It would not be just, however, to lay the blame of this professionalism to the account of the sporting press. Journalists are rarely responsible for anything. They do not lead public opinion. They follow it or, if they are clever, they anticipate it. Had not the worship of athleticism been already firmly established in the schools themselves it would never have occurred to them to run it as a stunt. The journalist spends most of his time searching for a town of blind men over which he, with his one eye, may rule. And the journalist discovered that the Public School had enthroned an unofficial king who had not received his due of public recognition. The journalist decided to officialise his position. To this king was paid extensive homage; and, as there is no more pleasant reading for ladies-in-waiting than court gossip, he commenced a column of court news. But he did not set up the court, or crown the king. He is only a herald. And we must regard these tiresome articles as a proof, but not a cause of this peculiar ritual. The trumpeting of the herald adds certainly to the glamour of the court, but his absence would not start a revolution. If not another article appeared on public school sport, the cult of athleticism would still continue; it would continue because as things are at present there is no other focus for the enthusiasm and partisanship of a boy of seventeen. There is really little else about which a schoolboy could reasonably become excited.
Indeed it is hard to see what other resultscould have been expected from such a combination of circumstances. Four hundred boys are divided into ten houses. They are encouraged to feel an intense loyalty for their house and for their school. They are told that it is up to them to make their house the best house in the school, and their school the best school in the country. They set out in all good faith to accomplish their task. In what, they ask themselves, does the goodness of a house consist. It is not much sense to speak to them of the moral tone of a house or school. They desire a tangible manifestation of virtue, 'an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.' And the only available outward and visible sign is the row of silver challenge cups on the dining-hall mantelpiece. It is natural to assume that the house which has the most cups is the best house; a school can only prove its superiority over another school by victory on the football field. Scholarships are an indirect form of competition. For the best boys from one school may not come into touch with the best boys of another. But a victory by 30 points is a direct statement of a fact. The victorious school is superior to the defeated school. It is in athletic contests alone that a house or school can express a united will, can become indeed one person. The loyalty of a boy for his house or school is a fine thing, but it renders athletic worship almost inevitable. Were there not this intense house and school feeling individual boys would cultivate their individual tastes; forty boys would be groupedtogether for convenience of boarding—that is all a house would be. But as soon as a boy comes to regard himself as a member of a fine community, he feels a natural pride and loyalty in its performances and in its welfare. There is no other focus for partisanship: form work is uninteresting. Boxing, fives, the corps, and the gymnasium are side shows. Cricket and football are what count. A boy must have a religion of sorts. He must have some ideal to which the demands of his own temperament may become subservient.
On this worship of games is based the scale of social values. The ethics of cribbing, for example, are based entirely on the assumption that a success in form is of inconsiderable importance; it is permissible for a boy to crib in order to save his energies for worthier causes. The blood system is built on an intense admiration for those who are upholding the honour of the house, and is an expression of the small boy's longing to reach such a position himself. The attitude to morality on the part of masters is intimately connected with athletics, and on the boy's part, the belief that a member of a school side is,ipso facto, an invaluable asset to the school, allows the blood to do very much what he likes; as long, in fact, as a boy can satisfy his companions and himself that he is exerting all his power on the football field, he can amuse himself in other ways as he thinks fit.
There is no other criterion for a boy's worthiness, or unworthiness, as a member of a house,and the half-bloods consider that a very big responsibility has descended on them. They have to keep the house up to the mark. The big men cannot bother themselves about individuals. But the half-bloods who are, as it were, emissaries between heaven and earth, can investigate closely the behaviour of the coming generation. They can notice who is showing signs of slackness. They individually give themselves enormous airs. They form a sort of improvement society.
I remember that, in the course of one term, our house lost every challenge cup that it had possessed. This was considered a disgrace. And several of us decided that it was for us to reform the house. We did not consider ourselves to stand in any need of improvement. But we used to wander round the studies between tea and hall inquisitioning fags and scholars, asking them what use they thought they were to house or school, and informing them that they would be well advised to make more strenuous efforts. It was, I suppose, a form of bullying; or rather perhaps an aid to vanity. What we really needed was for some one to kick us hard. No one did, however. It seemed to occur to no one else, any more than it did to us, that there were objects of a public school education other than the acquiring of caps and cups. You might as well expect an Indian priest to doubt the omnipotence of Buddha.
FOOTNOTE:[4]The proofs of this book were corrected in April. Should anything unforeseen change during the cricket season, before its appearance, I can only plead the fallibility of the prophet.
[4]The proofs of this book were corrected in April. Should anything unforeseen change during the cricket season, before its appearance, I can only plead the fallibility of the prophet.
[4]The proofs of this book were corrected in April. Should anything unforeseen change during the cricket season, before its appearance, I can only plead the fallibility of the prophet.
The boy who thus exhausts in ragging the residue of energy that the football field allows him, has, it follows, to be careful not to burn the candle at both ends. He has to spare himself, and to spare himself he abandons the spasmodic cribbing of his first year's summer examination for sustained, systematic methods. Now the true ethics of this subject are as little understood as those relating to any other sphere of public school life. Cribbing is generally regarded as a dishonest practice to which only the ignoble few have regular resort. The habitual cribber is as morally lost as a thief. For what, after all, is cribbing, say our aunts, but the stealing of marks from your companions. 'When you crib,' they tell us, 'and say that you are not stealing, you argue from the standpoint of the housemaid who would return conscientiously the sixpence you have left on your dressing-table, but would not think twice of filling a medicine bottle with your best brandy and handing it over to her young man.' While we are at our Preparatory Schools we are inclined to agree with this. We ourselves would never think of cribbing. At a Preparatory School it is not done. But at a Public School we learn otherwise. To the publicschool boy cribbing is not dishonest. It is not wrong, because it is not anti-social. There are no doubt somewhere, if we could discover them, fixed immutable standards of righteousness. But we have not found them yet. In the meantime we are content to frame conventions that alter with each generation to safeguard what we consider to be our comfort. We put a thief in prison because we are anxious to protect our property. His actions are anti-social. They are only anti-social, however, because we happen to value our property. We should not object if he took from us what we did not prize. It is thus indeed that the dustman earns his living. And the public school boy does not usually set much greater value on his marks than the housewife on her egg-shells.
I remember reading several years ago a short story that appeared inThe Captain. It was about an American who came to an English Public School. On the result of a certain examination depended the position of head boy in the house, and the American broke into the head master's study and extracted the examination paper. The theft was, however, discovered, and the American summoned to the head master's study for an interview that was the certain prelude to expulsion. This fact was made known to him. 'Waal,' he said, 'I guess that's fair. My father often said to me when a big bluff fails, it's down and out for the guy that misses.' The head master was surprised. He appreciated the difference between a big bluff and a piece ofcalculated deceit. He saw that the American had, because of the atmosphere of business in which he had been brought up, a standard different from his own. The American had honestly believed himself to be attempting 'a big bluff.'
