Alpha and Omega are the most widely known letters of the Greek alphabet. And the first and last weeks of a public school career have inspired more essays and sermons than the other two hundred and fifty weeks put together. Yet in neither the beginning nor the end is to be found the essence of school life. The last week is a period of agreeable sentiment. The first of embarrassed loneliness. The new boy feels that he has no part in the life of the school. On that first afternoon, when he has said good-bye to his parents, and turns to walk away from the station, the school buildings, chapel, studies, cloisters, assume in the mellow September sunlight the prospect of a distant city that one day he may be privileged to enter. At present he is outside it, as he stands at the edge of the courts, forlorn in his black tie and wide brimmed straw hat, while the stream of boys in bowler hats and gaily coloured ties pours up from the station. On all sides he hears shouts of welcome, snatches of eager conversation. No one takes the least notice of him. He is an unrecognised foreigner.
During supper, he sits silent and nervous among the new boys at the day-room table.From time to time he casts hesitating glances at the raised table where the prefects sit. What giants they seem. He wonders which is Featherstone, the head of the House?[1]Is that imposing figure with the black hair brushed back from his forehead, the G. O. Evans, who made 121 in the Public School's match at Lords? Can it be possible that he and they are members of the same society?
A prefect rises from the high table and leaves the hall. Immediately forms are pushed back and the long narrow passage leading to the dormitories is filled with sound. The new boy is taken with the stream. What will happen to him now, he wonders? He has always understood that most of the ragging takes place in the dormitories. Will all new boys be subjected to some common lot? In a way he almost hopes that they will. He may thus be given an opportunity of showing his courage. He will be marked down at once as 'a bit of a sport.'
But nothing happens. He walks timidly into the large airy room with its bare boards, its row of wash-hand stands and red-quilted beds. He sees his bag lying in the middle of the floor. Three hours earlier when he and his parents had been shown round by the house-master's wife, he had placed his bag on the corner bed. It had seemed to him a good idea to reserve thatparticular bed. He would then be open to attack only on one side. Memories of Horatius Cocles had stirred his imagination. But some one else is already undressing there. He picks up his bag, and is about to place it on the bed nearest him when a warning voice informs him that Jones has bagged that bed. He looks round him in dismay. There are only two vacant beds. 'May I have that one?' he asks. The boy with the warning voice looks surprised at being questioned. 'I should think so,' he says, 'unless Hughes wants it. He had it last term.' The new boy does not know whether or not he dare begin to undress beside the bed that Hughes may possibly commandeer. He stands irresolute; then decides to take the risk. There is nothing to choose between the two positions, and Hughes would probably prefer a change.
He begins slowly to undress. No one takes the least notice of him. No one evinces the slightest inclination to test the courage of the new man. No hardened bully enters with a blanket. It is possible that two blasé young gentlemen from another dormitory will stroll in 'just to have a look at the new men,' will make a cursory examination, and having expressed their disgust at 'such an appalling crew,' will seek better fortune elsewhere. That will be all. The inquisition of preparatory school terrors is a myth. This generation is not more timid than its predecessors, but it is more subtle. The boy who has just ceased to be labelled 'new' wishes to impress his importance on the new boy.Forty years ago he achieved this object by putting the new boy on a chair and throwing boots at him. The appeal to physical force was not, however, invariably successful. Sometimes the small boy retaliated, and there is no reason why a boy of thirteen should not be a match for one of fourteen. At any rate the 'year older' has accepted the twentieth century doctrine that the easiest way to impress a person is to ignore him. And so the boy of a year's standing assumes an air of Olympian superiority. The new man is beneath his notice. He prefers to lean in the doorway of the dormitory, and talk of the days when 'Meredith had that far bed, and Johnstone had the wash-hand stand beneath the window.' He will casually let fall the names of the mighty and note their effect on the young. In the daytime he is probably quite an insignificant person, low in form and a funk at football. He can only appear great in the presence of his juniors during the quarter of an hour between supper and lights out. He therefore takes enormous pains to secure the admiration of those whom he affects to despise.
It is the same everywhere. At Sandhurst, on the first night of each term, the seniors used to cluster round the piano and sing till 'rooms' with incredible violence and discord. It was done entirely to impress the juniors, and on the whole I am inclined to think it was successful. The junior is a shy person, and the din has on him an effect not unlike that of an intensive bombardment. As the junior sits in a far corner of theanteroom, cowed and unhappy by an exhibition that is being conducted, though he does not know it, entirely for his benefit, so does the new boy lie back in bed on his first night, wondering what it is all about.
The jargon puzzles him; the attitude to life puzzles him. The boy with the warning voice is lamenting that he has got his 'budge.'
'Rotten luck,' he says. 'I should like to have stopped in old Moke's for at least a year. I did just well enough in each paper to avoid being bottled. Fourteenth I came out, and now they've started a new form, so we've all got shoved up.' The rest of the dormitory express sympathy. Then some one wonders whether Davenport will turn 'pi' now he's a 'pre'; the opinion is expressed that Ferguson will find himself pretty lonely now that Wodehouse has left. A lot of people have apparently been waiting a long time to kick him with impunity. Some one says, 'Let's make up the Fifteen,' and the rival claims of Bradshaw and Murray are carefully weighed. And all the while four wretched new boys listen in silent, confused wonderment.
The conversation gradually becomes spasmodic. There are longer and longer pauses between the conclusion of one topic and the introduction of another. 'Well,' says the senior boy, 'about time we were going to sleep. Good-night all.' There is a murmur of 'good-night': silence: and then again the warning voice. 'Oh, but I say, Stewart, what about the new men's concert?'There is immediate interest among the senior members. Of course, they had forgotten that ... the new men's concert.
'Too late now,' says Stewart. 'Let's have it on Sunday.'
'Hear that, you new fellows; you must all have a song by Sunday. Good-night.'
But there is little sleep for the new boy. Where is he? What has happened to him? Such a little while ago he was secure, garrisoned, sheltered by his home. Only twelve hours. He begins to wish that he had not been so anxious to leave his prep. Why hadn't he stayed on there another year? He would have been head of the school. At this very moment if he had not been so absurdly impetuous he would be turning over to go to sleep, having wished his dormitory 'good-night.' Just as Stewart had done. The thought of the concert terrifies him. He is a bad singer. Will they make him stand on a chair? will they throw boots at him if his voice quavers, or if he forgets the words? It will be a long-drawn agony.
And for a couple of days he is made wretched by the prospect of this ordeal. It allows him no peace of mind. In form, on the football field, as he walks up to the tuck shop, the disquieting thought descends to torture him. But in the end it is a very tame affair. It takes place after lights out, and new boys, as well as lovers, win a strange courage of the darkness. Moreover, the object of the concert is to amuse the senior members of the dormitory, and badsinging amuses no one. Myself, I remember being stopped before I had completed one verse of 'The British Grenadiers,' whereas the boy next to me, who had an agreeable treble voice was made to sing, 'Put on your ta-ta, little girlie,' every other night for the rest of the term.
