The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Schoolmaster's Diary

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Schoolmaster's DiaryThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: A Schoolmaster's DiaryAuthor: Patrick TraherneEditor: S. P. B. MaisRelease date: April 2, 2016 [eBook #51633]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Whitehead, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SCHOOLMASTER'S DIARY ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: A Schoolmaster's DiaryAuthor: Patrick TraherneEditor: S. P. B. MaisRelease date: April 2, 2016 [eBook #51633]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Whitehead, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

Title: A Schoolmaster's Diary

Author: Patrick TraherneEditor: S. P. B. Mais

Author: Patrick Traherne

Editor: S. P. B. Mais

Release date: April 2, 2016 [eBook #51633]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Whitehead, MWS and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SCHOOLMASTER'S DIARY ***

The cover image was restored by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

"The man who looks at this view, for the first time, withthe naked eye, sees far more of it than the man who looksat it for the hundredth time through smoked glasses.Experience is the smoke on the glasses; it's the curse ofour profession. We are all much more efficient whenwe're young than we ever are afterwards. Give methe young and inexperienced man."—"The LanchesterTradition."

Title page for "A Schoolmaster's Diary!

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN ATTHE COMPLETE PRESSWEST NORWOODLONDON

TOELSPETH TRAHERNEWITHOUT WHOSE VALUABLE HELP I SHOULDHAVE BEEN TOTALLY AT A LOSS WHAT TOINCLUDE AND WHAT TO OMITIN MEMORY OFPATRICK

Patrick Traherne, only son of the Rev. Thomas Traherne of North Darley Vicarage, Derbyshire, was born on July 14, 1885. He was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford, and immediately upon leaving the University he became a Public School master.

I well remember my first meeting with him. It was during my first term at Oxford. I had been reading "Centuries of Meditations" and in particular this passage, which I cannot refrain from quoting, because to it I owe my friendship with Patrick:

"Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you wake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace: and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air, as Celestial Joys; you never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God as misers do in gold, and kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world. Till your spirit filleth the whole world and the stars are your jewels: till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all ages as with your walk and table: till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own, you never enjoy the world. You never enjoy the world aright, till you solove the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. There is so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly in it. The world is a mirror of infinite Beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is the paradise of God, the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven."

I remember rushing, book in hand, late at night to Stapleton's rooms (Stapleton was a school-friend of mine, who had come up with me that term) and reading it to him as one of the finest things I had ever chanced upon. After I had finished I noticed that he was not alone; sitting in a far corner, in the depths of a 'Varsity chair, I now saw a fair-haired, fresh-faced undergraduate whom I had not up till that moment met. He broke in upon my enthusiastic discovery. "I am glad you like that," he began. "It is not very well known yet. The author of that book, Thomas Traherne, was an ancestor of mine: my name is Traherne too."

Somehow from that evening I have always associated Patrick with that glowing passage. We became fast friends and for the four years we were at Oxford, Stapleton, Traherne and I spent all our spare time together. We were known, for some obscure reason, as "The Three Musketeers."

We were none of us brilliant scholars, but we were deeply interested in the problems of life: we read a good deal in a desultory sort of way, but our main occupation was athletics. We all played football, tennis, hockey, and cricket, and managed to put in some time with the Beagles and on the track. On Sundays we used to roam far and wide over the country round Oxford: we were all lovers of Nature and (I venture to think) in every way quite ordinary undergraduates. Stapleton was taking orders, while Traherne and I meant to be schoolmasters. We werejovial and irresponsible in those days and certainly did not take ourselves seriously. We were not in the habit of getting drunk, but we were certainly not less rowdy than the majority of the men of our time: we enjoyed life to the full. In the "vacs" we would stay with one another in London in order to go the round of the theatres, or we would set out on walking tours through Wales or Devonshire.

I met Traherne's people a good deal. They were quite delightful, simple-minded folk, who took life as it came and always managed to see the comic side of everything. I know no house where peals upon peals of laughter were so frequent as in that vicarage of North Darley. Our four years at Oxford passed all too quickly. The other two managed to get a second class in their finals, I just scraped a third. We then separated, swearing however that nothing should really separate us. We wrote frequently and at great length to one another and tried to meet whenever possible. Gradually, however, we made new friends and were seized with different interests and somehow we became less regular in our correspondence and our meetings. It was not that we had ceased to care for each other, still less that "out of sight" was "out of mind"—I have never loved any man as I loved Traherne, but nevertheless we got out of touch.

I settled down quite happily to my job at Winchborough and became the stereotyped sort of plodding schoolmaster, while Stapleton passed from one curacy to another and finally had the good fortune to secure a living near London. So time went on. Then I began to notice Traherne's name in the papers. He had entered on his career as a writer. He was always indefatigable, though how he found time both to teach and to write I don't know. First of all he edited school books, then he wrote articles for the educational papers; soon I saw his name attached to critical papers in the magazines and reviews: hewrote middle-page articles for the daily press and short stories. Later I saw the announcement of a book by him, closely followed by another and then a third.

Naturally all this interested me a good deal. If he would not write to me I still could follow his career through his books.

I must say, however, that I was slightly startled at the attitude he adopted in his writings. When I knew him he was the cheeriest and most modest of men. From his writings the casual reader would imagine him to be a red-hot fire-brand, launching out against all the accepted codes by which we live. His method was that of "cock-shying" at a lot of "Aunt Sallies." He denounced everything, religion as at present practised, education, root and branch, the current codes of morality, the laws, politics—everything. There was a frightful acerbity in his language. One could detect the same boyish ardour which was the finest thing about him if one looked carefully and read between the lines, but his judgments were amazingly ill-considered. He seemed to lose all control of himself when he took up his pen. I wrote to remonstrate but he rarely replied, and when he did he would alternately change from a tone of humble apology to one of insolent contempt. It was easy to see that he was suffering from some appalling malady, a restlessness which threatened to destroy all the good that he was so anxious to do. At last the inevitable climax came: in a piteous letter he wrote to tell me that after eight years he had been ignominiously turned out, and that his career as a schoolmaster was at an end. From the language he used I feared lest he might be contemplating suicide, but his wife (who is one of the most charming women I have ever met and to whom he owes more than even he will ever realize) kept him from that.