Now, in the world at large, ignorance of the law is no excuse. If it were, law court procedure would be infinitely complex. At school, however, the intention matters more than the result. The means are set before the end. The head master in the story realised that the American's offence was actually far less serious than it appeared, and the American was not expelled.
In this case, of course, the theft of the examination paper was definitely anti-social. It was a real theft. The American was endeavouring to acquire a position that others valued through means not at the disposal of his competitors. But this story, which appeared in a paper the moral tone of which has necessarily to be above suspicion, establishes officially the principle that the seriousness of an offence depends largely on the attitude adopted to it by the offender. And therein lie the true ethics of cribbing. What public opinion approves cannot be anti-social. Only a few recognise the distinction between the immoral and the anti-social. And public opinion is, on the whole, inclined to condone cribbing.
Every boy is anxious to be a power in his house; he wants to be a prefect, he looks forward to the day when he will be safe from authority, will be, indeed, authority itself. But he knows that, without unduly exerting himself in theclass-room, he will be able to achieve prominence through success at football. A house cap has to sit at the Va table: as a second, probably, and certainly as a first, he will be raised to the dignity of the dais; thence the process of seniority will carry him quickly to his prefectship. It is assumed that by that time the same process of seniority will have carried him to the Upper Fifth. (It is hard to avoid being promoted once a year.) The hours spent in the class-room are a dull setting for the vivid hues of the life that lies outside it. Occasionally the setting is relieved by a bright patch of colour—an ingenious rag, a successful piece of cribbing—but, on the whole, it is dull and monotonous. A boy works spasmodically, sometimes to get a promotion, sometimes to secure the good-will of a master he admires, sometimes to reach a form where it will be only rarely necessary for him to prepare his work. And he cribs more or less consistently out of laziness, to avoid being bottled, to save himself trouble, to be able to devote as much of his evening as is possible to more sympathetic forms of employment. He does not consider he is doing anything wrong. He knows that, if he is caught, he will be punished. But then he sees the relationship of boys and masters as a long, intermittent struggle, a game played in good faith, with fixed rewards and penalties. He does not expect his conduct to be condoned officially. His form master has set him so many lines of Virgil to prepare. It is assumed that he will take an hour to prepare thoselines properly. However, with the help of Dr Giles's translation, he has managed to prepare those lines satisfactorily in twenty minutes. He has gained, therefore, forty minutes; naturally the master demands, and exacts, a reparation. But his companions do not mind. And he regards as anti-social only what will offend them. If he were a thief it would be in their eyes that he would be guilty. But a theft only becomes criminal when the injured party has taken proceedings against the offender. In this case no proceedings have been taken. He has not been reported to the head master, nor has he been kicked round the cloisters. He considers himself to be innocent. Indeed, popular opinion is far more likely to be directed against the boy who is scrupulously honest. His behaviour may be anti-social.
There was a form, for instance, in which it was the custom for the boys to correct their own papers and give up their own marks. They would pass their papers to the next boy but two. The answers would be read out and the marks awarded. When all the answers had been given the marks would be added up. 'Any one over 90?' a couple of hands would rise. 'Any one over 95?' one of the hands would sink. 'Right,' said the master. 'Divide all marks by 11.' The names of the boys would then be read out in turn, and the marks earned by each would be delivered by the corrector.
Now the correction of exercises and the addition of marks entails a measure of labour,and no one does unnecessary work. It had become the custom, therefore, to doze pleasantly while the answers were being given out, to insert various hieroglyphics in the margin, and to return at the conclusion an average total. The system had been in existence a long while, and it was known that the top mark usually lay somewhere between 100 and 90; a top mark of over 110 or beneath 80 would rouse comment, perhaps inspire investigation, and that was, of course, the last thing the form desired. So that, when the form master said any one 'over 90' some one on the front bench raised a hand. It happened in rotation more or less; at the end of the term there was little to choose between the top ten in the marks for those particular exercises. Certainly whatever difference there was could be easily counteracted by superior proficiency in some other field.
All went well till a certain Miller was promoted into this particular form. Miller was a prig: he came from an undistinguished house. He was excessively industrious. He had the prude's morality. He was desperately honest. He corrected the papers passed to him accurately and gave up the right mark.
During his first week in the form, when the top mark was 91, Miller gave up 63. The form master was surprised; Miller had corrected the paper of quite a senior member of the form. 'Really, Jones,' he said, 'I'm surprised.' Jones also was surprised. After the lesson he expressed his surprise with a well-aimed kick that landedMiller at the foot of the second landing. He considered that no further explanation was required. He was wrong.
The next day, when the top mark was 103 he received 57. On the occasion of this second essay in originality the whole form decided to interest itself in Miller's welfare. There was an informal meeting at the end of the hour, in which Miller was given to understand that on this system exercises had been marked in the Middle Fifth for upwards of twenty years. Tradition had approved the system. The form was conservative. It meant to uphold that tradition. In earnest of its intention it proceeded to demonstrate what defensive method it would adopt. Miller made no answer, but the next day he not only returned Jones's paper with 65 at the head of it, but when a certain Burton announced that the paper he had marked was worth 103, Miller said something to the effect that the maximum was 93.
Such a thing had never happened before in the Middle Fifth. It was an orderly form, but there was very nearly a popular demonstration. Burton's honour had been questioned. The form master agreed that such an imputation had not been made upon a boy during the five-and-twenty years that he had sat in that class-room. 'We'll go through the questions one by one and see what the maximum is.'
Now, luckily for Burton, the master had not kept a check upon the marks. He had gone through question after question, saying aftereach: 'Now let me see, I think that should be worth 10,' or 'that 15.' So that, when he went through the questions again, he appealed, on each occasion, to the head boy of the form. 'How many did I give you for that, Evans?' And, on each occasion, Evans was generous.
Once Miller timidly suggested that for Question 6, 15 marks and not 30 had been the maximum, but there was a complete unanimity of opinion among the rest of the form. 'Thirty, sir, certainly it was 30. It must have been—I've got 23 down to Firth for that, sir.' Miller was overruled.
The maximum was finally discovered to be 130. 'So you see, Miller,' said the master, 'you've not only questioned Burton's word, but you've been inattentive during the lesson. You will do me 200 lines, and if you will hand me up Jones's paper I will correct it myself.' With this generous addition to the maximum Jones received a heavy mark.