The concert is practically the sole direct ordeal that a new boy has to face: yet it is probable that he would, on the whole, prefer the old-fashioned methods. It is better to be ragged than to be ignored. And he spends most of his first week wondering whether he has done the right thing. It is especially difficult if he finds himself placed high in the school. The lower forms are mainly composed of new boys, companions in calamity, and the master in charge of the second is lenient during the early days. It is different for the boy who finds himself in the Lower Fifth, or Upper Fourth. As likely as not there is only one other new boy in his house in the same form, and, when he cannot find that particular boy, there is no one to whom he may turn for advice. He soon learns that it is not wise to carry his troubles to his seniors. He may find himself in his house-master's study, waiting to hand in the list of books he will require, and suddenly he remembers that he has forgotten to put down his Latin prose book on the list; he has also forgotten what Latin prose book his form uses. He casts a despairing eye round the room and recognises, leaning against a bookcase the languid, supercilious figure of Watney. What luck, he thinks, Watney hasbeen in the Upper Fourth two years. He is sure to know. The new boy edges towards him. 'Please,' he asks, 'what Latin prose book do we use?'
His query is met by a look of amazed, outraged disapproval. Watney looks him up and down. Then at last: 'Who are "we"?' he says. The experiment is not repeated. The new boy arrives in form without his Latin prose book and is threatened with an imposition.
The geography of the school is very puzzling.
No new boy could be expected to gather much help from the information that his class-room is 'under the library, up on the right, next to Uncle Ned's.' For at least a week he is always entering the wrong form room. In the lower forms it is customary for the master to glance round the class, see that five boys are missing, and send the senior member in search of them as a matter of course. Indeed the first week of term is very pleasant for the senior member of the lower forms. He spends most of his time searching for lost lambs, and he is in no frantic haste to complete his task. But that is in the lower form, and, in the middle and upper schools, form masters do not care to have their time wasted. The absence of Jones mi. is not regarded as a joke.
Nicknames are confusing.
The new boy does not realise that 'Crusoe' and Mr Robinson are the same person. And, when he finds himself a quarter of an hour late in Mr Robinson's class-room, his excuse that hethought he had to go to 'Mr Crusoe' is not an official success. He is always on the brink of a mistake.
Probably his life is further complicated by the fact that he is playing Rugby football for the first time, and, for at least a month, his performances on the field can give him little satisfaction and less amusement. In the course of two or three puntabouts he is taught by his house-captain how to pack and how to take a pass. He is then drafted on to pick ups and house-games to fare as best he may. He fares extremely badly. He hangs about on the edge of the scrum. He catches hold of his opponents when they are dribbling and attempts an Association barge when they are running. For a long time he never touches the ball with his hands at all, and on the rare occasions when he discovers it at his feet, he takes a terrific rout at it and is contemptuously informed that he is not playing soccer. He is playing with boys older and heavier than himself. He has little chance of acquiring self-confidence: no footballer is really any use till he has scored a try, and that day is slow in coming. The new boy's chief anxiety on the field is to avoid the notice of any house caps that may be on the touchline. At half-time he will rub worm-casts on his knees to present an appearance of muddy valour. He is terribly afraid he will be reported and beaten for slacking. This fate rarely, as a matter of fact, overtakes a small boy. A beating for slackness is usually reserved for the boy abouthalf-way up the house who has committed no definite offence, but has been making a nuisance of himself generally.[2]Slackness on the field is the excuse for an official reprimand, and its effect is usually salutary. This, however, the new boy does not know. Games, when the house-captain is on the touchline, become a misery. During his first term he looks forward to the First Fifteen matches chiefly because on those days he will not himself have to play.
But it is in his spare time that he most acutely feels himself outside the general life of the school. He is oppressed by liberty. He does not know what to do with it. At his Preparatory School an elaborate time-table was posted on the notice-board, and every moment of his day was pigeonholed. A boy had no excuse for not knowing at any given time what he ought to be doing, and where he ought to be doing it. There was constant supervision. But, at a Public School, provided a boy answers his name at roll-call, and fulfils his social engagements in the form room and on the football field, no one worries much what he is doing during the rest of the time. He can search for plovers' eggs, or hunt for fossils, or develop photographs, or overeat at the tuck shop. He is his own master, and this the new boy cannot understand. When he has changed after football on a half-holiday he asks himself: 'What ought I to be doing now?'The answer is, of course: 'Nothing in particular. Whatever you like.' A disconcerting answer, for there is nothing in particular that he wants to do. The day room is inhospitable. The big chairs round the fire are occupied by the mighty. The library is only of less interest to him than the museum. The tuck shop at such an hour is full of bloods in whose presence he feels embarrassed. He wanders disconsolately round the courts. All the other new boys seem to have found something to do (a common delusion this). In the end he succeeds in finding some one equally lonely with whom he goes for a walk: and a walk, unless one is a botanist, is such a strange way of spending an afternoon, that I have since wondered whether any one after his first term ever goes for a walk at school without an ulterior motive, except when he is in training.
It is a strange business that first term, and its importance is, I think, overrated. It is not public school life. It is composed of the hesitations, the reactions of a novice. School life is on the other side of it. The new boy sees that life in fragments. It puzzles him. He tries to fit it into shape with the scale of values he acquired at his Preparatory School. And fails. The Preparatory School belongs to childhood, the Public School to adolescence. The new boy understands little of what is going on round him. Indeed there is no person whose testimony can be less relied upon than that of the new boy of four weeks' standing. He never knows what heshould, and what he should not, believe. The new life is so strange to him that he is prepared to accept any absurdity for the truth. The veriest nincompoop can pull his leg.
The following story is true.
It was the custom in my house for the matron to put out clean underclothes for each boy on Saturday evening. On my first Saturday I noticed that no clean pants had been put out for me. I asked an elder boy why this was. 'Oh, don't you know?' he said, 'we only have clean pants twice a term.' I believed him. The matron thought that I, in common with many others, did not start wearing pants till well into the winter. In consequence I wore the same pair till the second week in November. It is the same with regard to the more serious issues of school life. Mischief is often caused by the mistaken ideas that new boys give their parents of what does and what does not go on in their house.
I was provided the other day with a good example. At a certain house in a famous school it was the practice of the house-master's wife to sit at the day-room table for lunch. The idea was admirable. The house-master's wife was a sympathetic woman who wished to recall to the small boys the regenerating atmosphere of their homes. The results, however, were unfortunate. The small boys became communicative. In their innocence they repeated stories of which the true significance had escaped them. In their ignorance they misinterpreted stories of whichthe nature happened to be direct. In neither case did the reputation of certain light-hearted sportsmen on the Va. table rise in the official esteem. Indeed of that particular house there was composed a limerick, the exact wording of which has more humour than propriety, to the effect that the house reports of the Sixth Form table were written by the fags. Few parents, however, would accept this explanation.