On the other hand, there seemed to be considerabledanger of his losing his reason. I went down to see him: I never saw a man so altered: he was completely broken. I sat up with him all through one night while he told me the whole story. It appears that he created enemies through his tactlessness wherever he went. Boys on the whole I should say, from what he said, understood him more or less, his peers not at all. He was always discontented with the average, always demanding an instant millennium. The war crushed him, the wretched estate of the poorer classes crushed him, the lack of intelligence among the country people with whom he lived crushed him, his colleagues' complacence that "all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds" crushed him. Poor devil, he must have suffered frightfully. He seemed abnormally sensitive. The least thing set him off: he always suspected that he had no sympathizers: he consistently managed to alienate those who really were trying their best to help him.

All through that night on which he poured out his soul to me I saw exactly how impossible it was for him to work in conjunction with any ordinary body of schoolmasters. What they denounced as disloyalty was with him honesty; he was so ferociously energetic that he could never rest: he must have his windmill to tilt against. There was no doubt that he was finding his break with Public School life very real tragedy. He was incapable of looking forward to anything else. I did my best to console him, to show him that life was only just beginning for him: but he swept away all the crumbs of consolation I produced and only just before I was leaving did he suggest any way in which I could help him. "I have besmirched my reputation," he said mournfully. "I can't clear myself. Will you try?"

"Of course I will, but how?" I replied.

"Take these," he said, suddenly producing fivestout volumes. "Here is my diary for the last eight years. Go through it and select such passages as you think fit and show the world exactly what manner of man I was: 'Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice; then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well,' just the bare truth. Justice is what I want, not charity."

It was the least I could do ... and now for some months I have been engaged upon this strange task. Even now I am afraid I have failed. These diaries were so incoherent, so much prominence was given to irrelevant matter, so little to the thousand things I wanted to know, but I have kept my promise, and this book is the result. I wish he could have lived to see it in the hands of the public who so misjudged him.

It is easy to see the tenets which Traherne held most dear: he looked upon education as the saving grace of a nation or an individual. The object of education with him was to develop imagination and sympathy, so that all men in the future should realize the value of Truth and Beauty, and be tolerant of other men's opinions. To this end he endeavoured to make his boys realize the importance of making the most of their brains: he rated the intellect highest of all.

He laid it down as a fundamental principle that each boy should be encouraged to be strongly individual and I don't think he quite realized the dangers which individualism brings in its wake. He hated tradition unless it could be proved that it served some useful purpose: he was averse from all forms of ceremonial. Consequently he set his face against the cult of "Bloodism." He does not seem in his diary at any rate to have dwelt on the humorous side of his colleagues: there is very little description of the vagaries of different masters, which I havefound so extraordinarily amusing among my own acquaintances in usherdom.

He laid immense stress on the teaching of English and encouraged his boys to read omnivorously; by this means alone, he said, could they be expected to learn.

Where he failed most of all was in his inability to suffer fools gladly: he hated "sloppy" work either in colleague or boy; if he had only kept his hatred to himself, it might have been all right, but he was too honest, too impetuous. He would blurt out his natural feelings everywhere and expect everybody to see his point of view at once. Considering all things his colleagues were in some ways extremely long-suffering, for he was so sensitive that out of sheer nervousness and ineffectual anger he would show his worst side and hide his better nature. He must have seemed to those who only knew him superficially to be one mass of contradictions.

Take, for instance, his reading. He seems to have read everything of any note that appeared during these eight years, but his judgments on current writers are ludicrous: he hails any new-comer as a great genius, and yet at the same time he had a nice and exact taste in English literature and in talking could tell you just the strong and weak points of all big writers. In his written criticism he seems to have no standards at all. As he himself says, he was like a motor-car without brakes. His motor-power was very high, but he had no control over it: consequently he was always running away with himself and finishing up with incredible smashes whenever he started out on a literary or educational excursion.

I have been going through his letters to me of late, but I have not found any clue in them to the mania which has led to his downfall. In the diary, on the other hand, he lets himself go; the constant friction,the unrealized ideals find expression: on the surface, in his letters to his friends, he was charmingly lighthearted and humorous. One would never suspect thesæva indignatiowhich was ultimately to be his undoing, in anything but his published works.

I never met a man who was so different in his person from what you would expect after reading his books. To meet him at a dinner-party in London, to accompany him on a walking-tour, to play games with him, you would never guess that he had a care in the world. He seemed to enjoy life much in the same way as his great ancestor, the mystic, did. He was very devout, it is true, but his Christianity was of the optimistic Chestertonian sort, a kind of prizefighter's epicureanism, "Eat, drink, and be merry, but for the Lord's sake be careful not to get flabby." But suddenly, not so much in the holidays as in term time, some luckless creature would quite innocently introduce the topics of Socialism, Liberty, Religion, Morals, or Education, and at once Patrick would flush scarlet, stamp up and down his rooms and call down fire from Heaven on every existing institution. I never came across such an iconoclast. We who knew him understood that his frenzy was simply the burning ardour of the reformer who refuses to compromise: he was convinced that certain ideals were right and could not understand why the rest of mankind did not immediately forsake their old gods when he propagated his gospel of the new ones. Because he attempted to treat the boys with whom he came into contact as his intellectual equals, and never snubbed them, never punished or rewarded them, he expected every other master to employ the same methods.

"Show 'em," he would say, "that they've jolly well got to work if they want to get anything out of life; tell 'em that if they work to please a master, to avoid the cane, to secure a trumpery prize, or for any otherreason than that work is a good thing in itself, they are committing an immoral and indecent act, and then there's just a chance that the intellect may grow. Not one boy in five hundred even uses ten per cent. of his brain-cells: the average man or boy has no idea of what real work means."

He kept a most valuable notebook in which he jotted down any views that commended themselves to him out of all the books on education that appeared.