After such a disaster the form felt certain that Miller would bow to the convention; but there is no limit to the obstinacy of the martyr: Miller continued to mark according to order. He was kicked, but kicking was of no avail. His own paper was undermarked. This, too, was unavailing. Finally the form decided to accept him as an inevitable affliction. They ceased to kick him. Each of the ten top boys took it in turn to sit two places away from him so that no one person should suffer unduly from the general evil. And the one who sat two places on theother side of Miller had instructions to over-mark his paper so that he should be got out of the form as speedily as possible. At the end of the term Miller was promoted; and the Middle Fifth relapsed into its placid communal existence.
Now Miller's conduct would no doubt appear worthy of the most intense approval. He had behaved like the hero of the school sermon. He had done what every new boy is adjured to do. He had taken a firm stand against a dishonest practice. He had been bullied, but he had remained firm. His honour had withstood the shock of his opponents. Such a splendid example would shine like a candle in a dark cathedral, and from this simile the preacher, as a runner reaching the straight, can stride into the rounded periods of his peroration. 'If only others of you would light your candle from that flame; if only in that large cathedral there were a hundred burning candles instead of one, how soon would not the whole building be filled with light. The beautiful tracery of the roof would emerge from shadow. A soft glow would be shed on the strong carved pillars. The brasses would glimmer on the wall. The splendid architecture of the building would be plain. So is it with the human soul.'
We have heard that sermon many times. Miller is a splendid handle for rhetoric, but his behaviour remains anti-social. If it is wrong to place oneself in a position of inequitable advantage, it is equally wrong to place a rival in aposition of inequitable disadvantage: and that is what Miller had done. Jones had done his work as thoroughly and as conscientiously as the others, but he had received lower marks for it, because Miller had chosen to apply to it a standard that was not imposed on that of his companions. It is not unfair in a hundred yards' sprint to start a second before the pistol is fired if you know that the other runners are going to do likewise, but it is hard lines on the one runner who is compelled to wait for the proper signal. True morality plays an insignificant part in business and competition. We all have different ideas of what is sport. If W. G.'s much-criticised running out of Jones in the Test Match of 1880 had taken place at a house match at school, we can assume that W. G., whatever his batting average, would not have been invited to play for the school again. What is moral and what is anti-social become practically synonymous terms as long as every one starts fair and plays the game by the same code of rules. No one must be allowed opportunities that are not at the disposal of his opponents. And, in the case of the Middle Fifth's corrections, the rules of the game ordered generous marking and no great gulf between the first and last. Miller played the game by different rules. The form was righteously indignant. It is doubtful even whether Miller's immortal soul drew sustenance from the conflict. It was probably confirmed in its priggishness. Certainly Miller became, in the course of time, a highly officious prefect.I do not know what fortune the 'romance of destiny' may hold in store for him, but I can imagine that he will occupy some post of prim, precise officialdom. He will create nothing. Whereas Evans's opportunism is largely responsible for the rapidly increasing market for Messrs. ——'s patent cookers.
The schoolmaster asserts that between himself and his form there exists a compact of square dealing. But the signature of the form has not been obtained, and it is an agreement every clause of which is very clearly to the advantage of the schoolmaster and to the disadvantage of the form. The form does not recognise the treaty. It refuses to commit itself, and indeed in this singular document the true nature of cribbing has not been defined. The exact line between cribbing and co-operation has not been drawn. We are safe when dealing with 'con,' that is to say, the translation of Greek or Latin into English. We know, for instance, that boys are allowed to prepare their work together. Two brains are better than one. Well and good. But, if two soldiers have to dig a trench one uses the pick and the other the shovel. So it is with Latin 'con.' One boy looks up the meaning of the words in a dictionary; the other unravels the sense. That means that the boy who looks up the words never brings his mind to bear on the translation of the text. Yet such a combination is accepted as fair by any master. And, once this combination has been accepted, a master's position becomes logically impossible.For it must be remembered that a schoolboy has a fairly sound grasp of consecutive reasoning. He studies the theorems of geometry. He struggles with the dialectic of Plato. He is capable, that is to say, of following out to their logical conclusion such lines of argument as will, in the end, assuage his conscience. He could construct, for instance, an imaginary conversation between Socrates and his form master.
Soc.: You object, Mr. Featherbrain, to the cribbing that is prevalent in your form?
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: Now, as I am inexperienced in this matter, never having been myself to a Public School, perhaps you will be so kind as to make me better acquainted with the methods adopted by these members of your form.
Mr. F.: Certainly. Some of the boys use English translations with which to prepare their Virgil and Homer. Others copy the Greek prose of their more clever companions, inserting, from time to time, certain gross errors that they expect will throw me off the scent.
Soc.: I understand. Now, in this matter of English translations: you expect each boy to prepare his Virgil by himself, and to produce in form the results of solitary unaided labour?
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: If, therefore, you discovered one boy asking another to explain to him a difficult passage, you would punish him severely?
Mr. F.: No. You have misunderstood me. I should not.
Soc.: But how is that? Have you not just told me that each boy must produce in form the results of solitary, unaided labour?
Mr. F.: Certainly, but we allow boys to prepare their 'con' together.
Soc.: I understand. On the assumption that two brains are better than one, you permit two boys to unravel the sense together.
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: Now, if two people attempt a certain task, what procedure would they follow? Would they not divide the task into two portions. If two men are building a house one man stands at the top of a ladder and lays the bricks that his companion, who is standing below, throws up to him.
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: Time would be wasted were each man to do the same work: that is to say, were two ladders to be placed against the wall and were the two men to descend and ascend the ladder carrying bricks to the top?
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: Therefore, we may assume that in all tasks that are undertaken by two persons, the work is divided into two duties?
Mr. F.: But I do not see, Socrates, that this line of reasoning has any bearing on the subject we are preparing to discuss.
Soc.: That may very well be, for, as I have told you, I am ignorant of these matters and have come to you for guidance. It does seem to me, however, that in this matter of translation,which is the discovery of an unknown thing, the unknown may be divided into two parts.
Mr. F.: How is that?
Soc.: When a boy reads over the passage that he has to translate, two things are unknown to him: the general meaning of the passage and certain words in the passage. That is so, is it not?
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: Then do you not think that two boys, before setting out to translate a passage, would make some arrangement by which one of them should be responsible for unravelling the sense, while the other should look up the unknown words in a dictionary.
Mr. F.: It is possible.
Soc.: And to which of the two would be entrusted the task of unravelling the sense.
Mr. F.: To the cleverer, undoubtedly.
Soc.: Therefore the less clever would do the drudge work: that is to say, he would never bring his mind to bear upon the passage: and the imaginative work would be done for him by his companion.
Mr. F.: It would seem so, Socrates.