Officially the first term is usually an unqualified success. The new boy is not distracted from his studies by the stress of house politics nor by the ambitions of the football field. The weekly form order is his chief excitement. And it would be surprising, considering the qualified enthusiasm with which the majority of the form welcome this occurrence, if the new boy did not soon find himself in the running for promotion. There is, indeed, little else for him to do.[3]He lives in a world of his own. He sees a good deal of new boys in other houses, and the usual question in break on Saturday morning is: 'Where were you this week?' His offences against discipline are inconsiderable. It is 'side' for a new boy to rag in the day room, in the changing room, and in the dormitories. That is the privilege of his seniors. He is not hardened enough to rag in form. He still regards work as important. I remember once seeing a very small and inoffensive scholar crumple up a sheet of paper and fling it at the head of his chemistry master. Hemaintained, however, that he was aiming at the waste-paper basket, and, though the excuse was not accepted, the offender's subsequent performances on the cricket field have inclined me to think he spoke the truth. At any rate this is the sole piece of audacity on the part of a new boy that I have witnessed. Indeed the new boy who does not return home with a thundering good report is a well-placed candidate for expulsion. Most of us start well. How many public school boys would have to confess that they won their only prize in their first term. The new boy returns home as from a Roman triumph. The indulgent father is prodigal of largess and theatre-tickets. His secretary is instructed to type out the report and send copies of it to aunts and uncles and his former head master. It is a great occasion, and we do well to make the most of it. It does not come twice.
The change begins, I suppose, on the first evening of the second term, when the novice, clad appropriately in bowler hat and coloured tie, is accosted by a member of the form into which he has been promoted and informed that he will be expected to do the 'con' for them that term. There is no threat. It is merely the announcement of an arrangement for mutual help. The old stagers who have slowly moved up the school, with the danger of superannuation camping on their trail, consider that their last terms should pass in a soft tranquility. They expect the newcomer to provide them with that peace. 'Here,' they say, 'is a smart lad who hasgot his promotion straight away; he can be of great service to us.' It is a form of practical communism of which the scholar is particularly the victim. There is a general conscription of intellect. Scholars are expected to do the work of the bloods. 'You are paid to come here,' say the great men, 'you must prove yourselves worthy of your hire.' Arnold Lunn has described how the captain of his house used to hold an educational raffle. Slips of paper on which were written: 'Greek Prose'; 'Latin Prose'; 'Essay,' were placed in a hat and the scholars took their chance of drawing a blank. I can still hear the voice of the school fast-bowler shouting over the banisters to a wretched goggle-eyed youth, 'No. 69, Becke, and shove it in my study before prayers.'
But the scholar is an exceptional person, and the novice who is accosted in the courts has an easier fate. He does not have to do other people's work. He merely has to do his own out loud. He is, moreover, a privileged person. He does not have to look the words up in a dictionary. That is the task of another member of the combination. He is spared the hack work of translation. It is for him to discover the sense. At a first glance it would seem that this arrangement would be to the advantage of the new boy; certainly it will ensure his industry. There is no chance of his scamping his work. The fate of others depends on his efficiency, and it does not pay him to guess at the sense. I remember once translatingRemotis arbielis, surrexit e lectulo,'having kicked off his bedclothes he rose from his bed.' No one questioned the interpretation, so I proceeded to the next sentence. None of us luckily was put on to translate that passage, but I can recall now the icy looks of the other members of the combination when the sentence was correctly rendered. I made a bolt for it afterwards, but they caught me. I did not guess again.
The form interpreter is never able to say to himself: 'I went on to con yesterday, and I went on the day before, there's not the least likelihood of my being put on to-day. I shan't prepare it.' He has to labour for the general good, and probably, by the end of the term, he knows the Latin and Greek books pretty well. But he has not only learnt the correct rendering of certain obscure classical passages; he has learnt also, through contact with older boys, the correct public school attitude to work and the relative importance of football and mathematics.
This is what he learns.
It is the business of the school to win their matches and to produce first-class footballers and cricketers; it is the business of the house to win their house matches and to produce as many colours as possible. It is the business of every individual member of the school to subscribe to this creed. The value of scholastic achievements is relative. It is a feather in the cap of a double first to be privileged to wear the dark blue ribbon of the Sixth. But it is nota necessary achievement. Scholars, on the other hand, should work. They are no use to the school at games. It is for them to do what little lies within their power; a scholarship has its value. The school likes to get scholarships. It is a side show, of course, but a creditable side show. And the Fourth Former, after recounting the feats of Lewis in the big school match, comments on the fact that Bevan won a Balliol scholarship in the same way that the village greengrocer will say: 'Oh, yes, sir, we have a drapery department, too.' Real brains are accorded a sort of grudging admiration. They are entitled to respect. A Fellow has done his job well. It may not be an important job, but he has done it. Our Fourth Former remembers the parable of the talents. The Balliol scholar has converted his one talent into two.
The boy, however, who, without being a scholar, shows unusual signs of industry, is a swot. Valuable time is wasted. The school is divided into two parts: the scholars and the rest. The rest brings to its work whatever energy is saved from its more arduous activities. No one thinks any the less of a man for being low in form. Slackness on the football field is anti-social. In the long category of an unpopular boy's offence the final evidence of worthlessness is the statement: 'He doesn't even work.' Even that resort, 'that last infirmity,' is denied him. What purpose has his existence? These are the articles of faith; these are the conventions. And the new boy who is ambitious, who wishesto win the respect and admiration of his comrades realises that athletic prowess will win him a position that is beyond the reach of the liveliest intellect. He begins to look on his work as a side show. It does not particularly matter what happens to him in the class-room. It would be nice to reach the Sixth. There are agreeable privileges. But it is not of first importance.
No sooner has he decided this, than he discovers that his form work is intolerably dull. Of course he does. He brings no enthusiasm to it. The masters who can inspire the indifferent are rare. And the mind wanders from the inky desks, the hunched row of shoulders, and the far voice of a master droning monotonously, to the swimming bath and the cricket field. Will Butler get the cricket cup? Did Frobisher get his firsts because he was worth them, or because he was in the Captain's house? These topics offer inviting prospects; speculation follows speculation till suddenly the tired voice breaks into the day-dream: 'Will you continue now, please, Dunkin?' There is a scuffle as Dunkin collects his books and thoughts. There is a whisper of: 'Where's the place?' 'What doescrates favorummean?' And the delinquent begins to stumble through his lines in a fashion that may, or may not, result in an imposition. To the unresponsive the atmosphere is one of intolerable listlessness.
He makes another discovery, namely, that during his first term he did far more work than was strictly necessary. That he should discoverthe idiosyncracies of certain masters was a matter of course. Sooner or later he would have been bound to learn that in Old Mouldy's he could pin the repetition on to the back of the boy in front of him, that the Moke's mathematical class provided him with an admirable opportunity for writing the imposition that his house-master had given him the evening before. A good batsman soon sizes up the opposing fieldsmen; he knows whether he can risk a single to cover, or whether there is one for a throw when the ball goes slowly to third man. That is part of the game. The new boy makes more important discoveries than that. He comes to understand the intricacies of the set system by which the middle and upper schools learn French, German, Science, and Mathematics.
For the days have passed when a boy learnt only Latin and Greek and a little French grammar. A liberal education is supposed to give him a general idea of a wide number of subjects. A choice of subjects is allowed, and it is hard to arrange a fair system of marking that will bring the boy who does German into line with the boy who does Greek. Each school tackles the situation in a different way, but each system probably leaves a loophole for the idle. It could hardly be otherwise, and it is enough to describe one system and the tactics that are adopted to cope with it.
