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A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE 
 NEW REVOLUTION 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. IS. net 
 
 A DIALOGUE 
 
 Fcap. 8vo. IS. net 
 
 '^^ This dialogue deals in the manner 
 of Socrates with the question of the unity 
 of the Chtcrch. 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 
 
A DAY 
 AT DULWICH 
 
 BY 
 
 A. H. GILKES 
 
 MASTER OF DULWICH COLLEGE 
 
 ^ or THF ^\ 
 
 UNIVERSITY } 
 
 or J 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1905 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
:^i>j, 
 
 *- '^% 
 
 u 
 
 
 V 
 
or THF 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
 ^i ircf 
 
 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 
 
 DuLWiCH is dear to thousands of men and 
 boys. Thousands talk of it, write of it, and 
 hear of it with pleasure ; and perhaps every 
 view in which it is regarded arouses in them 
 a certain amount of interest because of the 
 contrast which it presents with their own. 
 
 Dulwich is, as most people know, a great 
 school, in which there are day-boys and 
 boarders — generally five or six times as many 
 day-boys as boarders : its Statutes thus order 
 the proportion ; for boarders hang more 
 closely together than day-boys, and where 
 they preponderate in numbers, since there is 
 always a tendency in regulations of all kinds 
 to accommodate themselves to the interest 
 of the stronger body, the interests of the 
 day-boys are often a little disregarded. The 
 existence of day-boys and boarders side by 
 
 15484? 
 
2 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 side, the former numerically far stronger than 
 the latter, is of great value to the school. 
 The presence of boarders is valuable as 
 strengthening that independent tone, and that 
 temper of generosity and public spirit which 
 should prevail at a school ; and the presence 
 and strength of the day-boys is valuable as 
 tempering the independence of the tone. At 
 a boarding school there is always a danger 
 that boys will form their own code of laws 
 and rules of life without any reference to 
 the opinions of their elders ; and obviously 
 boys are not able to do this with profit to 
 themselves. 
 
 Dulwich has grown to its present position 
 through curious stages. About three hundred 
 years ago, Edward AUeyn the actor acquired 
 a large estate in the south of what is now 
 London over the border, and provided on it 
 a College — for a warden, fellows, a chaplain, 
 alms-men and alms- women, and twelve poor 
 scholars. For this institution he asked for 
 a charter. But there was a delay of nine 
 years on the part of the Lord Chancellor — 
 Lord Chancellor Bacon — in granting this 
 charter ; no one knows exactly why ; but 
 in days when individuals have great power 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 3 
 
 and there is not much pubUcity in the con- 
 duct of business, many abuses occur. During 
 these nine years Alleyn's views altered. He 
 wished his school to be like Winchester and 
 Eton, and he applied to these schools for 
 information as to school arrangements. The 
 charter however was granted at last in the 
 terms of his original application, apparently 
 much to his annoyance, and the school 
 gradually settled itself to follow the charter. 
 This was its authorised guide of life until 
 in the middle of last century Parliament 
 arranged a new scheme for it. 
 
 At this time there was need, as there had 
 been often before, for some interference in 
 the affairs of Dulwich College, or rather 
 of AUeyn's College of God's Gift. The 
 Warden and Fellows were of little use in the 
 world ; they succumbed often, as many people 
 succumb, to the temptations which beset 
 wealth and idleness ; they were apt to be 
 self-indulgent, conceited, and quarrelsome, 
 narrow in their views and mean in their pro- 
 ceedings ; a poor set of people, well clad and 
 well fed, with a varnish of politeness, but 
 often somewhat rotten at heart. As to the 
 school, the fewer boys there were, the more 
 
4 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 comfortable were these misguided men ; and 
 naturally therefore there were very few boys 
 — poor scholars — poor in wealth, but poorer 
 in a truer sense, because of the incompetence 
 of their masters. Much to the good of every 
 one, the Commissioners interfered with this 
 unsatisfactory position ; and now began a 
 long wrangle, in which many men, whose 
 hearts were kind enough, lost their tempers, 
 and considered each other, very unjustly, 
 both knaves and fools. One set of men took 
 their stand upon the terms of the charter, 
 and demanded the estabhshment of a school 
 for poor scholars ; the other upon the second 
 intention of AUeyn, and demanded a school 
 like Eton and Winchester. Eventually the 
 dispute was settled by the establishment of 
 what was really needful ; the great revenues 
 of the estate were applied partly to the estab- 
 lishment of schools in poor neighbourhoods 
 in London, in parishes with which AUeyn 
 was closely connected, partly of a school 
 for poorer boys in Dulwich, and partly of 
 Dulwich College itself. There were never 
 wanting, during the long unholy wrangle 
 that took place concerning the matter, men 
 connected with the College who desired only 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 5 
 
 a school for poorer boys, whose education 
 they wished to be directed simply to the 
 earning of their daily wages ; and the presence 
 of this desire in some of the College autho- 
 rities prolonged the wrangle, and did much 
 to starve the College, by lessening the grants 
 made to it. But Dulwich at last emerged 
 as a great public school, for circumstances 
 continually and steadily proved their desire 
 to be foolish, though as was natural, they 
 refused to abandon it, and never could really 
 bring themselves to see that they had been 
 all along mistaken. These sad times are 
 nearly past, and there is little to remind the 
 present generation of them, excepting a bitter 
 memory or two, or a misconception or two, 
 the records of antiquarians, and the shape 
 of the College buildings. 
 
 The days that are spent in Dulwich College 
 now are those spent under those circumstances 
 which are best for boys, the circumstances 
 of public school life, and of the best kind. 
 No doubt these days have many blemishes 
 in them. Education generally has received 
 so much attention lately that it is not likely 
 to have escaped without harm from its friends. 
 Man has power to make excellent arrange- 
 
6 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 ments, and excellent schemes ; and also bad 
 arrangements and bad schemes, thinking that 
 they are excellent ; and those who are called 
 experts sometimes make arrangements of the 
 latter as well as of the former kind. Even 
 if the schemes are good, human nature, as 
 shown in boys and masters, will still contrive 
 to bring some mischief out of them ; and 
 if on the other hand they are bad, human 
 nature will still contrive to bring some good 
 out of them. Thus in life at Dulwich, as in 
 that of every other public school, there are 
 plenty of blemishes and there is plenty of 
 good ; and the following pages represent an 
 attempt to describe just one day of it. 
 
 I suppose that of almost all the machinery 
 working in the world, the machinery at school 
 is least seen, and its nature taken most on 
 trust. No one visits form rooms during 
 lesson time, and the accounts which boys 
 carry home are often not to be trusted ; not 
 because boys distort them on purpose, but 
 because, as every one knows, accurate state- 
 ment is nearly impossible excepting among 
 those who are trained to make it, and because 
 no one at school sees quite all that happens, 
 and, when he is young, guesses badly at the 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 7 
 
 rest. It is possible also to take exception to 
 the tone of many accounts of school life given 
 in stories, in which boys are represented as 
 continually trying to evade the school rules, 
 as subjects by no means in sympathy 
 with the powers that are supposed to con- 
 trol them ; and again as speaking continually 
 in a kind of strange semi-smart dialogue of 
 repartee one to the other ; and as destitute 
 of serious thoughts or hopes. These stories are 
 objectionable, among other reasons, because 
 they do mischief to boys, and because they 
 largely misrepresent both fact and nature. 
 No doubt when boys are grouped, with twenty- 
 j&ve in a group, in front of their master, each 
 boy apparently doing the same thing, but 
 each boy different from the other, and from 
 his master — no doubt outward similarity im- 
 plies a certain amount of hypocrisy or acting. 
 Often one boy is thinking about his pocket- 
 money, another about his play, another about 
 his dog or his rabbits, or something to eat, 
 or some one with whom he has quarrelled, 
 and only a few about irregular verbs and 
 their work. But even this is not always 
 true, and as a rule, with most masters, most 
 boys attend to their work, and really do not 
 
8 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 dislike it. No doubt this is a fact which 
 it is possible to overstate, and no doubt the 
 mind of a boy often rebels against the re- 
 straint which he must endure at school. But 
 as a rule boys, who almost constantly need 
 this restraint, would feel much ashamed of 
 their school if their school did not require 
 it of them, and the same is true far more 
 completely with regard to out- of- school life. 
 For discipline, whatever it may have been 
 in past times, is as a rule reasonable in these 
 days, and boys are reasonable, as they always 
 have been, and like to be kept in order. A 
 boy who is undisciplined loses much which 
 he himself values. When old boys come back 
 to school, if they say to their master as some 
 boys do, perhaps with an air of triumph, 
 '* I used to play at catch in preparation,'' 
 or '' You used to think I learnt my lessons, 
 but I did not,'' or '' I used to crib," their 
 master speaks in accordance with their real 
 sense when he says, '' The more foolish you ! 
 you were miserably silly in doing what you 
 say that you did." 
 
 Perhaps some day this view may prevail 
 among those who write stories for boys, and 
 also among all parents. An old man's stories 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 9 
 
 of his school Hfe are even now often of the 
 kind that these triumphing boys tell to their 
 masters ; stories that he managed by some 
 trickery or some deceit to avoid doing what 
 it was good for him to do ; as though he were 
 to boast of not having taken his doctor's 
 medicine when he was sick, or having eaten 
 things that disagreed with him when he was 
 healthy ; or of having eluded some one who 
 was looking for him to give him a hundred 
 pounds. Learning, however, is worth many 
 hundreds of pounds, and not one hundred 
 only, and is less likely to be misapplied. 
 Such an old man makes a bad father in this 
 important respect, and, so far as he is a bad 
 father, his children will requite him for his 
 badness, just as David's children requited 
 David. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 It is a pretty sight, one which pleases those 
 who Hke to look at healthy and joyous life, 
 and one which causes reflection to any one 
 who philosophises upon human affairs, to 
 see the Dulwich boys come to school. From 
 every one of the avenues converging upon 
 the school, by almost all ways of conveyance, 
 the train, the motor-car, the bicycle, the un- 
 aided foot, walking fast and slowly, thinking 
 and thoughtless, with lessons known and 
 unknown, careless and full of care, eager and 
 stolid, ambitious and unaspiring, from almost 
 every other house, and from the four board- 
 ing houses, they come — the Dulwich boys to 
 school — as the clock fingers begin to near 
 the time of nine o'clock. The bell breaks 
 upon their ear at 8.55, and almost each one 
 moves slightly in acknowledgment of the 
 sound ; the school hand seems to have reached 
 each one, his attendance and his lessons become 
 slightly more of a reality to him as his distance 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH ii 
 
 from what he has to do at school is more 
 accurately measured. The bigger boys moving 
 with more regular step receive mental notice 
 from the smaller ones — like so much that 
 goes on at school, not apparent ; for boys 
 show often no sign of noticing that of which 
 they think much and talk much afterwards. 
 
 Of all the boys, perhaps, he who received 
 most of this silent notice was Grant, the 
 captain of the school. Each boy as Grant 
 passed him was aware of the fact, and if there 
 was anything different about Grant from 
 that which had been about him the morning 
 before, most boys noticed it, and spoke of 
 it. Indeed he was an important and notable 
 boy : with still nearly two years to pass at 
 school before he went up to the University, 
 he was already head of the school in school 
 work, and a good cricketer and football 
 player ; in both games representing the school. 
 He had received his colours in cricket after 
 making thirty runs against Bedford School 
 in the season before, and taking two wickets 
 towards the end of the game. He had not 
 yet received his football colours, but he was 
 playing half-back for the First Fifteen, and it 
 was generally considered that the team was 
 
12 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 incomplete without him. His step was quick 
 and his carriage free ; a boy of middle height 
 and well-knit frame, light blue eyes, brown 
 hair, and fairly resolute mouth. He was 
 more than ordinarily noticed on this day, 
 for it was the day on which the school played 
 Tonbridge School at football. 
 
 Each boy felt himself to be a little nearer 
 to the game as Grant passed him, and each 
 group turned to speak of the match. Grant 
 walked fast, and passed all boys and was 
 passed by none ; and as the boys saw him 
 go forward, they said, '' Grant has to read.'* 
 This was so, and it was necessary for him to 
 be in the corridor of the first floor of the 
 senior block at 8.50 to go down with the 
 Master, and along the senior cloister, and 
 through the passage and up the great side 
 stairs in the middle block, and into the Great 
 Hall to read the lesson to the Master, in pre- 
 paration for reading it at prayers to the whole 
 School. At 8.45 the door from the Master's 
 house opened, and he came out with a paper 
 or two in his hand and went into the Sixth 
 form room, greeting a boy from the Mathe- 
 matical form, who was there thus early to 
 mark his name in the register of attendance ; 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 13 
 
 looking at the register himself, and then going 
 into his room which lay nearly opposite to 
 the Sixth form door. Grant was ready for 
 him as he came out from the room, as he 
 would have been ashamed not to be, and the 
 two went together into the Great Hall, the 
 Master pausing to give the papers in his hand 
 to the porter who was waiting at his lodge 
 passage to say good-morning and to receive 
 any direction necessary for the business of 
 the day. 
 
 '' These boys are away from school to-day,*' 
 said the Master, giving some slips of paper 
 to the porter. *' This is for the masters' 
 common room ; and I want to see Mr. Hyde 
 and Mr. Carter the prefects, in the interval.'' 
 
 ** Yes, sir," said the porter, a young man 
 and a good man, who had served a gun with 
 General French throughout the South African 
 war. 
 
 The Master found the lesson in the old 
 and too untidy Bible, which lay on the lectern. 
 '' Read from there to there," said he, pointing 
 to some marks in the Bible, '' omitting these 
 verses that are looped." Grant read it through 
 aloud. He had read the lesson several times 
 before, and thus knew how to manage his 
 
14 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 voice ; and the rehearsal was Hkely to be 
 soon over. The lesson was of six verses chosen 
 from the 147th Psalm. 
 
 '' Now you try and make the boys hear, 
 and make them listen,'* said the Master after 
 the first reading. 
 
 Grant wondered for a moment whether 
 the Master, or *' the old man '* as he called 
 him in his mind, really expected the boys 
 to listen, and for himself he rather hoped 
 that they would not ; for he was not proud 
 of his reading, and kept his religious feeling 
 much in the background. 
 
 ''The boys like to listen," said the Master 
 turning upon him, " at least they will if you 
 will think about what you are reading, and 
 you must not be ashamed to show it. Don't 
 you see what a beautiful lesson it is ? " 
 
 Grant acknowledged its beauty, certainly 
 to the Master, and more hesitatingly to him- 
 self, and with a passing wonder whether the 
 Master had chosen the lesson with any refer- 
 ence to the football match, read it again. 
 When the reading was done the Master re- 
 peated musingly, '' neither taketh He pleasure 
 in any man's legs," and Grant wondered 
 with a rather more permanent wonder. 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 15 
 
 '' Have you a hymn-book ? '' said the Master 
 as they turned from the lectern. 
 
 '' Yes, sir/' said Grant. 
 
 Still the Master stood and looked first at 
 the Bible and then at Grant, and Grant stood 
 and looked first at the Master and then at 
 the Bible. Then he laughed and went to 
 the Bible and turned the leaf back so that 
 the Bible was open to the beginning of the 
 Psalm. The Master laughed and said, *' I 
 see that you are not altogether careless of the 
 future, and have some idea of your duty in 
 you, and prepare for it.'' 
 
 The second reading had been a little better 
 than the first ; but when the time came that 
 the hymn had been sung, and Grant advanced 
 to the lectern in front of the masters on the 
 platform, and read the lesson, any feeling 
 in him that it was a beautiful lesson had 
 vanished, and it became just a matter of 
 business to him to read it — and thus it was 
 just a matter of business to the boys to listen 
 to it. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 There were three lessons at least to be said 
 by all the boys on this match day : one from 
 9.15 to 10.45 ; this one was broken for many 
 boys into two, but not for the classical Sixth, 
 the form in which Grant was ; another from 
 II to 12, and yet another from 12 to i. There 
 was an interval from 10.45 to 11 o^clock ; 
 this part of the morning was tolerable, because 
 it was possible to spend it in talking of the 
 match, but the rest of the morning was 
 likely to go heavily. What was Plancius 
 and his quarrel with Laterensis, and what 
 was Cicero, to a form of boys who wished to 
 think about the football match which was to 
 be played that afternoon, and whose thoughts 
 turned to it continually ? The boys knew that 
 the lessons must be endured ; but they waited 
 with impatience, even the most respectable 
 of them, even most of the prize winners in 
 their forms, for i o'clock, when they intended 
 to take a plunge into football, and remain 
 
 x6 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 17 
 
 there for the rest of the afternoon, until they 
 perhaps raised their minds for other thoughts 
 at preparation time. 
 