Soc.: Yet the system is approved as an honest one by the authorities and the work of the drudge is accepted as solitary and unaided labour.
Mr. F.: That is so, Socrates.
Soc.: Now, is this task of translation limited to the co-operation of two persons, or may three or more persons take their share in it?
Mr. F.: As many persons may take their sharein it as may conveniently be crowded into a study measuring eight feet by four.
Soc.: I understand. Suppose now that three persons are preparing a passage together. We have agreed, have we not, that this work can be divided into two duties only?
Mr. F.: That is so.
Soc.: Then what share of the work will the third partner take?
Mr. F.: He will act as a reserve and will bring assistance to either party when it is necessary.
Soc.: But, to whom have we allotted the task of unravelling the sense: to the cleverest, have we not? If the help of the third party, then, is only requested when the cleverest finds himself in difficulties, does it seem to you likely that the third party will succeed where one cleverer than himself has failed?
Mr. F.: It is unlikely.
Soc.: And, if this third party is higher and more important than the second party, it is unlikely, is it not, that he will content himself with what we have admitted to be the drudge's work of looking up words in a dictionary?
Mr. F.: It is unlikely.
Soc.: Then the third party will do nothing save profit by the industry of his two companions, and the work that he will produce in the class-room next day will, strictly speaking, be not his at all, but theirs.
Mr. F.: It would seem so, Socrates.
Soc.: Now, let us take a further example. For I am anxious to discover at what exact pointthe work that a boy produces in form will cease to be, in the official eye, the result of solitary and unaided labour. Suppose that the third party is a member of the Eleven, who has various social duties: it is possible, is it not, that he would prefer to spend over his translation less than the three-quarters of an hour that his two companions require?
Mr. F.: It is possible.
Soc.: Then, is it impossible that he might arrange for the cleverer of the two to come to him after breakfast and explain to him in twenty minutes the meaning of the passage?
Mr. F.: It is possible.
Soc.: And such an arrangement would be accepted by you?
Mr. F.: I do not see that I could object.
Soc.: Now let us suppose that the cleverer of the two finds that he will have to clean his corps clothes during the twenty minutes between breakfast and chapel. He will feel himself bound in honour, and also by fear, to translate the passage to the third party, but he will obviously be unable to do it in person. Is it not likely, therefore, that he will write out the meaning of the passage and hand it to the third party? Would such conduct be unacceptable to you?
Mr. F.: I do not know, Socrates.
Soc.: But, surely in your own mind you have clearly defined the line that separates what is honest from what is dishonest. Surely that is your profession—to teach the young to distinguish between what is good and what is not good?
Mr. F.: That is so, Socrates.
Soc.: Then do you see any real difference between hearing a translation and reading a translation? Is there any difference between a meaning that is apprehended through the ear and a meaning that is apprehended through the eyes; for are not both eyes and ears channels through which meanings are carried to the brain?
Mr. F.: It would seem so, and, when you put it that way, I can distinguish no essential difference.
Soc.: Very good: then we have established that it is fair for a boy to come to his study after breakfast, find in his hand a written translation of his Virgil, and, with that written translation, prepare in twenty minutes his morning's lesson.
Mr. F.: It would seem so, Socrates.
Soc.: If, however, he were to take from his drawer a printed translation of Virgil, and with that prepare his morning's lesson, you would consider him capable of dishonest behaviour and you would report him to the head master.
Mr. F.: Most certainly, Socrates.
Soc.: In what, then, lies the essential difference between the printed translation and the one that was copied out for him by his companion?
Mr. F.: But that is surely obvious.
Soc.: It is not to me, and it is for this reason that I seek enlightenment of you. For to me it seems that the work produced in form by the boy who has studied the printed translation isevery bit as much the result of solitary and unaided labour as that which is informed by the study of a written translation. But is it that you appreciate a difference between the written and the printed word?
Mr. F.: Perhaps that is it, Socrates.
Soc.: Then would you allow a boy during the holidays to copy out one of Dr. Giles's aids to the classics?
Mr. F.: Most certainly not.
Soc.: Then it is not between the written and the printed word that the difference lies?
Mr. F.: It would seem not.
Soc.: Then where does it lie?
Mr. F.: I do not know, Socrates.
Soc.: Then we must surely assume that there is no difference; and we must further add that you have not dealt honestly with your form in so severely punishing them for conduct that you, yourself, are not able logically to condemn.
Mr. F.: As ever, Socrates, you have succeeded in making me say what I did not mean to say.
Soc.: Then, in order that you may extricate yourself, let us consider this question of the prose.
Mr. F.: Certainly. For, here at least, my position is impregnable.
Soc.: I, too, am certain of it, and, in order that I may know the true nature of the offence, you will, I hope, permit me to ask you certain questions. You say that the more stupid members of your form are in the habit of copying the exercises of their more clever comrades?
Mr. F.: That is so.
Soc.: Now is it a rule that a boy may not give another assistance in his Latin prose?
Mr. F.: Certainly.
Soc.: The position is not the same as that of the Latin translation, where two boys were permitted to co-operate?
Mr. F.: Certainly not.
Soc.: I presume that you have explained to your form the essential difference that exists between the nature of Latin 'con' and Latin prose.
Mr. F.: How do you mean, Socrates?
Soc.: Why, surely, if in the preparation of Latin 'con,' which is the translation of Latin into English, two boys are allowed to co-operate, and, if in the preparation of Latin prose, which is the translation of English into Latin, they are not allowed to co-operate, it follows that there must be some essential difference in the nature of the two studies.
Mr. F.: It would seem so, Socrates.
Soc.: It would certainly seem so, and this difference you have, no doubt, made clear to your form, for, at present, I must confess myself unable to discover in what it consists. The exercise of Latin prose as of Latin 'con,' for each study is the translation of a language and the correct rendering of the idiom of that language into the language and idiom of another tongue, is no doubt intended to train, inform, and quicken the intelligence. Each would appear to be branches of the same study, and for each thesame method of instruction should be employed. You tell me, however, that there is between these two branches an essential difference.
Mr. F.: You are right, Socrates, and, though I cannot explain the difference in so many words, its nature is plain to me.
Soc.: Of that, Mr. Featherbrain, I am certain. I understand that you apprehend this fine distinction as you apprehended the fine distinction between the written and the printed 'crib.' We should consider, though, whether this distinction is equally plain to your form. Such intuitive knowledge may be denied to them, and, if they sin through ignorance, their sin is slighter than if they sinned through knowledge. Tell me, now, whether, if you overheard one member of your form say to another on the way to chapel: 'I'm absolutely tied up with that piece of prose. Shall I put it in O. R. or O. O.?' would you immediately report that boy to the head master?
