The heart of a schoolboy

THE HEART OF A
SCHOOLBOY

THE HEART OF A
SCHOOLBOY

BY

JACK HOOD

WITH A PREFACE BY

REV. E. A. BURROUGHS

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD,

CANON OF PETERBOROUGH, CHAPLAIN TO H.M. THE KING,

AUTHOR OF "WOULD BUILDERS ALL," ETC.

LONGMANS, GREEN AND GO

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON

FOURTH AVENUE Si lOxn STREET, NEW YORK
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS

vxte

TO MY BROTHER OWEN

AND TO

MY OLD SCHOOL FRIEND DOUGLAS ARNOLD NEWBERY
I DEDICATE MY FIRSTFRUITS

J. H.

Aug.-Sept. 1919.

433409

PREFACE

THREE years ago, in the course of the
National Mission of Repentance and Hope, it
was my good fortune to be sent as " Arch-
bishops' Messenger" to a number of Public
Schools of different sizes and types for visits
of varying duration. Some of them are com-
memorated in the Dedication of a little book
which arose out of those occasions — World
Builders All. It was during one such visit
that I met the author of The Heart of a
Schoolboy; and to that I owe my present
privilege of introducing him to the public
under a nom de plume.

He was then, I suppose, fourteen, since he
tells me that he is seventeen now ; so you will
realise that I did not get a great deal out of
himself which would be relevant here, and

viii PREFACE

almost my whole knowledge of him is derived
from his book, read first in MS. and now again
in proof. Let me confess frankly that, when
I received the MS., I did not expect much.
After reading it, the least I could do as an
amende honorable was to introduce it to Mr.
C. J. Longman, whose firm, as you see, has
endorsed my feeling that others would be
interested in it too. But in justice to the
author (and perhaps also to myself) let me
add that I am only its sponsor, and in no
sense its editor. I ventured to query in the
MS. a sentence here and there in which the
English was not quite on all fours, and at
two points suggested slight modifications ;
but that is all. For the rest you have the
author exactly as he is. There are, to be
frank, a few points at which one might
have used a blue pencil, had one been asked
to ; but they are surprisingly few. The
feature of the book which strikes one at
once is the easy maturity of opinion and
breadth of outlook, combined with quite

PREFACE ix

enough naivete to guarantee it as the work of
a real boy. Best of all, I don't think, from
what I read, that " Jack Hood " is either
self-conscious or conceited.

The whole treatment of his subject is, of
course, dictated by the attack on the Public
School system contained in The Loom of
Youth. At times it is coloured by the earlier
" reply " of Martin Browne, whom, as it
happens, I got to know at Eton under similar
circumstances to those which took me to
" Jack Hood's " school. But it stands upon
its own legs, and is a new and valid contribu-
tion to the subject. Many will probably value
it more for the little incidental touches which
let one back for the moment into the genuine
inner life of a school, than for the criticisms
which it sets out to make.

In the first chapter the reader may perhaps
get an impression that our author is rather
fumbling, and may wonder if he is going to do
more than intelligently echo his elders. But
conscientious judicial stiffness will, I think,

x PREFACE

be disarmed by the first sentence of Chapter II.,
and before long author and reader are happily
rambling along together — the reader perhaps
still feeling a little amused. Style and matter,
however, alike improve as our friend " gets
down to it," and the reader's half-smile gives
way to respectful attention. For here, at any
rate, is some one who, though a schoolboy, is
thinking and feeling for himself, with a quick
eye for the points of a situation and more than
a schoolboy's power of literary expression.

On the Games side, his criticism of drill as
a substitute for Kugger and his plea for tennis
as supplementary to cricket are cases in point.
On the work side, one respects a schoolboy
who says, " Teach a boy of Erasmus and Sir
Isaac Newton before you teach him of Henry
VIII. 's wives and of local events like the Great
Fire." So, too, one appreciates his thrust at
the master who sums up a Greek Testament
lesson in the words, " Now you see why St.
Paul used the aorist here," for one seems to
remember that sort of climax oneself. But I

PREFACE

XI

think that to most of us elders the criticism of
the unattractive and unnatural printing of
Bibles, as a bar to their usefulness, will be
new and suggestive. About the Classics, I
should like a heart-to-heart talk with our
author — though his suggestion about boys
who are going to drop them at sixteen is
worth considering — but I could forgive him all
his heterodoxy for pillorying the superficial
pedagogue who is content to explain a classical
curriculum as " excellent training for the
mind." It is to that gentleman that we owe
the threatened collapse of classical education.

The general reader, however, will probably
find most interest in the chapters on the
romantic side of school life, the moral problem
at school, and the teaching and practice of
religion. It is pleasant to be reassured by
one who is still at school that the romantic
and idealistic side is indeed so strong, though
often so inarticulate, at what we grown-ups are
apt to call " the awkward age." The moral is
that, instead of taking a boy's inexpressiveness

xii PREFACE

as a reason for not trying to express ourselves
to him, we should rather go the further to
meet him. " Give, hoping for nothing again,"
— and dont play down to what might seem to
be his only line of interests because about the
others he is still too confused and self-conscious
to talk. " I have known Games Captains,"
says our author naively, " who were also poets
and musicians in a modest way" ; the point is
that they were forming those other interests
at a time when they only talked about, and
were not even good as yet at, cricket or
football.