 First there was the pleasure of hearing and 
 giving information and making prophecies 
 and noting players and reading the notices 
 about the match and the list of players, a 
 pleasure which would extend all through 
 the interval openly, and covertly, in a certain 
 degree, in some forms and classes, throughout 
 the whole morning. Then there was the joy 
 of seeing the Tonbridge team arrive, carrying 
 their bags, accompanied by Hyde and Carter, 
 and one or two other members of the school 
 team ; and of noting their shoulders and 
 legs, and comparing with them the shoulders 
 and legs, and the capacities which they implied, 
 possessed by the members of the Dulwich 
 team. There was the calling to mind that 
 information about each boy in the Tonbridge 
 team which the newspapers had only too 
 liberally supplied ; and then the shortened 
 games, from 2 to 2.45 o*clock, and the strolling 
 about the ground and the waiting, talking, 
 and anticipating. 
 
 All this seems at first not wholesome, 
 and not that for which the boys came to 
 
i8 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 school : it seems to suggest that too high 
 an estimate was placed upon what was really 
 of secondary importance, namely, the issue 
 of a football match. If the frame of mind 
 which has been described had been permanent, 
 this criticism would have been well-judged. 
 But in fact it was not permanent, and be- 
 longed only to this day ; and it was in itself 
 wholesome, because it implied enthusiasm for 
 an object which was not personal, the power 
 to rejoice in an honour which affected no 
 boy individually, and at the same time a 
 recognition that the honour must be won 
 according to law or that it would be better 
 for it not to be won at all. 
 
 At a quarter past nine, however, all these 
 joys seemed rather far away ; for there were 
 the lessons to be done first. And first, for 
 the classical Sixth there was the lesson in 
 Cicero's speech for Plancius. The Sixth form 
 master, Mr. Smith, had a feeling that the 
 wits of his form would wander from his lesson 
 this morning ; and therefore, like a brave 
 man, he set himself to prevent this, and know- 
 ing his work and his pupils he began on the 
 lesson with a confident exterior. 
 
 '' Attwater, begin to construe,'* said he. 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 19 
 
 Attwater's construing generally stirred the 
 form, though in a way not complimentary to 
 Attwater. There was more in his construing 
 than the simple rendering of a piece of Greek 
 or Latin into English. There was a good 
 deal of Attwater himself ; and many boys 
 commented strongly upon Attwater and every- 
 thing that represented him. He was a boy 
 who would attend to what he was doing him- 
 self, but found it very hard to attend to 
 anything done by other people, unless they 
 were of a caste superior to his own. He 
 thought much of the aesthetic side of every- 
 thing, especially in Church matters, holding 
 Nonconformity in very low esteem, dressing 
 himself carefully, and scenting his pocket 
 handkerchief ; and when he came into any 
 company, wondering what the company was 
 thinking of him. He was often compelled 
 to acknowledge that his companions at school 
 did not think highly of him, and thus at school 
 he was not very happy. But in drawing- 
 rooms, his reception seemed to him generally 
 more satisfactory. On the whole, perhaps, his 
 greatest misfortune was that he was what 
 is called good-looking, and that he had heard 
 people talking of the beautiful expression 
 
20 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 of his dark eyes. If only they would have 
 made their remarks out of his hearing, 
 no great harm would have been done ; 
 but since they spoke partly to please his 
 mother, and partly to please the boy himself, 
 they had made their remarks on him in his 
 hearing, and this put ideas into the boy's 
 head which had done much mischief to his 
 character. He burned to distinguish himself, 
 but being rather lazy, and finding this easy 
 way to distinction — of simply looking with 
 these same dark eyes — provided for him, he 
 took it, with a few others of the same kind, 
 and thus became a slave to a bad master. 
 
 He stood up now to construe, having really 
 prepared his lesson, but wishing the form 
 to think that he had not, that he might seem 
 both clever and daring. For though he 
 was a school prefect, he was always anxious 
 to show that he was not altogether a prefect 
 at heart, and to stand well with boys who 
 did not regard school duties with reverence. 
 He first read a piece of the speech ; he had 
 ears for the rhythm of the language, but he 
 would not use them, and brains to criticise 
 the speech, but he would not allow them 
 to have fair play ; for he thought that some 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 21 
 
 boys, perhaps Hyde and Carter particularly, 
 when they heard of his proceeding, would 
 admire him more if he did not. As he read 
 he made mistakes on purpose, blushing when 
 Mr. Smith did not notice them. He was pre- 
 tending, as the boys knew quite well and 
 as Mr. Smith guessed, to be preparing the 
 lesson as he read ; and then he began to 
 construe as though he were construing at 
 sight, going a little wrong in a hard passage, 
 which in fact he knew well enough. 
 
 When the construe was done, Mr. Smith 
 began to teach the form with regard to it. 
 He said, '' Was Plancius* father as good a 
 man as Cicero says he was ? '* 
 
 '' I don't know,'' said Attwater. 
 
 ** Or care ? " said Mr. Smith quite sweetly. 
 
 '' Not much," said Attwater, thinking of 
 his own view of Hyde and Carter. 
 
 '' What do you think ? " said Mr. Smith, 
 turning to No ton. 
 
 *' I suppose he was," said No ton, who 
 knew that Mr. Smith supposed that he was 
 not. 
 
 '' When a man praises another, do you 
 always believe him ? " said Mr. Smith. 
 
 '' Generally," said Noton. 
 
22 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 '' And witnesses to character ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir/* said Noton, much pleased with 
 himself. 
 
 *' Have you read 'Pickwick'?" said Mr. 
 Smith, who always tried to keep ancient and 
 modern times in close connection. 
 
 " No, sir,'* said Noton, still more pleased, 
 while the form certainly listened. 
 
 " Well, some of you have," said Mr. Smith. 
 '' There is a trial there in which a lawyer 
 named Buzfuz " — Mr. Smith spoke with pro- 
 found seriousness, since the boy had refused 
 to enter with him into his lighter treatment 
 of the subject — '' who praises a Mr. Bardell. 
 But his praise was not deserved, but given 
 only for the purposes of his case. He was 
 dead, like Plancius' father. Of course one 
 reason for praising a person is that he is dead. 
 A good reason, Noton ? " 
 
 '' Yes, sir," said Noton ; thinking that Mr. 
 Smith thought it a bad one. 
 
 *' And another reason because it helped your 
 case. A good reason also ? " 
 
 '' Yes," said Noton, almost chuckhng ; but 
 the form did not much like him, so that he 
 had his fun mostly to himself. 
 
 " In fact," said Mr. Smith, warming to his 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 23 
 
 subject, and dropping for the moment the 
 drags upon it and turning to the form, '' Those 
 whom Cicero praises do not necessarily deserve 
 praise. He praises for two or three reasons, 
 the first because men were his chents, or 
 their relations were ; and secondly, because 
 they wished the Roman constitution to remain 
 as it was, as Sulla left it ; and thirdly, very 
 often because they had asked him to dinner. 
 Three bad reasons ; but when Cicero praises, 
 he praises very fully : throw praise enough 
 and some of it will surely stick.*' 
 
 Here Mr. Smith stopped ; and Grant whis- 
 pered to Coggan, '^ What time are the Ton- 
 bridge boys coming ? '' 
 
 " One twenty," said Coggan. 
 
 " Come down and meet them," said Grant. 
 
 '* All right," said Coggan. 
 
 Mr. Smith thought that Grant was resent- 
 ing his attack upon Cicero, and said, '' I ex- 
 pect it's true. Grant. It is in his style, and 
 only in part of his character that we are to 
 imitate Cicero. Not that he was not a good 
 man, as those times went ; but we know 
 better now, I think, Attwater. We know 
 that we ought to be sincere ? " 
 
 Attwater looked somewhat confused ; and 
 
24 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 the form looked at him with interest, but 
 not admiration. 
 
 *' We ought to appear what we are, and 
 have no pretences ? '* 
 
 The form was a httle amused. 
 
 *' Unless, indeed, we are engaged as advo- 
 cates, we ought not to pretend that we 
 know when we do not know ? nor that we 
 do not know when we do ? '* 
 
 The form certainly forgot the match for 
 a moment in order to chuckle at Attwater. 
 
 '* We should not conceal our real sentiments 
 for any reason, in fact, I believe, Noton ? '' 
 continued Mr. Smith. '' Not for our own 
 gain ? " Noton looked for something to say. 
 *' Nor to exalt ourselves ? Our object should 
 always be just the discovery and expression 
 of truth ? '' 
 
 It was a very small consolation to Noton 
 that he thought of a reply which seemed to 
 him quite satisfactory, about two minutes 
 afterwards. When he had hit upon the reply, 
 he wondered whether he should lay it up 
 by him in his memory for future use if Mr. 
 Smith ventured on such treatment of him 
 again, or should put it before the form in the 
 prefect's room on that day. The former was 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 25 
 
 a bird in the bush, and it was uncertain 
 altogether whether the opportunity of scoring 
 off Mr. Smith would ever occur ; but if it did 
 occur, the result would be more glorious. 
 The latter could certainly occur, if Noton 
 wished, but the amount of glory consequent 
 upon it was uncertain, and Noton certainly 
 would either be required to hold his peace, 
 or possibly subjected to some indignity worse 
 than that which he was endeavouring to 
 remove ; accordingly he decided for the 
 former plan, that of waiting for another turn 
 with Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith, with this ad- 
 vantage of priority, then left this personal 
 manner of teaching, and began to make re- 
 marks upon Cicero himself. Mr. Smith was 
 a new master and a good man, who liked 
 both Cicero and the truth, and all his pupils ; 
 and thus his charity was comprehensive 
 enough. 
 
 ''Is it right ? I am afraid that I shall 
 make some of you think so, when I say that 
 I do not think so. But consider the point. 
 Here is Cicero, in one sense the most magnifi- 
 cent speaker, except one, who has ever uttered 
 a word. He is master of every kind ^ of 
 rhetorical effect. See how he makes a pointed 
 
26 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 antithesis where we see Uttle of one. ' Nee 
 si a populo praeteritus est quern non oportuit, 
 a judicibus condemnandus est qui praeteritus 
 non est.' Look at any sentence ; see how 
 the words come ; each in its place, and the 
 right word so as to tell. Listen to the sentence 
 read, and catch the cadence of it from the 
 sense, and the sense from the cadence." 
 
 Then he read one. *' Ana all for what ? 
 to make the judges believe what was not 
 true : Plancius was his client, and every- 
 thing that could be said to win the case, 
 whether it was true or not, must be said. 
 You say you may leave the matter to the 
 judges to decide, after putting a view of it 
 before them. But he does not simply put a 
 view of it before them, he backs the view as 
 his own, and pledges his high character to 
 make it believed. And again why ? Because 
 he wished to maintain his reputation ; that 
 is, because he wished to gratify his pride, 
 and earn his money. Who can really say 
 a word for this, excepting that mankind has 
 agreed not to be severe in judging the prac- 
 tice ? I say this to you as a matter arising 
 from the Cicero, not to push an opinion upon 
 you, but to make you think about a question, 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 27 
 
 which you will see like all other questions in 
 Cicero or elsewhere is not ancient only but 
 modem also ; for Roman history is the same 
 in texture as English, and the texture is 
 human nature." 
 
 James' father was a barrister of repute 
 and James felt interested in all this, but 
 decidedly militant. 
 
 '* And now shall we go on ? " said Mr. Smith. 
 He looked round to choose another boy to 
 construe while all the boys looked down upon 
 their books, with the idea that if any looked 
 up Mr. Smith would fix on him. Not that 
 they did not know their lesson well enough 
 to get through it ; but from a principle of 
 prudence, and a dislike to personal foolhardi- 
 ness, just as people shrink from going into 
 a house where there are the measles, or as 
 people in a gun factory hate to see a gun, 
 even when unloaded, pointed at any one. 
 
 Mr. Smith called upon Emmett, but before 
 Emmet t could utter a word, he went on: 
 '' Just a minute ! did Cicero gain by this ; 
 did he really make people believe what he 
 wished them to believe by rhetoric ? He 
 cannot make us, excepting Noton, but that 
 is exceptional. Don't think, however, that 
 
28 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 he did not make the Romans and his audience 
 — sit down a minute, Emmett — beheve. They 
 believed. How do you know ? Perhaps the 
 best proof is that Cicero did it. He was a 
 master of persuasion, and if there had been a 
 better way to persuade he would have taken 
 it. It is one thing for us to sit here and 
 criticise, here in this cold-hearted room, with 
 no great love for Cicero, feeling a little vexed 
 at him perhaps for keeping us from our games ; 
 but quite another to see his fine form and 
 face, see him with his great reputation, the 
 pride of Rome both in life and speech, stand 
 up ; and see his throat swell with fine sound 
 and hear his great voice roll. And however 
 much he distorted fact, he never played with 
 the principles of morality. In politics, indeed, 
 where he really was sincere, he did not per- 
 manently persuade ; but this was because 
 there he was on the wrong side, and he had 
 time and its arrangements as his adversaries 
 against him. His words as a poHtician were 
 well chosen and well arranged, and his voice 
 excellent ; there was no fault to be found 
 with his oratory, and yet if the power to 
 persuade or to obtain what is wanted be the 
 test, there was more oratory in the single 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 29 
 
 sentence uttered by Caesar, * Stand aside, 
 young man, it is easier for me to say than 
 to do,* than in the whole of the speech for 
 Sestius. The young man stood aside as he 
 was desired ; and as he never would have 
 done for all the argument and oratory in 
 the world/* 
 
 Mr. Smith grew quite warm as he uttered 
 all this ; and interested at least half his 
 audience. But Coggan whispered to Grant, 
 '' Jimmy had a stomach ache this morning.** 
 
 Grant looked very serious, so serious that 
 Mr. Smith, who observed the whisper, thought 
 it not necessary to interfere, but put the 
 waiting Emmett to construe his piece ; which 
 he did with perfect fluency. It related to the 
 interference of the tax farmers with Roman 
 elections ; and Mr. Smith went on to describe 
 English elections, and the introduction of 
 subordinate considerations into them, from 
 the brass band of old days, to the public 
 house club of the present time, and all the 
 kinds of pressure which it is possible to put 
 upon voters, arising from personal advantage 
 and fear ; and showing again, with plenty of 
 learning and humour, how human nature was 
 the same a thousand years ago and now. 
 
30 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 It is possible, in fact, to teach political truths 
 more successfully from past history than 
 from present history. The history of Rome 
 is finished, and each fact and tendency has 
 had its influence and run its course ; and thus 
 its nature is more plain than the nature of 
 the same tendency and kind of fact is at the 
 present time, when to explain it is to prophesy. 
 Besides, this Roman history rouses little passion 
 and offends few prejudices ; but every man 
 and every intelligent boy is already a partisan 
 as to many of the great questions of the 
 present time. 
 
 After a few more construes it was close upon 
 a quarter to eleven. The boys gathered their 
 books to go, so as to lose no time when 
 Mr. Smith had gone from the room ; but they 
 left certainly not only with a certain music 
 of good prose running in their thought, and 
 an increasing power to appreciate it, but also 
 with certain thoughts as to Cicero, who was 
 becoming a real person to them, and orators 
 and barristers, and the ways of Rome, and of 
 their own country, and of the relation between 
 Roman and English history, which were likely 
 to be very useful to them. 
 
