or even do nothing, than listen to stale House gossip or indulge in everlasting small cricket in a corridor. They are oftenthesalt ofthe House, butthey nave no conception ofthe fact. They entertain alow opinion of themselves: they never expect to rise to anygreat position intheworld: so they philosophically follow their own bent, and leave the gloryand thepraise to the athletesand their mnbrcB. It comes as quite a shock to many of them, when they leave school and emerge into a larger world, to find themselves not only liked but looked up to; while the heroes of their schooldays, despite their hairy arms and club ties, are now dismissed in a word as "hobblede- hoys." Then comes the Super- Intellectual — the "Highbrow." He is a fishout ofthe water with 1 06 BOYS aveneeance.buthedoesexist at school — some- how. He congregates in places of refuge with others of the faith; and they discuss the English Revieiv, and mysterious individuals who are onlyreferredtoby theirinitials — as G. B. S.and G. K. C. Sometimes he initiates these discuss- ions because they really interest him, but more often, it is to be feared, because they make him feel superior and grown-up. Somewhere in the school grounds certain youthful schoolmates of his, inspired by precisely similar motives but with different methods of procedure, are sitting in the centre of a rhododendron bush smoking cigarettes. I n each case the idea is the same — namely, a hankering after meats which are not for babes. But the smoker puts on no side about his achievements, whereas the "highbrow" does. He loathes the vulgar herd and holds it aloof. He does not inform the vulgar herd of this fact, but he confides it to the other high- brows, and they applaud his discrimination. In- tellectual snobbery is a rare thing among boys, and therefore difficult to account for. Perhaps the pose is a form of reaction. It is comforting, for instance, after you have been compelled to dance the can-can in your pyjamas for the de- lectation of the Lower Dormitory, toforegather 107 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE nextmorningwitha fewkindred spirits and dis- course pityingly and scathingly upon the gross philistinism of the lower middle classes. No, the lot of the aesthete at school is not al- together a happy one, but possibly his tribula- tions are not without a certain beneficent effect. When he goes up to Oxford or Cambridge he will speedily find that in the tolerant atmos- phere of those intellectual centres the prig is not merely permitted to walk the earth but to flourish like the green bay-tree. Under the in- toxicating effects of this discovery the recollec- tion of the robust and primitive traditions of his old School — and the old School's method of instilling those traditions — may have a sob- ering and steadying effect upon him. No man ever developed his mind by neglecting his body, and if the memory of a coarse and ruth- less school tradition can persuade the Super- Intellectual to play hockey or go down to the river after lunch, instead of sitting indoors drinking liqueurs and discussing Maupassant with a coterie of the elect, then the can-can in the Lower Dormitory has not been danced al- together in vain. Then come the rank and file. There are many io8 BOYS types. There is the precocious type, marked out for favourable notice by aptitude at games and attractive manners. Such an one stands in danger of being taken up by older boys than himself; which means that he will suffer the fate of all those who stray out of their proper station. At first he will be an object of envy and dislike; later, when his patrons have passed on else- where, he may find himself friendless. At the opposite end of the scale comes the Butt. His life is a hard one, but not without its compensations; for although he is the target of all the practical humour in the House, his post carries with it a certain celebrity; and at any rate a Butt can never be unpopular. So he is safe at least from the worst disaster that can be- fall a schoolboy. Besides, you require a good deal of character to be a Butt. And there is the Buffoon. He is distinct from the Butt, because a Butt is usually a Butt mal- grS lui, owing to some peculiarity of appear- ance or temperament; whereas the Buffoon is one of those people who yearn for notice at any price, and will sell their souls "to make fellows laugh." You may behold him, the centre of a grinning group, tormenting some shy or awk- ward boy — very often the Butt himself; while 109 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE in school he is the bugbear of weak masters. The laro-er his audience the more exuberant he becomes: he reaches his zenith at a break- ing-up supper or in the back benches on Speech Day. One is tempted to feel that when reduced to his own society he must suffer severely from depression. Then there is the Man of the World. He is a recognised authority on fast life in London and Bohemian revels in Paris. He is a patron of the drama, and a perfect mine of unreliable information as to the private life of the originals of the dazzling portraits which line his study — and indeed half the studies in the House. The picture-postcard, as an educative and refining influence, has left an abiding mark upon the youth of the present day. We of an older and more rugged civilisation, who were young at a period when actresses' photographs cost two shillings each, were compelled in those days to restrict our gallery of divinities to one or two at the most. (Too often our collection was sec- ond-hand, knocked down for sixpence at some end-of-term auction, or reluctantly yielded in composition for a long-outstanding debt by a friend in the throes of a financial crisis.) But nowadays, with the entire Gaiety chorus at a no BOYS penny apiece, the youthful connoisseur of female beauty has emancipated himself from the pic- torial monoo^amy (or at the most, bigamy) of an earlier generation. He is a polygamist, a pan- theist. He can erect an entire feminine Olymp- us upon his mantelpiece for the sum of half- a-crown. And yet, bless him, he is just as unso- phisticated as we used to be — no more and no less. The type does not change. Lastly, comes the little boy — the Squeaker, the Tadpole, the Nipper, what you will. His chief characteristic is terrific but short-lived enthusiasm for everything he undertakes, be it work, play, a friendship, or a private ven- detta. He bef;ins by taking education very serious- ly. He is immensely proud of his first set of books, and writes his name on nearly every page, accompanied by metrical warnings to in- tending purlolners. He equips himself with a perfect arsenal of fountain-pens, rubberstamps, blue pencils, and ink-erasers. He starts a priv- ate mark-book of his own, to check possible carelessness or dishonesty on the part of his form-master. Then he gets to work, with his books disposed around him and his fountain- pen playing all over his manuscript. By the III LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE end of a fortnight he has lost all his books, and having broken his fountain-pen, is detected in a pathetic attempt to write his exercise upon a sheet of borrowed paper with a rusty nib held in his fingers or stuck into a splinter from off the floor. It is the same with games. Set a