I loved Patrick more than any friend I have ever had. I am a poor counsel for the defence for that very reason. I am more likely to do harm to his cause than good by lauding him in this way: my duty is to let his diary tell its own tale. It is a document over which I would fain dwell at great length and explain to you, but that would only serve to show that I feared your verdict. I send it out to the world with much trepidation lest I should even now have so hacked and curtailed it that it fails to show Traherne in his true character, but I have this at least to comfort me. There will be but few of those who already belong to the noblest profession in the world or who are shortly to join it who will not derive help from the light it sheds on a most difficult task.

The schoolmaster of the new age needs all the assistance he can get. Patrick Traherne destroyed himself in discovering what he here gives to the world, but the results of his discoveries may be more far-reaching than he knew.

He was one of those who are never happy unless they are fighting; the end once attained he would be lost. It may well be that the Stevensonian maxim which was always so much in his mind carried him through even at his last moments (he was killed in the battle of Cambrai, December 3, 1917), "After all to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."His failure may be a better augury than success would have been, for in the end of all, have not the world's failures been most frequently the world's redeemers?

I would add further that I cannot bring myself to accede to all his dicta. Had he been permitted to live, experience would have surely shown him that his youthful judgments are not infrequently grossly unfair; but I maintain that his theories are not necessarily less interesting because they are, in many cases, erroneous.

S. P. B. M.

The names both of people and places mentionedin this book are entirely fictitious. PatrickTraherne did not portray any specific PublicSchool or living person in his diary.

THE BEGINNING (1909). P. T. quoting William Blake:

I will not cease from mental fightNor shall my sword sleep in my handTill we have built JerusalemIn England's green and pleasant land.

THE END (1917). P. T. quoting T. W. H. Crosland:

If I should ever be in England's thoughtAfter I die,Say, "There were many things he might have boughtAnd did not buy."Unhonoured by his fellows he grew oldAnd trod the path to hell,But there were many things he might have soldAnd did not sell."

If I should ever be in England's thoughtAfter I die,Say, "There were many things he might have boughtAnd did not buy.

"Unhonoured by his fellows he grew oldAnd trod the path to hell,But there were many things he might have soldAnd did not sell."

September 20, 1909

Itis very strange and frightening: all the boys seem to me to be grown men and I, a veritable minnow in a sea of Tritons, but I suppose really they are quite bovine and regard me much as cows regard human beings—as their natural master. I wonder! I confess I am in a panic about my ability to keep order. On several nights in the "vac" I had nightmares of classes of unruly boys refusing to obey me, shouting, throwing things about and generally making nuisances of themselves and a fool of me.

My first impressions of Radchester are not very comforting. It is like coming to a desert island to be pitchforked out at a wayside station miles from anywhere, with only the sea to the east, and flat dike-lands to the west, north, and south. There are no houses within sight. Certainly there is nothing to distract one's attention from one's duty: outside the lodge gates all is barren.

The first thing for me to do is to furnish my rooms. Alas, where am I to procure the means to do this?

At present in my sitting-room there is nothing but a frayed carpet, a few rickety chairs, a table, unstable on its legs, and an enormous bookcase and cupboard combined. My bedroom is ugly, bare and damp, with no fireplace. Apparently they encourageus to be Spartan in our mode of living here. How different from the Oxford of three months ago.

I had a long talk with the Head Master to-night. He is an imposing-looking man, a sound disciplinarian I should imagine, one who gives no quarter. It is hard to associate him with the priesthood. He has less of the clergyman in him than any parson I have ever met. He gave me many "tips" about my work and laid stress in every other sentence about the necessity of exercising firmness from the start. He obviously looks upon me as willing, but lacking in experience and scholarship. I appear to have been selected rather on athletic than intellectual grounds. My "Blue" has gained for me this important post and I am evidently expected to play games daily. Well, I shan't mind that; I cannot conceive how men exist without daily exercise. Thank Heaven, I'm not in an office. After all, £150 a year and my "keep" is quite an adequate salary for a man of twenty-four without encumbrances.

There is something monastic about the life here: only one other master except the Chief is married: women are obviously not encouraged.

The staff live for the most part in Common Room: we breakfast and dine there, have lunch in the School Dining Hall with the boys, and have tea in our own rooms.

I got my first impressions of my colleagues at dinner to-night. Most of them were very hilarious and good-humoured, full of talk about the Alps, Scotland, Cornwall, cricket tours, golf, climbs, bathing, fishing and every sort of outdoor pursuit in which they had indulged during the last eight weeks. They were all obviously glad to see each other and be back at work.

Somehow they didn't strike me as being typical "ushers" at all. Quite a dozen of them appear to be men about my own age, healthy, jovial and without a care. One or two of the older men look haggard and wan, but then again others look like prosperous gentlemen-farmers or country squires, hale, hearty, well fed and contented.

After dinner Hallows, who is games master (an old captain of the Oxford "Rugger" team), asked me to his rooms: some half-dozen of us sat there drinking whisky and smoking until chapel-time. They were all genial and friendly and we talked mainly about historic incidents in bygone Inter-University matches.

In chapel I saw the whole school for the first time. I was exceedingly nervous and imagined myself to be the cynosure of all eyes. I thought that they were all taking stock of me and sizing me up. I must remember to be strict from the very beginning. The start is everything.

September 27, 1909

I am gradually getting used to the routine. Certainly the breaking of the ice was very trying. Luckily I had prepared my lessons carefully before I went into form, so I had plenty to say, which prevented my extreme nervousness from being too apparent, and I punished two boys heavily for talking while I was trying to teach. On the whole most of them appear to be tractable. What does amaze me is their abysmal ignorance.

For the first few days I was talking over their heads the whole time. In mathematics I went too fast. In English I took it for granted that they knew something about the subject: I am gradually finding outthat they know nothing. What is worse, only a very few of them want to know anything. They exhaust all their energies and keenness on games: they have none left for work. It is looked upon as a gross breach of good form to take anything but the most perfunctory interest in class. I find that I am falling into the most insidious of traps. I am picking out favourites. There are two boys, Benbow and Illingworth, both in my English set, who have shown up essays quite outside the common: they care about things: they read: they express a novel point of view: they are rebels against tradition. I have given them the run of my rooms and implored them to borrow what books they like from my shelves and to come to tea whenever they like.