 " We will take as an essay for this week," 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 31 
 
 said Mr. Smith as the clock struck, " a com- 
 parison between Cicero and Mr. Gladstone.'* 
 And the lesson was done, and Mr. Smith went 
 down the stairs fairly happy, having fought a 
 doubtful action, but to some extent victorious. 
 He had bored nobody, and certainly inte- 
 rested some. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 The boys all streamed out of school, and 
 the masters quickly followed them. Some 
 went to the common room, and those who 
 were more interested in the out-door life of 
 the school went to the great gravel squares 
 that lay between the middle block and the 
 two others. There was a knot of boys at 
 the foot of the stairs reading the notices, 
 which were few this morning ; the most im- 
 portant being two, one of which mentioned 
 the names of the team, and the other con- 
 tained a statement that all games would 
 cease at 2.45 in order that boys might see 
 the match. 
 
 The mention of the reason was made for the 
 benefit of some 150 boys who were supposed 
 to prefer the pleasures of home to those of 
 the school playing-fields on a half holiday. 
 There always are as large a number of these 
 boys as 150 in a school of 700 boys, and 
 
 it is proper that this should be so. Football 
 32 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 33 
 
 is an excellent thing in a school ; and if the 
 football is Rugby football, so much the better, 
 because it occupies thirty boys instead of 
 twenty-two, to say nothing of the touch judges ; 
 and also because much of the game to beginners 
 is little besides pushing and running, and boys 
 without much skill can make more of this 
 than they can of passing and dribbhng. An 
 Association game if it is not skilfully played 
 is a bad thing, and only a few boys can play 
 it skilfully ; but a Rugby game not well played 
 is not nearly so bad a thing. Still football 
 does not exhaust the possibilities of a boy's 
 life, and there always must be many in a school 
 who, as far as they are personally concerned, 
 only tolerate it. 
 
 Therefore the captain of football at Dulwich, 
 as at all other schools, was always of opinion 
 that football was going down, and that the 
 school was slack with regard to it ; he wished 
 that he could do more than put up a notice 
 like this to bring boys on to the ground ; and 
 hoped secretly that the form captains would 
 by legal or illegal means, see that their forms 
 were completely represented in the ring round 
 the match. The captain of football was Hyde, 
 who was an excellent player, with his whole 
 
34 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 heart immersed in the game ; a tall boy, but 
 very quick and hard. He was a three-quarter 
 back, but he took to all places as a duck 
 to water, and knew exactly what each boy 
 should be doing under each set of circum- 
 stances, wherever they might be. His love for 
 football had, however, bred in him a kind of 
 disrespect to all other school institutions, in- 
 cluding that of lessons ; and thus from time 
 to time difficulties arose for him in his school 
 life, partly because he regarded every one 
 from the point of view of football ability ; and 
 thus had a latent feeling of contempt for many 
 masters, and many excellent boys, and partly 
 because he had examinations to pass, like other 
 boys, in which no questions about football were 
 likely to occur. 
 
 Of those masters who taught him, he had 
 least respect for a Mr. Rubeley, a little 
 man who was old and slow. His subject was 
 German, in which he was a good scholar ; but 
 as to football, he apparently did not know 
 that there was such a game. Hyde, as soon 
 as the interval began, came down on to the 
 gravel from the Modern Sixth form room, which 
 was his form room, with his friend Carter, 
 who was smaller than he, but a really good 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 35 
 
 back. These two knew all that had happened 
 in Rugby football for the last ten years, all 
 that was happening in this year, and likely 
 to happen in the next year ; and they both 
 of them took so much the same view of life 
 as to find great pleasure in each other's com- 
 pany. They were both school prefects, and 
 not bad boys at heart, but through the narrow 
 gate of football lay the avenue into the 
 hearts of both of them. Carter's conscience, 
 however, was more tender than Hyde's, and 
 his heart softer, but his temper quicker. If 
 you did Hyde a kindness he would perhaps 
 say '' thank you," but not feel grateful ; 
 but if you did Carter a kindness he would 
 perhaps not say '' thank you," but he 
 would never forget what you had done for 
 him. 
 
 Most boys were looking at these two in the 
 interval, for all their movements were of im- 
 portance to the school this morning. They 
 stood with Gillett, making a permanent group at 
 the edge of the grass near the trees away from 
 the large clusters of boys which always stood 
 round the buttery door, and just out of sight 
 of the Master's window. Up to them lounged 
 Grant, with a biscuit, a kind of food which 
 
36 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 he thought it not beneath his dignity to con- 
 sume in the interval. 
 
 '' I shall go/' said Hyde. " I can see how. 
 I will get my brother to send me a telegram 
 saying that my uncle arrives on Monday at 
 Waterloo at 4 o'clock. I will take it to the 
 Old Man, and he will let me go to meet him. 
 I have not seen my uncle, you know, for three 
 years. I believe two is the time that Jerry 
 expects you not to have seen your relatives 
 for, if you go to meet them ; but I will put on 
 another year to make sure. If I take this to 
 him at 12.30 on Monday, I can get off directly 
 after dinner. What can you do ? " he said to 
 Carter. '' I wish you were my brother, or my 
 cousin, and then the same wire would do for 
 us both.*' 
 
 '' I can stay away from school. I can say 
 I have a headache. Johnny will let me stay, 
 and I can come with you. I don't see how 
 any one can spot us." 
 
 '' What are you going to do ? " said Grant. 
 
 *' See the 'Varsity match," said Hyde, '' on 
 Monday." 
 
 Grant felt rather disgusted. Here was the 
 Tonbridge match to take place this afternoon, 
 and the captain was not talking of it, but of 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 37 
 
 Monday, and another match. He did not say 
 this ; and presently let his thoughts run on 
 another aspect of the matter. He was head 
 boy, and here were two prefects going to act 
 thus ; it wasn't the thing, but he didn't exactly 
 know what to do. 
 
 *' ril stop in too, if I may come," said Gillett. 
 
 " All right," said Hyde. 
 
 Grant walked away very much bewildered, 
 and then thinking that he had not done what 
 he should, he walked back to the three boys, 
 and said — 
 
 '' You ought not to do this." 
 
 " Why not ? " said Hyde, '' we want to see 
 the match." 
 
 *' So do lots of fellows," said Grant, *' but 
 they wouldn't do a thing like this to see it." 
 
 ** Like what ? " said Hyde, really wishful to 
 talk about the matter and see how it would 
 be viewed. 
 
 '' TeUing a lie about it," said Grant. 
 
 '' I shan't tell any He," said Hyde, who was 
 really rather a dull boy, and almost believed 
 what he said. ** I shall simply hand the wire 
 to Jerry and say, ' May I go ? I haven't seen 
 my uncle for three years/ Nor have I." 
 
 " That's rot," said Grant. 
 
38 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 "It's not rot/* said Carter; and Gillett 
 laughed easily. He was not a prefect, and he 
 had no scruples, and hardly any conscience. 
 
 '* It's what lots of fellows do every day." 
 
 '* When ? " said Grant. 
 
 '' When they show up work they haven't 
 done," said Hyde, grinning with a kind of 
 triumph. 
 
 *' Prefects don't," said Grant. 
 
 *' Yes, they do," said Carter ; '* I remember 
 you doing it." 
 
 *' When ? " said Grant. 
 
 ** When I did a sum for you a fortnight 
 ago," said Carter. 
 
 This had indeed happened at the beginning 
 of the term, and came awkwardly for Grant 
 into the argument. He walked away again 
 feeling still more uncomfortable, and very 
 angry as he heard Gillett laughing. His 
 whole sense of propriety was upset. Hyde 
 was older, and had in fact been a prefect 
 longer than he, and so had Carter. He wished 
 that he had not been a prefect, that he had 
 not been captain of the school, that he had 
 had no responsibility. He wished that he 
 could take counsel with some one. The day 
 to which he had so much looked forward was 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 39 
 
 likely to prove the most unpleasant of his 
 school life. It is often so in hfe; but Grant 
 was certainly young to begin with an ex- 
 perience so unpleasant. However, this was 
 Saturday, and that which troubled him was 
 not to happen until Monday ; but he knew 
 that such a matter would remain no secret, 
 and he had sense enough to understand in 
 a vague way that it would upset the authority 
 of the prefects, and would do mischief in 
 the school. In particular he did not see 
 how he could act much in harmony with 
 Hyde and Carter any more. Still, again, it 
 occurred to him that this was Saturday, that 
 he had remonstrated, that perhaps the boys 
 might change their minds before Monday ; 
 and thus he returned to something of his 
 happy state of mind again. 
 
 Just then Smith the porter came up to 
 Hyde and Carter and said to them, *' The 
 Master wants to see you." The two boys 
 looked at each other. They had a rather 
 exaggerated idea of the Master's ability in 
 finding out things, and certainly each of them 
 felt a Httle uneasy. They went upstairs and 
 knocked at the door of the Master's room. 
 In the room they found was Mr. Trent, no 
 
40 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 particular favourite with either of the boys. 
 They waited outside until he came out, each 
 of them with the idea that Mr. Trent might 
 have been talking to the Master about them ; 
 and they expected any one who talked about 
 them and their school doings presently to 
 light upon some unfavourable matters. 
 
 " So," said the Master, in a low voice, to 
 Mr. Trent, as he came out, '' if you will help 
 me, I will be looking out too.'* 
 
 The boys nudged each other, and thought 
 that they were to be the objects of the scrutiny ; 
 but really the question was of the enlargement 
 of the gymnastic apparatus at the school 
 mission. 
 
 When the boys came in they were a little 
 uncertain, and one of them was almost sullen. 
 The Master could not quite understand the 
 position ; he liked both the boys, and felt 
 vexed that they held thus aloof from him. 
 He said presently, after wondering for a short 
 time at their attitude — 
 
 " Can you go to meet the Tonbridge boys ? '* 
 
 '* Yes, sir," said Hyde. 
 
 " And have you all the arrangements made?" 
 
 '* Yes, sir," said Hyde. 
 
 *' Referee, game, dinner, everything ? " 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 41 
 
 '' Yes, sir," said Hyde. 
 
 " Well, you will do well, I know. We 
 shall all be pleased with all you do ; winning 
 or not winning, and think you worth keeping, 
 whichever way it goes. Good luck to you 
 and your side! " 
 
 He shook hands with them both ; and 
 they went away, not exactly happy, wishing 
 vaguely that there was no Master in the busi- 
 ness, and no rules to keep at school. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 The next lesson for the Classical Sixth form 
 was taken, not by the master of the Sixth 
 form, but by a younger man, Mr. James, who 
 took a form quite low down in the school, 
 but yet taught the Sixth twice a week. He 
 gave them lectures rather than lessons, and 
 lectures upon things in general ; now on a 
 period of history, now on political economy, 
 and now on points of language. He lectured 
 on everything in fact on which questions in 
 the general paper in scholarship examina- 
 tions were set. He had just now been vexed 
 by the talk in the world relating to the use- 
 lessness of Greek, and he desired, as young 
 men do, and old men too sometimes for the 
 matter of that, to express his views on the 
 matter. He was a good talker, and boys 
 generally were interested in what he said, 
 and often adopted his opinions, producing 
 them afterwards in their talk or work, though 
 
 generally with certain strange alterations. 
 
 42 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 43 
 
 This morning he, a young, swarthy-faced gentle- 
 man of thirty-five years of age, who wished 
 the world were other than it was, and who 
 could play at games pretty well, leaned his 
 chin upon his hand, and looked cheerfully 
 roimd the room and began his lesson. 
 
 *' I have here a very able article with which 
 I wish you acquainted. It attacks us with 
 point and vigour. I am sure you will like 
 it. Why teach Greek ? it says ; why learn 
 it ? Greek is old, the nation belongs to the 
 past, and we are of the present. The posi- 
 tion is ludicrous ; boys know Greek customs 
 and history who do not know their own ; 
 and write Greek when they cannot write 
 English. The English empire calls for de- 
 fenders, and we go to work to provide them 
 by teaching about another empire, and leave 
 our own, its extent and dangers and powers, 
 out of knowledge ; and yet these are enough 
 for any brain, and offer enough matter for 
 reflection for a lifetime. The world has 
 gone forward since the days of the Greeks 
 and Romans ; we have discovered thousands 
 of things, how to manage nature, and prolong 
 life and banish pain, and are on the eve 
 of new discoveries, and need a populace 
 
44 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 educated to make them ; and yet the great 
 schools of the country train those of whom 
 they think best in the ways of a people that 
 had no knowledge of all that has been done ; 
 and the world's life is changed, but those 
 who should lead the change do not lead it 
 because they cannot. May I ask, Noton, 
 what you think of this ? '' 
 
 *' I think that it is a very true charge,*' 
 said Noton cheerfully. 
 
 '* So do I,'' said Mr. James. Noton's cheer- 
 fulness was a little dashed, and he began 
 to take his bearings a little more carefully, for 
 his desire was not to agree with his masters. 
 
 *' Let us consider the point together,'' said 
 Mr. James. '* We can all contribute some- 
 thing of experience in this matter. First 
 what about the rather feeble rejoinder that 
 the defenders of the old system make, that 
 the effect on the character is good. Do you 
 think it good, Martin ? " 
 
 '* Yes," said Martin, hesitating. 
 
 '* You find yourself obliged to say that you 
 have improved under the system ? " 
 
 '* Yes," said Martin, laughing. 
 
 ^'Well, so do I," said Mr. James, ''but 
 then it is to be remembered that you might 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 45 
 
 have improved faster under another system. 
 So individuals don't count so much as the 
 nature of the thing itself. Let us look at this 
 education and see what it is in itself that 
 Noton and the article dislikes it so much, 
 and what the other education is that Noton 
 likes it so much. Now you have two arms, 
 Noton, haven't you ? " 
 
 Noton wished that he could deny it, but 
 he could not, he could only refuse to affirm 
 it ; and Mr. James seeing that possibly he 
 would say something rude on the first oppor- 
 tunity, said to Martin, ** You tell me.'* 
 
 *' Yes,*' said Martin. 
 
 '' And a mind ? '' 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 *' Well, now, what sort of ' thing is your 
 mind ' ? I don't mean is it good or bad, or 
 what is it in itself ; but is it this kind of 
 thing, namely, that it can deal with many 
 subjects ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Such as history and mathematics, for 
 instance?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 '' And the part of it that deals with each is 
 not quite the same ? I mean that when you 
 
46 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 say twice two is four, the operation is not 
 the same as when you criticise Hannibal ?'* 
 
 " No." 
 
 '* A different part of the mind seems to 
 work ? *' 
 
 '' No/' said Noton, '' not in mine/' 
 
 ** Well, it works in a different direction ? '* 
 
 '' Yes,'' said Martin. 
 
 "And in the direction in which it works 
 it grows ? " 
 
 '* Yes," said Martin. 
 
 '' And what is wanted in a mind is that it 
 should move easily and quickly? " 
 
 '' And correctly," said Noton. 
 
 '' And correctly," said Mr. James, beaming 
 upon him. 
 
 *' Now how is it with the body? When one 
 arm is lengthened and strengthened, would 
 it not be better if the other were also ? Or if 
 you would like to have one arm longer than 
 the other, you would prefer to have your legs 
 levelly made, would you not ? and not one 
 leg weak or short and the other strong or 
 long, say six feet long, and the other three, 
 that wouldn't do?" 
 
 '' No," said Martin, looking very depre- 
 catingly at Noton. 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 47 
 
 ** Well, now/' said Mr. James, '* there is one 
 point in education — that it should be level. 
 Will you remember that for me, Noton, when 
 we sum up at the end ? Thank you very much. 
 And another point is that we should not try 
 to learn a thing that we absolutely cannot 
 learn ? '' 
 
 '' No,*' said Martin. 
 
 '* But we must not too hastily feel sure that 
 we cannot learn ? '' 
 
 '' No/' said Martin. 
 
 ** And we must learn as much as we can ? " 
 
 '' Yes,*' said Martin. 
 
 *' Because thus we become Godlike ? like the 
 Holy Ghost ? " 
 
 The boys were surprised and still. 
 
 '' You don't think knowledge is goodness ? '* 
 
 " No,'' said Noton. 
 
 *' And yet the Holy Ghost is goodness itself, 
 and He is knowledge ? " 
 
 " Wisdom," said Noton. 
 
 *' Yes, that is true," said Mr. James. **I 
 made a mistake, and the difference is that 
 knowledge may be in a single matter, but 
 wisdom is general and includes all matters, 
 and it is wisdom that you mean that we need 
 to be like the Holy Ghost ? " 
 
48 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 '' Yes/' said Noton, feeling his dignity 
 vindicated. 
 
