'Thou shalt not kill, yet needst not striveOfficiously to keep alive.'
'Thou shalt not kill, yet needst not striveOfficiously to keep alive.'
'Thou shalt not kill, yet needst not striveOfficiously to keep alive.'
'Thou shalt not kill, yet needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive.'
By the time the boy comes to be a prefect he is able to feel himself supreme, not only because of the system that is at his back.
Prefectship is the coping-stone of a public school education. The boy who leaves without becoming a prefect has missed, we are continually assured, the most important part of his school career. And yet what percentage of an old boys' list, I wonder, reaches the dignity of house prefectship. One gets the impression sometimes that every one, provided he stays on long enough, becomes a prefect. All school stories follow a convention. They open with the new boy closing behind him the green-baize door of the head master's study, gazing wistfully down a long corridor at the end of which is the oak door of the day room. From behind that door comes to him the sound of laughter and eager conversation. There is the unknown, mysterious world he has to enter. That is how every school story opens. And every school story closes on the departure of a hero crowned with athletic and academic honours. The space in between is occupied with the 'see-saw up' process. How else a school story is to be constructed I do not know. It has to be narrative rather than dramatic. But it gives the impression that public school life for the average boy is a slow voyage from fag to prefect. Indeed, ifPeg's Paperprintedschool stories, 'From Fag to Prefect' would probably be the title. Such a tale would, however, be little more generally applicable than a tale of army life entitled 'From Bugler to Brigadier.' The majority of schoolboys do not become prefects. But the people in whose hands the framing of the convention lies think they do, because they did themselves. The dwellers in Mayfair think London consists of a few drawing-rooms and a few restaurants. The schoolmaster naturally follows the conventional course, otherwise he would not be a schoolmaster. If he had not reached the Upper Sixth he would not be in a position to teach. If he had not reached the Eleven he would not be a games master. The story-writer may not be an athlete, but it is hardly possible that a man who can write an interesting book should have failed to make some mark at school if he had stayed out his full time. And so there has grown up a tendency to ignore entirely the careers of the insignificant, which form the background for more striking exploits. And yet, as always, the insignificant are in the majority.
A couple of years ago I spent an afternoon in the company of some friends at the school where their son was completing his second term. It was a warm afternoon and we naturally walked down to the cricket field. On the Upper a senior house match, which we should have liked to have watched, was in progress. Our small guide assured us, however, that this would be impossible. 'It isn't our house, you see, andthe fellows would think it awful niff of me to watch another house playing. But there's a house game of our own going on down there.' Realising that it was impossible to overcome the novice's fear of doing the wrong thing, we reluctantly, slowly, and with backward glances, followed our young friend to the far end of a big field, where a ridiculous junior house game was being played on a sloping and bumping pitch. The small boy was, however, more interested in his friends than in the cricket. Beyond this game there was the pick up.
Now I do not believe that I had ever before watched a pick up at all closely. I had imagined that the cricket would be pretty bad, that firm-footed batsmen would mow full pitches towards long on, that wides would be only more frequent than the fall of wickets, that every third scoring stroke would be in the nature of a chance. I had never, however, anticipated anything approaching the complete impotence of that game. The batsmen could not hit the ball hard, indeed it was only on rare occasions that they managed to connect the bat with the ball. There was no need for any fieldsmen, with the possible exception of long-stop, to stand more than twenty-five yards from the wicket. The bowler's main object appeared to be the keeping down of wides. Every game has its own technique; this game was certainly not cricket as it is played generally, and, no doubt, the victorious side was the one that bowled fewest wides. For no other reason would any captain havekept on either of those two bowlers for a second over.
And I could not help wondering what a public school career stood for in the lives of those pitiably ineffectual cricketers. It is possible that one or two of them might be brilliant scholars, or that a few played football successfully, though this I am prepared to doubt; for the true sportsman is self-declared the moment that he walks on to a field. It seemed to me incredible that any one who had played any game successfully could tolerate the miserable travesty of sport that was being enacted on that sloping, bumping pitch. But even if there were a few exceptions, even if one or two were destined for privilege and authority and a name upon the honour boards, the fate of the majority was certain. They would remain inconspicuous, belonging to that large tribe of those whose names on the old boys' list are vaguely familiar to us, but with whom we can connect not one incident, anecdote, or conversation. They pass and they leave no mark behind them. They never rise to a position of responsibility. They never learn to wield authority. They never acquire, that is to say, those qualities of administration that have made English rule so tolerant and so universally respected. What can public school life mean to such as these? I put the question, but I cannot answer it. I do not know. Public school life is designed as a slow voyage from fag to prefectship, and, even if only a minority complete that voyage, it is theprocess and the stages of that voyage we have here to represent and interpret. It should, however, be here set on record that, be the advantages or disadvantages of the public school system what they may, a great many public school boys never partake of them.
From the distance of early years the obligations of prefectship seems slight in comparison with their enormous privileges. A prefect does not have to answer his name at roll; he can wander round the studies without leave during hall. He has fags to clean his study, to wash his plates, to light his fire, to carry his books down to chapel in the morning. He can inflict punishment without being liable to it. The new boy who has recently been caned, in his opinion most unjustly, for whispering in prayers, looks forward to his day of revenge. The life of a prefect must be free from all the cares that so perplex him. Prefects can never be troubled with impositions and imperfectly prepared exercises. He glances up to the Sixth Form table and contemplates the majesty of Meredith with his neatly-tied tie, and hair brushed back immaculately from his forehead. What master would have the cheek to 'bottle' Meredith? The very idea is unthinkable. Meredith has the invulnerable infallibility of a god. The small boy reconsiders this view as he rises in the school. The horizon narrows. But even when he reaches the Sixth Form table he sees prefectship in terms of freedom rather than of service. And it would, of course, be absurd to maintain that theobligations outweigh the privileges. They do not: but they are none the less considerable. If a prefect is found playing the ass, ragging in the studies, or cutting lock up, he would be neither lined nor beaten; but the twenty minutes interview with the Chief would be far worse than any caning. He would feel humbled, he would feel thoroughly ashamed of himself, he would have done a rotten thing. Punishments have ceased to be a pawn in a game between boy and master. And, when a prefect realises this, he realises also that this particular game is finished.