company of small boys to play cricket, and their solem- nity at the start is almost painful. Return in half an hour, and you will find that the stately con- test has resolved itself into a reproduction of the parrot-house at the Zoo, the point at issue being a doubtful decision of the umpire's. Under the somewhat confiding arrangement which obtains in Lower School cricket, the um- pire for the moment is the gentleman whose turn it is to bat next; so litigation is frequent. Screams of " Get out ! " "Stay in ! " "Cads ! " "Liars!" rend the air, until a big boy ora master strolls over and quells the riot. The small boy's friendships, too, are of a violent but ephemeral nature. But his out- standing characteristic is a passion for organis- ing secret societies of the most desperate and mysterious character, all of which come speed- ily to a violent or humiliating dissolution. I was once privileged to be introduced into 112 BOYS the inner workings of a society called " The Anarchists." It was not a very original title, but it served its time, for thedays of theSociety were few and evil. Its aims were sanguinary and nebulous; the Rules consisted almost en- tirely of a list of the penalties to be inflicted upon those who transgressed them. For in- stance, under Rule XXIV any one who broke Rule XVII was compelled to sit down for five minutes upon a chair into the seat of which a pot of jam had been emptied. (Economists will be relieved to hear that the jam was afterwards eaten by the executioners, the criminal being very properly barred from participating.) The Anarchists had a private code of signals with which to communicate with one anoth- er in the presence of outsiders — in Prep, for instance. The code was simplicity itself. A single tapwith a pencil upon the table denoted the letter A; two taps, B; and so on. As may be imagined, Y and Z involved much mental strain; and as the transmitter of the message invariably lost count after fourteen or fifteen taps, and began all over again without any attempt either at explanation or apology, the gentleman who was acting as receiver usually found the task of decoding his signals a matter 113 H LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE of extreme difficulty and some exasperation. Before the tangle could be straigrhtened out a prefect inevitably swooped down and awarded both signallersfifty lines for creating a disturb- ance in Preparation. However, the Anarchists, though they fin- ished after the manner of their kind, did not slip into oblivion so noiselessly as some of their predecessors. In fact, nothing in their inky and jabbering life became them like their leav- ing of it. One evening the entire brotherhood — there were about seven of them — were assembled in a study which would have held four comfort- ably, engaged in passing a vote of censure up- on one Horace Bull, B.A., their form-master. Little though he knew it, Bull had been a marked man for some weeks. The Czar of all theRussias himself could hardly have occupied a more prominent position in the black books of Anarchy in general. To-day he had taken a step nearer his doom by clouting one Nixon minor, Vice-President of the Anarchists, on the side of the head. It was during the geography hour. Mr. Bull had asked Nixon to define awatershed. Nixon, who upon the previous evening had been too 114 BOYS much occupied with his duties as Vice-Presid- ent of the Anarchists to do much Prep, had replied with a seraphic smile that a watershed was "a place to shelter from the rain." As an improvised effort the answer seemed to him an extremely good one; but Mr. Bull had prompt- ly left his seat, addressed Nixon as a "cheeky little hound," and committed the assault com- plained of. " This sort of thing," observed Rumford tertius, the President, "can't go on. What shall we do?" "We might saw one of the legs of his chair through," suggested one of the members. "Who's goingto do it?" inquired the Presid- ent. "We'll only get slain." Silence fell, as it usually does when theques- tion of belling the cat arrives at the practical stage. "We could report him to the Head," said another voice. "We mis^ht oret him the sack for assault — even quod! We could show Nixon's head to him. It would be a sound scheme to make it bleed a bit before we took him up." The speaker fingered a heavy ruler lovingly, but Mr. Nixon edged coldly out of reach. "Certainly," agreed the President, "Bashan 115 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE ought to be stopped knocking us about in form." "I'd rather have one clout over the earhole," observed an Anarchist who so far had not spoken, "than be taken alongtoBashan's study and given six of the best. That is what the re- sult would be. Hallo, Stinker, what's that?" The gentleman addressed — a morose, un- clean, and spectacled youth of scientific procliv- ities — was the latest recruit to the gang. He had been admitted at the instance of Master Nixon, who had pointed out that it would be a good thing to enrol as amember some one who understood "Chemistry and Stinks generally." He couldbeused for the manufacture of bombs, and so on. Stinker had produced from his pocket a corked test-tube, tightlypackedwithsome dark substance. "What's that?" inquired the Anarchists in chorus. (They nearly always talked in chorus.) "It's anewkind of explosive, "replied the in- ventor with great pride. "I hope it's better than that new kind of stinkpot you invented for choir-practice," re- marked a cynic from the corner of the study. "That was a rotten fraud, if you like! It smelt ii6 BOYS more like Hly-of-the-valley than any decent stink." "Dry up, Ashley minor!" rejoined the in- ventor indignantly. "Thisis a jolly good bomb. I made it to-day in the Lab, while The Badger was trying to put out a bonfire at the other end." "Where does the patent come in?" inquired the President judicially. "The patent is that it doesn't go off all at once." "We know that!" observed the unbelieving Ashley. "Do you chuck it or light it?" asked Nixon. "You light it. At least, you shove it into the fire, and it goes off in about ten minutes. You see the idea? If Bashan doesn't see us put any- thing into the form-room fire, he will think it was something wrong with the coal." The Anarchists, much interested, murmured approval. "Good ^g^y observed the President. "We'll put it into the fireto-morrowmorningbefore he comes in, and after we have been at work ten minutes or so the thing will go off and blow the whole place to smithereens." "Golly!" gobbled the Anarchists. 