I am beginning to find that I prefer the company of boys to that of my colleagues. Most of the staff seem to have reached the limit of their learning when they took their Finals. My Finals only served to show me what an ignorant ass I am. Perhaps it's a good thing to take a low class in "schools." At any rate it leaves you under no false impression as to your own level of intelligence and attainments.

A week of this life has taught me quite a number of useful things:

(1) That it is quite easy to keep order. A number of men here get persistently "ragged," but that seems to me to be due to their lack of humour, their uncertain temper, and their misunderstanding of the boy mind.

(2) I hate having to correct work at night. It is merely a mechanical drudgery and does the boy no good, for he does not strive to understand a mistake unless you correct it while he is with you, and onewould be far better employed reading. Correction of exercises must have been instituted to prevent masters from getting into mischief in their idle hours.

(3) I dislike compulsory chapel. I like services when I do not feel bound to go: they become merely a meaningless jingle of words when one is forced to attend when one is not in the mood.

(4) I love playing "footer" with the House every day. I have got to know already quite intimately a number of boys whom I should have regarded as wasters in form. This seems to me to prove that a master should share so far as he can in every activity in order to try to get at the point of view of the boys from every angle. I have therefore joined the Corps, the Debating Society and the Choir.

(5) I object intensely to the mark system. It inculcates selfishness, destroys any chance of getting any co-operative spirit in a form, and is thoroughly immoral. It tends to make boys work from a mercenary motive: they think of nothing but rewards and punishments: they even cheat when they get the chance in order to rise to a high place in the week's order. These orders bother me. Every Saturday night we have to collect all sorts of marks from other masters, scale and readjust them and produce an order, which takes up about two hours of valuable time. I don't mind giving up time to any useful end, but I do resent doing so for a senseless one.

November 1909

The monastic system is getting on my nerves. I find myself longing to hear a baby crying, a girl laughing, or any noises of the street. We are toomuch aloof from the outside world. I thought reading would be a sufficient antidote. Most of my colleagues don't read at all. They "haven't time." Lately I have taken to going off to Scarborough on Saturday evenings, treating myself to a good dinner at the Regent (we are allowed no drinks in Common Room except water: Hallows alone drinks seltzer), and then going on to a show at the theatre or promenading the Winter Gardens and watching the shop-girls and men dance. These people have an irresistible fascination for me. It is a wonderful relaxation to chatter amiably to these girls and men, and hear their point of view of life, so many poles apart from that of the Radchester Common Room. From one of these in particular, a very pretty girl of about eighteen, with masses of corn-coloured hair and violet eyes, a complexion like a Devon dairymaid and a figure light as a fairy, I have learnt a good deal of another side of life. Her name is Vera Buckley: she works in a large milliner's shop. We meet and dance together now every Saturday night. At first when she learnt that I was a schoolmaster at Radchester she was suspicious and cold, but now we are firm friends and she talks unflaggingly about her hopes and fears, her likes and dislikes. She is a welcome change from the Tapers and Tadpoles of Common Room, who argue interminably upon the day's play and the moral defalcations of boys in their respective houses and forms.

I dined with the Head Master last night and found myself quoting from a new book on education. Just before I left, he took me aside and said, "The less you read about education the better. All this new-fangled talk about new ideas cuts at the very rootsof the great tradition on which the Public Schools were built up. I never engage a man who has taken a diploma in the theory of education: he can never keep order, he can't teach, he makes the boys rebel against their lot and is altogether very dangerous. I like your keenness and I think you have made a good beginning, but I warn you now against thinking that there is any reform needed, and suggest that you read no more upon a subject which you are called upon to practise, not to theorise about."

I attempted a defence but he refused to listen. Patting me gently on the back he said, quite kindly, "When you are my age you'll see the truth of what I've been telling you: youth is always in a great hurry to bring about the millennium. It never realizes that no millennium can be brought about by merely destructive criticism. Remember that all these writers are outside the profession and are writing in total ignorance of the conditions under which we labour."

He succeeded in making me feel very arrogant, very youthful, and very much of a fool.

After all he has some right on his side. Boys do understand the system of marks and of punishment and I suppose the way of least resistance is the best. Anyway it is far easier to make a boy work through fear than it is through love of the work: to rouse enthusiasm in the work itself is an exceedingly arduous business. The difficulty is that I hate the idea of caning a boy almost as much as some of the staff relish it. They satisfy a sort of bestial lust by lashing a small boy and hearing him yell. They would be horrified at the suggestion, but I am certain that this is true. One has only to watch a man's eyeswhen he gives an account of some of his more successful efforts in this direction. On the other hand, I firmly believe that there is a type of boy who can understand no other form of treatment. I only wish such types would not come under my jurisdiction.

I find that I am becoming unpopular with Hallows. One very wet afternoon I organized a paper-chase which was an overwhelming success: about two hundred boys turned out and we caught the hares about four o'clock, after a very tricky run over a well-laid course. Unfortunately every one was late for "roll." By getting up this entertainment on a "half" when there was nothing else to do I found myself launched into about six rows.

Apparently every boy has to pass the doctor before he is allowed to run on a paper-chase; whips had not been arranged for to see that the "laggers" did not drop outen routeand find solace in a cottage or public-house; I had no list of starters to compare with those who finished to see whether any runners had died by the wayside, and, most flagrant of all, I had upset "roll." I am afraid I shall never hear the last of this. Hallows refuses to speak to me, but most loudly and pointedly speaks of me in no uncertain tone of voice whenever I enter Common Room: the direct upshot is that paper-chases are to be made compulsory on days when there are no games, and a printed list of rules to this end has been put up on the school board.