 " And this wisdom, being Hke that of the 
 Holy Ghost, you mean is not to be of the in- 
 tellect only, but it is to be a knowledge of 
 good and evil also ? " 
 
 '' Yes," said Noton. 
 
 '* I see,*' said Mr. James, *' and thus it 
 brings happiness ; and only thus ? " 
 
 " Yes,'' said Noton. 
 
 *' I see," said Mr. James. " Well, then, about 
 this and the English customs we are to learn ; 
 you remember. What are they ? Do we 
 fight?" 
 
 " Yes," said Noton. 
 
 *' I mean, not does the country go to war? 
 but do we here fight or expect to fight ? " 
 
 " No," said Noton. 
 
 *' You mean that we pay others to fight for 
 us?" 
 
 *' Yes," said Noton. 
 
 *' We trade ? or learn ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Noton. 
 
 *' And do what we can by learning, and 
 trade, to increase our incomes ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Noton. 
 
 *' We must live ? " 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 49 
 
 " Yes/' 
 
 '' And having food and raiment, must want 
 more ? ** 
 
 " Yes/' 
 
 " Gold and silver, and fine linen ; and 
 safety, in this world, and in the next ? " 
 
 '' Yes," said Noton. 
 
 '* These are our principles of life ? " 
 
 *' Yes," said Noton. 
 
 " I see," said Mr. James. '' And those 
 help us to act on these who enable us to get 
 them, who provide them cheaply for us, and 
 enable us to travel sixty miles where once we 
 travelled one, and in so short a time, with a 
 smell, and a dust, and a jerking, and every- 
 body getting out of our way ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Noton. 
 
 '' But we shall make a hoot on a horn to 
 tell them to get out, shall we ? or not ? " 
 
 *' Perhaps," said Noton. 
 
 " And thus we shall live good Biblical 
 lives ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Noton. 
 
 '* Well, now, you see," said Mr. James, turn- 
 ing to the form, '' these are our principles of 
 life, and we profess to get them from the 
 Bible. Now do you see that they will not do, 
 
50 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 and do you see that something more is needed 
 in order to put Hfe right ? Something even 
 more, in a way, than the Bible ; namely, 
 the right spirit of reading it. Because all 
 these principles are selfish altogether ; and 
 yet they are those from which men are in- 
 clined to act now, and say that they are from 
 the Bible. And not only now does the ac- 
 ceptance of the Bible fail to prevent mistakes. 
 Three hundred years ago the most fanatical 
 of the Puritans said that they were leading 
 lives simply founded on the Bible : and they 
 said this rightly ; but their lives were founded' 
 not on the whole of it, but only on parts, 
 and they read the rest by the Hght of pre- 
 conceived feeling which prevented them from 
 profiting by it. 
 
 '' Let me say a word about the Bible, the 
 Holy Scriptures. They were written by men 
 who were under the guidance of a Power 
 under which many Englishmen who now read 
 them are not, a Power personally not of know- 
 ledge so much as of wisdom, of perfect know- 
 ledge ; they consequently had that in their 
 hearts which many Englishmen who read 
 what they wrote have not, and so read them 
 with little profit. I will say presently what 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 51 
 
 I think that this is. Those who wrote the 
 Holy Scriptures were friends of God ; many 
 of those who read them now are friends of 
 themselves, and with this preconceived feel- 
 ing read what is written even to their own 
 hurt, influenced only by the sayings which 
 please them, sajdngs which induce them to 
 try to obtain from religion primarily a feel- 
 ing of safety, and thus never knowing what 
 true religion is ; and they are positive that 
 they are right, because of the source of the 
 texts which influence them, and thus they 
 are in the worst possible position — they make 
 God teach them error. They commit some- 
 thing like the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
 with infinite damage to their own natures. 
 
 " This is the fault which Noton and I and 
 Martin seem to find with the position ; and 
 it is not exactly that which is mentioned in 
 this very able article, which Noton thought 
 to be a just charge against some of the public 
 schools, and perhaps not to be without a 
 shell to split in our midst here, else, perhaps, 
 Noton would not have written those verses 
 against the writers whom we read here, and put 
 them in last week's ' AUeynian.' It was a sense 
 of duty that impelled him to do this, or perhaps 
 
52 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 it was only irony after all — to praise by over 
 blaming — and double irony, to use Greek 
 methods to vindicate Greeks by over blaming 
 them." 
 
 Noton sat inwardly resolving to be even 
 with Mr. James somehow, even descending 
 to the depth of planning to kick his shins 
 at the Association game which Mr. James 
 still played at times. Mr. James, only half 
 conscious of his doom, went on — 
 
 " Now what is it that I said is really wanted 
 when people read the Bible ? Something that 
 
 Noton said " but here observing a really 
 
 dangerous expression in Noton's face, he knew 
 that it was better to drop Noton out of the 
 rest of the discourse. 
 
 '' It's beastly unfair,'' said Noton afterwards, 
 '* for that little beast Jimmy to rot me in a 
 form ; and I can't answer him ! " 
 
 " I know that," said Minet, who thought 
 very highly of Mr. James. 
 
 " I mean I can't, because he won't let me," 
 said Noton angrily. 
 
 " Oh yes, he will," said Minet. 
 
 '* No, he won't," said Noton. ** He'd report 
 me to Jerry if I said what I meant, and called 
 him a fool." 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 53 
 
 " Perhaps he would," said Minet. '* But 
 that isn't it/' 
 
 *' Well, don't you come fooling me here," 
 said Noton. 
 
 But all this was after school. "And now," 
 Mr. James went on, looking at Noton no more, 
 *' what is wanted is a certain spirit, that 
 spirit of which we spoke at the beginning : 
 the spirit of moderation, of nothing too much. 
 The remedy for the English trouble is to be 
 found in the last place in which people of 
 the present day seem inclined to look for it, 
 namely, among the Greeks. To those who 
 think themselves religious, who are religious 
 in the way described above, religious in hold- 
 ing what they think is correct belief, who, 
 however, only want safety from their religion, 
 the Greeks are pagan ; only not dangerous 
 because they are uninfluential. To those who 
 are called irreligious because they think for 
 themselves and use the reason which many 
 men think that they must obey because it is 
 the highest thing they have, the Greeks are 
 simply logomachists, and thus trivial and 
 futile. But for all these misconceptions, 
 perhaps only possible among the self-satisiied 
 British people, it is among the Greeks that 
 
54 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 the remedy for our mischiefs may be found. 
 It is by a knowledge of the methods which 
 the Greeks taught to the world — which con- 
 tains very dull and unwilling pupils — that the 
 right way to read the Bible is to be found. 
 
 *' For among the Greeks were teachers who 
 taught men to approach the problem of life 
 in a very different way from that in which 
 the British commonly approach it now, with- 
 out the preconception that wealth brings 
 happiness, and that a man gains happiness 
 by pursuing it according to his uneducated 
 nature, that pleasure and safety are primary 
 goods, under all circumstances to be received 
 in as large quantities as possible. These are 
 foolish thoughts which only appeal to the half 
 educated, and only have influence in Great 
 Britain because many of the British are con- 
 tented to be half educated or educated only 
 that they may carry on trade successfully. 
 Among the Greeks were men who approached 
 the problem thus : they looked not at the 
 world and its enjoyments, trying to get as 
 much of them as they could, professing all 
 the while for an hour or two in each week a 
 contempt for them, and sa3dng that their 
 great Book taught them to behave themselves 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 55 
 
 thus — they looked on man himself and his 
 nature, and carefully analysed it ; they noticed 
 in what parts of it he was akin to plants and 
 beasts, and what part of it he had as man ; 
 they wished to have it all developed in full 
 in all its parts, but in fulness according to 
 measure and proportion, not without measure 
 and proportion, each part retaining that posi- 
 tion of priority and superiority which was 
 indicated by its position in the grades and 
 scale of life, vegetable, bestial, and human. 
 
 '' They found that the qualities of man as 
 man were those that enabled him to live fully 
 and healthily and in company with other 
 men — purity, courage, patience, kindness, intel- 
 ligence — to these they therefore assigned 
 authority, not destroying the others, and not 
 foolishly mistrusting intelligence because they 
 feared for certain prejudices of their own if in- 
 telligence were allowed its way, but balancing 
 it by a due development of all other qualities 
 along with it. They recognised that they 
 saw these great qualities, the hope and the 
 salvation of the world, in the world in a finite 
 state ; but they saw in the more and the less 
 in which they were then seen, a suggestion 
 that they might be magnified to infinity and 
 
56 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 to perfection, and that in the far distance, 
 a distance beyond the thought of man, they 
 might be united. They beheved that they 
 were united in one great Being, where mercy 
 was justice, and knowledge was power, and 
 power was love, and all was perfect majesty 
 and perfect beauty. It is one who has thought 
 thus on life that may be trusted to read the 
 Bible, though truly in the Bible is the purest 
 religious thought in the world ; yet, as it is 
 not every one who can feed his body rightly — 
 indeed very few can manage to eat and drink 
 what suits them — so it is not every one that 
 can feed his soul rightly ; in fact, very few 
 can manage to read rightly and think thoughts 
 that are good. But among the Greeks are 
 those who will show men how to read and 
 how to think, if very humbly and thankfully 
 men will allow them. To these is granted 
 the vision of God as He is, not simply as a 
 God of knowledge, and one kind of knowledge 
 not simply as the Saviour of men*s souls, 
 but as He really is, a universal God ; these 
 only can love God truly and praise Him truly, 
 not only as the Saviour of men*s souls — if 
 this is all, He is never duly loved or praised — 
 but as a Being of perfect power, love and 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 57 
 
 knowledge, each part of whose attributes 
 must be apprehended by man, who saves 
 men's Hves if He will, or destroys them if 
 He will ; but either the one or the other 
 rightly, and whether one or the other, man 
 has no right to care, and no great wish to 
 care. Such a man trusts God without any 
 reservation, never even thinking, ' Will God 
 bring me to Heaven ? * 
 
 ** This forgetfulness of self is necessary, as 
 all men really know, to every noble character ; 
 it was fostered in Greece by the circumstances 
 of the State, according to which each man 
 was of necessity his city's servant, and upon 
 whom continually the State made such demands 
 that he could not forget his position. In the 
 good days of Greece there was no abstention 
 from public service, no advancement of the 
 conduct of business or the enjoyment of wealth 
 to the exclusion of civic and military duty ; 
 so that each Greek stood nearer than men 
 know now how to stand, to the happiest posi- 
 tion, that is, to the manliest position on earth, 
 namely, that of loyal obedience to the best 
 known commands ; not for the sake of that 
 which could be obtained by them, as indeed 
 many a man yields his service now, only be- 
 
58 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 cause he expects to be paid for it ; yielding 
 service to God to obtain prosperity in this 
 world and security in the next, and service to 
 men to obtain money from them afterwards ; 
 or paying taxes to the State to obtain security 
 in the enjoyment of wealth, counting himself 
 thus a most respectable citizen. But a Greek 
 yielded his service because he admired and 
 loved that to which he was a servant, and 
 was in a measure identical with it, and 
 honoured its commands because they were 
 worthy of honour. And that they were worthy 
 of honour he knew because he was a man, and 
 capable of understanding that which was good ; 
 capable of subordinating the poorer part of his 
 own nature to the higher part ; capable of 
 seeing a light shining in darkness, and knowing 
 that it was a light ; capable, in other words, 
 of possessing faith and exercising it. 
 
 *' And, indeed, as to knowledge, how shall a 
 man reach great discoveries ; how shall he 
 discover the fourth dimension of which men 
 talk, and alter the condition of existence ? 
 Men talk and write now as though this were 
 to be done by the microscope and the tele- 
 scope. What can these do ? How do they 
 affect human life ? They do not necessarily 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 59 
 
 affect it so as to better it, because nothing 
 can improve it excepting a movement towards 
 goodness — triple goodness, goodness in power, 
 love, and knowledge, each in equal proportion. 
 The noblest thing in the world is man, and 
 the world will be saved by developing the 
 noblest part of the noblest thing in it, the 
 manliness of man. Sanitation, great produc- 
 tion, great power of locomotion, do not neces- 
 sarily benefit man ; they may even greatly 
 harm him, because they make it more difficult 
 for him to be unselfish, that is, to obey the 
 highest law within him. A return to the old 
 ideal is the necessary thing, to the ideal 
 realised in theory and in fact also by the 
 Greeks, the ideal of self-sacrifice and triple 
 equalised development. An orderly move- 
 ment in this direction, for it is really one, is 
 the movement which will regenerate the world, 
 and make the whole Bible understood ; not 
 the movement which simply calls for a practi- 
 cal modem education. The movement towards 
 unselfishness takes a man out of himself ; and 
 it is the true movement for the world, because 
 it is the true movement towards God, the 
 movement which recognises Him not as a 
 Judge only or a merciful Personage only, but 
 
6o A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 as a Being who either has no self or is all 
 self, no body, no parts, no passions ; who is 
 in fact His works, who lives in them and for 
 them by His own great position, compelled 
 by His own almightiness to do as He does. 
 Why then should any one scrutinise too 
 anxiously this or that part of the Bible ? why 
 should one look too earnestly to this or that 
 part of the narration in the Gospels ? If it 
 was right for God to do as He is represented 
 in the Bible to have done, then He did so, 
 however imperfectly the facts may have been 
 recorded, at however long a time after their 
 occurrence, and by whatever scribe. If it was 
 not right, then God did not so, whatever may 
 be written and whosoever wrote it. 
 
 '' Here really is the fourth dimension, that 
 which is in fact the removal of all other three 
 dimensions, the removal of measure altogether, 
 the absolute, the infinitive withdrawal from 
 self towards real life ; a withdrawal at present 
 apparently as impossible as a leap to another 
 planet, or a disappearance into invisibility. 
 Here is the renewal of human power, the 
 purification of human conscience, the triumph 
 or nature over circumstances and over death ; 
 but it is just this that the operation of science, 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 6i 
 
 as we have it now, is thwarting ; and just this 
 that views of reUgion which multiply formalities 
 and present talismans to man are paralysing. 
 
 '* It is not only speculation which shows that 
 this is a true view of things ; history shows it 
 too. All that is good in the world has been 
 done by men who act under the influence of 
 this spirit ; as soon as they begin to revolt 
 from it, their work loses it value — the states- 
 man who works for glory, the musician who 
 thinks of himself, the speaker who pauses in 
 the thought about what he is saying to think 
 how he is saying it, becomes at once a mere 
 vulgar person ; the conqueror becomes simply 
 a wrecker in the world. However rich such 
 men are, they are lost ; the greater their 
 success, the greater their infamy. Men do not 
 deal rightly with God ; they pray to Him 
 to help them to succeed, all the more thus in 
 their prayers remembering themselves ; they 
 praise Him when they have been successful, 
 all the more thus in their praises remembering 
 themselves. They should pray to Him and 
 praise Him because He is what He is, because 
 they can to some extent, if they are willing, 
 lose theniselves, to find themselves in Him. 
 
 '* Now,'' went on Mr. James, '' please make 
 
62 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 a note on what I have said. It will come 
 under these heads: First, What dangers to 
 the country, and to individual life, do there 
 seem to be in modem ways of regarding life ? 
 Secondly, What antidote to this may be found 
 in Greek history and literature ? Or, since you 
 will not have time to make a note upon both 
 properly, do the first now, and make me an 
 essay on the second for next time.'' 
 