117 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE "What about us, Stinker?" inquired a cau- tious conspirator. "Shan't we get damaged?" Stinker waved away the objection. "We shall know it's coming," he said; "so we shall be able to dodge. But it will be a nasty jar for Bashan." There was a silence, full of rapt contempla- tion of to-morrow morning. Then the discord- ant voice of Ashley minor broke in. "I don't believe it will work. All your inven- tions are putrid. Stinker." "I'll fight you!" squealed the outraged sci- entist, bounding to his feet. "I expect it'll turn out to be a fire-exting- uisher, or something like that," pursued the truculent Ashley. "Hold the bomb," said Stinkerto thePresid- ent, "while I " "Sit down," urged the other Anarchists, drawing in their toes. "There's no room here. Ashley minor, chuck it!" "It won't work," muttered Ashley doggedly. Suddenlya brilliant idea came upon Stinker. "Won't work, won't it?" he screamed. "All right,then! We'll shove it into thisfire now, and you see if it doesn't work!" Among properly constituted Anarchistic ii8 BOYS Societies it is not customary, when the efficacy of a bomb is in dispute, to employ the members as a corpus vile. But the young do not fetter themselves with red-tape of this kind. With one accord Stinker's suggestion was acclaimed, and the bomb was thrust into the glowing coals of Rumford's study fire. The brotherhood, herded together within a few feet of the grate — the a- partment measured seven feet by six — breath- ed hard and waited expectantly. Five minutes passed — then ten. "It ought to be pretty ripe now," said the in- ventor anxiously. The President, who was sitting next the win- dow, prudently muffled his features in the cur- tain. The others drew back as far as they could — about six inches — and waited. Nothing happened. "I am sure it will work all right," declared the inventor desperately. "Perhaps the temp- erature of this fire " He knelt down, and began to blow upon the flickering coals. There was a long and triumph- ant sniff from Master Ashley. "I said it was only a rotten stinkp — " he be- gan. BANG! 119 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE There is a special department of Providence which watches over the youthful chemist. The explosion killed no one, though it blew the coals out of the grate and the pictures off the walls. The person who suffered most was the in- ventor. He was led, howling but triumphant, to the Sanatorium. "Luckily, sir," explained Rumford to Mr. Bull a few days later, in answer to a kindly inquiry as to the extent of the patient's injur- ies, "it was only his face." ■i-t-v^l'-) ^Av.^epw THE NIPPER CHAPTER FIVE THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE CHAPTER FIVE THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE I ONE OF THE MOST PATHETIC spectacles in the world is that of grown-up per- sons legislating for the young. Listening to these, we are led to suspect that a certain sec- tion of the human race — the legislative section — must have been born into the world aged about forty, sublimely ignorant of the require- ments, limitations, and point of view of infancy and adolescence. In what attitude does the ordinary educa- tional expert approach educational problems? This question induces another. What is an ed- ucational expert? The answer is simple. Practically every- body. All parents are educational experts: we have only to listen to a new boy's mother laying down to a Headmaster the lines upon which his school should be conducted to realise that. So are all politicians: we discover this fact by following the debates in the House of Com- mons. So are the clergy; for they themselves have told us so. So, presumably, are the writers of manuals and text-books. So are the dear old gentlemen who come down to present prizes 123 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE upon Speech Day. Practically the only section of humanity to whom the title is denied are the people who have to teach. It is universally ad- mitted by the experts — it is their sole point of agreement — that no schoolmaster is capable of forming a correct judgment of the education- al needs of his charges. He is hidebound, "groovy";he cannot break away from tradition. "What can you expect from a tripe-dresser," inquire the experts in chorus, "but a eulogy of the stereotyped method of dressing tripe?" So, ignoring the teacher, the experts lay their heads — one had almost said their loggerheads — together, and evolve terrific schemes of educ- ation. Each section sets about its task in char- acteristic fashion. The politician, with his nat- ural acumen, gets down to essentials at once. "The electorate of this country," he says to himself, "do not care one farthing dip about Education as such. Now, howcan we galvanise Education into a vote-catching machine.'*" He reflects. "Ah! I have it!" he cries presently. ''Relig- ion! That'll ginger them up!" So presently an Education Bill is introduced into the House of Commons. Nine out of its ten clausesdealpurely with educational matters 124 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE and are passed without a division; and the intel- lectual teeth of the House fasten greedily upon Clause Number Ten, which deals with the half- hour per day which is to be set aside for relig- ious instruction. The question arises: What at- titude are the youth of the country to be taught to adopt towards their Maker? Are they to praise H im from a printed page, ormerely listen to their teacher doing so out of his own head? Are they to learn the Catechism? Is the Lord's Prayer to be regarded as an Anglican or Non- conformist orison? Everybody is most conciliatory at first. "A short passage of Scripture," suggest the Anglicans; "aCollect, mayhap; and afew words of helpful instruction — eh? Something quite simple and non-contentious, like that?" "Weareafraidthatthatissectarian religion," object the Nonconformists. "A simple chapter from the Bible, certainly — maybe a hymn. But no dogmatic teaching, if you please!" "But that is no religion at all!" explain the Anglicans, with that quickness to appreciate another's point of view which has always dis- tinguished the Church of England. After a littlefurther unpleasantness all round, a deadlock is reached. Then,withthat magnifi- 125 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE cent instinct for compromise which character- ises British statesmanship, another suggestion is put forward. Why not permit all the clergy of the various denominations to enter the School and minister to the requirements of their vari- ous young disciples? "An admirable notion," says everybody. But difficulties arise. Are this heavenly host to be admitted one by one, or in a body? If the former, how long will it take to work through the entire rota, and when will the ordinary work of the day be expected to begin? If the latter, is the School to be divided, for devotional purposes, into spiritual water-tight compartments by an arrangement of movable screens, or what? So the battle goes on. By this time, as the astute politician has foreseen, every one has forgotten that this is an Education Bill, and both sides are hard at work manufacturing party capital out of John Bull's religious sus- ceptibilities. Presently the venue is shifted to the country, where the electorate are asked up- on a thousand platforms if the Church which in- augurated Education in our land, andbuiltmost of the schools, is to be ousted from her ancient sphere of beneficentactivity; and upon a thous- and more, whether the will of the People or the Peers is to prevail. (It simplifies politics very 126 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE greatly to select a good reliable shibboleth and employ it on «// occasions.) Finally the Bill is thrown out or talked out, and the first nine clauses perish with it. That is the political and clerical way of deal- ing with Education. The parent's way we will set forth in another place. The writer of manuals and text-books con- cerns himself