Mr. F.: I should not.
Soc.: You would no more report him than if you had overheard him asking his friend to make clear to him a passage of Virgil that had puzzled him.
Mr. F.: That is so.
Soc.: Do you not think, therefore, that the boy who knows he is allowed to ask for help in his Latin 'con,' and who does not know for what reason he is not allowed to ask for help in his Latin prose, who has never, that is to say, been able to apprehend the fine difference betweenthe nature of the two studies, is likely to consider that the same technique is permissible for both branches, and would not that third party of whom we spoke and who is in the habit of getting his Latin 'con' done for him by his friend, consider himself morally justified in accepting the same assistance in his Latin prose?
Mr. F.: But I have told him that it is not allowed.
Soc.: Certainly, but good can only come from a reasoned knowledge of what is good, and you have not explained to him in what his fault consists. Moreover, if you have granted him permission to seek advice in small matters, you must tell him at what exact point the thirst for information becomes dishonest; a line must be drawn between what is good and what is bad. Is a boy responsible for a percentage of his prose, and, if so, for what percentage. Have you made these things plain to him?
Mr. F.: I have not, O Socrates.
Soc.: Then how do you expect the unformed mind of a boy to draw this line for himself. It would seem to me, Mr. Featherbrain, that you are not training the youth as it should be trained, when you order its conduct not by the results of logical deduction but by arbitrary ruling. For if in your own mind you are not certain at what exact point the good becomes the bad, and indeed are not certain of what the bad consists; what confusion must you not expect to discover in the minds of those that are taught by you. You must remember that on the football andcricket field a boy is under orders which he accepts, but of whose moral nature he is ignorant. He knows that if he is offside in football a free kick is awarded to the other side; he knows that if he knocks the ball forward with his hands a scrum is given. He has made a mistake. He has committed a tactical, but not a moral offence. The rulings of the Rugby Union are arbitrary and subject to frequent alteration; whereas the rulings concerning what is good and what is bad are fixed and irradicable. Is it not likely, therefore, that a boy will come to regard your rulings in these matters of cribbing as arbitrary rulings that may be altered. His life is a game, you must always remember that, and it is on that basis that he accepts it. He knows that he will be punished if he uses a crib; he knows that you appear to apprehend a distinction between the written and printed word; he knows also that you have discovered a difference in the nature of the studies of translation and prose, and that while you will allow him to ask advice on certain points you will not allow him to seek advice on the whole, though at the same time you do not define the point at which these same certain points cease to be certain points and become sufficiently part of the whole to be called the whole. Can you expect him, then, to regard such a system as anything but the complicated rulings of a game played between you and him. And can you expect him to attach to these regulations any moral significance. On the cricket field he places his leg in front of thewicket and tries to hit a short length ball over square-leg's head. If he misses the ball he is leg before, and goes to the pavilion. In his study he prepares his translation with a crib; he is discovered by his house master; he goes to the head master. And it is in this spirit, Mr. Featherbrain, that your form deceives you. You have to make clear to the young many things before you can expect them to attach a moral significance to what has no logical proof.
There may be flaws in the argument, for the Socratic method is insidious, but I have not, myself, been able to discover them. The ethics of cribbing from the master's point of view are illogical. The exact point where co-operation starts and cribbing begins is not fixed.
Cribbing goes by form and houses. Its activities expand and contract according to the demands of popular opinion. It is always communal. There is a conscription of intellect and knowledge. No boy would prejudice his chances of winning his house cap; but most boys would assist their most dangerous rivals in promotion. We hear in chapel sad stories of the large and brutal bully who cribs steadily throughout the term and wrests the prize from the pure innocent who looked up every word in a large Lewis & Short. But it rarely happens like that. No one cribs for a prize, because few really want a prize. Occasionally cribbing wins a prize, but it is usually through a fluke.
A boy is particularly nervous about the resultsof a certain paper. He takes elaborate precautions to make sure that he will not have to spend the last Saturday of term rewriting the paper, and, in consequence, unexpectedly discovers himself at the head of the list. I recall one such instance in particular, and, because it seems to me so singularly appropriate, I may be pardoned, I trust, for retelling a story that I have incorporated elsewhere.
Divinity in the army class was a casual affair; a knowledge of the Old Testament not being considered a necessary part of the intellectual equipment of a subaltern, the Sandhurst authorities did not examine candidates on the subject, and both the form and its master regarded the hour's lesson on Sunday morning as a pause in the exertions of the week. The yearly divinity examination always occasioned, therefore, a measure of panic among the soldiers, for the form master, when confronted with irrefutable proofs of his own indolence, was in the habit of punishing not only the form but himself by keeping in for two hours on the last Saturday those of the form who had failed to score an adequate percentage. During the preceding days feverish and spasmodic attempts were made to cope successfully with the complicated relations of kings and prophets. One year, however, the form was fortunate.
A certain Mallaby, while searching in the class-room just before lock-up for a book he thought he had left there, saw lying among the papers on the master's desk, the rough draft of the questions for the divinity exam. In surpriseddelight he copied them all down. According to the popular conception of schoolboy honour, Mallaby, being a potential thief, would have kept the information to himself. Being a boy, however, he imparted it to his companions. The form entered the examination room in a mood of quiet confidence, and left it in a mood of deep content. Two days later, however, it was announced that this year the annual interest of a bequest would be devoted to a series of divinity papers throughout the school. The next day Mallaby learnt that he was head of the army class in divinity.
His conscience was fluttered. He could not, he felt, take a prize which he would have won through cribbing. It would be dishonest. It would be stealing. He announced his intention of explaining matters to the chief. This announcement was not, however, received with the enthusiasm that should have welcomed the imminence of so noble, so disinterested, so sacrificial a performance. The form was indeed seriously perturbed. It explained to Mallaby that, if he went to the chief, he would be queering not only his own pitch, but theirs as well, and that there were certain members of form who did not stand well enough in the eyes of authority to be able to risk such an addition to their score of discovered crimes. 'And, after all,' they said, 'why shouldn't you take the prize? We all knew the questions; you took the trouble to prepare them. You worked hard, and prizes are the reward of hard work. You've workedfor the prize, harder than we did. Therefore you deserve the prize. And let's have no more of this nonsense about confession.'
In these matters each form and each house works out its own salvation. In some houses cribbing is not general, and in some forms cribbing is not general; and, in such cases, cribbing is anti-social. It might be urged that boys from houses that do not crib find themselves at a disadvantage in relation to boys from houses that do. But life usually manages to adjust itself, and a boy's position in form is chiefly important as regards the relation it bears to that of the other members of his house. It does not matter much to a boy in the school house if he is passed by a boy in Buller's. It will not affect his seniority in his own house, and it is his seniority in his own house that matters. Only a very few are concerned with the specialised rivalry of the Upper Sixth that decides who will be the official head of the school. Scholastically the ambition of few passes outside their house. In games it is different. But then the eleven is not a fluid body like the Sixth; it is a close corporation, and once the reputation of being the best slow left-hand bowler is lost, the chance of a ribboned coat grows distant.