I suspect that Hallows framed them, for they are calculated to remove any innocent pleasure that any boy might have derived from cross-country running and implant in his heart an undying detestation of this particular branch of exercise. I am afraid thetruth is that Hallows is jealous: I had overstepped my province in getting up this run. He is the manager of all the school athletics and I had committed an unforgivable offence in not asking his leave.

I am beginning to see signs of mutual jealousy everywhere. Each tutor criticizes every other master's method of teaching, comparing it (adversely, of course) with his own.

House-masters resent any humane intercourse between members of their houses and junior assistant masters, though by the laws of common sense it would seem obvious that the senior boys would prefer the society of men only a little older than themselves as likely to be more in sympathy with their ideas, more helpful in their troubles than the elder members of the staff whom they, quite rightly, place on an unapproachable pedestal.

December 1909

Now that examinations are upon us I have been attempting to revise my mathematical and English work, with appalling results. My math. sets appear to have learnt nothing: just a glimpse here and there of an idea, all mixed up with the most amazing nonsense. I must have gone too fast. Some of them have certainly tried to work. Perhaps it is that mathematics is not the Queen of Sciences, after all, at any rate for the unformed mind. I know that in my own school days I was successful at it owing to a natural aptitude without understanding in the least its practical usefulness.

There are boys who go again and again over the same ground, term after term, working out quadratic equations, formidable and unwieldy algebraic fractions,solving problems about triangles, parallelograms and circles quite mechanically and perfectly without the ghost of an idea as to what they all mean or what bearing they have on practical life. They are, if questioned, content to talk about "mental discipline" and "the more odious a task is the better it is for one's education" in a manner unbearably priggish and foolish.

If a boy can work out a hundred examples correct to type, most of us seem to think that we are teaching him something. On the contrary, I believe that the only point in mathematical teaching is the training of the mind to think logically and exactly, and to detect all vague and shallow fallacies in argument or writing.

According to this theory the better a boy was at mathematics the better he would be at English, whereas the truth is that the able mathematician is rarely able to express himself in writing at all, and certainly is not remarkable for simplicity or direct reasoning power in his essays. It never strikes us that if a boy is capable of working out an intricate equation he ought to be able to build up a paragraph of carefully connected sentences, all sequent and working to some definite solution or proof.

I am coming to the conclusion that all true education is a striving after Beauty, and what does not actively pursue this end is a waste of effort.

No sooner do I reach this idea than I begin to wonder what can have induced our forefathers to erect such a hideous structure as Radchester, in the middle of so barren, ugly, and terrifying a country.

Surely there can be no more depressing district in England than the country round the school. OnSundays I occasionally go for walks, but I never return without being obsessed by the gloom and drabness of it all. If I walk down the seashore I see nothing but a bare waste of grey waters, relieved by an interminable stretch of sand. There are no gorgeous colourings on sea or land, such as we expect from the sea and get in Devon and Cornwall. If I go inland I have no alternative but to tramp over muddy fields the grass of which is as colourless as the sea, and the only variety to the monotony of the level stretch is a wind-swept naked tree, wan and haggard as an old tramp who has been buffeted by Nature too long to care about his personal appearance: if I take to the roads I am immediately led to contrast the solitary deadness of these straight lanes, where you know for miles exactly what is coming, with the rich lanes of the south, with their high hedges, a riot of colour and song, deviating romantically every few yards, up and down, round and round, ever calling you on to explore some gem which an all-provident Nature has built for you just round the corner. There are no mysteries to be explored in the vicinity of Radchester unless you dive down a drain.

It is not strange that the cult of Beauty is neglected in such a place, for where is Beauty to be found? The answer I find within my rooms: only in my books and my few chosen friends among the boys can I rid myself of the discontent which is so persistently seething within me.

Perhaps I should make an exception in the matter of games; I love strenuous exercise but I object to making football my God, as so many of my friends do. The boys, at any rate in the presence of masters, talk of little else. Their only other topic of conversationis the characters of their other masters, which is insidious and delightful, but savouring too much of disloyalty and scandal-mongering.

One of the things I have enjoyed most this term has been the O.T.C. All members of Common Room, by an excellent rule here, have first to serve in the ranks. I have got to know the boys in this House infinitely better by mixing with them on parades and field days as a private than I ever should have by any other means: they seem to forget all sense of difference and talk glibly and unconsciously about all sorts of topics that normally would not crop up between master and pupil. They no longer restrain their language quite in the same way they do before a master. I imagine that pretty vigorous swearing is prevalent in all schools: it seems to add a picturesqueness to their vocabulary which would be entirely lacking otherwise, for a boy's paucity of orthodox adjectives is astonishing. He is exactly on a par with the farm labourer in this respect. He swears simply because he has no other language to fall back upon. It is not his fault so much as the master's. So far as I can gather no subject seems to be so badly mishandled as the mother tongue. The average boy is expected to write Latin prose and is caned for a false quantity in verses. He tries his hand at original verse composition in both Latin and Greek: no one thinks of asking him to write poetry in English, and when he does he is looked upon as a freak. It seems a most topsy-turvy system: he spends at least one hour every day at Latin: to English (of which he knows nothing) he devotes two hours a week and during those two hours his masters don't know what to teach him.

Some spend the time in parsing and analysing, though what utilitarian benefits are to accrue hereafter from these it would be hard to see. Others "read a play of Shakespeare," which is a euphemism for note-taking and note-learning, a philological discourse or an exercise in repetition; others again read out notes on the Mendelian theory, which they call a skeleton, and require the form to clothe this skeleton and reproduce it in the form of an essay.

I find that all my English lessons this term have been of the nature of tentative experiments. First I read a play of Shakespeare very rapidly, allotting parts to every member of the form. My first shock was to discover that not one of them could read aloud. They were afraid of their own voices: they gabbled through their parts at top speed without paying any attention to the punctuation or attempting to express emotion. Then I decided to make them come out and try to act the play with the books in their hands. This was looked upon as a grave departure from precedent and an opportunity for "ragging." When I pointed out that there was plenty of chance for a display of horse-play in the crowd scenes inJulius CæsarandCoriolanus, they possessed themselves in patience until the time to read these plays. Heavens! How they loved the mob scenes. Here was something after their own hearts. At last I had roused their interests. Most of the comic scenes fell very flat and so did all the more long-winded speeches, but once there was a call for an uproar or a pageant they were as pleased as Punch.