 The boys settled to their notes, and Mr. 
 James settled into a condition of wondering 
 whether he really had said anything which 
 would do the boys good or not. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Meanwhile school was proceeding in various 
 ways in the different form rooms and class 
 rooms, and each form and class was re- 
 ceiving as much good as it cared to absorb, 
 and in many cases much more. Each lesson, 
 like every man's life, is a kind of drama ; and 
 the interest of it consists in the variety of 
 relations which throughout it occur between 
 the master, the boys, and their work. In 
 the higher forms as a rule the interest lies 
 in the main in the advance of the boys under 
 the direction of their master into the under- 
 standing of some author or some set of circum- 
 stances. But though this interest is not 
 absent in lower parts of the school, yet it is 
 often tempered by others. For instance, take 
 the lesson this morning in the lower Fourth 
 Engineers, and see the disappointment, un- 
 suspected by every one, and unconnected with 
 the proper development of instruction, which 
 
 it brought to poor Kaffvn. 
 63" 
 
64 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 Kaffyn was a boy who had never been very 
 industrious ; he loved not his work for its 
 own sake, that is, he never loved more than 
 one-third of it, and the other two-thirds he 
 treated as boys will treat that which they 
 dislike. He was a nice boy, nevertheless, and 
 for very good nature was inclined to do that 
 which people wished him to do. His father 
 did not pay much attention to his son's pro- 
 gress, being himself much occupied with busi- 
 ness ; but at last he remembered that the 
 boy was fifteen years of age, and had not more 
 than two more years to spend at school, and 
 that if he did not learn more quickly than he 
 was learning, would not be fit to take a good 
 place in the world. Mr. Kaffyn was not able 
 to give any prolonged attention to his son's 
 work, and he was accustomed to buy what 
 he wanted ; and thus he simply promised 
 his son a horse, if he were not kept in until 
 the end of the term. Kaffyn went so far as 
 to kiss his father for the promise, and both 
 because he wished to please him, and also 
 secondly because of the horse, he determined 
 to do his work very well, both until the end 
 of the term and afterwards. The first thing 
 to be done was to collect his books. He pre- 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 65 
 
 vailed upon himself to ask Tomkyns and 
 Jacob for the chemistry and the algebra that 
 belonged to him, which they had been using 
 and smudging throughout the term ; and 
 with a strange feeling in his heart he made a 
 journey through the school, to find as many 
 as he could of his other books. He knew the 
 places where they were most likely to be, 
 because he had himself often when he needed 
 a book gone to these places, and not in vain, 
 to find one. He visited the shelves behind 
 the desks in the lower hall, and the organ 
 loft, and many a dark corner, and recovered 
 a certain quantity of his property, enough to 
 make a kind of bridge over the gulf that lay 
 between him and good work, though several 
 planks were still missing. Among those which 
 he found was one which he had not greatly 
 missed, namely a history book, and on Friday 
 night, like a good boy, he carefully learnt his 
 history lesson ; learnt it — not on the gravel 
 shivering, not on the stairs waiting, not walk- 
 ing, not trying to combine learning with talk- 
 ing as he moved to school in company with 
 his friend, the owner of the book which he was 
 using — learnt it in no precarious uneasy way, 
 but luxuriously, with plenty of time, seated 
 
66 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 and satisfied he had learned his lesson, and 
 went to say it on this Saturday morning, 
 rather missing, it may be, the interest of un- 
 certainty, and rather embarrassed, as people 
 are with a novelty, by his sense of knowledge. 
 
 Seated in front of his master, Mr. Harris, 
 there he was with his companions, when Mr. 
 Harris at eleven o'clock called upon the top 
 boy for the book, and told the boys to get 
 ready to do their slip. 
 
 Now what the lesson was had been written 
 on the blackboard by Mr. Harris at two o'clock 
 in the lower Fourth Engineers form room ; 
 but at three o'clock a master, who did not 
 know what he was doing, had rubbed out the 
 writing and written a sum in its place. Thus 
 at four o'clock when the Fourth Engineers 
 came in to see what their night work in his- 
 tory was, there was no writing to tell them. 
 They had been led to expect that the place 
 and quantity of their lesson would appear on 
 the board, and not finding it there, they were 
 at first astonished, and then inclined to be 
 joyful, for one. Green, propounded the theory 
 that they might take it that there was there- 
 fore no lesson for them to learn ; that Mr. 
 Harris, or old Solomon, as Green called him, 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 67 
 
 had — ^perhaps from motives of pity, perhaps 
 from forgetfulness — omitted to set one. If 
 the former was the case, which the sager and 
 steadier boys doubted. Green argued that they 
 ought not to balk him ; if the latter, then 
 Solomon should not complain if his careless- 
 ness came down upon his own head. There 
 were some boys who suggested that it would 
 be well to go to Mr. Harris' rooms, for he 
 lived in the block, and ask what really was 
 the position as viewed by him. But Green, 
 who was a boy powerful in argument as well 
 as in football, discountenanced this plan. He 
 said that it was a mere accident that Mr. 
 Harris lived so near, that the matter should 
 be treated on principle, and that one rule 
 applied to all masters wherever they lived; 
 that boys could not be expected to go to a 
 master's rooms, if he lived a mile away, and 
 that therefore abstract justice demanded that 
 the boys should simply accept the situation 
 and go away. 
 
 Now Kaffyn had himself already gone away 
 at four o'clock, knowing what the lesson was, 
 because he had taken down at two o'clock 
 what was written about it ; but by the other 
 boys the course recommended by Green was 
 
68 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 ultimately adopted, with readiness by five 
 boys, with misgivings more or less acute by 
 about sixteen, and with annoyance by about 
 six, who would really have preferred to learr 
 the lesson and say it. 
 
 On the following morning then at eleven 
 o'clock, from Mr. Harris* point of view the 
 lesson was about to begin, but from the point 
 of view to be presented to him by Green there 
 was no lesson to begin. Mr. Harris said to 
 Smith, who was at the head of the form, 
 '* Bring me up the book, and tell me what 
 the lesson is." 
 
 Smith rose, and moved uneasily to the desk, 
 with his eyes looking towards the ground. 
 The eyes of the form turned from him to 
 Green, who rose in his place, and said, 
 '' Please, sir." 
 
 " Sit down, Green," said Mr. Harris. 
 
 " Please, sir," said Green. 
 
 '' Sit down," said Mr. Harris ; and it was 
 necessary for Green to sit down, at all events 
 for a while. '* What is the lesson, Smith ? " 
 
 Smith hesitated and blushed, and said, 
 '' Please, sir, you didn't set any." 
 
 '' Yes, I did," said Mr. Harris. " I wrote 
 it on the board at two o'clock." 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 69 
 
 '' It wasn't there, sir, when we came at four/' 
 said Smith. 
 
 ** No, sir." *' No, sir,'' said many boys, and 
 among them Green. 
 
 '' Well," said Mr. Harris, '* that is very 
 awkward." The boys felt relieved. " But 
 what have you learned ? " 
 
 ** Nothing, sir," said Smith speaking doggedly, 
 partly because he thought his position unfair, 
 and partly because he was in fact saying some- 
 thing which was not true. 
 
 *' Nothing ! " said Mr. Harris, looking sur- 
 prised and then angry. 
 
 *' He thought " said Green, rising. 
 
 *' Sit down," said Mr. Harris, and Green sat 
 down, feeling now that Mr. Harris was decidedly 
 unjust, because he would not hear the other 
 side, which every one knows should always be 
 done. 
 
 *' Why didn't you go straight on ? " said 
 Mr. Harris. 
 
 '* You, sir, told us you would set us a lesson 
 in another part," said many boys readily. 
 
 '' So I did," said Mr. Harris, '' but I told 
 you I meant to set the Commonwealth. Did 
 you learn that ? " 
 
 There was no answer, but presently one boy, 
 
70 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 who had not taken Green's view as fully as 
 Green thought proper, said, '' There are two 
 places where the Commonwealth begins, sir/* 
 
 Mr. Harris looked at the book and said, '* I 
 don't think that you need have been misled 
 by that. The beginning is really plain enough ; 
 and did any of you come to my rooms to ask 
 me ? But I know that you did not, because I 
 was there/' 
 
 Now was the time for Green to deliver the 
 argument which he had elaborated, taking in 
 fact more time about it than it would have 
 taken him to learn the lesson. 
 
 ** Please, sir,*' he began, again rising in his 
 seat, feeling that much depended on him. 
 
 *' Sit down. Green,*' said Mr. Harris. 
 
 '* But, sir,*' said Green. 
 
 '' No," said Mr. Harris. " If there is any- 
 thing to say, let the top boy say it." 
 
 Green sat down in great indignation. The 
 view of history presented by their history book 
 was adverse to King Charles, and represented 
 Vyva in a favourable light ; and it occurred 
 to Green, who had a mind apt at allusion, 
 that he himself was like Pym, and that Mr. 
 Harris, like Charles, deserved execution. But 
 since he was a strong Conservative, and also 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 71 
 
 on principle differed from the history book, 
 he at once drove this idea from him and 
 contented himself with generally rebellious 
 feelings, while the form looked on in dismay, 
 because the top boy was the miserable Smith, 
 who could not argue with anybody, and was 
 more than suspected of collusion with the 
 adversary. 
 
 Then Mr. Harris said, '' I see how this is. 
 Is there any one who has learnt a lesson ? " 
 
 Now Kaffyn had learnt his lesson, and had 
 a good reason for saying so — for his father 
 was a business man without much sentiment, 
 and also Kaffyn really desired to please him — 
 but he felt it right to remain silent, and not 
 separate himself from his company. And 
 Smith and four others had learnt a lesson, 
 but they had a good reason for not saying so, 
 for Green was looking at them with an eye 
 full of prophecy. So no one made any sign. 
 Poor Mr. Harris was much to be pitied : he 
 was in a position in which he felt it necessary 
 to become awry with the boys, though he 
 had expected with pleasure a pleasant lesson ; 
 and he said, '' You will learn the lesson now, 
 and come and say it after 4.15 on Monday. 
 The work which you do now will be instead 
 
72 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 of the work which you should have done last 
 night, and the lesson itself will be on Monday 
 from 4.15 to 5.15/' 
 
 He then relapsed into silence, and the boys 
 turned sullenly to their books. 
 
 " What could I have done ? " said Mr. 
 Harris to himself as the horrible hour dragged 
 on. " Nothing. And when will these boys be 
 as they were ? Probably at 4.45 on Monday, 
 when I suddenly let them all go." 
 
 And " What a confounded nuisance ! " said 
 Kaffyn to himself, as he pretended to scan 
 the words already quite familiar to him. 
 
 In other rooms work was going on in various 
 ways, in some well, in some badly, according, 
 as it appeared superficially, to many incalcul- 
 able circumstances, but in reality governed by 
 one factor almost entirely. 
 
 Perhaps the least satisfactory lesson was 
 taught in that classroom where poor old Mr. 
 Rubeley took a German class. In this room 
 were both Carter and Hyde, and Gillett with 
 them, who in their present mood were not a 
 pleasant addition to any master's company. 
 Carter and Hyde were prefects, and their 
 position restrained them from allowing their 
 conduct to be bad enough to report ; but 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 73 
 
 it was known well enough in the classroom 
 that they were pleased rather than vexed if 
 there was any lack of discipHne. This was 
 very hard upon poor old Rubeley ; he was 
 very unwilling to complain of anybody, and 
 he had his own ideas about the duties of a 
 master, and his power to control boys. Once 
 this power had been his, when his step was 
 firmer and his voice clearer ; but now he 
 shuffled rather than walked, and all that was 
 left of his voice was hesitating. 
 
 It seemed strange to him, and he hardly 
 realised that things were as they were, for 
 once — though he never spoke of the past, being 
 a very modest man — once he had been actually 
 the best half-back in the Association game in 
 all wide England, and had played for England 
 in the international matches for one year. 
 Want of money had prevented him from play- 
 ing longer, and he had quite dropped out of 
 football and the thoughts of those who had 
 played it for many a year. He was not a 
 University man, and wore no gown, and so 
 naturally seemed less able to teach than his 
 colleagues. In the thirty years that had 
 passed since he played his football, his limbs, 
 once so quick and accurate, had become 
 
74 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 trembling ; his eye once so clear, and so good 
 a judge of space, could hardly see to the end 
 of the form room. 
 
 Once, a year ago, he had seen some little 
 boys in the upper Third forms playing the 
 dribbling game in a small game behind the 
 music rooms ; and after standing and watch- 
 ing them for a few minutes, he had called to 
 the best player of them, and said to him, 
 ** Johnson, would you like to know the secret 
 of learning to dribble ? " 
 
 If he had asked Johnson whether he would 
 like to know how to shoot tigers, Johnson 
 could hardly have been more astonished. But 
 he said, with a hopeless feeling of contempt, 
 '' Yes, sir.'' 
 
 ''Well, then,'' said Mr. Rubeley, ''it is 
 this : go quicker and not more slowly as 
 you near a man, and do not wind about, but 
 go straight." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the boy, and went back to 
 his companions, and so full was he of what he 
 thought was a good joke, that he could not 
 wait until Mr. Rubeley was out of sight before 
 he collected the players about him and told 
 it to them. Poor old Rubeley heard them all 
 laugh, and his football recollections all shrunk 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 75 
 
 back into him again. Continually, as boys 
 did not behave well in his classes, he feared 
 that it was time for him to give up teaching ; 
 but he did not like to acknowledge this to 
 himself ; it seemed as though, if he gave it 
 up, his life would go also. Thus he kept on ; 
 but he had a bad time of it, only hoping by 
 care and kindness to manage each term better 
 than the last. 
 
 But little improvement came ; sometimes 
 he found himself teaching a good-hearted set 
 of boys, who listened to him and learnt from 
 him the good lessons which he had to teach, 
 but more often the boys, in most cases from 
 thoughtlessness more than anything else, were 
 very hard upon him. Very often the sweat 
 would break out upon his forehead in his 
 trouble, and as he wiped it away with his 
 handkerchief the boys would wink to each 
 other, for Rubeley was, as they said, '' Having 
 a rounder." And once a week, at least, on 
 the wall outside his door they drew a picture 
 of this operation taking place, which, as long 
 as it was allowed by the porter to remain 
 there, much pleased the various classes that 
 came up to these rooms to be taught. 
 
 The tradition to annoy him, or to '' rag 
 
 ^\>' or THf A 
 UNIVERSITY I 
 
 or . / 
 
76 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 him," as it was called, grew rather than 
 diminished, and often before he descended his 
 stairs it was necessary for him to wipe away, 
 not perspiration only, but tears, when the boys 
 had gone and he was left alone in his room. 
 The class which he took this morning he took 
 with much dislike, because he understood the 
 position of affairs with regard to the influence 
 of the prefects in it ; and on this morning in 
 particular he feared some trouble, because it 
 was the day of the match, and the football 
 captain would, Mr. Rubeley feared, feel more 
 than usual his own importance and that of 
 football, and the boys would follow him in 
 their thoughts. And so indeed it was. German 
 was the subject of the lesson. But it seemed 
 not possible to introduce it, for the boys were 
 determined to talk not of German but of 
 football. 
 
 *' If you please, sir," said Gillett, almost as 
 soon as he had seated himself, '* what is the 
 German for football ? " 
 
 Poor Mr. Rubeley hesitated, and then Hyde 
 said in a very polite manner, '' I expect 
 Mr. Rubeley does not know what a foot- 
 ball is." 
 
 '' A football, sir," said Gillett, '' is an oblong 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 77 
 
 piece of leather tightly distended by an India 
 rubber balloon, I may call it, which is laced 
 inside it/' 
 
 *' And,'' said Merr3rweather, '' it is blown up 
 thus for the purpose of being kicked about the 
 field, by two sides." 
 