I remember once a parson from the East End preaching a sermon in the school chapel, in which he intimated that in comparison with the loathsome atrocities that had for setting the Mile End Road, a schoolboy merely played at sin. This was reassuring to certain genialsportsmen who had hitherto been unable to view with any confidence the prospect of immortality: and the phrase 'playing at sin' passed into the vocabulary of the school. To such an extent, indeed, that the head master was forced to deliver a special midweek address, in which he pointed out that the degree of sin was relative to environment, and that the moral offences of a man who had been nurtured in surroundings of bestiality and filth were less grave than those of the boy who had spent his childhood in the clean atmosphere of a decent home. The complacence of the aforesaid sportsmen was broken. Not only were their offences as serious as those of their less fortunately placed brethren, they were actually more grave: a disquieting reflection. But I have often felt inclined to question, not the irrefutable logic of the head master's sermon, but the truth of that original contention about 'playing at sin.' Are, that is to say, the vices of the lower orders actually more startling than those of Mayfair? Are they more startling? I wonder: a higher standard of civilisation refines our pleasures, quickens our powers of appreciation, makes us more subtle, more complex; does it not also sharpen the edge of misbehaviour? It is a point on which perhaps Casanova would be able to enlighten us. But, certainly, in the matter of cribbing, the methods of the lower forms are clumsy, unimaginative, bourgeois in comparison with those of the Fifths and Sixths.
A master who expects to discover in theThird the guile of the Fifths will be disappointed; and, equally, the master who has successfully combated the guile of the Lower Second may discover himself completely outwitted by the Middle Sixth. In the Lower School the use of the actual crib is rare. It is easy for the Sixth Former to possess himself of a translation. The Everyman series contains excellent renderings of Thucydides and Plato. The Loeb library is not useless. Gilbert Murray may be a poet, but his translations of Euripides have proved of assistance to many a harassed student. Jebb's version of Sophocles is to be found in the shelves of the school library. It is a different job to find a crib of Ovid and Livy. Dr. Giles has done some excellent research work, but questions are apt to be asked about bona fide students; an address such as 'The School House, Fernhurst,' is likely to wake suspicion, and the Third Former has not read enough French novels to appreciate the value of theposte restante. He considers that a crib is more trouble than it is worth. And what is cribbing but laziness! Moreover, he has a distrust of cribs. He is naturally stupid or he would be higher in the school, and he knows that when a boy gives the right meaning to the wrong words there are unpleasant investigations. He prefers to rely on the inspiration of the moment: as a result the offences of the Lower Second are trivial. They rarely reach the green baize of the head master's study. One boy looks over another's paper, another is prompted during 'con,' thereis a strange similarity between two Latin proses, an unusual mistake is repeated in several exercises. The offender is beaten afterwards, and no more is heard about it. As a matter of fact there is less cribbing in the Lower School than in the Upper. Opportunities are rare and the example of hardened criminals is absent. The second yearer only becomes a practised deceiver under the influence of his seniors, and there are not many third yearers in the Lower School. Higher up it is different. But it is to be doubted whether the effects of cribbing are as serious as they are depicted.
The case against them comes under two main headings: (1) The moral issue; (2) The expediency issue. With the moral issue I have already dealt. Most boys crib at school, but the public school man is straighter in business than the self-made man and the American. Nearly all men will boast in their clubs of the way they bamboozled 'old Moke,' of how they pinned up the rep. on the back of the boy in front, and of how they used to strip off the cover of the translation book and sew it round one of Dr. Giles's publications; but the man who has forced a young inventor into a hard contract remains silent. It is a matter that he prefers to keep to himself. I do not believe that cribbing saps the moral sense.
The expediency issue is more complicated. And, on the surface, it does seem that the use of a crib is the very worst thing for a boy who hopes to win scholarships and fellowships. It isa short cut. He does not need to use his brain. His thinking is done for him. That is true, but there are points on the other side. He is set fifty lines of Virgil to prepare. If he comes into form next morning with those lines half learnt he will derive little benefit from the hour's lesson. The whole time he will be worrying at the sense. He will not be able to give his full attention to the points of grammar and history that will arise in the course of the hour. If, on the other hand, he is free from the anxiety of failure he is able to give his full attention to what is perhaps the more important part of the lesson. Also a boy remembers what he has worked out for himself; and a crib used intelligently provides just enough struggle to impinge the result of the effort on the memory. And the wise do use a crib intelligently. They not only want to know their 'con' for the next day: they also wish to be able to remember it for the examination. They, therefore, read a sentence over first in the original. Some one wonders what a certain word means. The word is looked up. Then a shot is made at the sense, not a very serious shot perhaps, and speedy reference is made to the crib. The English is read out loud. 'Now, how does he get that out of it?' some one asks. There is a minute of tussle and explanation—then all is clear. And the next sentence is read out loud.
That is the way to use a crib. And if one has worked out for oneself, even if it be with the aid of a crib, the meaning of a long passage of Virgil,one remembers that passage. I have forgotten now nearly all my Greek and Latin, but I can still read currently and with pleasure the Eclogues, for which I used a crib. Whereas the memory of other books, through which I struggled honestly, but less successfully, has faded altogether. For the average member of the Sixth I believe the intelligent use of a crib is to be recommended. A greater number of lines could be prepared at one time, and there would be leisure for acquiring that knowledge that comes to us indirectly from the classics. Plato is a window through which we see the gymnasiums of Ancient Greece. But it will be shuttered for those to whom the struggle is ever with correct rendering and syntax.
The real scholar, whose life will be spent largely with the classics, must avoid short cuts; he should glory in difficulties that will quicken his wits: he has his whole life before him. He does not have to pass, as the rest of us do, swiftly into a world of politics and business. And, indeed, the real scholar realises this. I can recall few instances in which a boy with a really fine brain has deadened his perceptions by the use of translations. The scholar, when he reaches the Sixth, and is no longer forced to write the proses and prepare the translations of his less clever comrades, prefers to work alone, if not in the company of boys who are equally brilliant.