chiefiy with the right method of unfolding his subject to the eager eyes of the expectant pupil. "There is a right way and a wrong way," he is careful to explain; "and if you present your subject in the wrong way the pupil will derive no educational htn&'CW. from it whatever." At present there is a great craze for what is known as "practical" teaching. For instance, in our youth we were informed, ad nauseaiUy that there is a certain fixed relation between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, the relation being expressed by a mysterious Greek symbol pronounced "pie." The modern expert scouts this system alto- gether. No imaginary pieforhim! He is a pract- ical man. Take several ordinaiy tin canisiei's, he com- mands, apiece ofstiHng, and a ruler; and with- out any other aids ascertain the circumference 127 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE a7id diameter of these cmiisters. Work out in each case the numericalrelation betiveen the cir- cu7nference and diameter. What conclusion do you draw from the result? We can only draw one, and that is that no man who has never been a boy should be per- mitted to write books of instruction for the young. For what would the "result" be? Imag- ine a company of some thirty or forty healthy happy boys, each supplied gratuitously with several tin canisters and a ruler, set down for the space of an hour and practically challenged to create a riot. Alexander's Rag-Time Band would be simply nowhere! As for the last gang of experts — the dear old gentlemen who come down to give away prizes on Speech Day — they do not differ much as a class. They invariably begin by expressing a wish that they had enjoyed such educational facilities as these in their young days. "You live in a palace, boys!" announces the old gentleman. "I envy you." (Murmurs of "Liar!" from the very back row.) After that the speaker communicates to his audience a discovery which has been commun- icated to the same audience by different speak- ers since the foundation of the School — to this 128 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE effect, that Education (derivation given here, with a false quantity thrown in) is a "draw- ing out" and not a "putting-in." Why this fact should so greatly excite Speech Day orators is not known, but they seldom fail to proclaim it with intense and parental enthusiasm. Then, after a few apposite remarks upon the subject oimens sana ijt corpore sano — a flight of orig- inality received with murmurs of anguish by hisexperiencedyounghearers — the old gentle- man concludes with a word of comfort to "the less successful scholars." It is a physical im- possibility, he points out, when there is only one prize, for all the boys in the class to win it; and adds that his experience of life has been that not every boy who wins prizes at school becomes Prime Minister in after years. All of which is very helpful and illuminating, but does not solve the problem of Education to anygreat extent. So much for the experts. Their name is Le- gion, for they are many, and they speak with various and dissonant voices. But they have one thing in common. All their schemes of ed- ucation are founded upon the same amazing fallacy — namely, that a British schoolboy is a person who desires to be instructed. That is 129 I LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE the rock upon which they all split. That is why- it was suggested earlier in these pages that ed- ucational experts are all born grown-up. Let us clear our minds upon this point once and for all. In nine cases out of ten a school- master's task is not to bring light to the path of an eager, groping disciple, but to drag a reluct- ant and refractory young animal up the slopes of Parnassus by the scruff of his neck. The schoolboy's point of view is perfecdy reason- able and intelligible. "I am lazy and scatter- brained," he says in effect. "I have not as yet developed the power of concentration, and I have no love of knowledcre for its own sake. Still, I have no rooted objection to education, as such, and I suppose I must learn something in order to earn a living. But I am much too busy, as a growing animal, to have any energy left for intellectual enterprise. It is the business of my teacher to teach me. To put the matter coarsely, he is paid for it. I shall not offer him effusive assistance in his labours, but if he suc- ceeds in keeping me up to the collar against my will, I shall respect him for it. If he does not, I shall take full advantaore of the circumstance." That is the immemorial attitude of the grow- ing boy. When he stops growing, conscience 130 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE and character begin to develop, and he works because he feels he ought to or because he has got into the habit of doing so, and not merely because he must. But until he reaches that age it is foolish to frame theories of education based upon the idea that a boy is a person anxious to be educated. Let us see how such a theory works, say, in the School laboratory. A system which will ex- tract successful results from a class of boys en- gaged in practical chemistry will stand any test we care to apply to it. Successful supervision of School science is the most ticklish business that a master can be called upon to undertake. We will follow our friend Brown minor to the laboratory, and witness him at his labours. He takes his place at the working bench, and sets out his apparatus — test-tubes, beakers, and crucibles. He lights all the bunsen burners within reach. Presently he is provided with a sample of some crystalline substance and bid- den to ascertain its chemical composition. "How shall I begin, sir?" he asks respect- fully. "Apply the usual tests: I told you about them yesterday in the lecture-room. Take small por- tions of the substance: ascertain if they are sol- 131 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE uble. Observe their effect on litmus. Test them with acid, and note whether a gas is evolved. And so on. That will keep you going for the present. I'll come round to you againpresently." And off goes the busymaster to help another young scientist in distress. Brown minor gets to work. He takes a por- tion of the crystalline substance and heats it red-hot, in the hope that it will explode; and treats anotherwith concentrated sulphuric acid in order to stimulate it into some interestinor performance. At the same time he maintains a running fire oisotto voce conversation and chaff with his neighbours — a laboratory offers oppor- tunities for social intercourse undreamed of in a form-room — and occasionally leaves his own task in order to assist, or more often to impede, the labours of another. When he returns to his place he not infrequently finds that his last de- coction (containing the balance of the crystal- line substance) has boiled over, and is now ly- ing in a simmering pool upon the bench, or that another chemist has called and appropriated the vessel in which the experiment was pro- ceeding, emptying its contents down the sink. Not a whit disturbed, he fills up the time with seme work of independent research, such as 132 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE the manufacture of a Roman candle or the pre- paration of a sample of