The degree to which a prefect appreciates his obligation, depends a good deal on the way his house master treats him. The boy who is trusted usually proves himself worthy of that trust. I do not mean in everything. If a master says to a boy: 'Now, Jones, I am going to let you prepare your lessons in your study in future. I trust you to work,' Jones feels himself under no obligation to work. By going to his study he is sparing the master the irksome duty of supervision. That is a fair bargain. He has saved the master work and the master has saved him work. In matters of form work a boy will never cease to regard his relationship with his master as that of the hunter and hunted. He will find when he reaches the Sixth Form that instead of being told to prepare fifty lines of Virgil, he is expected to prepare as much work as is possible in the time at his disposal. If, when put on to construe in form he statesas an excuse for an unsuccessful effort, that the fifty line limit has been passed, he will be handled roughly: 'My dear Evans,' the head master will say, 'you have ceased to be in the Lower Fourth. You don't work to scale. If you haven't had time to prepare the passage, say so, and I won't put you on, but whatever you do don't bring forward that middle school excuse about fifty lines.' The new arrival will look abashed, but he will not feel that he has been put upon his honour to do an hour's work every night. He may possibly prepare next time, with the aid of a crib, an extra dozen lines, but he will do it as quickly as he can.
He feels differently, however, about what happens outside the class-room. When an excuse is accepted because he is a prefect that would not be accepted without a long cross-examination were he not a prefect, a boy considers himself to have been put on his honour. I will give an example. The O.T.C. was, with us, practically compulsory; ninety-seven per cent. of the school was in it, and that three per cent. was garrisoned with doctors' certificates. Like all compulsory things it was extremely unpopular. We used to employ elaborate devices to get leave off. In break we used to visit the matron and suggest that our health required some castor oil. If possible we would retain the dose in our mouths till we got safely into the passage and then deposit it in our handkerchiefs. When this was impossible we swallowed it. A dose alone was not a sufficient excuse. We had toassume faintness, sickness, or some other indisposition during afternoon school. It was an intricate business that rarely proved successful. The authorities were prepared for it. Corps Parade was on Friday, and one Friday after I had become a prefect, I decided that never before had I felt less like doing squad drill. I had a headache, I had not finished my Latin Prose, we were playing Dulwich the next day and I was anxious to be as fresh as possible. I had also very, very slightly twisted my ankle. Remembering my courage in the days of castor oil I thought it worth making an attempt to get leave off. On this occasion I went to the head master.
I informed him of my injury, and was about to embark on a lengthy explanation of the accident when the head master cut me short. 'Oh, yes, Waugh, of course, that'll be quite all right. I hope you'll be fit for to-morrow.' I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself. Because I was a prefect, my word had been accepted without examination and without proof. I was trusted to tell the truth. And yet I actually had produced as feeble an excuse as a fellow in the Lower Fourth. I went on parade that afternoon, and from then onwards I never tried to get off anything unless I was absolutely certain that I could have got off it without the influence of prefectship. And whatever may be urged against the inflated opinion of himself that the power to exert authority may give a boy, I can only believe that this sense of duty, this obligation to be trueto himself is an invaluable experience. It comes out in all sorts of ways. I remember an old colour once telling me at the end of the season that he had not enjoyed his cricket half as much as he had the previous year. I was surprised. 'I should have thought you'd have enjoyed it much more,' I said; 'you haven't had to worry about your colours; you've been certain of your place; you've been able to play whatever sort of game you liked.'
'That's just what I have not been able to do,' he replied. 'Last year I was a free-lance. I took risks. I had a dip when I wanted to, and when we played unimportant matches against the town and the regiment, I thought more about hitting a couple of sixes than making a big score. But I can't do that now. I'm captain of my house. I spend half my evenings trying to persuade those young asses in the junior side that seven singles between cover and mid off are of more use to the side than the most tremendous six. If they see me going in and chucking away my wicket in a school match, they'd think me a pretty sort of captain, wouldn't they? I've got to set an example of sorts.' And, though the captious may maintain that it would have been more to the point if that particular sportsman had worried a little less about the example he was setting on the cricket field and a little more about the example he was setting in the form room and the studies, virtue is virtue wheresoever it is found and in whatsoever garb it is adorned. It is a good thing to feel thatan example has to be set and to decide to set it. It is the high privilege of service.
There are occasions when the setting of example grows not only irksome, but pointless. Throughout one winter my whole dormitory and myself subjected ourselves to the miseries of a freezing cold bath because neither party had the face to own itself defeated. In the first warm day of October the whole house ran cheerily to the shower bath down a long passage that faced east and was filled with sunlight. But when the November frosts came on, the long run down the passage in bare feet with a small towel gathered round our loins became increasingly unattractive. By the time we reached the bath we were thoroughly cold and the zinc tubs under the cascade of water were not enticing. Each morning fewer feet pattered down the passage. But my dormitory maintained its courage. As long as I went on having a bath I knew that they would go on having one, and as long as they went on having one I knew that I should have to also. There were mornings when I longed to say: 'Look here, you fellows, you don't want to have a bath. Nor do I. Let's chuck it.' The words were sometimes on the tip of my tongue. But just as I was about to utter them some one would rise from his bed, reluctantly divest himself of his pyjamas, wrap a towel round himself, and run out into the passage. After that retreat was hopeless. The thing had to be seen through. Not one of us missed his bath throughout the term.It may have been good for us: I don't know. Most things that are supposed to be are unpleasant.
As so often happens with preconceived ideas, the only duties of prefectship which present any terrors to the imagination of the new boy turn out singularly simple. Most boys are self-conscious; they dread a silence, they hate being conspicuous. They regard, therefore, the taking of hall and the reading of the house list at roll as terrible ordeals. They are not so really. One is a little nervous lest the pitch of one's voice may sound curious as one shouts out the name of the top boy on the list: but it doesn't: not unless one is very odd. And the taking of hall is simple, unless one goes down there with an established reputation for inefficiency. In such a case the prefect does stand a poor look-out, as poor a look-out as the master who has proved himself weak. But such reputations are not easily acquired, and the possessors of them are well advised to bribe some hardier colleague to take their places. No attempt is made to rag the average prefect. He goes down on his first night fully prepared to inflict a violent punishment on any harbinger of insubordination. He may even carry down with him his swagger stick as a cautionary signal. But it is unlikely that he will be called upon to use it. The chief embarrassment, indeed, of taking hall is the importunities of small boys who come and ask one to help them with their translation. One hums and hahs, looks at the notes and thevocabulary and discovers how extremely hard it is to translate Livy without a crib.