But the real scholar is the exception. This book is written for, and about, the averageschoolboy. I know that in the matter of cribbing I am pleading a lost cause. Cribbing will always, of course, be a forbidden thing; therein lies its charm. But it is important that master and parents should realise in what light these questions appear to the boy. A boy is frequently misunderstood. He is accused of dishonesty. He resents the accusation, but he is unable to explain why his offence does not deserve so stern a label. He is tempted to lose heart, to console himself with the reflection that 'they don't understand,' and so further estrange himself from sympathy and mutual understanding. The boy stands before the house master and lets the wind of words flow over him. What use is it for him to attempt an explanation. If he argues his punishment will be increased. It is better to assume contrition; to say, 'Yes, sir, I hadn't seen it in that light before,' and to be more clever another time. It would be far more just were the master to regard cribbing as a boy regards it: as a game, to be punished effectively when discovered, but not to be associated with the welfare of the human spirit.
If school authorities wish, however, to find a lasting cure they have in their own hands the remedy. They will not achieve their ends through increased vigilance; that will only make the boy more clever. They should make work more interesting. There is little cribbing in form where boys are interested in what they are learning. Boys are not anxious to learn what a master is not anxious to teach. Lazinessbegets laziness, and cribbing is a form of laziness.
Systematic cribbing will not disappear till popular opinion regards as important success or failure in the class-room. Success at games is considered important; games are, in consequence played fairly. But, as popular opinion sets no value on school work, it does not seem to matter much what happens in school hours. Success in form needs to be brought into some sort of relationship with success at football. Athletic prowess will always, naturally, and perhaps rightly, be rated more highly than intellectual achievement. But that is no reason why intellectual achievement should be disparaged in the case of all save the brilliant few whose feats are received with a mild enthusiasm. At Sandhurst we used to have weekly examinations, and, as far as I remember, there was no cribbing at all in these exams. To a certain extent promotion depended on one's performance in them, and each G. C. was anxious to work out the problems for himself so as to be able to judge how much, or how little, progress he had made. This did not mean that we were more interested in topography than late cuts, but that we realised that, at this stage of our career proficiency in topography would be of service to us. I believe that a similar state of affairs would exist at a Public School were the social values to be readjusted.
Cribbing, like so much else in public school life, is a side-shoot of athleticism.
It is at this period, also, of a boy's development that the moral question assumes a definite significance. There is no phase of school life that is more generally misunderstood and misrepresented, and there is no phase that a writer tackles with greater misgiving and disinclination. He is confronted with the barricaded prejudices of a vested interest, with the tremulous ignorance of mothers who seek to be deceived, with the conspiracy of silence that exists between boys, parents, and masters, and, last of all, with the wilful jealousy of the yellow press that is only too ready to decry the value of what it is pleased to call the 'trades union of snobbery.' There are times, indeed, when it seems better to acquiesce in that conspiracy of silence rather than to give those speculators in contention another opportunity of mud-slinging. There are times when it seems hopeless to attempt to explain the nature of public school morality to those who have not themselves been to a Public School. It is like looking at a stained-glass window from the outside. One reminds oneself that for many years, without, perhaps, any very disastrous results, we have muddled along in contented ignorance and self-deceit. Why not leave thingswhere they are? Why stir up trouble? And yet the moral question is such an essential part of school life, it exercises such an influence on the development of the boy; indirectly it colours so considerably the attitude of the master to every other phase of school life, that it is impossible to omit all reference to it in a detailed study such as this, and, if it is impossible to avoid mention of it, it is fatal to content oneself, as one may very well do in a novel, with stray suggestions and inferences.
A novel is an abstraction. One compresses into a few pages the action of several years, so that one has to suggest rather than to state. One can withhold one's own opinion, one is under no compunction to generalise from the incidents one selects. One is telling a story or interpreting a personality. Only rarely is one constructing a thesis. In a novel it is not difficult to deal with the moral question. Most good school stories have touched more or less indirectly on some side of it. Ivor Brown and Compton Mackenzie have both dealt subtly with an intricate relationship. Hugh Walpole, if less originally, faced the same situation more courageously, while Arnold Lunn inLoose Endshas interpreted the boy as opposed to the official attitude to this issue with extreme effectiveness. The novelist is constrained to discuss only that part of the question that affects the action of the story. That is one of the great charms of story-telling: one can touch lightly without need of explanation on the most delicate situations. Onecan say only as much as one wants to say, and say it, what is more, obliquely. In a book such as this, however, one must deal with the subject thoroughly if at all. One must tackle every side of it. One is bound to follow one's thought through to the end. And that is a thing that no one cares to do in public. It was said of a certain intrepid Rugby player that he had not the brains to be afraid. It is certainly true that many soldiers lost their nerve after they had been once wounded, and that few soldiers were really frightened till they had seen what a shell could do; it may well be that at twenty-three one has not sufficient experience of the world to realise what risks one runs through honesty.
The first difficulty, especially for those who, without having been to a Public School themselves, are the fathers of present or prospective public school boys, is to start investigations with a clear mind. This feat the majority never manage to accomplish. For the moral question in schools is concerned with the relationship of two members of the same sex. Now such a relationship is counted in the world at large an unmentionable and unforgivable sin. It is regarded with horror by the average man. It is a penal offence. The man who enters into such a relationship is abnormal, and, as such, is considered a menace to society. But the same standards are not applicable to school life.
A man was intended by nature to marry at eighteen. The average villager, clerk, pit-boy, work-boy begins 'walking out' with a girl atthe age of fifteen or sixteen; the public school boy has no such opportunities of courtship. Three hundred boys are spending three-quarters of their lives in a monastic world; from the beginning of the term to the end the only women to whom they have the opportunity of speaking are the matron and the house master's wife. They have never any chances of seeing girls of their own class and of their own age. At a particularly susceptible period, therefore, they have no natural object for their affections. The youngest boys are only thirteen, the eldest are between eighteen or nineteen.
In such circumstances it would be surprising if there were no uncomfortable complications. The public school system is, in this respect, unnatural; one must expect unnatural results. The trouble is to discover what those results are. For, although people speak glibly enough of immorality in Public Schools, it is extremely doubtful whether they realise of what exactly that immorality consists.