nitro-glycerine. At the end of the hour he reports progress to his in- structor, expressing polite regret at having failed as yet to solve the riddle of the crystal- line substance; and returns whistling to his form-room, where he jeers at those of his com- panions who have spent the morning compos- ing Latin Verses. No, it is a mistake to imagine that the young of the human animal hungers and thirsts after knowledore. Arthur Robinson, B.A., of whom previous mention has been made, soon discovered this fact; or rather, soon recognised it; for he was not much more than a boy himself. He was an observant and efficient young man, and pres- ently he made further discoveries. The first was that boys, for teaching pur- poses, can be divided into three classes: (A) Boys whose conduct is uniformly good, and whose industry is continuous. Say fifteen per cent. For example, Master Mole. He was invari- ably punctual; his work was always well pre- pared; and he endured a good deal of what LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE toilers in another walk of life term "peaceful picketing" for contravening one of the funda- mental laws of schoolboy trades-unionism by continuing to work when the master was out of the room. {B) Boys whose conduct is uniformly good — except perhaps in the matter of surreptitious refreshment — but who will only work so long as they are watched. Say sixty per cent. Such a one was Master Gibbs. By long prac- tice he had acquired the art of looking sup- remely alert and attentive when in reality his thoughts were at the back of beyond. When engaged in writing work his pen would move across the page with mechanical regularity, what time both eyes were fixed upon a page torn from a comic paper and secreted under his manuscript. He gave no trouble whatever, but was a thorn in the flesh of any conscientious teacher. (C) Boys who are not only idle, but mis- chievous. Say twenty-five per cent. There was Page, whose special line was the composition of comic answers to questions. Some of his efforts were really praiseworthy; but like all adventurous spirits he went too far at last. The rod descended upon the day when 134 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE he translated ccsridece puppes "Skye terriers"; and thereafter Master Page joked no more. But it was a privation for both boy and master. Then there was Chugleigh, whose strong suit was losing books. He was a vigorous and muscular youth, more than a little suspected of being a bully; but he appeared to be quite in- capable of protecting his own property. Some- times he grew quite pathetic about it. He gave Mr. Robinson to understand, almostwith tears, that his books were at the mercy of any small boy who cared to snatch them from him. Cer- tainly he never had any in form. "I see you require State protection," said Arthur Robinson one morning, when Chug- leigh put in an appearance without a single book of any kind, charged with a rambling legend about his locker and a thief in the night. He scribbled an order. "Take this to the librar- ian, and get a set of new books." Mr. Chugleigh, much gratified — the new books would be paid for by an unsuspicious parent and could be sold second-hand at the end of the term — departed, presently to return with five new volumes under his arm. "Write your name in them all," said Mr. Robinson briskly. 135 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Chugleigh obeyed, as slowly as possible. "Now bring all the books here." Chugleigh did so, a little puzzled. "For the future," announced Mr. Robinson, unmasking his batteries, "in order to give you a fair chance in this dishonest world, you shall have two sets of the books in use in this form. I will keep one set for you. The others you may keep or lose as you like, but whenever you turn up here without a book I shall be happy to hire you out the necessary duplicates, at a charge of threepence per book per hour. This morning you will require a Caesar, a grammar, and a Latin Prose book. That will be nine- pence. Will you pay cash, or shall I knock it off your pocket-money at the end of the week?" He locked up the remaining two books in his desk, and the demoralised Chugleigh re- sumed his seat amid loud laughter. II The pursuit of knowledge, like the pursuit of other precious things in life, occasionally leads its votaries into tortuous ways. Cribbing, for instance. All boys crib more or less. It is not suggest- 136 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE ed that the more shiful forms of this species of self-help are universal, or even common. But the milder variations are practised by all, with the possible exception of the virtuous fifteen per cent, previously mentioned. The average boy's attitude towardscribbing is precisely the same as his attitude towards other types of misdemeanour: that is to say, he regards it as one of these things which is per- fectly justifiable if his form-master is such a weakling as to permit it. It is all part of the et- ernal duel between the teacher and the taught. "Do I scribble English words in the margin of my Xenophon?" asks the boy. " Certainly. Do I surreptitiously produce loose pages of Euclid from my pocket and copy them out, when I am really supposed to have learned them by heart? Of course. Why should I, through sheer excess of virtue, handicap my- self in the race to escape the punishmentof fail- ure, simply because the highly qualified expert who is paid to supervise my movements fails in his plain duty?" So he cribs. But his attitude towards the matter is quite consistent, for when he rises to a position of trust and authority in the school, he ceases to ^Z7 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE crib — at least flagrantly. The reason is that he is responsible now not so much to a master as to his own sense of right and wrong; and he has made the discovery which all of us make in the end — that the little finger of our conscience is often thicker than the hardest taskmaster's loins. There are two forms of cribbing, and school opinion differentiates very sharply between them. There is cribbing to gain marks, and there is cribbing to save trouble or avoid pun- ishment. The average boy, who is in the main an honest individual, holds aloof from the form- er practice because he feels that it is unsports- manlike — rather like stealing, in fact; but he usually acquiesces without a struggle in the conveniences offered by the second. For in- stance, he refrains from furtively copying from his neighbour, for he regards that as the mean- est kind of brain-sucking. (If the neighbour pushes his paper towards him with a friendly smile, that of course is a different matter.) But he is greatly addicted to a more venial crime known as "paving." The paver prepares his translation in the orthodox manner, but when- ever he has occasion to look up a word in a lex- icon he scribbles its meaning in the margin of 138 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE the text, or, more frequently, just over the word itself, to guard against loss of memory on the morrow. Much less common is the actual use of cribs — the publications of the eminent house of Bohn, and other firms of less reliability and repute. Most boys have sufficient honesty and common sense to realise that getting up work with a translation is an unprofitable business, though at the same time they are often unable to resist the attractions of such labour-saving appliances. Their excuse is always the same, and it is not a bad one. "If the School Library," they say, "contains Jowett's Thucydides and Jebb's Sophocles for all the Sixth to consult, why should not we, in our humblerwalkof scholarship, avail ourselves of the occasional assistance of Kiddem's Keys to the Classics?" So much for the casual cribber. The profes- sional — the chronic — exercises an ingenuity, and devotes an amount of time and labour to the perfecting of his craft which, if applied dir- ectly to his allotted task, would bring him out at the top of his form. In a little periodical en- titled The Light 6^r(?