 Different boys followed, volunteering different 
 statements of different rules, and at last Gillett 
 rose up and said, *' Perhaps, sir, you would like 
 us to show you how the game is played." At 
 this two or three boys rose in their places, and 
 having crumpled up two or three sheets of 
 paper together, made as if they would actually 
 play in the room. There was a considerable 
 tumult, above which Mr. Rubeley's weak voice 
 could not make itself heard. But Hyde, who 
 was afraid that things were going too far, and 
 wished also to establish a good character for 
 himself, called out loudly above the noise, 
 *' Be quiet." The boys were all quiet directly. 
 And Hyde said, '' If Mr. Rubeley does not 
 know what football is, it is perhaps his mis- 
 fortune more than his fault. Perhaps, when 
 he was young, football was not played much." 
 It cannot be said that Hyde was quite a 
 nice boy ; but he had in fact allowed himself 
 to forget that he owed any duty even of 
 
7^ A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 courtesy to Mr. Rubeley. The lesson then 
 proceeded in quiet, Mr. Rubeley saying very 
 little, and the boys went rather guiltily away, 
 feeling uncertain as to what would happen 
 to them. Some of them feared that they would 
 be reported, and thus not see the match ; and 
 some of them had that sense of dissatisfac- 
 tion which most boys have when discipline 
 at school is not maintained. Mr. Rubeley 
 stopped a little longer than usual in his room 
 this morning when the boys had gone away ; 
 and wrote a letter which he had no difficulty 
 in wording, for indeed he had often during 
 the term half framed it in his mind. It ran 
 as follows : 
 
 **Dear Master, — I am very sorry that I 
 know I ought to resign my position here, be- 
 cause I cannot control the boys properly. I 
 am very much obliged to you, my dear Master, 
 for the kindness with which you have always 
 treated me, and I am, yours very truly, 
 
 ^'E. C. Rubeley.*' 
 
 He went downstairs thoughtfully and quietly, 
 and put the letter in the box in the hall. So 
 that the first act of the tragedy in his life might 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 79 
 
 be considered to be over. The world for him 
 was hkely to be different from a stage, in this 
 point : that plays of ordinary life generally end 
 well, but in his life, which was ordinary enough, 
 paniful things were likely to come more and 
 more thickly until the end of it. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 At one o'clock the schoolrooms, so quiet before, 
 became full of stir ; the gravel and the paths, 
 so empty before, became crowded with boys. 
 From all forms and all kinds of work they came. 
 From the junior schoolrooms, and from the 
 drill Serjeant's care, under which they had been 
 taught to poise their bodies and hold them as 
 is best for their health and comeliness, the 
 junior boys poured, with slightly more demon- 
 stration than their seniors. From the drawing 
 rooms boys came, where they had learned to 
 observe things accurately, and to represent 
 what they had observed, and, it may be, had 
 received into their souls ideas of gracefulness 
 and beauty, of the reception of which they had 
 hardly been conscious ; from the mathematical 
 rooms, where they had insinuated their minds 
 into all the intricacies of shape and calcula- 
 tion ; from the chemistry rooms, where they 
 had heard their lecture, and they had gone to 
 their experiments, and watched carefully the 
 
 l8o 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 8i 
 
 operations of Nature, while things generally 
 separated by her were placed together, opera- 
 tions which they would presently describe in 
 note-books, with drawings of the apparatus 
 which they had used. Most of the substances 
 of the earth came before them, each in its 
 order, and they learnt the nature of each, 
 learnt and wondered, filled with interest and 
 enthusiasm. And from the physical rooms, 
 where they had been learning the laws under 
 which light and heat and electricity work in 
 the world, and the characteristics of material 
 of many kinds, what strain it would bear, under 
 what conditions it rested and under what it 
 moved, measuring and weighing, boiling and 
 cooling, pulling and recording, a busy and a 
 steady set of workers, hot with that fever, 
 most wholesome and most pleasant, the fever 
 to know ; and from the biology rooms, where 
 they had been examining the conditions of life, 
 in animals and in plants, with knife and micro- 
 scope, again altering and watching and drawing 
 and recording. 
 
 Happy boys, and they knew that they were 
 happy, to whom some of the secrets of nature 
 were being unfolded, who passed from one 
 piece of knowledge to another, gathering facts 
 
82 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 into systems, and illustrating systems by facts ; 
 learning the meaning of that which they saw 
 taking place piecemeal under their eyes every 
 moment as they lived. Many fancies of the 
 poets faded for them, no doubt. The ever- 
 lasting hills, the personality of the pale cold 
 moon, or the bridegroom sun, these became 
 only trivialities to them, the nymphs left the 
 streams, and the wind had no tongue to tell 
 a tale to them. For the poetry of the new 
 learning has not yet come — a wider, bigger, 
 broader poetry than that which we know now, 
 spreading its allusions beyond the mere fancies 
 of man. But these boys learnt something of 
 the truth, and truth reached by reasoning 
 labour ; and great is the truth. Happy were 
 they in making this great friend their own ; 
 and they knew of their happiness ; and if a 
 stranger entered their room, they marked their 
 work still, and not the stranger. And happier 
 still were they, if with all their knowledge they 
 remembered its limits, and knew where they 
 really were in regard to the great hierarchy 
 of the sciences. 
 
 And from the language rooms the boys came, 
 where the principles of speech had been un- 
 folded to them, with all the principles of thought 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 83 
 
 on which they depend, and all that the great 
 thinkers among mankind have said upon the 
 morals and the politics of their fellows, and the 
 relation of man to God. Wonderful places, 
 indeed, are all schools now. Wonderful is the 
 wealth of opportunities they give, compared 
 with that which they gave fifty years ago ; 
 the one has become the many, and the many 
 is suited to every kind of mind, and with 
 thought and care each master suits himself 
 and his subject to the minds of those who 
 learn with him. 
 
 Wonderful indeed are schools, but not per- 
 fect yet, nor will the perfecting of them come 
 by the multiplication of examinations. If 
 there are examinations, teachers will teach for 
 them ; and a teacher who teaches for examina- 
 tions is in danger of becoming like a man who 
 works simply for money, from out of whose 
 work much of that which is really valuable dis- 
 appears. And the boy who learns for examina- 
 tions is seldom educated. Most of that which 
 is really valuable goes out of his work also. At 
 present, too, with the multiplication of examiners 
 comes another danger — the danger that men 
 will be exalted into the position of examiners 
 who are not fit to hold it. Men of 'fads, men 
 
84 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 merely mechanical, men of insufficient know- 
 ledge, men who love power, men who love to 
 say cutting things, men without instinct, men 
 without industry or conscience. Perhaps the 
 hardest of all things is to examine well, and 
 proportion to the difficulty of examining well 
 is the difficulty of getting good men to do it. 
 
 Out of school and into the hall and to their 
 homes and houses the boys trooped for dinner, 
 each one making for his fellow, that boy or 
 those boys, whose friendship will make one of 
 the great joys of his life. And poor Attwater 
 went to watch for Hyde and Carter. 
 
 Hyde and Carter were too busy with the 
 coming game, and with the Tonbridge boys, 
 to have much time to speak to Attwater ; 
 nevertheless he made some little opportunity 
 for this pleasure. He liked to be seen with 
 these two boys, they were boys of influence 
 in the school, and were boys of the kind of 
 whom Attwater was afraid. They cared very 
 little for masters or for rules, and Attwater 
 secretly cared a great deal ; their lessons to 
 them were a secondary concern, and to Attwater 
 his lessons were a primary concern. He was 
 very much afraid of being considered by them 
 weak-minded, and a prig, and he affected in 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 85 
 
 their company the tone of a man of the world 
 without much regard for law and order, and 
 willing to break every rule of the school. He 
 .went up to the group of Tonbridge boys with 
 ^hom they were standing after lunch at about 
 fci quarter past two, and began to talk of the 
 University match. 
 
 " This football,'* he said, *' seems tame after 
 'Varsity football/' 
 
 " Have you seen much ? " said the Tonbridge 
 boy to whom he spoke. '* I haven't, excepting 
 when a College team came down to play us." 
 
 '' I saw some when I went up to Oxford last 
 week, and I hope to see some next week." 
 
 '' When ? " said the boy. 
 
 *' The 'Varsity match," said Attwater, *' we 
 mean to go." 
 
 " Will you be allowed ? " said the boy, '' will 
 you get leave ? " 
 
 " I don't think we shall ask," said Attwater, 
 looking at Hyde, a little uncertainly, as he 
 fancied that Hyde did not like the subject. 
 
 '* How shall you manage ? " said the Ton- 
 bridge boy. 
 
 '' I expect I shall be unwell," said Attwater 
 with a laugh. 
 
 The Tonbridge boy did not seem to be much 
 
86 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 impressed, and looked, as Attwater looked, at 
 Hyde. 
 
 Hyde said, '' I dare say we shall go, but I 
 don't exactly know how. I want to see the 
 match.*' 
 
 "I should Hke to,'' said the Tonbridge 
 captain. *' I've got a brother playing ; but 
 of course I can't." 
 
 Hyde seemed desirous to drop the subject ; 
 but one of the groups of smaller boys standing 
 admiringly around heard the dialogue, and 
 went away spreading this piece of news among 
 others more closely connected with the after- 
 noon. So interesting did it seem that the boys 
 Hstened to it, and heard that Attwater and 
 Hyde and some others meant to see the Univer- 
 sity match ; and that Attwater meant to sham 
 being ill in order to get away. 
 
 " Attwater is a beastly fool," said Kaffyn, 
 who had recovered his interest in things at 
 one o'clock, " and if he comes talking to me, 
 as he did yesterday, I shall tell him so. I hate 
 a prefect who talks like that ; he has no busi- 
 ness to be a prefect or to be here." 
 
 " Hyde is going, they say," said another 
 boy. 
 
 " Hyde can play at football," said Kaffyn, 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH %y 
 
 " and Attwater can't. I don't believe Hyde 
 is going/' he added, after a pause. 
 
 '' Yes, he is," said ElHs; '' I heard him teU 
 Grant so in the interval to-day, and I don't 
 think Grant liked it." 
 
 '' What did he say ? " asked Kaffyn. 
 
 '' It was him and Carter talking, and Hyde 
 said he was going to get a telegram and go on 
 the strength of it ; and Carter was going to be 
 out of school and go." 
 
 " I don't believe he will go," said Kaffyn, 
 " and anyway Attwater is a beast. He goes 
 bragging about and doing everything he thinks 
 will please Hyde." 
 
 '' I shouldn't think it would please Hyde to 
 have Attwater come," said Ellis. '' I wouldn't 
 go with Attwater anywhere even if he wanted 
 me to. He's such an ass." 
 
 '' What did Grant say ? " asked Kaffyn. 
 
 *' He didn't say anything. But afterwards 
 he didn't speak a word about the match or 
 say anything. He just stood still for a minute 
 without speaking and then he walked off. And 
 the Old Man looked out of the window and 
 sent for Hyde and Carter, as if he had heard 
 them." 
 
 "I wish he had," said Kaffyn. "It's a 
 
88 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 beastly thing to do, I think. That's Gunter, 
 their three-quarter back ; and that's Tremayne, 
 the half-back. I expect Grant will settle him ; 
 but Gunter got two tries against Bedford." 
 
 And so on went the conversation, until pre- 
 sently, as three o'clock came near, the boys all 
 collected in a ring round the field, and the 
 referee appeared, and looked at its bearings, 
 and the great ring was formed two or three 
 deep and more in many places all round the 
 football ground. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Mr. James was one of the gentlest mannered 
 men, and a keen lover of football too, that is 
 of school football. He was a strong patriot, 
 and since the struggles of the year in the out- 
 door life of the school were those in which 
 it was matched against another school in 
 cricket or football, these match days caused 
 in him the most intense interest. About 
 five minutes before the game began he usually 
 took his place at a comer of the ground, and 
 there he was wont to stay, saying nothing, 
 hardly ever applauding ; but when a good 
 piece of play was done by one of the Dulwich 
 side he smiled, and tightened his lips, and 
 his face reddened. He did not care to talk 
 to any one during the course of the match, 
 excepting perhaps one or two of the masters 
 who quite understood him, and one or two 
 of the boys ; but as a rule he said never a 
 word. He had played both cricket and foot- 
 ball in his day of twenty years ago, and knew 
 the points of both games. 
 
90 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 On this day at 2.55 he appeared at the 
 comer of the field, ready to look at the game, 
 but with a feeling that the excitement of 
 looking at it would be too great to be pleasant. 
 For the ten years during which he had been 
 at Dulwich it had been his habit to stand here, 
 and his interest had grown with each year, 
 as he identified his happiness more and more 
 completely with the happiness of the school. 
 But he had not taken his place for two minutes 
 before something happened which made him 
 uneasy. He had good eyes for such occur- 
 rences, because they made him miserable. 
 He saw a young man detaching himself from 
 the crowd about thirty yards away, and 
 moving with what Mr. James felt to be a 
 threatening step in his direction. If this 
 was not the object of his movement, thought 
 Mr. James, why should he move at all ? Why 
 stir from his excellent place ? Mr. James 
 glared at the field, but with the side of his 
 eyes he could see the movement still going 
 on, becoming more threatening with every 
 step. Mr. James still glared upon the field, 
 and began to take the precautionary measure 
 of stirring a little from his position, so that 
 he might not be absolutely caught and fixed 
 in one spot. A quarter of a minute more 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 91 
 
 and he was aware that the young man was 
 smiling. 
 
 Mr. James had often said that the least 
 pretence is deceit, and the least deceit is 
 objectionable. But was he not now pretend- 
 ing that he did not see this young man ? The 
 young man Hfted his hat ; Mr. James feigned 
 to observe the field only. Mr. James had 
 sunk very low. He must, according to his 
 theories, pay a penalty, either a smaller one 
 now, or a greater one hereafter. The young 
 man formed up in front of him, and Mr. James 
 must see him and shake his hand, not know- 
 ing who he is, with a horrible certainty that 
 his tongue was long, else he would not have 
 acted as he was acting. 
 
 '' You do not remember me ? " he says. 
 
 ''I do not, I am ashamed to say,'' says 
 Mr. James. ** Who is it ? " 
 
 *' Planter," says the young man. 
 
 '' Oh, Planter ! " says Mr. James, very 
 guiltily, remembering Planter, a senior boy at 
 Ingleton school eleven years ago ; perhaps 
 not a bad boy, as a boy, but how very in- 
 opportune was his arrival ! Planter no doubt 
 lived miles away ; this was not a visit of 
 two minutes or of ten, it was a serious matter. 
 Planter, no doubt, knew no one on the ground ; 
 
92 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 no doubt he had come to see Mr. James ; no 
 doubt he would stay to tea. Mr. James felt 
 utterly dismayed. 
 
 '' I hoped I should find you here/* said 
 Planter pleasantly. '' I went to your rooms, 
 they told me you were here.'* 
 
 " How often/* thought Mr. James, *' have 
 I told the servants not to do this, at least 
 hinted it to them ; for they are so clumsy 
 that if I told them too strongly they would 
 be offensive, and make me seem so ; and 
 anything almost is better than that.'* 
 
 '* Yes/' said he, really genially if the posi- 
 tion be properly considered ; so genially at 
 all events that Planter thought the welcome 
 satisfactory. 
 
 *' I thought you would have little to do on 
 a half holiday afternoon," went on Planter. 
 
 '' Yes,*' said Mr. James again. 
 
 " So I came." 
 
 '' Yes," said Mr. James. 
 
 ''Shall I," thought Mr. James, ''ask him 
 to tea now, and he will go away till then ? 
 But of course he will come to tea in any case. 
 Shall I tell him to go away, and come again 
 in an hour ? But I shall not be happy with 
 him operating on me from a distance all 
 through the match ; and of course he won't 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 93 
 
 want really to see the match at all. I wonder 
 if he would like to see the pictures. If he 
 would only like that, it would do." 
 . He said, '' You have been to Dulwich before ? '' 
 
 '' No," said Planter. 
 
 ''It is rather abrupt," thought Mr. James, 
 *' but it must be done in some way, for the 
 teams are nearly on the ground." 
 
 Then he said aloud, '' Most people come 
 some time, to see the pictures. Would you 
 like to ? " 
 
 He stopped short, feeling that he would be 
 bound to take Planter himself to see the 
 pictures, as things stood. But Planter didn't 
 care for pictures. He had come simply to 
 have a talk with Mr. James. 
 
 '' How very annojdng," thought Mr. James. 
 
 '* And," said Planter, " since you have 
 nothing to do, you may as well talk to me 
 here out in the open air." 
 
 ''Oh yes," said Mr. James ruefully, as the 
 teams were stripping. " And how are you 
 getting on ? " 
 
 "Oh, very well," said Planter. " Fm in 
 the Town Council of my town, and I'm 
 Chairman of the School Board. You always 
 inculcated in me that it was right to perform 
 civic duties, and so I became a candidate for 
 
94 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 the Council and was elected, and am now, 
 in fact. Mayor — the youngest Mayor in the 
 kingdom but one/' 
 
 *' Yes, indeed,'' said Mr. James, '' how very 
 nice." As the boys took their places. '' And 
 who is the youngest ? and how old are you ? 
 and Mrs. — ah ! — Mayor " 
 
 The ball was kicked off, and the most in- 
 teresting — but it is of no use to write of the 
 interest in connection with poor Mr. James, 
 for he couldn't enjoy it. 
 