I have now discovered that the only way to read plays is to go straight ahead and disregard all difficultpassages and notes and get them amused and keen to perform. Incidentally, it makes them far keener if they are permitted to "dress" the part. InShe Stoops to ConquerandThe Knight of the Burning PestleI had them all in shrieks of laughter. But now, as I said, examinations are at hand and woe is me. I'm afraid they won't be able to answer anything. Perhaps their ideas of the characters may be more sound than if they learnt them second-hand from Mr. Verity, but they'll get badly "pipped" on historical inaccuracies and difficult contexts.

Then again, how am I to expect them suddenly to produce an essay on "Town and Country," or "Conscription," or "Capital Punishment" when I've always given themcarte blancheto write short stories, or imaginary dialogues, or one-act plays or original verses on any subject under heaven?

I think I'm going to hate examinations. I wish we could dispense with them altogether. Most of the staff appear to revise all the work of the first two months in the third month, and so get their pupils thoroughly tired and stale of the tiny scrap of ground they have covered and re-covered until they have worn it threadbare.

December 31, 1909

When it came to the end of term I was amazingly loath to leave Radchester. In spite of the ghastly ugliness of the country, the bitter winds from which there is no refuge, unsympathetic colleagues (somehow I seem to have alienated most of the elder members of Common Room) and the shattering of several of my ideals, I cannot deny that I have enjoyed my first term as a Public School master immensely.I have not rid myself of my nervous fear lest my forms should rise against me and "rag" me as they "rag" poor old Pennyfeather and Dearden; I certainly did not gain much kudos from the results of the examinations, either in mathematics or in English; many of the boys dislike my methods and do the minimum of work necessary to evade punishment, yet I have made a few firm friends; I have led a healthy life, I have read a good many books, and I am as keen as mustard to prove my ability to teach.

Benbow and Illingworth have each written to me and I find that I treasure letters from boys above all others. Where other men of my age fall in love with girls I suppose I give my affections to those boys who show promise in English and take advantage of the seclusion of my rooms to come and pour out their petty worries and ask for advice.

I have been reading somewhere of late that it is a dreadful thing for a man with any brains to live always in the society of others less mature than himself: he becomes didactic and in every way obnoxious: I know that Charles Lamb was not alone in flying from the presence of all schoolmasters: there is a distinctly noticeable trait in us, as a profession, which makes us want to teach and advise, to lay down the law: it is a habit against which I must most carefully guard.

On the other hand, always being with crowds of healthy youngsters certainly tends to keep a man young: there are very few responsibilities, I am catered for, I pay no rates or taxes, I have £150 a year to spend on books, clothes, travel, and any other incidental expenses I like: I have longerholidays than any other professional man: for four months in the year I am free to do whatever I like.

Of course I shall never be able to marry, never have sons and daughters of my own. But then, as I never see a girl of my own class at Radchester, I am never likely to want to settle down to domestic life. After all, instead of one wife and a few children, I have three or four hundred children of the most fascinating ages: I standin loco parentisto countless numbers.

I don't feel that I want to become rich: I am willing to forgo all the ordinary ambitions if I may have a more or less free hand in education, and at last realize my many ideals about the training of youth.

It seemed unduly lonely at home during Christmas week compared with the noisy cheeriness of school. For the first time in my life I am beginning to feel quite bored with life at Darley. I long for the games, the chatter, my form, my books, yes, even for Common Room, with an aching heart. I hope the rest of the holidays will pass more quickly than these last ten days. I take no pleasure in bridge-parties or tea-fights: my only solace is to write reams of nonsense to Illingworth and Benbow, and to read all that I can lay my hands on which bears on the million or so theories of education.

January 20, 1910

I supposeit is an ineradicable trait in human nature to want to be where one is not: when I was at home I longed for Radchester: now that I am safely back in my own rooms I miss the civilization of home, the constant presence of the other sex, the beauties of our moors and combes. This is really a very savage, uncouth sort of place: at present we are snow-bound, which seems to cut us off more than ever from the outside world. I should hate to be ill here: the school doctor is, I imagine, capable within limits, but there is no chance of securing any kind of adequate nursing or home comforts. We are in very truth a colony of Spartans. I find that I am hankering after the flesh-pots. I want to see Vera Buckley again. I must write and fix up a dinner and a theatre with her. I suppose if the Head Master found out I should be ignominiously "sacked." Yet I can't see that such conduct can really affect my status here. I don't propose to have her to tea in my rooms. She amuses me and I amuse her. She lives in a world poles apart from the one in which I live: she is a wonderful tonic after Common Room; her talk is all of gaiety and the different sorts of men she meets, pretty frocks and romance. By her side I feel amazingly old and dull and careworn: she is really my sole link withthe workaday world outside. There is no chance of our friendship ripening into anything else: I fail to see where the harm or the danger lies; we like one another: we do each other good. As she so frequently tells me, I am different from all the other "boys." I don't make love to her or any nonsense of that sort; she acts as a refining influence on me. After parting from her I feel less of a boor, more of a man of the world.

I suppose in every profession there are points of routine and minute details that have to be observed that yet offend the new-comer's sensibilities, but I doubt whether anything so utterly devoid of purpose or so calculated to rub a man up the wrong way could ever have been devised to compare with a masters' meeting.

At the beginning of term we all assemble in Common Room and the Head Master reads out a list of proposed changes in the curriculum, which as a rule affect but two men out of the thirty or forty gathered round the table: the pros and cons of the changes are, however, heatedly discussed by the parties concerned, while the rest of us yawn and eat our heads off with boredom.

If, however, I or any junior member of the staff should have the effrontery to propose any alteration or reform, a storm of abuse immediately bursts on our heads and we are met with a final retort which is meant to quash us for all time: "The existing system has been in vogue for twenty-five years and no one has seen fit to question it before: it has become hallowed with the passing of time and it would be a sacrilege to tamper with it now."