It is a convenient phrase, but beyond it there is the conspiracy of silence. Schoolmasters prefer to deal with straight issues. They dislike the subtleties of action and character which are of such charm to the psychologist. They like to say, 'This is an offence.' Finer shades of meaning trouble them. At least that is their official attitude. And so it has come to be generally accepted that public school morality resolves itself into one main issue: that is, the corruption of a small boy by a big one. Toprotect the new boy from this danger elaborate precautions are taken. It is on this point that a boy is given advice before he goes to school. He is warned never to make friends with boys bigger than himself; it is against this danger that the majority of school sermons are directed. And, of course, this is a very convenient attitude for the schoolmaster to adopt. The offence is obviously so grave that there can be no cause to withhold complete official condemnation; it is also so rare that the head master is able to assure prospective parents of the excellent tone of the school. For I am convinced that the deliberate seduction of a smaller boy is an extremely rare occurrence. There are, of course, certain houses—probably there is one at every school—in which a good-looking boy stands very little chance of remaining straight. But I have not been in such a house and I can speak with no authority. I have heard, certainly, some astonishing stories of what can be tolerated in a really bad house; but, second-hand reports, especially on such matters, can only be accepted with reserve. Certainly in the average house cases of corruption are very rare. Few boys have the nerve, the assurance, or the adroitness to attempt such a task. A man of twenty-five will set out deliberately to seduce a housemaid, but the schoolboy in such matters is a novice. If a senior boy is casually attracted by the appearance of a smaller boy, he asks a friend lower down in the house to make inquiries as to the morals of the small boy. If the 'go-between' discoversthat the small boy is 'straight,' the elder boy lets the matter fall from his mind. There are others who are not. If, on the other hand, the attraction is more than casual, the chances of seduction are even more remote. It is unlikely that the affection will be reciprocated. And, if a boy is really fond of another boy, the last thing he would wish would be to subject his friend to unwelcome advances. When a boy first falls in love with a girl the thought of sexual intimacy is, often, unattractive. It is only when his love is returned that he really desires it. It is fatal to confuse the processes of life at large with the processes of life in a monastic system. Because young men seduce young women with regrettable frequency, it is assumed that much the same sort of thing is happening at a Public School. And, parents believing this, are reassured; they are certain that their dear child when young will be strong enough to resist the passive temptation; they are equally certain that their dear child when nearly a man would not, for one moment, consider the possibility of active sin. And this amiable delusion schoolmasters encourage. It saves them a lot of trouble. They say one thing in public and another in private. But the Jekyll and Hyde business breeds confusion. They forget what they should believe and what they should not believe. They are agreed only on this: that any attempt at criticism, at explanation, at interpretation shall be counteracted with a concerted unanimity of opinion. They will denyhotly the prevalence of any such practices, they will make slighting references to the bad house in the bad school. They will complete their defence by asserting that for what faults there are the parents are alone responsible in that they had not sufficiently warned their sons of the evils of a Public School—evils, be it noted, that they had previously assured the parent did not exist outside the perverted imagination of the critic. And yet it is amazing what these same apologists will be prepared to believe about any institution other than their own.
Six years ago Sandhurst had an extremely bad name. Every kind of debauch was rumoured to flourish there. Sobriety was only more unpopular than purity. The G. C.'s secreted whisky beneath their beds, and actresses within them. The glittering temptations of St Anthony allured the unwary in the tea-shops of Camberley. And I remember being shown, before I went there, a letter that had been sent to the parents of a prospective cadet by his head master. 'I hope,' the letter ran, 'that Arthur is aware of the temptations to which he will be subjected. Concupiscence seems to be the chief topic of conversation and the sole Sunday afternoon amusement of the cadets.' It all sounded fearfully exciting. But it proved very tame. Indeed I am inclined to think that, on the whole, fewer temptations presented themselves to me during the eight months I spent at Sandhurst than during any other period of my time in the army. A fellow could do what he liked. No pressurewas put on him to drink or gamble, or pursue loose women. He was none the less respected for being straight, nor the more admired for being crooked. A community such as this which exerts pressure on the individual in neither direction, I should be prepared to call as moral as any that is likely to be found this side of heaven, yet this head master, who would, no doubt, repudiate hotly the least suggestion that immorality in his own school was anything but a spasmodic and occasional phenomenon, was ready to believe that Sandhurst was a cesspool of all the vices that flourished so gracefully in the days of Petronius Arbiter. In our investigations we are not likely to be helped far by schoolmasters. They are constrained by the laws of exchange and mart to vindicate the quality of their wares.
It is generally assumed for the purposes of dialectic that there are two classes of persons: the normal and the abnormal, and that all normal people follow the same process of development from birth to death. To disprove this Havelock Ellis collected at the end of certain volumes of his psychology authenticated histories of men whose development he claimed to be normal, but whose histories were as different from one another as apples are from plums. In the face of such evidence it is dangerous to dogmatise on the gradual discovery of the sexual impulse by public school boys during adolescence. The most one can say is that the majority of them come to a Public School innocent and ignorant,and that they leave it certainly not ignorant and with a relative degree of innocence. This at least is sure—that between the years of thirteen and nineteen the impulse will have become powerfully defined and that each boy will have had to come to terms with its direction and control.
Now the important point seems to me to be this: the sexual impulse is a force on the proper direction of which depends, to a large extent, the happiness of a man's life; and marriage is the course into which it should be directed. No one, I think, will deny that. We may talk of the liberation of the sexes, of greater facilities for divorce, of the right of each man and woman to repair a mistake caused by the first surprise of a newly-awakened instinct; but there can be no questioning the assertion that monogamy is the ideal, and that while nothing can be more wretched than an ill-harmonised relationship, in the lifelong devotion of man and woman is to be found the surest happiness. That is the standard by which public school morality should be judged. But it is not the standard by which it is officially, and indeed generally, judged. A Public School is only a phase, a prelude in the sexual development of a man. Head masters are inclined to mistake it for the completed rhythm.
In the same way that the head master of a Preparatory School specially coaches a boy for a scholarship, not realising that what for him is the whole race is for the boy but a first lap,so the head master of a Public School regards the preservation of innocence between the years of 13 and 19 as the entire battle. As far as I can make out this attitude is adopted by nearly every unscientific writer on the subject.
If the matter ended there it would, of course, be simple. Rigid policemanship and supervision and a system of spies would probably be effective. They might stamp out impurity to a large extent; they would also destroy the discipline of independence, of trust and of authority that one learns at a Public School. The matter is far less simple. The public school system is unnatural. Through unnatural channels, therefore, a natural impulse has to flow into a natural course.
Let us see, more or less, what happens.
We have assumed that an ignorant and innocent boy arrives at his Public School at the age of thirteen, and, to simplify the matter further, we will assume that the boy is not particularly good-looking, and is not, therefore, likely to win the patronage of his seniors. For the first weeks everything is so strange that he lives in a world of his own fashioning. Later on, as he begins to enter the life of the school, he is puzzled by references to an offence the nature of which he does not understand. He hears some one described as being 'smutty.' He does not in any way connect this with the elaborate address that was delivered to him on the last day at his prep. Indeed I knew of a new boy who informed his parents on a postcard that arather decent chap in his house had been nearly sacked for 'smut.' 'Is this,' he asked, 'anything serious?' He received in reply a reassuring letter telling him that he need not worry about such things just yet.