The treatment of the moral question, so
sharply raised by Alec Waugh, is restrained
and human and, I think, on the right lines ;
though perhaps "Jack Hood" hardly enters
into the responsibilities of a Head Master who
has to think of several hundred boys rather
than of the one. Anyhow, it is high time that
some one pointed out that what is complained
of is the fault neither of the Public School
system, nor of magisterial negligence, nor of

PREFACE xiii

special depravity in boys of this class, but
mainly of our common British public opinion
on sexual questions. The public tolerates in
society and everywhere else, and encourages
through the theatre, the cinema, and the press,
a tone which it is then shocked to find re-
flected in the Public Schools, where, moreover,
as often as not, the trouble is due to parents
neglecting their obvious duty to their sons at
the most critical time of their lives.

On our author's views about religion and
religious teaching at Public Schools it is not
for me to comment; but I commend them
especially to any " strange preachers " who are
invited to preach to boys. Two passages I
would underline in conclusion, and leave to
speak for themselves. One is this : " Atheists
and followers of psychic cults are doing their
best to prevent us [i. e. finding a reasonable
Christian faith], while our own religious
teachers merely tell us to believe, and do not
explain why Christianity is true. If a boy of
fifteen had two days, say, with some very

xiv PREFACE

learned Theosophists, do you not suppose he
could be convinced ? All the more shame then
that he is not more often convinced by
Christians in years." The other is of quite a
different nature : "Most of us, when talking
to old ladies, avoid topics such as House
matches, motor-bicycles, or chemistry, because
we know they are of a later age. Unfortunately
we treat God like this. . . . God is not a
Friend who only thinks of our ' religious
side.' " In bidding this little book and its
author God-speed, I can wish nothing better
for them than that they should bring that last
point home to all their readers. It is of the
essence of the Incarnation, and a part of
Christianity which, more than almost any
other, the whole world needs to get hold of
to-day.

E. A. BURROUGHS.

Hertford College, Oxford.
October 27, 1919.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGI

PREFACE BY CANON E. A. BURROUGHS YU

I. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM ... 1

II. FAGS 12

III. "THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM" . . 21

IV. THE ROMANTIC SIDE .... 30
V. MORALS — (l) HONOUR, BAD LANGUAGE . 39

VI. MORALS — (ll) IMPURITY .... 47

VII. PREFECTS ...... 58

VIII. THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE . . 66

IX. RELIGION (l) FAITH .... 78

X. RELIGION — (ll) PRACTICE ... 89

EPILOGUE . . 101

THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY
CHAPTEK I

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM

" Is it not strange that a little child should be heir to
the whole world 1 " — THOMAS TRAHERNE.

BEFORE I begin the task which I have set
myself, I must say a few words in introduction
and apology. There has been a great deal
said about the immorality and general in-
efficiency of what is called the Public School
system and " tradition." This culminated in
that popular book by Mr. Alec Waugh
called The Loom of Youth.

I do not pretend that Public Schools are
ideal, but I do assert the grand old system can
be, and is being, reformed, without obliteration.

THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

I do not shut my eyes to criticism, but let us
have fair play. Mr. Waugh's book is not
merely a school story about his own school;
it is meant to show up the system as a whole
to the shocked eyes of the public, and the
public take it as representative of all Public
Schools. If a certain religious sect, or one
class of tradesmen were to be criticised and
campaigned against in the Press, the battle
would surely not be one-sided ; yet the Public
Schools are going through a very heavy time
of criticism, and though between them they
must publish a couple of hundred journals,
little or nothing was said in defence for quite
a year. More books were written against
us. Still little or no defence.

Then at last — from Eton — came a plucky
attempt to show the public the other side. I
refer to Mr. Martin Browne's A Dream oj
Youth. That is all. I therefore think that
another attempt will not be entirely fruitless,

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 3

so I, who love my school, write this little
book.

Now you may naturally ask, who am I to do
this ? I do not intend to tell you the name
of my school. For one thing, this may be
unworthy of her, because, of course, it is bound
to be in some ways a picture of her; and
further, it may be detrimental to her.

A Dream of Youth, while giving valu-
able suggestions on the educational and re-
ligious sides, does not say much concerning
what I believe to be the key to the system —
the prefectorial basis.

I believe that if a fair view of our side is to
be written, it must be written by one who has
been, or is, at a Public School. Now if the
writer is to be an Old Boy, he will be biassed
either by the happy or unhappy memories of
his schooldays. So the only solution seems to
be the one which Mr. Martin Browne found —
that it must be written from the heart of a

4 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Public Schoolboy still at school and enveloped
in the system, which condition I fulfil. I
have no claim higher than any other to write,
except that I am a prefect, and that I have
thought a great deal about the question since
The Loom of Youth appeared. My claim
is simply this : that against all the attacks
only one little reply has yet been written,
and no other seems forthcoming. Is it that
Tublic Schools are too far gone to be saved,
or even to know the day of their visitation ?
Is it that they treat the attacks with scorn ?
I think the reason is simply that every one
expects some one else to do it. If any Public
Schoolboy reads this and thinks I have not
done him credit, by all means let him write
something better, for The Loom of Youth
is difficult to beat.