 Planter looked rather surprised at Mr. James' 
 incoherency, but he was not easily put out. 
 '* Oh yes," he said, " I am, in fact, married." 
 
 *' Indeed," said Mr. James, '' how nice, and 
 have you any — Mayors — I mean children ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Planter, '* and I wanted to 
 ask you about them. The eldest boy has just 
 recovered from the measles." 
 
 *' Oh dear ! " said Mr. James. 
 
 '' But he is not really well yet ; would you 
 press him in his work ? " 
 
 '' No, I think not," said Mr. James, 
 
 '* What would you put him to work at ? " 
 said Planter. 
 
 '' Oh, almost anything," said Mr. James, 
 *' that's wholesome. You'll come to tea, and 
 we can talk about it." 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 95 
 
 '* Yes/' said Planter, *' but I am afraid I 
 must go at 4.30. He is a nice boy." 
 
 ** No doubt/' said Mr. James heartily, strain- 
 ing his eyes to see what was happening in the 
 far comer of the field. 
 
 '* But not strong/' 
 
 '' No doubt," said Mr. James. 
 
 '' But quite quick. I don't say it because 
 I am his father, but every one who sees him 
 says so. He can read Caesar now." 
 
 '* Dear me ! " said Mr. James. 
 
 ** That's very good for a boy of nine," said 
 Planter. 
 
 '' Oh, very good," said Mr. James ; not 
 really knowing what it was that was good, 
 but making up for his ignorance by mechanical 
 heartiness. 
 
 The case of the boy, the first-bom Planter, 
 occupied the next quarter of an hour ; and 
 then it appeared that Planter had written a 
 book. " Planter ! " thought Mr. James roused 
 by the monstrosity of the thing into semi- 
 consciousness of what Planter was saying. It 
 was so. Planter ! a book designed to place 
 the local government of England in its proper 
 place in relation to all other governments, from 
 the government of the spheres to that of the 
 young Planters. The work was a long one, and 
 
96 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 began with a sketch of authority in general, 
 in regard to those who exercise it and those 
 upon whom it is exercised. Planter, in a voice 
 rendered husky by an hour's continuous use, had 
 reached the end temporarily of an analysis of 
 this prologue, and was pausing for Mr. James' 
 comments upon it when the clock struck 4.15 
 and the end of the match came, and Mr. James, 
 feehng hke a discharged battery, took Planter 
 down to the station. 
 
 *' Fve had a most pleasant afternoon," 
 said he. 
 
 '' Fm very glad of that,*' said Mr. James ; 
 " and that is one good thing certainly.'' 
 
 '* I'll come again some half holiday ; I dare- 
 say I shall always find you on the ground or 
 somewhere about." 
 
 ** Yes, yes," said Mr. James thoughtfully, 
 but of what he was thinking Planter did not 
 guess. Planter never even as a boy knew 
 what any one thought of him, and as a man 
 he went further in the direction of ignorance, 
 and always knew wrongly. 
 
 But though poor Mr. James hardly saw the 
 match owing to Planter, yet it had gone on 
 from beginning to end to the huge joy of most 
 of the rest of the spectators. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 It is an anxious as well as a proud moment 
 for the team when it goes out stripped, and 
 wearing, each boy his highest colours, to play 
 a great school football match. Into the sixty- 
 five minutes that follow are to be crammed 
 as abundant a measure of struggle as in any 
 sixty-five minutes of ordinary life. The boys 
 in hundreds, with many spectators' besides, 
 stand around the whole space, each one full 
 of strong sympathy, all of them wishful for 
 one side or the other to win, eager, unable to 
 spare a thought to anything else on earth. 
 Their talk is all of what is to come, of specula- 
 tion, and news with regard to either team, 
 the state of the ground, the toss, the wind, 
 and many other circumstances. The ring is 
 round the field composed almost entirely of 
 sympathisers with the home team, but there is 
 in one part of the ground a knot of supporters 
 of the other. They have come, some fifty in 
 number — boys now belonging to the other 
 
98 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 school, or old boys once belonging to it — to 
 see the game, and to cheer their own side. 
 
 The clock strikes three. The teams walk 
 from the paviHon to the corner of the field, 
 to the great delight of all who see them going 
 and know that the game is about to begin, 
 and away from the field the boys in the extra 
 lesson hear the strokes of the clock and fancy 
 to themselves what is being done, and wish 
 that what is were otherwise. They look at 
 the master taking them, with a little feeling 
 of bitterness, identifying him with the system 
 which has brought them there ; and he thinks 
 of them with a Httle feeling of bitterness, 
 thinking, ** If these boys had not been, one 
 ' very idle ' another ' impertinent ' and so on, 
 I might have seen what they and I both want 
 to see." 
 
 Outside every one sees, the boys run from 
 the buttery, the last dressers run from the 
 bath block and the pavilion ; the College 
 servants appear at the windows, and there is 
 a round of applause as the Tonbridge team 
 steps away from the hutch where they have 
 left their coats and mufflers and honour caps, 
 a group of fifteen lithe, free-stepping boys, 
 in red and white jerseys, and red and white 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 99 
 
 stripes to their dark blue knickerbockers, and 
 red and white stockings. They are carefully 
 and even reverently scanned, and every one 
 looks eagerly and speaks little. In half a 
 minute or less there is a louder round of 
 applause, and a cheer from almost the whole 
 ring, as the Dulwich boys step out from the 
 trees, and over the ropes and into the ground, 
 dressed in the familiar black and blue, the 
 sight of which is dear to every Dulwich boy. 
 
 The players range themselves, and it is seen 
 that we are to kick up hill at first ; the ball 
 lies yellow in the centre of the ground, Carter 
 lifts his hand, the opposing captain lifts his 
 hand in answer, and Carter advances to the 
 ball — and kicks. From all the field there 
 rises a shout, and the game has begun. The 
 ball is caught by the three-quarter back, and 
 he runs — good gracious, how he runs ! who 
 can stop him ? He is round the forwards and 
 nearly out in the open beyond them, when 
 Grant hurls himself upon him, 9 stone 10 to 
 12 stone, and down he comes. What a cheer 
 rose from all the ground ! The people in the 
 road echoed it ; those in the train standing 
 in the station heard it, and wished they had 
 seen what caused it. And those in the extra 
 
100 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 lesson heard it, and thought, " Was it a try ? " 
 Presently from the scrimmage, the two half- 
 backs. Grant, and James, the boy whose 
 digestion had not been quite satisfactory that 
 morning, instead of passing to the three- 
 quarters, whom the others were watching, 
 seeing an opening advanced with a pretty 
 piece of passing, and actually between them 
 slipped in before the backs had well taken 
 their eyes from Hyde, whom they had been 
 taught to dread. 
 
 The delight of the field and the team was 
 frantic. The bigger boys shouted, and the 
 smaller ones screamed really almost mad with 
 joy ; then they stopped their shouting, and 
 watched while James lay down and Hyde came 
 forward to take the kick. There was a moment 
 of suspense and silence, though the boys saw 
 the ball fly straight towards the posts, until 
 the whistles sounded ; and then again and 
 again the cheering rose, and little boys could 
 be seen jigging with delight ; and some, turn- 
 ing, slapped their friends on the back, and then 
 jigged again. 
 
 Ten minutes play, and a goal already ! The 
 field was set again ; and now the Tonbridge 
 boys kicked off ; and then again that long- 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH loi 
 
 legged runner, who moved like a greyhound, 
 was away with the ball ; one pass to his half- 
 back and away again, with the ball returned 
 to him, away round the scrimmage, and up 
 towards the upper corner of the field ; he 
 passed the knot of Tonbridge boys on his 
 way, and they cheered him well I promise 
 you, and louder and louder their shouts 
 sounded discordantly to Dulwich ears, as he 
 rounded the whole field, and dodged the back 
 and grounded the ball, but up in the very 
 corner of the field. The kick was too hard 
 for a goal and the game stood 5 to 3. 
 
 But Hyde changed his field, and set a boy, 
 clever, quick, and plucky, to watch this player, 
 and charged him to see that whatever happened 
 he came not through again. And well did the 
 boy, who was our good friend Coggan, do as 
 he was told. His absence was felt in the pack, 
 and he himself longed greatly to be there ; 
 but he did not even move a step towards it, 
 but, independent of all formation, in due 
 relation to the scrimmage and the Tonbridge 
 player, he moved, his eye upon both, his 
 teeth set, and even his hand clenched, as he 
 thought of what he had to do. The Tonbridge 
 three-quarter back felt himself marked, and 
 
102 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 knew that he should not have such another 
 run again as that which he had just had. He 
 looked at the other's limbs and watched his 
 springy movements, and knew that he could 
 run ; but so could he himself, and he felt 
 fresh and sound, and longed for the chance 
 which would show whether his pace or the 
 other's was the better. Three times he thought 
 he had it ; but each time Grant or James, 
 whose play was splendid, flung themselves 
 beyond the scrimmage and spoiled the pass ; 
 but at last, the fourth time, it came again, 
 and a hum of apprehension went round the 
 field as it was seen that again he had the ball, 
 and without a moment's pause he started at 
 a great speed, with another three - quarter 
 racing close behind him, to make his run. 
 The forwards paused, the Tonbridge forwards 
 stood nearly still, it was their rest now ; they 
 knew the three-quarters' play, and it never 
 failed. They stood a moment and watched 
 with rising joy, while the Dulwich forwards 
 watched also uneasily, moving sideways back, 
 trouble written on their faces. The passing 
 began and the Dulwich tacklers seemed no- 
 where. Grant missed his cast, and save for 
 a long stagger Hyde was passed. " Where is 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 103 
 
 Coggan ? " thought he. There he is, and 
 Hyde half smiled to see him in the place to 
 which he had crossed at a scamper, and stood, 
 hands out, bent and ready, in the direct line 
 along which the two three-quarters must go. 
 And near him stood the back, more easy in his 
 mind because thus supported. 
 
 '* Now ! " screamed Hyde : and now at the 
 Tonbridge boy sprang Coggan ; not ran, but 
 sprang, and hurled himself like a projectile 
 low upon him, and down he came ! Coggan 
 had missed the ball, but it fell forward. The 
 back could have taken it, though the other 
 Tonbridge three-quarter was close upon him ; 
 but the whistle blew, and the danger was 
 finished in this way, and each boy breathed 
 more freely. 
 
 It was now half-time, and the thirty boys 
 threw themselves on the ground to rest. Each 
 boy felt glad to rest ; for both forwards and 
 outsides had done their duty well ; the forwards 
 on each side none the less for the fact that 
 their work had not been showy. In five 
 minutes the whistles were blown, and they 
 stood up again, ready and eager with the end 
 now in sight, each boy determined to play 
 until there was no more play left in him. 
 
104 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 No need for the weaker to husband any 
 strength ; in point of time it was thirty minutes 
 now before them, not sixty ; and at the end 
 of the thirty each boy had but to Hve, and 
 trust to the future to bring him back to his 
 old power of strength and movement ; and 
 meanwhile he must play, play with his head 
 and his body and his legs, play with all his 
 might. And play he did ; each forward hold- 
 ing up the scrimmage until it seemed a mass 
 of stone and not of living boys, each outside 
 watching and seizing and tackling and running 
 like a deer. 
 
 Grant and James were good beyond all the 
 rest, making no mistake, working like one 
 machine and not two boys, and feeding the 
 three-quarters in a faultless way ; and Coggan 
 was wary and watchful and played with his 
 head, scheming in the most strategic manner, 
 so that the line was not again fairly broken ; 
 and the Tonbridge boys on their side each did 
 their duty, like upright- manful football players. 
 
 Then upon the field, to the joy of the Dulwich 
 boys, at last the quarter past four chime 
 sounded ; the whistles were blown long and 
 loud. '' No side,*' was called, and in an 
 instant the whole ring was broken, each boy 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 105 
 
 running with all his might to the clump of 
 trees, and standing there and making a lane 
 for the players to pass. All the boys cheered 
 themselves hoarse as the players came. Again 
 and again they roared their joy, and then 
 seizing — each group a player — they bore him 
 shoulder high to the buttery and laid him 
 down again to comfort his thirsty soul. Then 
 having cheered the Tonbridge boys, the crowd 
 dispersed to talk about the match and say 
 that never had a better match been played ; 
 and so indeed said the referee. He had seen 
 some hundred matches, but none played more 
 sternly from the start to the finish, without 
 hitch or snivel or shirking or complaint. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 After the match there was the dinner in Hall, 
 pleasant to the Dulwich team, which played 
 the generous host very well, praising the play 
 of their opponents. Indeed it is easy for a 
 winning side to give this praise ; and pleasant 
 for a losing side to receive it. Each member 
 of the Dulwich team felt himself drawn more 
 closely to the other members of it, as is always 
 the case between men or boys when they have 
 in company done their duty. Hyde had been 
 proud of his team, with which he had taken 
 much pains ; and he and Carter were both de- 
 lighted with the play of Grant and James and 
 Coggan. After dinner followed the walk to 
 the station with the Tonbridge boys, and the 
 set off ; and then as the boys walked back 
 from the station, Hyde said to Grant and 
 James, '' You two fellows can get your colours.'' 
 The three boys were walking together, and 
 with them were also Carter and Gillett, who 
 
 had his colours already and had played well 
 
 1 06 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 107 
 
 in the scrimmage on that day. Grant was 
 silent for a moment, and then he said to Hyde, 
 taking James by the arm, '' Will you and 
 Carter just come here a minute ? '' 
 
 The four left Gillett on the path, and drew 
 away into the roadway, where also Coggan 
 was walking with the other prefect in his house. 
 Grant said, his heart beating rather fast, and 
 with a slight tremor in his voice at first but 
 very steadily afterwards, ** Hyde, I will not 
 take any colours from you, unless you give 
 up your plan for Monday." 
 
 *' What do you mean ? " said Hyde, while 
 Carter felt both angry and ashamed. 
 
 '* I mean this,'* said Grant, quite steadily 
 now. '' You are going to do on Monday, and 
 so is Carter, what a prefect ought not to do, 
 and what will upset the prefects* authority. 
 I can't stop you ; but if you do it, I won't 
 consider you a prefect or captain, or have any- 
 thing in any way to do with you.'* 
 
 " It's no business of yours," said Hyde, in a 
 dangerous kind of way. 
 
 '* Yes, it is," said Grant ; *' I'm a prefect and 
 captain of the school, though now I don't wish 
 to be, and I won't have the school upset, and 
 mischief done like this, if I can help it." 
 
io8 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 '' You can't help it/' said Hyde. 
 '' I know that," said Grant, " but I can d( 
 as I said, and I will ; I won't take my colour: 
 from you, or treat you as a prefect in an^ 
 way, if you do it. You shall have no patrol."^ 
 " So much the better," said Hyde. 
 " You oughtn't to say so," said Grant, " anc 
 I won't play under you in the team, now thai 
 the school matches are done, nor will Coggar 
 nor James, and I shall write to Seymour and 
 tell him what I have done and why, if he 
 brings the team of old boys." 
 
 Hyde hesitated. He expected Carter to speak 
 in fury, but Carter did not ; Hyde wondered 
 why. He did not himself know what to say. 
 There were many good points about the boy, 
 only they were overlaid by his overpowering 
 love of football, which made him forget many 
 things which he knew quite well. On that 
 afternoon he had felt his heart warm towards 
 his own team, and his own school football, 
 which the praise of the referee had greatly 
 exalted in his heart. Moreover he liked Grant 
 personally and wished to be friendly with him ; 
 he felt that Gillett, with whom he was going 
 and who was in a measure directing him in 
 this matter without his own knowledge, was 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 109 
 
 not so fine a fellow as Grant ; he was a little 
 nervous also about the result of the whole 
 matter if he were found out, as it was always 
 possible he should be. And lastly and chiefly 
 he knew that Grant was in the right. He 
 seemed to understand, as Grant spoke, what 
 was the proper thing for a prefect to do, and 
 how mischievous it was if he did not do it. • If 
 Carter had spoken angrily and supported the 
 design which he had once had in his mind, 
 Hyde might have felt bound to support it too. 
 But Carter was silent. Hyde had no power 
 to read character, and he did not understand 
 Carter's silence ; but in fact Carter felt as 
 Hyde did, that they had been in the wrong, 
 though his feeling was more personal, and 
 depended much upon the affection he felt for 
 certain masters who had been very kind to 
 him when he had been very ill a term or two 
 ago, and towards whom he felt that, if he 
 did this thing, he would be a kind of traitor. 
 