(?w, published in Cambridge thirty years ago by a young Johnian named 139 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Hilton (who might have rivalled Calverley himself had he lived to maturity), we have a bril- liant little portrait of the professional cribber, executed in the style of The Heathen Chinee. It is called The Heathen Passee. In the crown of his cap Were the Furies and Fates, And an elegant map Of the Dorian States: And we found in his palms, which were hollow, What are common in palms — that is dates. But he is a rare bird, the confirmed cribber, with his algebraical formulae written on his finger-nails, and history notes attached to un- reliable elastic arrangements which shoot up his sleeve out of reach at critical moments. The ordinary boy does not crib unless he is pressed for time or in danger of summary execution. He usually limits his enterprises to co-operat- ive preparation — that is to say, the splitting up an evening's work into sections, each section being prepared by one boy and translated to the other members of the syndicate afterwards — to the gleaning of discarded lines and super- fluous tags from the rough copies of cleverer boys' Latin Verses, and to the acceptance of a 140 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE whispered "prompt" from a good Samaritan when badly cornered by a question. But we may note that cribbing is not confm- ed to schoolboys. The full perfection of the art is only attained in the pass-examinations of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridcfe. Then all considerations of conscience or sportsman- ship are flung aside, and the cribber cribs, not to gain distinction or outstrip his rivals, but to get over a troublesome fence by hook or crook and have done with it .There was once a Fresh- man at Cambridge whose name began with M. This accident of nomenclature placed him dur- ing his Little Go examination in the next seat to a burly young man whom he recognised with a thrill of awe as thePresidentof theC.U.B.C., whose devotion to aquatic sports had so far preventedhim from clearingthe academic fence just mentioned, and who now, at the beginning of his third year, was entering,in company with a collection of pink-faced youths fresh from school, upon his ninth attempt to satisfy the examiners in Part One of the Previous Exam- ination. Our friend, havingcompleted his first paper, quitted the Senate House and returned to his rooms, to fortify himself with luncheon before 141 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE the next. During the progress of that meal a strange gyp called upon hhn, and proffered a note, mysteriously. "From Mr. M , sir, "he said, mentioning the name of the Freshman's exalted neighbour in the examination room. The Freshman opened the note with tremb- ling fingers. Was it possible that he had been singled out as a likely oar already? . • • • • • The note was brief, but to the point. Itsaid: ''De7'e Sir, Please write larger. Yours truly, J.M ." Ill However, this is a digression. Let us return for the last time to Arthur Robinson's three divisions of youthful humanity. Class A he found extraordinarily dull. They requiredlittle instruction and no supervision; in fact, they were self-educators of the most automatic type. Class B were a perpetual wearinessto the flesh. They gave no trouble, but their apathy was ap- palling. However, a certain amount of enter- tainment could beextractedfromstudyingtheir 142 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE methods of evading work or supplying them- selves with refreshment. There was the ineeni- ous device of Master Jobling.for instance. Mr. Robinson noted that this youth was in the habit, during lecture-time, of sitting with his elbows resting on his desk and his chin buried in his hands, his mouth, or a corner thereof, be- ing covered by his fingers. His attitude was one of rapt attention, and his eyes were fixed un- winkingly upon the lecturer. Such virtue, com- ing from Master Jobling, roused unworthy sus- picions in the breast of Arthur Robinson. He observed that although the youth's attitude was one of rigid immobility, his facial muscles were agitated from time to time by a slight convuls- ive movement. Accordingly, one day, he step- ped swiftly across the room, and taking IMaster Jobling by the hair, demanded an explanation. It was forthcoming immediately, in the form of a long thin indiarubber tube, of the baby's-bot- tle variety; one end of which was held between Master Jobling's teeth, while the other com- municated, via his right sleeve, with a bottle of ginger-beer secreted somewhere in the recesses of his person. From this reservoir he had been refreshing himself from time to time by a pro- cess of suction. 143 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Mr Robinson, who believed in making the punishment fit the crime, purchased a baby's "soother" from the chemist's, and condemned JobHng to put it to its rightful use during every school-hour for the rest of the week. He was only allowed to remove it from his lips in order to answer a question. Class C, the professional malefactors, Mr. Robinson found extremely attractive. They ap- peared to possess all the character and quite half the brains of the form. But this is a permanent characteristic ofthe malefactor, and is most dis- couraofinof to the virtuous. Once, early in his career, Robinson was badly caueht. On enterinor his form-room one winter evening, when darkness had fallen and the gas was ablaze, his eye fell upon the great plate- glass window which filled the south wall of the room. Form-room windows are not usually sup- plied with blinds, and this window stood black and opaque against the darkness of night. Right in the centre of the glass was a great white star, which radiated out in all directions in a series of splintered cracks. Mr. Robinson knew well what had happened. Some one hadhurled a stone inkpot againstthe window. Only last week he had had occasion 144 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE to discourage target-practice of this kind by ex- emplary measures. He addressed the crowded form angrily. "Who broke that window?" "It is not broken, sir," volunteered a polite voice. Arthur Robinson was a young man who did not suffer impudence readily. "This is not precisely the moment, "he rapp- ed out, "for nice distinctions. The window is cracked, starred, splintered — anything you like. I wantthenameof the boy who damaged it. At once, please!" Silence. Yet it was not the