Another feature of these meetings is the way in which each head of a department fights for his own hand. The choirmaster thinks of nothing but gettingmore time for choir practice, the officer commanding the corps strenuously tries to procure an extra five minutes at each end for his parades, the gymnasium expert urges the necessity of physical training in school hours, the modern language master vainly begs for less classics, the mathematicians for more hours devoted to preparation, the games manager for less school work for the teams, and so on.

A stranger would guess (and he would not be far wrong) at the end of one of these meetings that we were all deadly enemies, each suspicious of the other and certain in his own mind that he alone among the many suppliants has been treated with great unfairness and that the school is rapidly going to the dogs because he has not obtained his request. The irony of the situation is heightened by the fact that we pray both before and after the meeting that we may all work in complete harmony for the common good of the boys, whereas in reality we are all as disunited as any body of men could possibly be.

One man will ardently support a motion solely to irritate his dearest enemy, who will suffer if the proposal is carried; another will just as strenuously oppose it for no other reason than the fact that his opponent might gain by it if it were carried. The common good seems to be about the last argument to carry weight. There are men here who never speak to one another from year's end to year's end, although they are forced to meet some twenty times a day and even sit next to one another (we sit in order of seniority) at meals. Hallows is, I fear, a case in point. He refused to shake hands with me when I came back this term and I know perfectly well that he will not take my part if I ask him to "ginger"up any boy in his house who shirks his prepared work.

March 1, 1910

A dreadful thing has happened. A boy in my form called Chorlthwaite has been expelled for stealing. He happens to have been in Hallows' house. He was certainly a boy without any moral sense at all. Twice I detected him in the act of "cooking" his marks: the first time I talked to him privately and gave him an imposition long enough (one would have thought) to have brought the lesson home to him; on the second occasion I went to see Hallows about it and he as good as told me that it was my fault for putting temptation in his way by making it possible for the boy to do such a thing.

"Trusting to a boy's honour?" he said with an ugly laugh when I tried to explain, "you might just as well trust a bookie with your purse: boys haven't got such a thing. The only way to keep them out of harm's way is never to trust them an inch, that's my way and I've never had a failure yet."

He is in a towering rage over this expulsion: he has told the Head Master that the whole blame lies on my shoulders, because I encouraged the boy to come up to my rooms and ransack my cupboards for chocolates and cakes. (I always allow all the boys in my form to do this.) They are not overfed here and several of them are too poor to be able to afford to go often to the tuck-shop. The wind is apt to give one a prodigious appetite, and most boys are only too glad to avail themselves of my offer. I have only just heard that Hallows issued an edict that no boy in his house was to come to my rooms underany pretext except with a signed order from him. Chorlthwaite revenged himself by helping himself lavishly from the cupboards of Benson, the assistant music master. It is all frightfully depressing. In my Divinity lessons on Sundays and Mondays I have always tried to put before my boys a rigid code of moral ethics and I had hoped that I was meeting with some success.

I trusted them all in everything: I always make a point of letting them give up their own marks and, except in the case of Chorlthwaite, I have never detected a boy in the act of cheating; neither have I come across a single case of cribbing, but there would be little point in that because a boy only cribs through fear of punishment and I punish so rarely that I have even been told by the Head Master that I am unduly lax. Anyway the boy has gone and I am abased and ashamed. I hope that this sort of thing won't happen often or it will wreck all my happiness. If my influence isn't good enough to keep my boys straight it were better for me and for them that I should become a street scavenger or a coal-heaver.

All the same I am not sure that expulsion meets the case. What is to happen to Chorlthwaite in the future? Is he to be branded for life? He had the elements of a Christian in him. I cannot think that his power for evil was strong enough to make him a bad influence over his fellows: their united good influence, on the other hand, would, I should have thought, in time have changed his perverted sense of morality.

Now I am fearful lest he should become callous and bitter and continue to the end in the path whichhe at present treads. Punishment never yet acted as a sufficient deterrent to any one who really wanted to commit a crime.

One of the minor things in life which infuriates me about schoolmastering is this silly rule about smoking. Every boy knows quite well that practically every grown-up man smokes, and at home he sees not only his father and elder brothers but also every man in the street with a pipe, cigar or cigarette in his mouth, and yet he is supposed to believe that his masters (unnatural beings) never condescend to the vice. In Common Room we may smoke and in the seclusion of our own rooms when there is no chance of any boy suddenly breaking in upon us ... but nowhere else. We are expected to hide all traces of pipes, jars of tobacco, or cigarette boxes before we admit any boy into our presence. It is a laughable pretence, but apt to be infernally annoying. It also strikes me as being immoral: we give our consent to the universal acting of a lie. What makes it worse is the fact that most of the boys smoke secretly far more than is good for them, solely from bravado.

If only, as in some schools, all boys over sixteen who have permission from home were allowed to smoke at certain hours of the day, the difficulty both for them and for us would be solved. It is like the question of drink: in some schools boys are given a glass of beer with their midday meal and again at supper. This effectually removes any sort of temptation to dive into the secret recesses of a bar parlour and there drink deep and long, as is the fashion among the bloods here.

I found this out by accident last Sunday. About four o'clock Jefferies, a brilliant scholar and athlete,came to my rooms, white as to the gills, and in a state of nervous terror unfolded a tale over which I could not help but gloat.

Some half-dozen of the more "sporting" prefects apparently have a habit of disappearing every Sunday after lunch and walking four miles to an inn, where they flirt with a fat and ugly barmaid (I have only Jefferies' word for the "fat and ugly") and drink until such time as they are expected back in their houses. On this Sunday afternoon the place was unfortunately raided by the police and Jefferies (luckily without a school cap) was seized: he gave a fictitious name and address and found that he was expected to appear at the local Police Court to answer the charge against him.