This particular system works as follows: It is accepted that the only universal subjects, that is, the only subjects that are studied by thewhole form under the same master, are Latin and English, and, under English, are to be included History, Literature, Geography, and Divinity. On the marks earned in these subjects the form order and promotion depends. All other subjects, Greek, German, French, Science, and Mathematics are treated independently of the form order and are taught in sets of varying standards. It would seem to be a very sound scheme. A boy, for instance, may be a bad historian and a poor classic, but a fine mathematician. If all subjects were included in the same order he would be kept back by his bad English and Latin and would have to do algebra that he had long outgrown, yet at the same time his mathematical ability would place him in a form where the English and classics would be too difficult for him. Under the set system it is possible for the boy to reach the highest set in the school at mathematics and yet remain in the Shell or Lower Fourth.
During his first term the new boy worked with equal industry at form and set subjects. During his second term he realises that he is wasting his energy. Proficiency in Greek will not help him to secure his promotion into the Lower Fifth; whereas, if he takes things easily at Greek, he will be able to spend more time on History and Latin. Indeed, it might be said that the wily one 'makes a book' in form and set subjects. He appreciates the need of reserve strength. He ought always to have a little in hand. He casts his eye down his time-table. There is no reasonwhy he should not spare himself during the hour in the laboratory. The time might be so much more profitably devoted to his Latin 'con'; and at the time, of course, he will not consider the possibility of allowing such an arrangement to divert in any way his classical activities in 'prep' on the previous night. Far from it. He will have an opportunity to revise. He again studies his time-table. French with 'Bogus.' A little relaxation there is possible. Greek with 'Crusoe,' however, presents difficulties. Crusoe is something of a martinet; he expects lessons to be prepared, and he has a way of remembering what impositions he has set. He will have to work hard for Crusoe. Indeed it would be as well if he tried an honest, or the equivalent for an honest term's work for Crusoe. Is not the next set conducted by the Moke on admirably communal grounds. In the Moke's every one helps every one. There is no haste, no envy, no striving for position. A few scholars hurry through on their way to Balliol scholarships. They do not matter. They are only ripples on the surface of that calm, deep pool.
Sometimes 'the book is made' the other way. A member of the school eleven has at last reached the Lower Fifth, and is content for a term or two to rest upon his achievements. He decides to do just enough work to avoid being bottled. He realises, however, that it will be as well for his father's peace of mind if a few single figures appear after his name in the report. And so he devotes himself to Chemistry and French.Two subjects appear on the time-table for each evening's preparation. And it is a bad day when it is impossible to dismiss at least one of them in a quarter of an hour.
Examinations present difficulties. And it is here that the new boy, at the end of the summer term, makes his first serious compromise with the rigid code of ethics that he has brought with him from his Preparatory School. Why should he not crib in set subjects. They are unimportant. Promotion does not depend on them. He is not taking an unfair advantage of any one else. He will only do just well enough to avoid having to do the paper again. Why should he have to spend hours sweating up a useless subject. It is absurd. Besides, cribbing is rather an exciting game. It is a daring feat to smuggle the principal parts of the irregular verb, into a waistcoat pocket. It needs courage to open a French dictionary beneath the desk. He will be able to talk about it afterwards, and fellows will say he is a sport. It is the first step, and afterwards the compromise becomes increasingly easy.
He returns home at the end of his first year fortified with a deal of worldly wisdom. He looks forward to the next year hopefully. He knows where he is now. He has learnt the tricks of the trade. It is all going to be splendid fun.
FOOTNOTES:[1]I have used throughout this book the idiom of my own school. The Head of a house or of the school is the head boy in work. The Captainship of a house or of the school is a term applicable only to athletic prominence.[2]I am speaking of the average house. There are frequent occasions, of course, in bad houses where this privilege of the house-captain is abused.[3]It has even been known for a new boy to work in his spare time.
[1]I have used throughout this book the idiom of my own school. The Head of a house or of the school is the head boy in work. The Captainship of a house or of the school is a term applicable only to athletic prominence.
[1]I have used throughout this book the idiom of my own school. The Head of a house or of the school is the head boy in work. The Captainship of a house or of the school is a term applicable only to athletic prominence.
[2]I am speaking of the average house. There are frequent occasions, of course, in bad houses where this privilege of the house-captain is abused.
[2]I am speaking of the average house. There are frequent occasions, of course, in bad houses where this privilege of the house-captain is abused.
[3]It has even been known for a new boy to work in his spare time.
[3]It has even been known for a new boy to work in his spare time.
And it is splendid fun. Let us make no mistake about that. It is splendid fun. For the ordinary boy, for all those, that is to say, who have not been designed by nature for the contemptuous entertainment of their companions, nothing is much better than the second and third years. It is a light-hearted, swash-buckling period. The anxieties of the fag have been forgotten, the responsibilities of the Sixth Former are still remote. The second yearer can rag, and his ragging is not taken seriously. At the end of the term house-masters do not address him solemnly and appeal to his better nature. They beat him, and that makes it a square fight. He knows where he is. He has to remain on the right side of the law. If he passes the limit, he knows what to expect. Later on the issue will be complicated by his position: for a while he can afford to be an irresponsible free-lance.
It is a happy time of eager unreflecting action. There is a good deal of noisiness and 'showing off.' But it is harmless. A boy has just begun to find himself. He is free at last. At his Preparatory School he was always under the eye of authority. His freedom was enmeshed by a network of regulations. His first year at hisPublic School his freedom was fettered by nervousness and prejudice. That is over now. I sometimes think that we love Charlie Chaplin so dearly because he does all the things we have not the courage to do ourselves. When a waiter hurries past us with a pile of plates, how delightful it would be, we think, to drive our feet between his legs; who would not love to hurl a brick at a retreating foe; who is not tempted to crook his walking-stick round the ankles of the pompous. We never do these things; not as we should like to do them. But we come as near as we ever shall come to the attainment of this desire during our second year at school. On a small scale it is permitted us to destroy furniture. We can pull chairs from beneath an unsuspecting foe. The strings of a hammock have been cut to the discomfiture of the occupant. The terminal bill for breakages is often considerable, but no one is ever really hurt.
For what little bullying exists nowadays the second and third yearers are in the main responsible. The effect of a new-found freedom is intoxicating. And there is always a boy in every house who is an irresistible butt. There is a compound German word that means 'face-that-invites-a-box-on-the-ear.' And such a physiognomy is the invariable possession of at least one scholar; in its own way the magnetic influence of such ugliness is as irresistible as the charm of a pretty woman. One has only to see that particular brand of face to want to heave a boot at it. One refrains seldom. It used to be held that everyhouse contains one bully. It would be truer to say that every house contains one boy who is bullied. Most boys go through their schooldays without being subjected to any bullying, but most boys indulge in a little spasmodic bullying themselves. It is a sort of bull baiting, and it is in the main good-natured.