sullen, obstinate silence which prevails when boys are endeav- ourino-to screen one another. Onewouldalmost have called it silent satisfaction. But Arthur Robinson was too angryandnot sufficiently ex- perienced to note the distinction. Naming each boy by name, he demanded of him whether or no he had broken the window. Each boy polite- ly denied the impeachment. One or two were courteous to the point of patronage. Suddenly, from the back bench, came a faint chuckle. Arthur Robinson, consciousof a sickly feeling down his spine, rose to his feet and approached the splintered window. The form 145 K LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE watched himwith breathless joy. Hot faced, he rubbed one of the rays of the star with his fing- ers. It promptly disappeared. The window was undamaged. The star was artistically executed in white chalk. Malefactors have their weak spots, too. One afternoon Mr. Robinsonheldan "extra." That is to say, he brought in a body of sinful youths, composed of the riff-raff of his form, for a period of detention, and set them a stiff im- position to write out. About half-way through the weary hour he produced from his locked desk an old cigarette-box containing sundry coins. Laying these out before him, he pro- ceeded to count them. The perfunctory scratch- ing of pens ceased, and the assembled company, most of whom had been unwilling contributors to the fund under review, gazed with lack-lus- tre eyes at their late property. **Fourteen-and-nine," announced Mr. Rob- inson cheerfully. 'That is the sum which I have collected from you this term in return for the loan of such useful articles as pens and blotting-paper. I know my charges are high; but then I am a monopolist to people who are foolish enousfh to come in here without their proper equipment. Again, though threepence 146 THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE may seem a fancy price for a small piece of blotting--paper, it is better to pay threepence for a piece of blotting-paper than use your handkerchief, which is worth a shilling. How- ever, the total is fourteen-and-nine. Whatshall we do with it? Christmas is only a fortnightoff, and I propose, with your approval, to send this contribution of yours to a society which pro- vides Christmas dinnersfor peoplewho areless lavishly provided for in that respect than our- selves. If it interests you at all, I will get the Society's full title and address and read them to you." Arthur Robinson was out of the room for perhaps three minutes. When he returned he was immediately conscious, from the guilty stillness which reigned, and the self-conscious air of detachment with which everybody was writing, that something was amiss. He glanced sharply at the little pile of money on his desk. It had grown from fourteen-and-ninepence to twenty-seven-and-sixpence. Life is full of compensations — even for schoolmasters. CHAPTER SIX SCHOOL STORIES CHAP. SIX SCHOOL STORIES ONE OF THE MOST STRIKING FEA- tures of the present-day cult of The Child isthe fact that whereas school stories were formerly written to be read by schoolboys, they are now written to be read — and are read with avidity — by grown-up persons. This revolution has produced some abiding results. In the first place, school stories are much better written than they were. Second- ly, a certain proportion of the limelight has been shifted from the boy to the master, with the result that school life is now presented in a more true and corporate manner. Thirdly, school stories have become less romantic, less sentimental, more coldly psychological. They are tinged with adult worldliness, and, too often, with adult pessimism. As literature they are an enormous advance upon their predeces- sors; but what they have gained in savoirfaire they appear to have lost mj'oie de vivre. Let us enter upon the ever-fascinating task of comparing the old with the new. To represent the ancients we will take that immortal giant, Zb;;^^r^w;2. Withhim, as they say in legal circles, Eric. Many people will say, and they will be right, that Tom Brown would make a much braver show for the old brisfade LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE if put forward alone, minus his depressing com- panion. But we must bear in mind that it takes more than one book to represent a literary era. We will therefore call upon Tom Brown and Eric Williams between them to represent the schoolboy of a bygone age. Most of us make Tom Brown's acquaint- ance in early youth. We fortify ourselves with a course of him before going to school for the first time — at the age of twelve or thereabouts — and we quickly realise, even at that tender age, that there were giants in those days. Have you ever considered Tom Brown's first day at school? No? Then observe. He was called at half-past two in the morning, at the Peacock Inn, Islington, and by three o'clock was off as an "outside" upon the Tally- Ho Coach, in the small hours of a November morn- ing, on an eighty-mile drive to Rugby. He arrived at his destination just in time to take dinner in Hall, chaperoned by his new friend East; and then, rt^/^r^ Old Brooke, plunged into that historic football match between the Schoolhouse and the School — sixty on one side and two hundred on the other. Modern gladi- ators who consider "two thirty-fives" a pretty stiff period of play will be interested to notethat 152 rHt FAG : SIC vos SON vmu-- SCHOOL STORIES this battle raged for three hours, and that the Schoolhouse were filled with surprise and rap- tureatachievinga goal after only sixty minutes' play. ("A goal in an hour! Such a thing had not been done in a Schoolhouse match these five years.") In the course of the game Tom was knocked over while stopping a rush, and as the result of spendingsome minutes at the bottom of a heap of humanity composed of a goodly proportion of his two hundred opponents, was finally haul- ed out "a motionless body." However, he re- covered sufficiently to be able to entertainEast to tea and sausages in the Lower Fifth School. After a brief interval for ablution came supper, followed by a free-and-easy musical entertain- ment in the Schoolhouse hall, which included singing, a good deal of indiscriminate beer- drinking, and thefamous speech ofOld Brooke. Tom, it is hardly necessary to say, obliged with a song — "with much applause." Then came prayers, and Tom's first glimpse of the mighty Arnold. (We may note here that a new boy of the old days was not apparently troubled by tiresome regulations upon the sub- ject of reporting himself to his housemaster on arrival.) Even then Tom's first day from home 153 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE was not over, for before retiring to his slumber he was tossed in a blanket three times. Not a bad record for a boy of twelve! And yet we flat- ter ourselves that we live a strenuous life. Customs have changed in many respects since Tom Brown's time. Public schoolboys of eighteen or nineteen do not now wear beards, neither do they carry pea-shooters. Our ath- letes array themselves for battle in the shortest of shorts and the thinnest of jerseys. The parti- cipators in the three-hour Schoolhouse match merely took off their jackets and hung them upon the railings or trees. We are told, how- ever, with some pride, that those