To a great extent the proficiency of the prefectorial system depends on the house master. If prefects admire and respect their house master, the tone of the house will almost certainly be a good one. If they dislike him the tone may very likely be a good one. It is a toss up. Dislike and fear often go together. And a prefect who dislikes, and thinks he is disliked, by his house master may very well decide out of affronted dignity to perform his duties thoroughly. 'The old beast hates me,' he says; 'he thinks I'm no good. I'll jolly well show him!' Dislike is, at any rate, a positive emotion. It will produce something. Nothing, on the other hand, is more fatal than the sort of genial, indifferent good-natured friendship that so often exists between a house master and his prefects.
In Chowdler, G. F. Bradly has drawn just such a house master. Chowdler pretends to be the elder brother: he talks of 'good old Jones' and 'dear old Joe.' He has the prefects up in his study for heart to heart manly talks. And the prefects listen, agree with what he says, echo, when they speak, his own sentiments, and generally hoodwink him. They treat him as he treats them. They call him 'good old Chowdler,' and leave it at that. When there is a conscientious and an officious head of the house things go fairly quietly; when the head of the house is a lazy, sociable creature, the house runs itself, and with results that would cause littlepleasure were they published to the mandarins of the common room. No new house master, Arnold Lunn says, has to face a more difficult task than he whose predecessor has earned the reputation of being a sport. The house master who always announces to the head boy his intention of visiting the studies is popular enough, but he has a rotten house.
Yet, however badly the prefectorial system may on occasions work, it is impossible to dispense with it. It is not so much the need for a heavy hand as the need for a scapegoat. Some one must be responsible to the supreme authority for any disturbance that may take place. If a house master enters the day room during 'prep.' and finds that an impromptu concert is in progress, he knows that it would be impossible for him to disentangle the muddled evidence of interested witnesses. He could never find out what it was all about, how it started, who started it, what happened next. He makes, therefore, one person responsible for the maintenance of order in the day room during 'prep.' He puts a house prefect there on duty. When, therefore, he interrupts an unseemly brawl, he does not concern himself with the incidents of the affair; Brown's face may be plastered with red ink, the head of Evans may be slowly extricating itself from the wastepaper basket, Ferguson may be withdrawing a battered compass from the unprotected quarters of an enemy. He does not notice that. He does not punish Brown and Ferguson and Evans. He asks the prefect in charge foran explanation. If the explanation is not satisfactory that prefect is relieved of office. It is the knowledge of this fate that inspires the industry of prefects.
This system is the basis for all administration, for the delegation of all responsibility. It rarely fails. When I shared a study with another prefect we divided eight fags between us. The best of these eight we appointed fag-master. 'You will do no fagging yourself, Marston,' we told him. 'To each of the other seven fags will be allotted one day of the week. You will see that they do their job. If the fire goes out, you will be beaten.' During the whole of that winter our fire never went out once. It is a regrettable fact, but a true one, that human beings will only work under the influence of a bribe, or of a threat. In the wide world it is usually a bribe. One may not threaten the foreman of an oil works. He has his union behind him. But there are no trade unions for fags: a judicious threat works wonders. And, when all other forces weaken, the wish to retain office helps the prefect to his task. Were there no prefects, no scapegoats, there would be no order. They are the exchange of hostages.
Suppose an attempt was made to run a house without them? How long do you imagine that it would last? Five days, six days, a week? Yes, perhaps as long as that: not longer: certainly I would not give it longer than a week. Such an experiment might be tried at the end of a long and unsatisfactory term during which severalof the prefects had, at some time or another, come into collision with official ruling. And the climax might have been reached, shall we say, on the last Tuesday of the term, when the head of the house was discovered during 'prep.' playing the organ in the big school.
Next day, after lunch, the house would be astonished by the following announcement: 'I don't know,' the house master would say, 'whether I approve of the prefectorial system or not—that's neither here nor there. At any rate it has not worked well with my present set of prefects, and, for the rest of the term I propose to dispense with them. I shall occupy during preparation the small study at the end of the passage, and the house tutor will supervise preparation in the day room. I shall occupy the small single dormitory by the fire escape. That is all.' It is possible, is it not, as the sudden resolution of an overworked, exasperated man who had not paused to consider the results of his decision.
Well, what would happen then? We can guess to a certain extent. It is, at least, a subject of interesting speculation. What would happen to a house that had no prefects?
For a couple of days all would go smoothly, I imagine. The house would behave like a whipped dog. Its tail would be tucked between its legs. The prefects would make an ineffectual stand upon their dignity. Then the possibilities of the situation would become apparent. Authority spreads a veneer over the boisterous spiritsof a boy of eighteen. But at heart he remains a ragster. In a couple of years' time, as an undergraduate or a medical student, he will be destroying furniture and organising preposterous bonfires. And, when authority is taken from him, he feels once again the old itch to enter the lists, to try one last throw with the marshalled forces of officialdom. It may, for instance, occur to Morcombe, the head of the house, that, though he has ceased to be a house prefect, he remains a school prefect, and that, outside the precincts of his house, he is still a force. When, therefore, he sees Jones mi. flinging stones against the cloisters, he orders Jones to appear before him that evening after roll. It is after roll, during the silence of first hall, that punishments are inflicted. And, that night, the house master, sitting in his narrow study at the end of the passage, will be astonished to hear the silence broken by a series of resounding bangs. He hurries down the passage and discovers Jones mi. straightening himself beside the water pipes, one hand ruefully stroking his trousers, while the head of the house proudly surveying his handiwork, delivers a last word of admonishment and taps his cane against his boots.
'But what on earth, Morcombe, is the meaning of this?' says the house master.
'I had occasion, sir, to beat a boy.'