Four or five fellows are sitting in a study after tea. There are still twenty minutes before lock-up, and the conversation has grown desultory. They all feel a little bored. One of them suggests that they should go and see how that ass 'Sniffy' is getting on. It is a popular suggestion, and a raid is made upon Sniffy's study. Sniffy is discovered working. This is considered to be a disgrace to the house, and Sniffy is informed of the fact. He invites his guests to get out. 'But, my dear Sniffy, what hospitality! Surely you are going to offer us a chair! No? Then we must teach you manners!' Sniffy's chair is suddenly jerked from under him and Sniffy is flung forward on to his table. He jumps up and lets fly at one of his assailants. It is no fun ragging some one who does not retaliate, and proceedings are soon less cordial. In the end Sniffy's study is pretty effectively wrecked. This happens about once a fortnight, but, beyond this, I am inclined to think that, except in a bad house, there is very little bullying now in Public Schools.
The tone of a house changes far more quickly than the tone of a school. And, in every school, there is usually a thoroughly bad house. As ahouse-master grows old he tends to leave the management of the house more and more in the hands of his prefects. As long as his prefects are efficient all goes well; but, sooner or later, a weak head is bound to come, and then the swash-buckling element gets out of hand. One of the houses when I first went to school had got into this state. The head boy was easy-going, and there were in the day room two members of the First Fifteen who had in school failed to reach the Lower Fourth and who were thorough 'wrong 'uns.' Terrible tales of refined torture used to be repeated in the upper dormitories, and I can well believe that life there was pretty wretched. But I always distrust second-hand accounts. Nothing is more easily distorted than the story of atrocities, and, for my part, I have neither been a victim, nor the witness of any serious bullying. The only case that reached official notice during my time savoured strongly of the ludicrous.
A parent had complained that his son had been ill-treated, and all the house prefects were summoned into the head master's presence. The offenders were leaning nervously against the wall; their victim was enduring tortures of self-consciousness; the head master was fingering his pen, and the avenging father blocked up the entire fireplace. There was a dead silence. We were all hard put to it not to smile. The offenders looked so much smaller than the prey. At last proceedings were opened by the boy's parent. He followed the traditional line. He had beena boy. He knew what boys were. He knew the public school code of honour. He loathed sneaking. His boy had not sneaked. The confession had been dragged out of him. What he, the father, wanted, was not punishment, but the assurance that such a thing would not happen again. 'And now, John,' he concluded, 'show the head master that bruise upon your arm.' Very sheepishly the boy drew off his coat, rolled up his sleeve and revealed a bruise, certainly of extensive proportions.
'How did they do that?' asked the chief.
'By flicking him with wet towels, head master,' said the parent.
A simultaneous denial came from both offenders. 'We didn't make that bruise, sir.'
'But did you flick him?' asked the chief.
'Well, sir; yes.'
'Then how on earth can you tell that you did not make that bruise?'
There was a moment's silence, during which the smaller of the offenders surveyed the wound with an almost envious eye.
'It couldn't have been me, sir,' he said at last. 'I can't flick well enough to have done that.'
I hope I may be pardoned for retelling this story, which I have already told elsewhere. But it seems to me to interpret perfectly the attitude towards bullying that exists in most houses. No doubt there was a great deal of bullying fifty years ago. And people think that what was true of the Rugby ofTom Brown's Schooldaysis trueof the Shrewsbury of to-day. They still think that the three chief sins of a Public School are bullying, stealing, and midnight escapades into the town. But those days have passed. In Desmond Coke'sThe Bending of a Twigthe new boy who sought for bullies behind every cloister quickly won the nickname of Don Q.
It is usually during the course of his fourth term that a boy first begins to swear. For swearing is, on the whole, confined to members of the Middle School. It is side for a fag to swear, and an oath, except on rare occasions, is considered beneath the dignity of a blood. He is supposed to dwell in an Olympian fastness beyond the reach of inconvenience, where the need for violent language is infrequently presented. For the second yearer, however, life is full of emotion that demands to be registered forcibly.
I can never quite see why so many people refuse to believe that a schoolboy's conversation is punctuated with 'damns' and 'bloodys.' We employ the idiom of our surroundings. A boy does not swear at home; at school he does. And there is no particular reason why he should not. An oath means little to him. He knows that some indecency is implied. But the meaning of the word is not defined by his use of it. He rarely employs it appropriately. He recommends the most contradictory performances. A powerful expression is needed. He wishes the world to know that he has been moved powerfully either to anger, or to delight. That is all. Any wordthat would have this effect would suit him, and I remember a dormitory captain insisting that the only expletive to be used in his presence should be 'daggers'; this crasis satisfied every one. The language a boy uses is no index to his character. Swearing and 'talking smut' are very different things.
It is also in his fourth term that a boy who is anything of an athlete begins to discover himself on the football field. He finds himself scoring tries in home games. He is noticed by the bloods as a coming man. He makes friends among his seniors. He is no longer outside the life of the school. The road of ambition lies clear and straight before him. It is marked out in distinct stages. He learnt, of course, during his first term that a house cap may put one hand in his trouser pockets, that a seconds may put both, that a first may walk across the sixth form green in break; but these facts were distant in the imagination like the ritual of a mediæval court: they now become realities. In a year, he reminds himself, he will be in his house fifteen. The year after he should get his house cap. In four years he should be a first. It might, indeed, be maintained that the blood system is at the same time the magnet and the expression of the second yearer's ambition. The blood would not value his performances so highly were he not encouraged by others in the belief that he is of supreme importance. And, at fifteen, one idealises the future. It seems splendid to be a blood, to play for the schoolagainst Blackheath, to saunter across the courts with one's hands in one's pockets, one's books stuck under one's arms; to be on terms of friendly intercourse with masters, to be beyond the reach of punishment. And, because the future seems so glorious, the second yearer idealises the dwellers in it. In the same way that in Chelsea the latest poet or draughtsman can disregard the social laws of property and of propriety, in the eyes of the junior the blood can do no wrong. His voice is hushed when a blood passes him in the cloisters. If one should speak to him, he blushes and stammers and feels proud of it for days. The blood naturally endeavours to realise the popular conception of himself. He owes his position to it. For the higher up the school we go, the less important the blood appears, and, when our time comes to sit at the high table, we can hardly believe that we are occupying the same chair that Meredith sat in four years ago. It is absurd. How the house must have come down. To think of that little ass, Barton, being a prefect. How short a time since he was playing in junior house games and getting cursed for funking. And for ourselves—it is only yesterday that we were trembling, a diffident new boy, at the far corner of the day-room table. We cannot but believe our generation to be vastly inferior to those that have preceded it, and we do not think otherwise even when we win the senior cricket cup, although in Meredith's year the house was beaten by an innings in the first round. It is not in our natureto desire, or even value highly, what we possess. The last year is often a disappointment.
No such foreknowledge mars the enjoyment and anticipation of the second yearer. It is indeed hard to imagine a more fortunate combination of circumstances. From an agreeable present he surveys the prospect of a delightful future. The days may pass slowly, or swiftly, as they will—their passage will be a long enchantment.