who meant real work added their hats, waistcoats, neck- handkerchiefs, and braces! What of those who did not? Again, a captain does not nowadays "administer toco" upon the field of battle to subordinates who have failed to prevent the enemy from scoring a try. Again, no master of to-day would dare to admit to a boy that he "does not understand" cricket, or for that mat- ter draw parallels between cricket and Aristo- phanes for the benefit of an attentive audience in a corner of the playing-field during a school match. But we accept all these incidents in Tom 154 SCHOOL STORIES Brown without question. We never dream of doubting that they occurred, or could have oc- curred. Arthur, we admit, is a rare bird, but he is credible. Even East's religious difficulties, or rather his anxiety to discuss them, are made convincing. The reason is that Toj?i Brown contains nothinjr that is alien from human nat- ure — schoolboy human nature. It is the real thing all through. Across the ages Tom Brown of Rugby speaks to Brown minor (also, poss- ibly, of Rugby) with the voice of a brother. De- tails may have changed, but the essentials are the same. "How different," we say, "but oh, how like!" Not so at all times with Eric, or Little by Little. Here we miss the robust philistinism of the eternal schoolboy, and the atmosphere of reality which pervades Tom Brown. We feel that we are not living 2i. story, but merely read- ing it. Eric does not ring true. We suspect the reverend author — to employ an expression which his hero would never have used — of "talking through his hat." None of us desire to scoff at true piety or moral loftiness, but we feel instinctively that in Eric these virtues are somewhat indecently paraded. The schoolboy is essentiallya matter- 155 LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE of-fact animal, and extremely reticent. He is not usually concerned with the state of his soul, and never under any circumstances anxious to discuss the matter; and above all he abhors the preacher and the prig. E^Hc, or Little by Little is priggish from start to finish. Compare, for instance, Eric's father and Squire Brown. Here are the Squire's meditations as to the advice he should give Tom before saying good-bye: "I won't tell him to read his Bible, and love and serve God; if he don't do that for his mother's sake and teaching, he won't for mine. Shall I go into the sort of temptations he'll meet with? No, I can't do that. Never do for an old fellow to go into such things with a boy. He won't understand me. Do him more harm than good, ten to one. Shall I tell him to mind his work, and say he's sent to school to make himself a good scholar? Well, but he isn't sent to school for that — at any rate, not for that mainly. I don't care a straw for Greek particles, or the digamraa; no more does his mother. What is he sent to school for? Well, partly because he wanted so to go. If he'll only turn out a brave, helpful, truth- telling Englishman, and a gentle- man, and a Christian, that's all I want." Now compare Eric's father in one of his pub- lic appearances. That worthy but tiresome gentleman suddenly descends upon the bully Barker, engaged in chastising Eric. 156 SCHOOL STORIES "There had been an unobserved spectator of the whole scene, in the person of Mr. Wilh'anis himself, and it was his strong hand that now gripped Barker's shoulder. He was greatly respected by the boys, who all knew his tall handsome figure by sight, and he fre- quently stood a quiet and pleased observer of their games. The boys in the playground came crowding round, and Barker in vain struggled to escape. Mr. Williams held him firml}', and said in a calm voice, *I have just seen you treat one of your schoolfellows with the grossest violence. It makes me blush for you, Roslyn boys,' he continued, turning to the group that surrounded him, 'that you can even for a moment stand by unmoved, and see such things done. Now; mark; it makes no difference that the boy who has been hurt is my own son; I would have punished this scoun- drel whoever it had been, and I shall punish him now.' With these words, he lifted the riding-whip which he happened to be carrying, and gave Barker by far the severest castigation he had ever undergone. He be- laboured him till his sullen obstinacy gave way to a roar for mercy, and promises never so to offend again. "At this crisis he flung the boy from him with a 'phew' of disgust, and said, 'I give nothing for your word; but if ever you do bully in this way again, and I see or hear of it, 3'our present punishment shall be a trifle to what I shall then administer. At present, thank me for not informing j'our master.' So saying, he made Barker pick up the cap, and, turning awa}', walked home with Eric leaning on his arm." LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE Poor Eric! What chance can a boy have had whose egregious parent insisted upon outrag- ing every canon of schoolboy law on his behalf? We are not altogether surprised to read, a little later, that though from that day Eric was never troubled with personal violence from Barker, "rancour smouldered deep in the heart of the baffled tyrant." Then, as already noted, the atmosphere and incidentsof ^r/^ fail to carry conviction. Mak- ing every allowance for the eccentricities of people who lived sixty years ago, the modern boysimplyrefusestocreditthe idea of members of a "decent" school indulging in "a superior titter" when one of their number performed the everyday feat of breaking down in translation. He finds it hard to believe that Owen (who is labelled with damning enthusiasm "a boy of mental superiority") would really report an- other boy for kicking him, and quite incredible that after the kicker had been flogged the virtu- ous Owen should "have the keen mortification of seeing 'Owen is a sneak' written up all about the walls." As for Eric and Russell, sitting on a green bank beside the sea and "looking into one another's eyes and silently promising that they will be loving friends for ever" — the spect- 158 SCHOOL STORIES acle makes the undemonstrative young Briton physically unwell. Again, no schoolboy ever called lighted candles "superfluous abundance of nocturnal illumination"; and noschoolmaster under any circumstances ever "laid a gentle hand" upon a schoolboy's head. A hand, poss- ibly, but not a gentle one. Lower School boys are not given ^schylus to read; and if they were they would not waste their play-hours discussing the best rendering of a particularly knotty passage occurring in a lesson happily over and done with. If the first ha.\( of Brzc is overdrawn and im- probable, the second is rank melodrama — and bad melodrama at that. The trial scene is im- possibly theatrical, and Russell's illness and death-bed deliverances are an outrage on schoolboy reserve. Listen again to one Montagu, a sixth-form boy who has caught a gang of dormitory roys- terers preparing an apple-pie bedfor him. Does he call them "cheeky young swine," and knock their heads together? No! " 'By heavens, this is foo bad!' he exclaimed, stamp- ing his foot with anger. 'What have I ever done to 3'ou young blackguards that you should treat me LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE thus? Have I ever been a bully? Have I ever harmed one of you? And/