'But you've no right to beat a boy. You're not a prefect any longer.'
'I was punishing him, sir, for a school andnot a house offence. He was throwing stones against the cloisters. As a school prefect I felt myself bound to take official notice of his action.'
'But you know quite well, Morcombe,' the house master would answer hotly, 'that you've no right to do anything of the sort. You are only quibbling.'
'Then am I to understand, sir, that I have ceased to be a school prefect.'
'You are to understand you have no authority over any one in this house.'
'But that will make it difficult for me, sir; if I were to discover a boy in this house and a boy in another house smoking on a Sunday afternoon, I should be able to order the boy from another house to put out his cigarette and return to school at once, but the boy in my own house I should have to leave where he was. It would be suggested that I was favouring my own house.'
It is unlikely that the house master will have a reply; he will order Morcombe to return to his study and to cease being impertinent. It depends on the courage of Morcombe and the respect he has for his house master whether five minutes later there will be a tap on the door of the narrow study at the end of the passage and a quiet voice will ask: 'Please, sir, I hope you'll excuse my worrying you, but I am not quite certain whether you said I was, or was not, a school prefect. You see, sir, it's my turn to read the lessons in chapel to-morrow. I wonderedwhether I ought to run round and tell the head master that I am no longer privileged to read them.'
There will be several such imbroglios.
Whether or not the term will end without an actual conflagration is problematic. On the whole I should say that the chances were even. It is the end of the term. Spirits run high, constant supervision is impossible. On the last morning but one, for instance, there is no early chapel. There is a long lie in bed. The house master will return to his own part of the house to shave, bathe himself, and dress. There is no one left in the dormitories with any authority. Every one is good-tempered and excited with a surplus store of animal spirits. There is a lively exchange of compliments which terminate in a pillow being flung across the room. There is a moment's nervous hush. The power of the prefectorial system dies hard: a week ago such an act would have been dealt with instantly and severely. And, even now, a single word would be sufficient to restore order.
But the prefect takes no notice. He sees no reason why he should exert himself in the interests of one who considers his services to be of no further use to him. He feels justifiably aggrieved. The house master considers he can run the house himself—well then, let him run it. He has asked for no assistance from his prefects. He can therefore expect none. The pillow is returned. It is inaccurately flung, however, and the contents of a water jug streams across the floor. Againthere is a brief embarrassment. But the prefect reassures his dormitory.
'My dear fellows, don't worry about me,' he says, 'I have no authority over you. There is no need for you to take the slightest notice of anything I say or do. Indeed I'm not at all certain that I shan't take a hand in it. Ferrers, you brute, take that.'
And with the sudden flick of the forearm that in the cricket field had proved so disastrous to the batsman who had risked a short run to cover, the unerring discharge of a pillow has prostrated the startled Ferrers. From that moment mischief is afoot. It takes what course it will. And that course will probably involve the overturning of a good many jugs, the stripping of innumerable beds, the splitting of several pillows. In a brief while the air will be filled with feathers, the floor with mattresses and soaking sheets. And when, an hour later, the house master is summoned by an indignant matron to view the battlefield, who will be held responsible? To whose account is he to debit the broken jugs and the torn pillows? Whom can he deprive of office? He will, no doubt, collect the house in his study; every one will spend the last day inscribing a georgic or an eclogue. But the house will feel that it has triumphed. What, after all, can the house master say? If he begins to criticise Morcombe the reply is obvious.
'But I tried to stop it, sir, I did my best. But they wouldn't take any notice of me, sir. I had no authority over them.'
If the house master is wise he will say as little as possible. He will announce the punishment, and the next term place more trust in his prefects. However bad an individual set of prefects may be, without them things would be a good deal worse.
S. P. B. Mais in his first, and perhaps best, book dealing with Public Schools, devoted a chapter to the various types of prefects, the effect that office had on each type, and the use each type made of its privileges. He maintained that certain types were unfitted for authority, and that no boy who had not a view of life that passed beyond the limits of school should be given such authority. That is no doubt the ideal, but it is impracticable. A house master has to make the most of the material at his disposal: if he is dissatisfied he must blame himself. He has had his five years in which to fashion the malleable substance to his fancy. If a boy is high in form and a school colour and has been several years in the house, it is impossible to pass him over in favour of a junior boy who is lower in form and a less successful athlete. Prefectship has to go by seniority. The moment it was felt that office went to the boys in whom the house master happened to have most faith, the word 'favouritism' would be run like a corroding poison through the system of the house. The favourite would be universally distrusted and disliked. A certain class of boy would develop the 'conspiracy complex' that every hand was against him, and, in time, he wouldbecome what he imagined others took him for.
Such a system would encourage endless sycophancy. If the house master were married, his wife would play too large a part in the politics of his house. There would be those who would not hesitate to ingratiate themselves with her in the hope that at the critical moment her influence might turn the scales in their favour.
When a boy whom his house master dislikes reaches the point where, in course of seniority he would have to be made a prefect, the house master has only two courses open: either he must make the boy a prefect, or he must write to the father saying, though he has nothing definite against his son, he does not feel that he is the sort of boy who ought to be made a prefect, and he must ask the father, therefore, to remove his son from the school at the end of the summer.
He can do nothing else. He cannot keep on a boy whose claims he has passed over deliberately and without cause. What house master, on the other hand, is going to write such a letter to a parent. The parent is bound to object. He will appeal to the head master.
'You have nothing against my son,' he will say. 'During the four years he has been at school he has never been in any serious trouble. He has worked hard and he has played hard. I have always regarded prefectship as the crown of a public school education. I sent my son to you rather than to some other educational establishment because I wished him to have theinvaluable experience of being a prefect in a Public School. And now, at the end, when he has reached this position, you say, without giving any reason, that he is not a fit person to occupy it. It is scandalous.'
And even were the head master to endorse his subaltern's verdict, were he to say: 'That is all very true, Mr Evans, but a house master is the best judge of the type of boy that he wants to have as a prefect. I am very sorry, but we must abide by his decision,' the reputation of the school would suffer.
Old boys would discuss the verdict in their clubs.