It is during this period that a boy gets through the majority of his ragging in form. Now the ragging of masters is a very specialised art. The master holds all the cards. He has behind him the marshalled forces of the law. He can cane, he can give lines. He has every implement, physical and moral, for the preservation of order. He ought to be able to keep order. Yet the boy usually wins. Indeed, I often wonder how a master, who has once begun to be ragged, can ever hope to regain order. He is fighting a confident foe. The new boy learns during his first week that 'one can do anything one likes in Musty's.' Musty stands no chance. He enters the form room nervously; he is on the lookout for trouble; he is afraid to turn his back on the class when he is working on the blackboard. For ten minutes there is silence, a suspicious silence, perhaps, but still a silence. Musty tells himself that if any one attempts to break that silence he will make him sorry for it. He will punish the first whisper: that is the only way. And then, suddenly, from the backof the room, comes an ominous sound. It is not a cough: it is not a sneeze: it is a hideous nasal and vocal croak that Musty has learnt to recognise as the prelude to rebellion. He observes that some one is cramming a handkerchief into his mouth, and is choking in the subdued manner of one who is unsuccessfully stifling a laugh.
Musty decides on action. 'Jones, take that handkerchief out of your mouth immediately, and you'll spend the afternoon doing me a hundred lines.' Jones withdraws the handkerchief from his chin, and his face assumes an expression of outraged innocence. 'But, sir——' he begins.
'A hundred and fifty lines,' snaps Musty.
At this point the democracy of the class feels that its independence has been violated. There is a murmur of disapproval. And a tall, cadaverous youth rises from the front desk.
'Please, sir——'
'Silence, Evans.'
'No, sir, but really,' Evans persists, 'I must explain to you, sir, that the younger Jones is suffering from a very severe cold.'
'Yes, sir, I am,' blurts out the victim. 'And the matron said I was not to play football this afternoon.'
At this point Musty should, of course, be firm.
'I am sorry,' he should say, 'but, at the same time, that will allow you, Jones, to do me two hundred lines instead of a hundred and fifty. And perhaps you, Evans, will do me a hundredand fifty. Thank you. We will now proceed with the lesson.'
Such tactics might succeed. But Musty hesitates; for a moment he wonders whether Jones is telling him the truth. And the delay is fatal. Already other members have started to produce testimonials to Jones mi.'s integrity and disease. 'He really is awfully bad, sir. My study's next door to him, and he was coughing all last night. He made such a noise that I was only able to do you three problems instead of six!'
A general conversation begins. Members cease even to address the chair. When Evans assures Musty that 'Jones would never tell a lie,' Power retorts that the other day Jones sold him a watch as new which went smash at once. 'Dirty little liar, I call him!' 'You wait till afterwards,' is Jones's reply. And, by the time honour has been vindicated, there is no chance of restoring order that day. The class is already out of hand. Jones mi. has the general permission to sneeze as often as he likes, a permission of which he generously avails himself.
Such a disturbance should have been quelled by a firm hand. Masters have to run the risk of being unfair. There is, of course, the possibility that Jones's cold may have been genuine, but his previous record should preclude it to a 100 to 1 chance. At any rate, it is unlikely that Jones would be anxious to carry the case to the head master. Criminals avoid Bow Street.
It is not usually, however, so easy to distinguishthe preliminary manœuvres. When, for instance, a boy walks quickly up to the master's desk and says that he thinks there is a peculiar smell in the room, the master is taken off his guard. He assumes interest. He walks to where the boy was sitting and sniffs. A polite boy rises and asks respectfully if anything is the matter. 'No, nothing,' says the master, 'Jones thought there was a curious smell where he was sitting.' The interest of the form is quickened. There is a general sound of sniffing. 'Well, sir, now that Jones comes to mention it, I do seem to recognize—I don't quite know what it is, sir.'
'Come, come,' says the master, 'that'll do.'
'No, but really, sir, I don't know if it's quite healthy. Do you think the drains are all right?'
The information is hazarded that there have been several cases of typhoid recently in the town.
'It must be the drains.'
Then some one suggests that it may be the gas. The school custos is notoriously careless in these matters. The suggestion is welcomed. At any rate it deserves investigation. And such investigations, when conducted by twenty clumsy boys, whose clumsy feet are shod with heavy boots, are a long and noisy business. Books fall with a clatter on to the floor. The hindquarters of the inoffensive are accidentally kicked. Smith endeavours to jump from one desk to another, misses his footing and crashes on the desk. Musty is lost.
He stands in the middle of the room. He says'Come, now!' a great many times. He varies it occasionally with 'That'll do.' He asks Smith whether he considers that what he is doing 'is really necessary.' At last a piping unrecognisable voice rises from the far corner. 'It isn't the gas. It must be Musty himself. He never washes.'
In most schools there are at least two masters who are the continual victims of such treatment. Such ragging, however, is too simple to content the truly adventurous. The Mustys of the scholastic world are objects of contempt, and we prefer to respect our enemies. It is far more entertaining to rag a disciplinarian. One has to guard oneself. The master has all the weapons. Among other things the ragster has to work. If he is unexpectedly put on to con, flounders through a couple of lines and breaks down completely at the third, he has played into his opponent's hand. He has deserved the imposition that he will most certainly get. The ragster must prepare his work. That is part of his defence. He cannot say to himself: 'I have been on twice running. I shall not go on to-day.' If he makes a cheeky remark in form, the master's just retort is: 'Jones, you seem to like talking. I think you had better translate the next passage.' And, if Jones translates the passage successfully he feels that he is one up. Such ragging is very different from the general rag of the complete incompetent. It is a free-lance affair. It is an art. The majority of masters meet it in some form or other. It isonly a few who are subjected to displays in which the whole form take part.
Yet it is a puzzle to find out how exactly this ill-fortune selects its particular victims. Personality is limited. There are only a few who have a real genius for teaching. The majority are merely competent. And competence must fall before invention. Why is it that some are ragged and others not. The ragged master may be an excellent fellow. He may be good at games; he may be just as exemplary a member of society as his colleagues, and yet he is selected for this refined torture. There are some masters for whom one never works hard; one does enough and no more to avoid being bottled. One sits in the class-room for long, sultry, tedious hours; the insipid sunlight moves across the wall. One watches a fly crawl up the window-pane. One writes 'is a fool' upon the desk after the inscribed name of an enemy. One sticks a compass into the back of the man in front. Perhaps one revises the next hour's lesson. It may be that there is an imposition to be completed. The minutes pass slowly; one longs for the strike of the clock. And yet no one attempts to enliven the hour with some geniality. The few attempts that are made are spasmodic and unsuccessful.
We had a master who was nicknamed, I never knew why, Marchand. And, one day, a boy who was doing translation paused at the French wordmarchand. 'Please, sir,' he said, 'I don't know whatmarchandmeans.' There was no laugh, not even a titter. We were all toosurprised. The master's face did not alter. 'It means merchant, Smith,' he said, 'and you will stay behind afterwards and speak to me.' He received six of the best. And it was, no doubt, such a master who made the historic retort to the boy who, during an hour that was devoted to the discussion of Old Testament history, inquired what 'harlot' meant. 'A harlot, Jones,' the master answered, 'is a lady who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances, and you will take two hundred lines.'