Naturally the whole thing was bound to come out and he would inevitably be expelled. The boy was in a state of pitiable terror and wanted to know what to do. As luck would have it, we did hit upon a scheme before he left the room which left him a loophole. He acted upon my suggestion, which was a simple one, and as it turned out everything was solved satisfactorily. He was fined heavily but did not appear, and I had the immense joy to see the case reported in the local weekly paper and read all unsuspectingly by members of Common Room, who never for one instant guessed that the George Holmes, clerk, etc., who was fined for obtaining drinks after hours, had any connexion with the noble and honourable foundation of Radchester. I suppose I ought not to have been a party to this nefarious scheme, but Jefferies was far too valuable a member of the school to lose. He certainly did not deserve to have his career ruined for a foolish prank like this.

If this came out, I imagine that I should also be thrown out into the streets: I wonder how much of this hushing up goes on in all Public Schools.

I remember that I took Dearden into my confidence over the case of Jefferies. He is a dear, good soul: why on earth he allows the boys to "rag" him as they do I can't think, except that he's too gentle and generous with every one.

He has the next rooms to mine, and whenever I'm out of cigarettes, or whisky, or cakes, I just raid his cupboards. Heavens! that places me exactly on a level with Chorlthwaite: it is true that I have asked him to take whatever he wants whenever he likes from my rooms, but my cupboards are usually bare owing to the appetite of my own form. When I told Dearden about Jefferies he laughed long and loud: he has an infectious laugh, and his already rubicund cheeks become purple with mirth. When his noises had somewhat subsided, except for a few intermittent guffaws that he seemed unable to suppress, he replied:

"Oh! I suppose we all behave like that really: it's a rotten game turning King's Evidence. I caught a fellow in this house with his arm round a flapper's waist on the beach, kissing her with great energy one night last summer term. It did me good to see them. He thought he was safe for expulsion. As a matter of fact I had him up and tried to lecture him, but it was all I could do to keep a straight face. What do you think his defence was? 'It's so jolly monotonous here, sir, with this continual round of work and games and corps and chapel, and never a decent-looking girl for miles.' I couldn't resist asking him how he unearthed so desirable a creaturein a district which breeds little but sea-gulls and mussels.

"'I met her in a village about five miles away one Sunday afternoon and ... well, she was as bored with life as I was, so we agreed to walk to meet each other down the beach every Thursday and Saturday night: it meant two and a half miles each way for each of us, sir. It was rather a sweat, but it was worth it, just for the fun of the risk of being caught.' I warned him to be careful in future: I hadn't even the heart to make him promise never to see the girl again; I'm a rotten bad schoolmaster."

From this he went on to a heated disquisition on the advantages of co-education.

I'm in luck to have so delightful a companion as Dearden next door to me. He is about ten years senior to me and has had a chequered career. He has been already at about half a dozen schools and never given any great satisfaction. He is, I imagine, too easy-going: he just drifts along idly; he likes his game of bridge, his whisky, his nightly chatter, and beyond that very little except good holidays. Like most schoolmasters he is quite without ambition: he looks forward to nothing better than his present state. "I can conceive," he said once to me, "nothing more delightful than my present life, if only I were not so persistently 'ragged'; it does so lower a fellow in his own esteem."

I have been attending all the recent debates at the School Debating Society: it is a very formal and rigid body attended usually by some fifteen or twenty persons, all very nervous and none of them able to speak at all coherently or interestingly. Each time I have attended I have said something, but I findI am as bad as the rest: there is an air about the society which effectually prevents one from saying what one means. I don't know what it is. The debates are dull and mainly consist of long uncomfortable pauses, during which no one dares even to whisper, varied by grotesque attempts at humour which make me want to cry.

It seems to me that the power to state an argument concisely, without stammering or hesitation and in an interesting way, is a very necessary factor in our educational equipment. I have, therefore, started another private debating society, which meets in my rooms every Saturday night, limited to boys whom I take during the week. The bait of free food has netted a prodigious catch. I rarely have less than fifty: they lie about on the floor or prop themselves up against the walls. The atmosphere after an hour and a half is indescribable, but we certainly do debate. Blood-feuds seem to spring from the results of our arguments: tempers are really lost, and at times I have imagined that they resort to physical tests to prove the truth of their assertions as soon as they get outside. At any rate I get them interested and they certainly can talk—the difficulty is rather to make them desist.

We vary these debates with charades, mock trials, and readings of plays ancient and modern. Occasionally I read to them humorous extracts, for choice from Saki, Stephen Leacock, or some of the older school of comic writers.

I find that I look forward to this more than to anything else in the week: it unfortunately prevents me from going in to see Vera, but somehow she and I always seem to be able to hit upon mutually freeevenings whenever we like. I never allow a week to pass without seeing her. She is my safety-valve: she gives me a proper perspective. After I have quarrelled violently with some colleague or taken some mistake of mine too seriously, she acts as a corrective and makes me see that Radchester is not, as Common Room fondly imagines, the whole of the world. I do not over-emphasize my importance to the State when I have been with her: to her I am just one of a crowd, very ordinary, fairly cheerful and companionable, less flighty than if I were merely "one of the boys," but not necessarily much more precious on that account. England would not materially suffer if Radchester were razed to the ground to-night; Radchester's idea is that England would cease to count if such a dire catastrophe were within the bounds of possibility. Yes, it is very good for me to see Vera weekly. I told her the story of Dearden about the flapper, and she replied somewhat to my astonishment, "Oh! you old goose. Why, I've been out with heaps of Radchester boys. They come into Scarborough quite often. Of course you wouldn't see them: they're not quite such fools, but I wouldn't mind betting that they've seen you with me. Oh! don't get frightened. Boys aren't likely to give you away: they understand only too well. They probably think you're the only sensible master on the staff for having the sense not to pretend that you can do without girls. I think it's a mad idea shutting up four or five hundred boys in a lonely place like Radchester. I shouldn't be surprised at the most horrible things happening there: it's unnatural."

"But, my dear child," I replied, "if you'd readany of the old books you'd realize how necessary it is, if you want to work, to get as far away from distraction as possible. Now what greater or more charming distraction could there be than you?"

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