'That's no school for my son,' they would say. 'Prefectship depends on the caprice of a house master. And, if by the time one gets high in the house, one's told one's got to go—why, if that had happened in my case I know I'd never have become captain of the Eleven. My house master would have got rid of me long before I had got my colours.'
Gray heads would shake seriously over the port; the numbers of the school would sink. Seniority may, now and again, bring most unsuitable persons to authority, but it is a far more satisfactory system than any that would be based on the choice and dislike of one person.
Certainly many unlikely people reach the high-backed chair of the Sixth Form table. And a house master must often wonder how will taste the strange stew that is simmering—a compound of so many unknown ingredients.In spite of experience, he is always guessing. But the changes are less considerable than might be expected, or it would be truer to say, perhaps, that the changes follow a more or less ordinary course.
A boy's attitude on reaching office is ordered by what he has read and by example. The ragster usually becomes a martinet. He has read of the reformation of Prince Hal; the epigram about Kildare ruling all Ireland is the one piece of Elizabethan history that his memory has retained. How nice he feels it will be to surprise every one. What a shock it will be to his old companions. Every one must have said of him: 'Oh, Park'll be all right. He's such a ragster himself, he's sure to go pretty easy!' In his first week, therefore, he canes a quite senior boy for playing the piano too loudly in the changing room. He becomes in a short while extremely unpopular and a general terror. If on the start of the school year one were asked to tell which of the new prefects one would be best advised to avoid, one would almost certainly place one's finger on the boy who had been most frequently in trouble during the previous term.
There is no sign, however, by which we can detect the officious type of prefect who speaks solemnly of his responsibilities and makes life extremely unpleasant for his house and for his old companions. It is impossible to tell on whom this germ is going to settle. It need not be the reformed rake: perhaps because rakes reform so seldom. It is not necessarily the religious boy,or the intellectual boy. But on some one that germ is sure to settle, and it is of all the germs the most annoying.
There is nothing more exasperating than the officious prefect. On the third evening of the term he walks into the study of a former associate, looks confoundedly uncomfortable, seats himself on the table, and then, after a moment's embarrassed silence, permits his features to assume an expression of austere dignity, and says:—
'Jones, you confided in me two terms ago a little secret, you'll remember what it was. Well, I feel that it is my unpleasant duty, now that I am a prefect, to report this matter to the head of the house. He will take what action he thinks fit.'
Jones sits back in his chair, a look of horrified disgust upon his face.
'But, my dear fellow,' he says, 'you couldn't possibly—I mean I told you that in confidence. You couldn't be such a sneak!'
The prefect would shake his head.
'You do not understand. It is not sneaking. You would not call it sneaking on the part of a policeman if he arrested an old friend whom he found breaking into a house. This is an official duty that has nothing to do with our personal relationship.'
Jones is tempted to say that in another minute personal relationships will have a good deal to do with the matter, but he appreciates the necessity for tact. He talks, he argues, he cajoles; his patience is tried to the last degree. It isdifficult to discuss a matter on grounds of personal and practical expediency when the other party refuses to desert the platform of high morality. In the end probably Jones is promised silence in return for reformation, and, as the door closes behind his old friend, he murmurs: 'Put not your trust in princes.'
The officious prefect is not content with the exposure of confidences received during his period of probation, he endeavours to unearth present scandals, and this is a point on which popular opinion is very strong. The moral tone of the house is not considered to be the concern of the house prefect. That is the province of the house master and the head boy.
The position of the head boy is a little difficult to define. He is the intermediary between mortality and Olympus. He is supposed to be above suspicion. He is the only person who is allowed to do anything out of 'a sense of duty.' If a house prefect interferes in the private affairs of another, an ulterior motive is always suggested, and the suggestion is probably justified. Whether or not a head boy is justified in unearthing scandal is an open point. There are those who will maintain that he should only take notice of what actually hits him in the face. The reason being that what hits the head of the house in the face will, sooner or later, inflict a similar shock to the physiognomy of the house master. And this should be avoided. In the first place, the house master will lose his high opinion of his head boy; in the second, a scandal thatmight have been prevented will reach official notice.
Indeed, there are not a few who will go so far as to assert that the function of a head boy is that of the taster, the impersonal critic who says: 'No, that is going too far.' He is the aeroplane photograph of a strategic position, that shows what gun emplacements are obvious and which are not. And, according to this line of argument, head boys should only concern themselves with the obvious; what was not apparent to them would certainly not be apparent to a house master; there is no need for them to play at Sherlock Holmes.
But this is a point on which the vote has not been taken. There are several schools of thought: all schools of thought are, however, joined in the denial of the right of the head boy to report to the house master anything save a case of insubordination or disloyalty on the part of a brother prefect. A head boy, it is felt, should be able to deal with the discipline and conduct of the house himself. To report is to confess a failure.
To the house prefect no such fine shades of motive are ascribed. He is not considered to be above suspicion, and he is allowed to indulge certain corresponding weaknesses. His business is to see that order is kept; the new prefect forms numberless resolutions. He is acutely conscious of his dignity, his bearing partakes of the solemnity of Malvolio. He wonders whether he ought to remain on terms of sucheasy familiarity with certain rowdy elements in the house. A prefect should not have too many friends. He should be the calm, implacable judge, impersonal, impartial, with bandaged eyes. He is very haughty for a day or two. But within a fortnight he has recovered. He becomes sociable once more. He walks down to the field with his old friends. He does not wonder whether it is wise or unwise to exchange confidences with those whose conduct one day he may be forced to view with official disapproval. He takes notice of, and deals with, only those problems that crop up from time to time. He acquires a wholesome tolerance of other people's business, a tolerance that slips over the border of indifference, but remains an admirable social lubricant.
It is this indifference, this refusal to be upset about trivial matters that can be left to adjust themselves, that is the secret of the success of British administration. Other nations and classes do not seem to possess it. The artisan when put in a position of authority bothers about the unimportant, he gives himself no peace, and he gives those under him no peace. There is constant friction. Troops almost invariably prefer to be under the command of public school men rather than of 'rankers.'