If such an answer had been made by Musty, the boy would have expostulated freely; other members of the form would have interested themselves in the cause of justice. As it is, Smith gets his half-dozen and Jones his two hundred lines, and the world says 'silly ass!'
There are certain masters who inspire neither industry nor insubordination, and yet I suppose that once they, too, had their hour of trial. So much depends on the first impression. Arnold Lunn has recounted inThe Harroviansthe story of one Crabbe, who was so unmercifully ragged that he had to leave at the end of his first term. 'He went on to another school where his reputation had not preceded him. He opened his first lesson by setting a boy a hundred lines for sneezing. After having successfully established a reputation for unbridled ferocity, he was able, by slow degrees, to relapse into his natural kindly self.' It is typical of much. The master who has once allowed himself to be ragged is lost for ever. He may beat, he may line, he willnever restore order. His only chance is to try elsewhere.
The ragging of prefects is of very much the same order. There is less of it, because the head of the house has a way of jumping suddenly on the turbulent. 'I hear you were ragging Beetle last night in hall. You've got to stop it—see? and you're going to get six as a warning!' The head of the house has more authority than an assistant master. If a boy felt that an assistant master was unjust he might very well complain to the head master. But no boy would care to appeal against a boy—that would be sneaking. A good head of the house sees to it that none of the prefects are indiscriminately ragged, but there is always one of them for whom the rest of the house has but little respect, and to whom the taking of prep is always an anxiety. He beats and lines more than the rest of the prefects put together. But it has small effect. Indeed the second yearer acquires a hardened hide. Punishment is no deterrent to him; it is merely a pawn in the game.
By this time the new boy may be truly said to have reached the inner circle of a public school philosophy. He knows to what gods he must bow the knee. And he serves dutifully before the altar of the god of sport.
The cult of athleticism has been for a long while the target at which the enemies of the Public School have launched their abuse. And until this cult is understood, it is impossible to understand the standards and the scale of values of a Public School. Every community must have a religion of sorts, a faith to which all faiths are subservient, a service which makes the first demands. A man, when called to decide between two claims, must be able to know which way his duty lies. He may not follow the claim of duty, but he should be able to distinguish which it is. In some communities it is the observance of social custom, in another the making of money is all important, in one the honour of the regiment, in a second the teaching of the Scriptures. At a Public School it is athletic prominence.
The position of a school is decided by its performances on the field. If two men in a club are discussing the merits of a certain school,the first consideration will be athletics. 'Oh, yes,' they will say. 'Fernhurst stands very well just now. It beat Tonford and Merton last season, and it's got two fellows in the Varsity eleven.' The social status of a school is judged, not by the number of Balliol scholars it has produced, but by the quality of the schools it plays. 'Oh, Marestone can't be much of a place,' you will hear said. 'They only play a few grammar schools.'
This fact the new boy realises at once. His father's friends are impressed when he can tell them that his school has beaten Haileybury. They display a mild interest at his casual reference to Bennett's scholarship. The new boy reads in the daily papers enthusiastic articles on the performances of the school eleven, and he learns that Haslett is being watched by the county authorities. There is an air of publicity about every school match. There will be reports in the newspapers. The new boy feels himself to be participating in a function of considerable general interest. All over the country people will be wondering what will chance in this particular encounter. He is on the spot. The Press accentuates his keenness. How could he, in the face of such a testimony, doubt the supreme importance of athletics. We believe in the goods that are most widely advertised. Who ever read an article on the prospects of the various competitors for a certain exam. Who has read in theTimesthat 'enormous interest is being taken in the approaching scholarship examinations.Clifton has several promising scholars. Marston may be poor at unseen, but he is very deft in his handling of Latin prose, and he has a good ear for hexameters. Haileybury, on the other hand, place their faith in Johnson, a steady, industrious worker who can be trusted to perform consistently in all subjects....' Yet, two or three times a week, we can read in theSportsmanthat Fernhurst has a vastly improved side and that with Evans back again in the three-quarter line, is hopeful of emerging triumphantly from the approaching contest with Tonford.
Public School sport is awarded at the present moment a preposterous amount of publicity. It is bad for the schools; it is bad for the boys themselves, and, as far as one can gather, it has not helped English sport to any appreciable degree. It encourages in schools the belief that games matter more than anything else. Very often it makes boys swelled-headed, certainly it makes them think they are bigger than they are, and is preparing for them a big disappointment. It is so easy to appear a giant among pigmies. In my own short experience I can remember more than one player who was described while at school as being an England batsman in the making, and who now experiences a difficulty in getting into the county side. Every summer we know by name a whole host of public school cricketers that are never heard of afterwards. They have averages of sixty during their last term; their exploits are described in fervid journalese. They go up to Oxford, fail to reachdouble figures in the Freshmen's match, and are quickly submerged in college cricket. Others go up with enormous reputations, making centuries in the trial match, and then find that there is a difference between club and county cricket. They just get their blue with a batting average of twenty-five; they play for the county during August and do nothing exceptional. They are just average cricketers, useful members of a side and nothing more. In the meanwhile the journalists are shrieking of the natural offbreak of a sixteen-year-old Rugbeian. This particular type of writer resembles the literary critic who hails every new poet as a 'second Keats,' and every new novelist as 'a second Hardy,' but loses interest in his discoveries after the appearance of their fourth book.
There is no need to dive back into past history. We can find enough examples in post-war cricket. N. E. Partridge in 1919 had a batting average of 43, and took 71 wickets for under 12 runs each. He had a magnificent press. Next to Stevens, and perhaps Hedges, he was the most discussed boy cricketer of the year. On the strength of this boosting he very nearly received an invitation to play for the Gentlemen at Lords. As a matter of fact, I am not certain that he did not actually receive an invitation, and that his head master refused to let him go—but on that point I am not certain. At any rate his claims were seriously advanced by a great many reputable judges of the game, among whom I think Sydney Pardon has to be included. He went up toCambridge with a tremendous reputation; he did only moderately. At one time, indeed, it seemed improbable that he would get his blue. Last season he did nothing exceptional for Warwickshire. I may, of course, be misjudging a cricketer whom I have never seen play, but everything would seem to suggest that Partridge will develop into nothing more exciting than the average county cricketer.[4]
We could also take the example of L. P. Hedges. I spent the summer of 1918 in a German prison camp; but even to that distant city came news of the brilliant Tonbridge batsman who was greater even than Hutchings. During the summer of 1919 the assiduous student of theSportsmanheard much of him. Every week appeared the score of some fresh triumph, and, to crown it all, came that brilliant 163 at Lords. It was a gorgeous show. I was thankful not to be fielding at coverpoint. But, let it be whispered gently, the bowling did not look particularly difficult, and, though Hedges's innings was dazzling, a quite ordinary batsman should, off the same bowling, have been able to help himself to a generous allowance of fours.