 Thus while the two boys faced the three 
 boys who were all in some trepidation for the 
 future, but steady in their resolve, there was 
 silence, and then Hyde looked at Carter ; and 
 then he said, turning to Grant, '' All right, I 
 will not go.'* 
 
no A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 " Nor I," said Carter. 
 
 '' That's all right/* said Grant, '* and thank 
 you for my colours.'* 
 
 Attwater came up behind, and walked with 
 them. He said to Carter, '' The referee buttered 
 your play awfully ; he said you must have seen 
 a lot of good football.** 
 
 Now Carter had not seen any football ex- 
 cepting at Dulwich, and all he knew about 
 the game had been taught by Mr. Knight, 
 who lay behind Hyde as the coach of the 
 team. '' We shall see some more on Monday,** 
 said Attwater, for he had that afternoon settled 
 it with his conscience and with Hyde to go on 
 Monday. 
 
 ** Tm not going,** said Hyde shortly, '^ so 
 you can go alone,'* he added rather grimly, 
 for he understood how the matter lay with 
 Attwater. 
 
 The boys all went on together, turning their 
 backs on Attwater, whose way lay in the other 
 direction, and no one said '' good-night ** to 
 him. 
 
 He slowly and sorrowfully went to his home 
 to meditate for twenty-four hours upon the 
 changes that occur in the relations of men in 
 this world. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 The day at Dulwich was nearly finished ; the 
 darkness had long settled on the deserted 
 playing fields ; the clump of trees, the bath 
 block, the pavilion, where boys had swarmed 
 like bees in the afternoon, were nothing now 
 but shapes rising darkly into the air, and the 
 grass seemed now only a sheet of lighter colour 
 spread over the whole face of the ground. The 
 stars were looking down upon the blocks, 
 which were now as still as they ; and the 
 school, with the silence and solitude that 
 reigned throughout it, seemed in some degree 
 akin to them. The Spirit of the school — of 
 learning and science, of poetry and hope, of 
 energy and generosity — quickened by the stir 
 of the day, and deriving her life from it, and 
 from that of many a thousand of days that 
 had preceded, now rested in the darkness, 
 none the less a reality now, not dull and 
 inert, but making her presence felt as much 
 as in the day, or all the more, because the 
 
112 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 stir was passed, and stillness had succeeded 
 to it. 
 
 She seemed to gather herself together in 
 the darkness, musing and reckoning ; sad for 
 some things, but glad it may be for most things 
 that had passed within her domain that day. 
 Sad for all tempers, all selfishness and mean- 
 ness shown, for each deed of unkindness done, 
 for each bungling act, whereby what was 
 bad had been made worse, and what was good 
 had been made less powerful. Sad for each 
 piece of work slackly done, each misrepre- 
 sented fact, each ill-tempered speech, each 
 mutinous thought ; and glad for every honest 
 effort, every temptation pushed aside, every 
 noble thought appreciated, every secret of 
 nature unveiled ; glad of the dawn of know- 
 ledge in each brain, and glad of all the merry 
 and gallant life which as long as it is un- 
 poisoned by mischief, the mischief of rioting, 
 and the mischief of bad thoughts, makes a 
 school the pleasantest place on earth. Here 
 there is less pushing aside of the weak, less 
 scheming for gain, less hardness and impeni- 
 tence, more forgiveness, more free happiness, 
 more willingness to obey than elsewhere in 
 the world. What man is there who would 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 113 
 
 spoil this fair life ? bringing grief into the 
 face of our Lady, who is the creature and 
 the creator of our good spirit. Who is it that 
 spoils it ? He who speaks of masters to boys 
 as he ought not to speak of them, unfairly 
 criticising or deriding them. He who speaks 
 to boys roughly or in any way as he ought 
 not to speak to them, stirring in them thoughts 
 of disobedience and of mischief. 
 
 These thoughts passed through the mind of 
 Mr. James as he sat in his room waiting for 
 his evening pupils ; looking out rather sorrow- 
 fully over the school site. One of his faults 
 as a master was that he expected too much 
 personal regard from his pupils, and felt too 
 much disappointed if he did not get what he 
 expected. The school was to him in the place 
 of many interests, and he felt so much per- 
 sonal pleasure in doing his best for his pupils, 
 that he was never happy unless some four or 
 five of them, or two or three of them, were on 
 terms of absolute intimacy with him, preferring 
 his company to that of others. Obviously 
 this was not wise of him ; some of the wisest 
 among his colleagues told him so sometimes, 
 and, when he from time to time found him- 
 self disappointed as to the amount of pleasure 
 
 H 
 
114 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 which particular boys had in his company, 
 he acknowledged to himself, though not to 
 his colleagues, that they were right. To them 
 he only replied by the general assertion, which 
 is true enough, that most masters, as well as 
 he, simply liked their pupils according to the 
 amount of influence which they had over them ; 
 otherwise they only tolerated them, having a 
 feeling towards them which took away much 
 pleasure from school life. 
 
 *' It is a question of degree, my dear boy,'* 
 said Mr. Harris to him — old father Harris, 
 as his colleagues called him from his ways 
 of almost maternal urgency with them — 
 others called him Haristides, from his many 
 virtues and their dislike of them. '' A question 
 of degree ; and you overdo it. Now here you 
 are waiting for Coggan, and you will be quite 
 unhappy if the poor boy doesn't come ; and 
 how can he be expected to come and take an 
 interest in mere Latin prose, after playing a 
 hard game at football. You ought to have 
 let him off ; and if you didn't, he ought to let 
 himself off, and not come." 
 
 Mr. James rather winced at these remarks, 
 and felt that he understood the unpopularity 
 of Mr. Harris with those of his colleagues who 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 115 
 
 did not know him well enough to call him 
 names to his face. 
 
 *' I wish you would get out," he said to 
 Mr. Harris, '* I don't want any of your surplus 
 knowledge ; go and give it to Cousins down 
 below ; perhaps he'll be the better for it. Go 
 and explain to him why his boys made such 
 a row when they came in and went out this 
 morning that mine were scandalised. And tell 
 him not to make jokes ; and explain to him 
 the cadences of merriment, so that he may 
 know when boys are laughing with him and 
 when they are laughing at him. That will be 
 plenty for you to do this evening ; and do get 
 out now ; you know nothing about anything ; 
 and here is poor Coggan, as you call him, 
 coming joyfully upstairs." 
 
 Mr. Harris retired ; and Mr. James felt 
 himself really happier as Coggan gave a good 
 proof of his faithfulness by coming for his 
 prose and essay on this evening. 
 
 *' Are you very tired ? " he said. 
 
 " No, sir," said Coggan. 
 
 *' Well, come and sit down, and let us see 
 what the prose is like." 
 
 The prose was satisfactory. That is, it was 
 grammatical ; but easy in its movement and 
 
ii6 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 idiomatic it was not. '' Why should it be ? *' 
 said Coggan, when these defects, which he 
 could not see but was obliged to take on faith, 
 had been pointed out to him. 
 
 '*.What is the good of writing good prose, 
 eh ? '' said Mr. James. *' Well, no one ever 
 told me when I was young, and I can't re- 
 member that I ever wanted to know ; but I 
 believe boys are different now, and want to 
 know the reason for everything." 
 
 *' Yes, sir,'' said Coggan, but very nicely. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. James, throwing himself 
 back in his armchair and having Coggan by 
 his side and the prose resting between them, 
 Coggan just at such a distance from him that 
 he could reach him at certain points of his 
 disquisition, " doing Latin prose, or almost 
 anything else for the matter of that, is not 
 an end in itself. Happiness of a certain kind 
 is the only end in itself, and doing a good 
 piece of prose doesn't make you happy ? " 
 
 " Yes, it does, sir," said Coggan, after a 
 moment's thought. 
 
 '* No, it doesn't," said Mr. James; '' you feel 
 happy because you have done your duty, or 
 because you will be commended, or because 
 the thing is done, or because that something 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 117 
 
 is gained for the sake of which you do it. And 
 you want to know what it is. Isn't that it ? " 
 
 He leaned forward and gave Coggan's coat 
 collar a shake, when Coggan did not at once 
 answer. The fact was Coggan did not know 
 whether that was it or not, and he would not 
 answer until he did. Mr. James showed a 
 fault as a teacher by going on before Coggan 
 was satisfied ; Mr. James was always incon- 
 siderate in this way ; the reason was perhaps 
 partly that he was afraid as it were of being 
 ** taken down,'' of giving anything definite to 
 anybody which he might afterwards be called 
 upon to explain, and which could be quoted 
 as his. Thus the fault sprang from self-con- 
 sciousness, the fault of all others against which 
 naturally therefore he declaimed most to his 
 pupils, all unconscious that it was his. 
 
 '* Well, what that something is, seems to be 
 this, though perhaps when you know what it 
 is you won't like to have it, for there are 
 places where it becomes an improper posses- 
 sion. First you must remember that that 
 composition is in a dead language something 
 like what conversation is in a living language, 
 and makes you know the language and appre- 
 ciate what you read. Now when you read with 
 
ii8 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 this appreciation, you become to some extent 
 another, and not yourself ; and when you read 
 Latin well, you become to that extent a Roman, 
 as understanding Roman ways and thoughts. 
 And when you work at Latin prose, you are 
 working so as to be able to do this. 
 
 " Now this power of becoming another is not 
 exactly valuable in every relation of life. For 
 instance, my dear Coggan, I earnestly believe 
 that you would not have been able to play so 
 well to-day, and catch hold of that long-legged 
 Tonbridgian, if you had been able, readily and 
 without your weekly visits to this abode of 
 mine, to do good prose. For the power of 
 putting yourself in the position of another is 
 not useful in actual tackling. A person should 
 not do this when he tackles, but, regardless 
 of the feelings and wishes of another, which 
 he will instinctively regard if he knows them 
 thoroughly, he should, I believe, make for his 
 legs and pull him over, and roll on him and 
 squeeze him and the ball, and assert his self in 
 a most emphatic manner. But in other cases, 
 not of struggle, and perhaps the best cases 
 are cases not of struggle, excepting against mis- 
 chief, the power to understand the view and 
 thought of another is valuable, because it lies 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 119 
 
 at the root of all docility, and consequently 
 of all real progress of every kind. It may seem 
 slavish to you to abandon your own point of 
 view. But when that which you take is that 
 of a virile people like the Romans, you gain in 
 virility what you seem to lose by suppleness. 
 And when you work to improve your vocabu- 
 lary, you improve your memory ; and when 
 you work to get rhythm, you improve your 
 ear, and music is the same in all languages. 
 
 " Besides this you have probably also a 
 shadowy feeling that it is good for you to be 
 taught and disciplined ; and also another that 
 you would like to please your father and mother 
 by winning a scholarship ; and also please the 
 people here, and Mr. James. And I believe 
 that these are mainly the reasons for my teach- 
 ing you prose, and for your liking to do it. 
 And all this illustrates in a way what Charles 
 the Fifth or some one else said, that when he 
 had learnt another language, he felt that he 
 had received another soul. And you may re- 
 member this, if they ever want you to explain 
 the saying in a general paper at Oxford. 
 Though don't understand me to say that I 
 want you to have another soul, for with the 
 one which you have I am satisfied ; but there 
 
120 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 is no great harm in developing it, I believe/' 
 Mr. James stopped, observing symptoms of 
 great sleepiness in his auditor. '' Another 
 two minutes and you would have -slept,'* he 
 said. '* I stopped in time. Perhaps another 
 evening you will not ask me what is the good 
 of anything, after playing a match. Go you to 
 bed and sleep ; good-night, my dear Coggan.'' 
 
 And so the last lesson was given, and soon 
 the most wakeful eye among the Dulwich boys 
 closed for this day ; and it ended well and 
 happily, as all days will end, if people do 
 what is right on them. Mr. James himself 
 lay back in his chair when Coggan left him 
 and his thoughts shaped the following prayer, 
 and then he got up and went to bed : — 
 
 " O Thou great Being, who in all ages hast 
 shown Thyself to those who look for Thee ; 
 to some in fear, because they are timid for 
 themselves, and know also what wickedness 
 is ; and to some in hope, because they know 
 something of what goodness is, and believe 
 that Thou wilt not leave them comfortless ; 
 and to some in love, because they are conscious 
 in themselves that though they fall, yet they 
 try to rise, conscious that their higher nature 
 develops in some degree, that they are in 
 
A DAY AT DULWICH 121 
 
 the main reaching after purity and courage 
 and patience and kindness and knowledge, 
 and that none of these things can be afraid, 
 and therefore in some degree they, having 
 them, may cast out fear of Thee, and that in 
 those who move forward at all there must be 
 hope of moving further forward still, and 
 therefore they have a just hope that their 
 natures will improve, and thus they will 
 become always more akin to Thee, — 
 
 *' O Thou great Being, whom those who 
 fear, and those who love themselves too much 
 limit by their fears and self-love, and say, 
 * lo ! Thou art there,' or ' lo ! Thou art 
 here,' in this ordinance, or this precinct, or 
 this council, or this company ; O Thou who 
 art beyond any precinct or any ordinance or any 
 council or any company, and yet art closer to 
 man than any of these, because Thou art that 
 to which his heart approaches when it is best, — 
 
 ** O Thou who gatherest into Thyself every 
 good thought, pure thought, kind thought, 
 brave thought, patient thought, every thought 
 of knowledge humbly known, that men think 
 throughout the wide world, and encouragest 
 them, and whisperest peace to them when the 
 world is against them and they cannot do as 
 
122 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 they would or as they could, and wamest them 
 when the world is on their side, — 
 
 ** O God, look down upon our company 
 here, and help us to make the effort to reach 
 what is better, more worthy of Thy great 
 Being, more pleasing, more akin to Thy nature ; 
 and for me, grant that I may not forget Thee, 
 but see Thee when I teach and when I rest ; 
 and may the thought of courage^ purity, 
 patience, kindness, and the reverence for 
 knowledge leave me never. 
 
 ** This is my prayer to Thee, and this prayer 
 I make because Thou art brave and pure and 
 patient and kind and knowest all things. 
 Thou art these, because these are good, and 
 Thou art good. And One there has been in 
 this world who also has been all these, all of 
 them as Thou art all of them ; so far the 
 record of His life and death makes me believe. 
 He being as He is, is a token to me that Thou 
 art near me to help me ; and may I learn to live 
 without other tokens too much as my helpers, 
 for where two are one, no tokens have a place ; 
 and tokens cannot really make two to be one ; 
 and he who rests in tokens rests in his own 
 place, and moves not, or moves not freely 
 towards another.'* 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 Hyde and Carter were never glad but once 
 that they did as they did that night, and that 
 once was always. They were glad throughout 
 the Sunday, and more glad still on Monday, 
 when the school gave honour to them, which 
 they could receive with a whole heart ; and 
 when the prefect's lesson came, and the Master 
 spoke about the team at the prefect's lesson, 
 and praised it for its skill and courage, and 
 particularly praised Hyde for his conduct of 
 it ; and most glad at the end of the term 
 when they went to the masters to say good- 
 bye, and went from each with a feeling that 
 allowed them to accept what each one said 
 to them, that they had done good service to 
 the school, and that the school was grateful 
 to them and proud of them. They felt that 
 there was no record behind which might come 
 to light and they be ashamed ; and if there 
 were one boy in the school whom they liked 
 
 and respected more than another, it was 
 123 
 
124 A DAY AT DULWICH 
 
 Grant ; and next after him James and Coggan ; 
 and such as Grant was and such as James and 
 Coggan, and indeed such as Hyde and Carter, 
 at least at their best, so may every boy be 
 who leaves the great school of Dulwich. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <&• Co. 
 Edinburgh dr» London 
 
UNIVERSITY Q¥ CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, 
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 1930 
 

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