The last year, and especially the last term, is popularly supposed to be the happiest of a public school career. And it is possible that this may be so in the case of an industrious, worthy, but not particularly brilliant fellow who reaches in his last year the privileges of house prefectship, the immunities of the Lower Sixth and the social hall-mark of a second fifteen cap. At last, after a struggle of five years, he has extricated himself from the rut.
For the 'blood,' however, for the double first who has stayed on an extra year to be captain of the Eleven, these last terms are a disappointment. He has reached the limits of ambition. For a while he is attracted by the charm of his new offices, but he can discern beyond them no fresh fields to conquer. He is embarrassed by the finality of his position. He cannot value what he possesses. He wonders what is coming next. He scores tries in school matches, he makes centuries on the upper, but he had already done that before. 'The doing savours of disrelish.' He is expected to score tries and make centuries. The cheer that greets him as he grounds the ball between the posts has not the surprised enthusiasm that rippled down the touchline two yearsago when he amazed every one by giving two consecutive dummies and beating the whole defence. He is expected to do well, and when he is a little below his form, there is a feeling that he has lost the school the match.
Interest is focussed on the performance of the new men. A century by Shepherd causes more excitement than a century by Hobbs. Hobbs is established. The world has formed its estimate of his qualities. There is little new to be said about him. He belongs to the present and the past. Shepherd belongs to the future. He is a subject of speculation.
And so the double first at the end of the match hears far less talk of his own performances than he did a year earlier. He is taken for granted. It is all: 'What a beautiful drop that was of Smith's, he'll be a fine player in two years' time.' He would not analyse his discontent. But it is there the whole time. There is no longer a life of marked stages in front of him. He can peer now over the wall of school. He is worried, too, by the increasingly acute demands of his physical nature, by the restraints that are imposed on it. Very often a quite popular boy makes himself generally disliked during his last year on account of this irritation that expresses itself in bad temper, jealousy, and outbursts of unreasoning vindictiveness.
The last term is especially difficult. A boy finds himself freed from the conditions that had for the five previous years directed his conduct. He had always thought of 'next term.' Nowhe realises suddenly that there is going to be no next term. He is no longer leading the normal life of his companions. On all sides of him preparations are being made for the future. Jones has decided to share the games study with Evans instead of Smith. Plans are being made for the arrangement of the dormitories. Ambitions are carefully tended, careers are nursed. So and so is worried because some one else has got his firsts before him. Dunston is distressed because he has been caught cribbing: 'There goes my chance of house prefectship.' And the boy who is about to leave slowly realises that these considerations have no longer any meaning for him.
If he is caught cribbing he is concerned only with his immediate punishment. If some one gets his colours before him it does not matter. He has done with the troubles of seniority. The old life is falling from him. He is perplexed, not seeing clearly what lies in front of him. Six years seemed such a long time. He had not paused to wonder what lay beyond them. He had come to regard that last Sunday in the school chapel as a final stage. School stories always ended there: in the same way that romances always closed on marriage, or on death. And, though now he would be no doubt ready to admit that a man's life did not end at the altar, and might even be prepared to consider the possibility of an existence beyond the grave, he had not considered such speculation profitable or entertaining.
And, in the same way that at a later point of his career he will awake with a start six months after marriage and ask himself whether it is all over: 'Heavens!' he will say, 'I can't be finished with; what's going to happen now?' So, during his last term, he discovers that this stage has not the finality he had supposed. Something has got to happen next. School life was, after all, no more than a prelude. He had valued too highly the enticing emoluments it had to offer. And he does not see what new prizes life will hold for him.
If he is going to Oxford he may toy with the prospect of athletic honours. But unless he is particularly gifted, or particularly conceited, he will appreciate the vast degree of specialised rivalry to which he will be subjected. If he is going into business he will envisage, perhaps, the days of affluence and power, of private secretaries and private telephones; but all that is a very long way off. There is no immediate focus for his ambition. There is no particular reason why he should not, if he wishes, make as big a nuisance of himself as his fancy pleases. He is passing from one phase of discipline to another; and because the nature of neither is definite, he considers himself free. A last term is often indeterminate and ineffectual.
Now if the discovery that school life is only a prelude is made by an unimaginative athlete during these last weeks, we can confidently assume that it will be made a good deal soonerby a boy of originality and independence, especially by one who has not entered with any great zest into the conflict of athletic distinction, and has, therefore, been in a sense above the battle. He realises a good year and a half before he has to leave that life in its fullest is to be encountered beyond the limits of a cloistered world. The discovery does not contribute to his content. He knows that if he wishes to win a scholarship he will have to stay on his full time, and he feels that he is marking time, that he is sitting in the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to go up. Now that is a most unsatisfactory position to be in. In the theatre we kick our heels, read our programmes, turn round to see if we can recognise a friend, speculate on the possibility of innocence in the lady who is sitting in the front row of the dress circle. One does anything to make the quarter of an hour pass quickly. The imaginative schoolboy behaves in a similar fashion. He frets and grows impatient. He assumes an intellectual snobbery. He despises the majority of his companions and labels them as Philistines. He disparages the values of athletics and exalts in essays and in the debating society the literary standards of the nineties.
It is possible that on Saturday evening he will leave a carnation standing in green ink in the hope of emulating his divinities. He is encouraged in his rebellion by the indignant astonishment of the master, who refuses to regard his outburst as a very natural and, on the whole,harmless pose. He is lectured severely on the dignity of his position. He replies in a cryptic epigram. He even criticises the public school system—an unforgivable offence. Being unacquainted with the ways of systems, and feeling that his personal liberty is curtailed, he considers that for this curtailment the public school system is solely and peculiarly responsible. He will not allow that all systems oppress the individual, that systems are made for the service of the many, and that it is for the individualist to decide whether the privileges he will receive by consenting to remain with the mass compensate for the unpleasant restrictions that are placed on the free play of his personality. It is, after all, the first system with which he has contracted an intimate relationship, and in the same way that a monogamist considers his wife worse than anybody else's, the schoolboy delights, in spite of a deep affection for his own school, in hurling at the public school system all manner of accusations, in which the word sausage machine is not infrequently repeated.
There are such boys in every school. Age is an arbitrary definition of development. Many boys reach the age of seventeen, and stay there for the rest of their lives; others are twenty-five years old before they have done with their teens. When a boy is tired of school he has outgrown school. And there is only one sure remedy—to take him away.