That particular innings marked, I suppose, the height of Hedges's career from the point of view of press publicity and popular esteem; the height had been reached, that is to say, before his qualities had been placed on the openmarket and tested by the stress of three days' cricket and the accuracy of professional bowling. We do not hear much of Hedges nowadays. He has played useful cricket for Oxford and for Kent; but he has done nothing sensational. And yet, when I saw him last summer make a 50 against Middlesex at Lords, I could not help feeling that he is a better bat to-day than he was in 1919, and that that 50 in an important match, against confident bowling, and while Woolley was scratching uncomfortably at the over end, was in every way a finer performance than his 163 of two years earlier. He drove Haig and Durston through the covers as easily as in 1919 he had plastered the ring with boundaries. And yet the pressmen remained calm.
It is vain and it is unfair to attempt to form a judgment of a person whose wares are not upon the open market. No one can tell who is, and who is not, going to prove a test match cricketer. Equally it is impossible to tell from public school form which boys are potential cricketers. Who, for example, who saw in 1910 F. H. Knott and D. J. Knight batting in the Public School's match at Lords realised that Knight was going to develop into an incomparably greater batsman than Knott. And yet sportsmen continue to write about boy cricketers with the seriousness that they devote to Hobbs. They draw the most ridiculous comparisons. I discovered last summer in one of the most influential daily papers the following passage in the account of the PublicSchool's match at Lords: 'There is probably no cricketer, with the exception of R. H. Spooner, who sees the ball more quickly than J. L. Guise.' Now anything much more ridiculous I can hardly imagine. It is like the literary critic, who shall be nameless, who described the work of a minor poet, who shall be also nameless, as having given him more pleasure than anything since the first flights of Swinburne. It is preposterous to speak of Guise, who is an extremely promising cricketer, as seeing the ball more quickly than any batsman except Spooner. It all depends on what manner of ball he is seeing. In the Eton match he, no doubt, saw Allen's deliveries with considerable speed. Spooner, however, was in the habit of seeing in this manner the deliveries of Cotter, Tarrant, and Schwarz. Speed of eye is relative to the quality of the bowling. I should hesitate to call myself a batsman, but there is a type of ball that I can see with incredible rapidity. It is bowled to me, alas, too occasionally, in village matches. It is medium paced, it pitches on the middle stump, a little more than half-way down the pitch, and it turns away ever so slightly towards the leg. Any one can look a good bat who is opposed to bad bowling. And I maintain that it is no sort of sense indulging in wild panegyrics about schoolboys who have never been tested by first-class bowling.
If a boy seems promising the county authorities should give him a trial, and, if he does well, then let the pressmen get busy. Every one isso terrified lest a good man may be overlooked. But how unlikely that is if the county authorities are at all keen. Trial matches can be arranged. Visits can be paid to schools. There is no need for this hectic discovery of twenty Spooners every season. The school figures of players like Stevens and Chapman and Hubert Ashton would have been quite sufficient to ensure a proper trial for them. And the fact remains that in spite of this press work amateur cricket is at a lower ebb now than it has ever been before. The Gentlemen and Players match has become too one-sided to stimulate interest in anything save individual performances. Very few amateurs are good enough to play for England. Douglas is; and he was not one of the marked men of cricket articles. His entrance was as untheatrical as his batting. D. J. Knight, is on his form of 1919, the second best batsman in the country; Stevens, at his best, is a great match-winning factor; Tennyson and Fender are useful players. But it is impossible to maintain that there are to-day any amateur batsmen comparable with Maclaren, Spooner, Fry, Stoddart, and Jackson, than the cricketers, that is to say, who passed unheralded on their merits into first-class cricket. The low standard of amateur cricket cannot be argued away. And this trumpeting of the press could only be excused, could it be proved to further the interests of amateur sport in England. Instead of furthering those interests, it works against them. It makes games at a Public School too much of a business and toolittle of a sport. It introduces professionalism. And I am prepared to wonder how far one really enjoys one's games at school.
One is frightfully excited about them; one is very pleased when one does well and depressed if one does badly. One works oneself into a state of nervous misery before a match, and one of hysterical excitement after it. Victory and defeat mean a great deal. And it was with a real surprise that I realised a few months ago at the end of a very pleasant season that, although I should continue to play football for another ten years, and cricket, I hope, for another forty, I should never again really care whether the side for which I am playing wins or loses—care, that is to say, as I cared at school about a house match. In club cricket and football one asks for a good game in pleasant company, and victory is incidental. While one is playing, of course, one is keen, but one will not brood afterwards over one's mistakes,—not as one does after a school match. There is, I suppose, no public school man under the sun who does not now and again on some winter evening drop his paper on his knees and curse himself because, fifteen years ago, he missed a catch at an important crisis—that is one of the things one never ceases to regret. That awful moment when one picks up the ball with tingling fingers and tosses it back to the bowler; it is for all time a vivid memory. One does not feel like that about an ordinary catch in an ordinary club game. One is annoyed with oneself; one is sorry for thebowler; one apologises to the captain, but one remembers that one is out, after all, to enjoy oneself.
That is the difference between school and club cricket. At school one is not out to enjoy oneself. It is a business, this getting of runs and taking of wickets. There are cups for house matches, and there are cups for batting and bowling averages, and it is a sin to miss a catch. There are few worse things than the anxiety attendant on those who play on the fringe of a school side. Not only is one worried about one's own performances, but about one's rivals. If one has made a duck oneself one cannot, in spite of one's patriotism, be anxious for a particular rival to retrieve the fortunes of the side with a century. A first eleven cap is valued far too highly for such unselfishness. It is equally little fun to be a member of a bad fifteen. One is subjected to a series of complaints and recriminations. One grows sick of the whole business. And I can remember during the first winter of the war the relief with which we learnt that the Tonbridge match had been scratched. We had a poor side. We knew that we should be thoroughly trounced, and that, for the next week, the lives of those who had not distinguished themselves would be made wretched. We never for a moment questioned the justice of this tyranny. The Lord our God was a jealous God. We had to serve him. But we were not sorry that an occasion for his wrath should be removed. I very much doubt whether the actual playingof games was as pleasant at school as it is outside it.
The intensity and rapture are irrecoverable. There is nothing to compare with the elation that follows a victory over a stronger side. But in the long run I find cricket more enjoyable to-day than I did six years ago. It is less complicated. One takes a day off from one's work and spends it in agreeable company. One can field out all day and never take a wicket, miss a couple of catches, and then crown everything by making a duck, and yet thoroughly enjoy oneself. At school that would have been a rotten day, and one would have spent the evening in deep despondency. Yet everything is in favour of one enjoying one's game at school. It is so simple. One strolls down after lunch in a leisurely fashion to the field. One changes one's boots in the pavilion. A hot bath is waiting for one afterwards. But, in order to play football after one has left, one has to rush off to catch impossible trains from impossible stations. One has no time for lunch. The train always seems to start at 1.18. There is as likely as not a long walk from the station. One changes in a converted army hut; one is more than a little tired before the game starts. There are no proper baths afterwards, and one has to hurry, or one will miss the only train to town: for it is amazing the number of football fields which are on loop lines with trains at hourly intervals. And yet, personally, I enjoy my football now a great deal more than I ever did at school.