But there are the claims of a university career; there is the parent's natural wish that hisson should gain a scholarship; it is often impracticable for the boy to leave: in such circumstances we can only recommend on the part of the masters a general leniency. Such outbursts should not be taken seriously. The school, as a whole, is not concerned with the unusual behaviour of those who, by the possession of brains, are already considered slightly abnormal. And the jester who is disregarded may well become a monk. If, however, a boy feels that notice is being taken of him, he allows his flattered vanity to dictate to him. He cultivates his pose; he wonders how best he may shock the mid-Victorianism of the common room, and there is the danger that the pose may, in the course of time, become part of his intellectual equipment.
Sermons and addresses inform us that in the last term is to be found the significance of school life. But, as I have previously tried to show, the last term is no more significant than the first. The new boy is outside school, pausing on the fringe, his eyes full of a sheltered curiosity. The boy who is about to leave is equally outside school; he looks backwards and he looks forwards; the continuity of his life is about to be broken; its rhythm is temporarily suspended. He is no longer leading the same life as his companions. And it is vain to compare the new boy with the boy that is about to leave, and by analysing and examining the change that there is between them to arrive at the meaning of school life.
They are two entirely different people. Oneis a child; the other is a man. The change that must necessarily have taken place during this passage is so considerable that it is impossible to say how much of it is due to environment and how much to physical growth. You might send a man of thirty to Timbuctoo, recall him at the end of four years, and, examining the change in him apprehend the significance of Timbuctoo society. He went a man and he returned a man. What change there was in him could be attributed directly to the wholesome, or unwholesome, atmosphere of Timbuctoo.
You cannot follow this line of reasoning with a public school boy. A parent cannot say: 'Six years ago I sent you a young, innocent boy, industrious, honest, truthful. You have returned to me a young man who knows more than I consider it proper that he should know, whose sole object appears to be to extract from life as much pleasure as is commensurate with a minimum of work, a young man, moreover, who considers that a lie told to an official is not a lie. Look what you have done!' But that is not a fair attitude. Anyhow, during those six years, a boy must to a certain extent have lost his innocence; most young men of nineteen place the claims of personal indulgence before those of work. Most young men look on life as a game that is played between themselves and a perfectly ridiculous antiquated body which is called 'government,' and whom it is permissible to hoodwink, misinform, or otherwise deceive whenever the opportunity is presented.The corroding forces of knowledge must make themselves felt during those six years. It is unreasonable and absurd to attribute their effects solely to the public school system.
One can, however, by examining the mental state of a boy a week after he has left school, form some estimate of what he has learnt at such considerable expense to his parents.
In the first place, he has acquired an extremely valuable social technique. A public school education is a passport. Its assailants would describe it as the membership of a select trades union. An old public school boy can enter a new mess without feeling any great embarrassment. He knows how to comport himself in the more superficial of the situations in which he will from time to time discover himself. All of which is distinctly valuable.
He has also learnt to understand the type of man with whom he will have most dealing. He is admitted, that is to say, to terms of good fellowship with a very large number of persons. He will be treated by them as a decent chap till he proves himself otherwise. He will have enough in common with them to be able to bridge superficially the uncertain moments that precede friendship. If he were introduced to a man at his club, he would have no difficulty in finding a congenial topic of conversation, during which conversation he would be able to decide whether or not the man to whom he had been introduced was likely to prove a sympathetic companion.
He would have learnt, through the exercise ofthese qualities in a communal life, patience and tolerance of a certain kind. A tolerance, that is to say, that might condemn a man on the cut of his coat, the colour of his ties, or the use of an incorrect idiom, but would allow each man to lead his own private life provided he wore the conventional uniform. Such a tolerance may be described as snobbish and narrow, but is an admirable social lubricant. An old public school boy would be unlikely, for instance, to cause trouble to a mess or company or cricket club by injudicious interference. He will have learnt that it is not easy for an assorted collection of men to live together without occasionally getting on each other's nerves, and he will have learnt, in consequence, the value of tact and compromise.
He will also have learnt a version of his duty towards his neighbours. He would not tell a lie to a friend unless it was absolutely necessary, and he would never let a friend down. He has the sense of loyalty developed to a high degree. All of which goes down on the credit side of the ledger. On the debit side, however, there are enough entries to make the cashier wonder whether, or no, the account is overdrawn.
It is amazing how little knowledge the average public school boy has managed to acquire. He has rushed from one class room to another, learning French for one hour, and history for another, and science for a third. He has worked at each of these subjects spasmodically according to the particular form and set in which he has happened at the time to find himself. For awhole year on end he may have neglected French because he was under a lazy master. Then, at the end of the year, on finding himself in a higher and more strenuous form, he may have made feverish efforts for a couple of terms, to the detriment of his mathematics and history, with the result that there is an enormous gap in his knowledge. Whole periods of history are a blank to him. He has acquired a certain quantity of uncorrelated information. Within a few years what little connection there was between the appreciation of these isolated facts will have slipped away. There will remain a few phrases, a few catchwords, a few dates—an admirable framework indeed for social, moral, and political prejudice.
The average public school boy knows, I imagine, a great deal less than the continental school product. Not only has he learnt little, but he has not been encouraged to use his brains. He does not, indeed, regard his brain as a possession to be valued highly and carefully trained. He will get out of bed five minutes earlier than he need do in the morning to wave his legs about his head and do exercises with his arms that will improve his physical condition, but he would never think of learning a dozen lines of English verse to improve his memory. No one ever appears to have impressed on him the fact that at thirty-five he will have to abandon football; that, by the time he is fifty, he will be bowling very slow stuff indeed, and will be grateful to the opposing captain who offers hima runner. Yet, at sixty, his brain will, if properly cared for, be as powerful as it has ever been.
Now I do not want to suggest that boys should devote their whole spare time to the reading of poetry; literature is only a part of life; but I do maintain that every public school boy should take some part in the intellectual life of the world, that he should be able to discover as much interest in his mind as in his body. At present he does not. He has very little inner life. He depends far too much on outside interests, on games during the term, and theatres during the holidays. If he has to rely on his own devices, he is woefully deficient.
This fact was brought home to me vividly by my experience as a prisoner of war in Germany. The average officer had no resources of his own; he could draw no sustenance from the contemplative side of life. He mooned round the square, wondering how soon he could decently set about his next meal, longing sadly for the lights of Piccadilly. In the evenings, when he had to return to his room, he spent the three or four hours before lights were extinguished engraving rather aimless pictures on the lids of cigar boxes. It was a pathetic sight to see a man of twenty-eight, in the prime of life, sitting down night after night to fiddle about with a knife, a piece of wood, and a box of paints. He derived no pleasure from it. It was a narcotic. As long as his hands were employed his brain could go to sleep, and he needed to contemplate no longer the tedious procession of days that lay beforehim. Every man should have sufficient part in the intellectual interests of life to be able to keep his intelligence active for eight months in surroundings that provide no physical outlets.
The public school boy has derived little satisfaction from his work. He has laboured spasmodically with expediency as the goal. Promotion has promised certain attendant privileges, and the historical Sixth lies, calm and pleasant, like a lake in the desert.
There is to be found a rest 'for all who come.' It is a sure port after the shipwrecks of the fourths and fifths. The traveller need work no more; he has laboured faithfully, let him enter into the joy of his lord. He returns one holidays having gained his second eleven colours. Paternal pride is flattered, and the spirit of welcome is only partially relaxed by the accompanying report. About a week later the following conversation takes place over a glass of port.
Son: I say, father, don't you think all these classics are rather a waste of time?Father: Well, I don't know, my boy. I did them myself, you know.Son: Of course, father, of course; but things were a bit different then, and besides you were so much better at them than I am.Father: Oh, well, if you put it like that, my boy, well, perhaps——Son: You see, father, I thought it would be rather a good idea for me to read history.Father: History, my boy, whatever for?Son: Well, I was thinking of taking up politics, father, and anyway, history scholarships are awfully easy to get. That ass, Kenneth, got one—you know, the fellow in the School House with the yellow hair. If you'd just drop a line to Chief, father, I'm sure he would be only too glad....
Son: I say, father, don't you think all these classics are rather a waste of time?
Father: Well, I don't know, my boy. I did them myself, you know.
Son: Of course, father, of course; but things were a bit different then, and besides you were so much better at them than I am.
Father: Oh, well, if you put it like that, my boy, well, perhaps——
Son: You see, father, I thought it would be rather a good idea for me to read history.
Father: History, my boy, whatever for?
Son: Well, I was thinking of taking up politics, father, and anyway, history scholarships are awfully easy to get. That ass, Kenneth, got one—you know, the fellow in the School House with the yellow hair. If you'd just drop a line to Chief, father, I'm sure he would be only too glad....
One more pilgrim has arrived at Mecca.
The higher up the school one goes, the less work one does. After a few terms the habit of work is lost, and the only real diligence is displayed by that melancholy type of scholar who is trained like a pet Pomeranian.
This is not an ideal apprenticeship for life. It starts a boy with an entirely false idea of the position that his work should occupy in his life. I do not wish to seem parsonic, but, if the experience of practically every big man that has ever lived means anything to us, we do know that a man's happiness, or unhappiness, depends in the main on whether his employment is congenial to him. Work is the finest antidote to boredom. And a public school boy has not realised this by the time he is on the threshold of his career. He does not consider that the choice of his career should be the expression of his temperament. He drifts into the most accessibly remunerative job. He brings to it no enthusiasm.
The trouble is that school life lasts too long and is far too jolly. Six years is a long time. A boy of thirteen can hardly be expected to realisethat it is only a prelude. The years pass so happily, the pursuit of ambition is so engrossing that he has no time to consider whether the prizes he is winning have any lasting value. As the new boy he longs to be captain of the school: and, having set himself a task, he does not shrink from the contest. School life is so vast, so varied, so many-coloured that it would be difficult for a boy to relinquish his hold upon the ambition that lies close to him in favour of the shadowy ambitions of the life that lies beyond it. School life is too big a pedestal for the statue that is to be placed on it. It dwarfs what it should present. The boy finds on leaving school that an entirely different technique is required. It is not that the standards are changed, but the whole manner of life is altered.
His school career was divided neatly into stages. He could at any moment consult a house list and see how he was progressing on the road to authority. At such a period he should have reached the Fifth table. If he were one day to get into the Fifteen, he should by his sixteenth birthday have got his house cap. Everything was mapped out. The rungs of the ladder were labelled. Colt's Cap, House Cap, Seconds, Firsts, Fourth Form, Fifth Form, Sixth.
In business he finds no such ladder. His abilities are placed upon the open market. He is fighting an intangible foe. He has to come to terms with himself. He feels that he is driving into the void. He also finds that hehas to rearrange his scale of values. Athletic distinction is not greatly prized in Wall Street, and the young man who, when asked to present his qualifications, remarks that his batting average was over thirty, without a single not-out score to help it, is likely to receive a rude shock. I spent a few months before I went to Sandhurst in the Inns of Court O.T.C. (a corps that had, by that time, ceased to be composed of ex-public school men), and it was a blow to discover that the fact that I had been in my school eleven and fifteen made not the slightest impression on any of the N.C.O.'s.
It may be that a readjustment of one's standards is a healthy experience. But that is hardly the attitude that officials could safely adopt. The public school system is supposed to produce trained citizens, who are in harmony with their environment. And that is exactly what the public school boy is not. He tries to tackle life with the scale of values that he learnt to apprehend at school. And it is not an easy task. Some, indeed, never accomplish it. They never readjust themselves. They surround themselves with old friends, revisit their old schools, endeavour to recapture the old atmosphere. They regret vaguely that something has passed. Like Jurgen, they return in quest of their youth, but the distorted shadow of Sereda prevents them from entering completely their former selves. InThe HarroviansArnold Lunn makes two of his characters discuss this question.
'There's West, for example,' Peter said, 'he'll never be such a blood again. He hasn't any brains. He couldn't even struggle into the Upper School, but he's a mighty man here. Rather a pity, I think, that life should reach its highest point at nineteen. This ought only to be a beginning.'
That states the case.