The general impression made upon one who
reads books like The Loom of Youth and
Loose Ends is briefly this —

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 5

" The Head is a pig-headed conservative ;
the Masters either disinterested nobodies
or fools, who suppress individuality. The
prefects are indolent, unjust, self-satisfied, and
addicted to much swearing and immorality
(more often merely non-morality). They are
either bad examples or no examples at all,
with a few rare exceptions, who are therefore
unpopular. The bloods as a whole love only
games, are freethinkers (or non -thinkers)
by religion. The fags and the rank and file
make tin gods of the Games Captains, despise
the other prefects (rightly, too, if this is all
true), especially clever ones ; and their only
moral talk is games. All work is an abomi-
nation ; art, literature, music, are ' sloppy
tosh, all right for girls.' Lastly, all possess
a curious code of honour which tolerates
fraudulent, lying excuses, but not sneaking."

I for one think this is a scandalous libel
unless it is true. Neither Mr. Alec Waugh

6 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

nor any of his supporters have actually put
all that down in so many words, but between
them it is all clearly implied. Unless it is a
true picture it is not fair that the public
should have it. Then it rests on the question,

Is it, or is it not true ? I am perfectly con-

•

vinced it is false, and that is why I write.
By some I may be accused of copying ideas
from A Dream of Youth. I plead guiltless
of this, and though in some cases my views are
honoured by the fact that they coincide, most
are quite new to printer's ink.

To make my aim quite clear, it is not
to deny the sins and imperfections of Public
Schoolboys, but it is to show, partly, how
exaggerated and distorted they have been ;
and, in the second place, to show that the sins
of boyhood can originate elsewhere.

Now why is it that if a boy develops
a good taste, say for music, it is at once
put down to heredity, and people say of him,

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 7

" He takes after his mother " ; yet, suppose he
develops a bad taste, say for falsehood or
impurity, quite a different tale is told ? It is
put down to a school friend, or the school
itself, or the " Public School system " in
general.

Are all parents perfect? Do not immoral
men and women even have sons whom they
send to Public Schools ? If so, then surely
some Public Schoolboys must be the sons
of immoral parents, or irreligious parents,
or lying parents. That is mere logic. It
must not be taken for granted that every
Public Schoolboy comes from a good home, or
that he has an immaculate line of ancestors.
I am not trying to put all the sins of
Public Schoolboys on to their parents, but
I feel (and know of some cases) that some
boys do inherit bad qualities (besides physical
imperfections) from their parents, as well as
good ones, and that there must be nothing

8 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

overlooked when one is considering the
morale of schools.

Now as concerning irreligion, for instance,
the fault very often lies at home, as we shall
see when we discuss this point later on. If
people with irreligious homes have sons, whom
they send to school, it is reasonable to say
that some boys must come from irreligious
homes. Another cause lies in the opposite
extreme. Up to the age of twelve, very often
a boy is given more religion than he can
swallow. He is made to go to long services
and listen to tedious and prosy preachers ; or
perhaps Sunday, instead of being a happy
day, is made boring, and even hateful to the
memory by hundreds of pharisaical bye-laws.
When the boy gets away, the reaction sets in,
and he regards Sundays as some men regard
" Saturday nights."

The sins of boyhood, then, are not all due
to bad influence at school, but partly due

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 9

to heredity or home influence. Far greater,
however, is the charge we must lay at the
door of Britannia herself, as representing the
state of mind and social conditions of our
great country. Let me take an example.
What a splendid invention is the cinema !
What an opportunity for education ! What
an opportunity for raising the standard of
mind of some classes, who refuse to see
why they are not worthy of the Public School !
And the opportunity is thrown away. The
cinema caters for the low, and drags the high
down to its level. The children of the poorer
classes, members of the future generation, who
will possibly wield more power than old
Public Schoolboys, spend hours in cinemas.
They have no toys or books, and are only
too grateful for some amusement which is,
incidentally, cheap. It is only natural that
they should take their ideas from what they
see at the "pictures." Scores of juvenile

io THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

crimes were put down to cinema influence,
and some of the most flagrant films stopped.
But nearly all of the films of to-day are
" shilling shockers," meant to excite the
imagination (and which also incite the pas-
sions), and are always full of crime, especially
adultery. Personally, cinemas bore me, but
to those whom they do not bore (and those
are hundreds of thousands), or who go because
they can go nowhere else, the great harm
done is obvious. Of course the same may be
applied to "threepenny bloods" or " penny
dreadfuls."

I repeat that I do not think that schools
are blameless for the low morale of some boys,
but in the first place I think the blame is very
largely due to the home, and even more
largely to the nation, and this must be borne
in mind when considering the subject fairly.
I believe that if schools are as bad as the
picture I gave you above, still there may be

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM n

hope for the system, though I should vote
for abolition. But the schools are not as bad
as that, in spite of handicaps like the ones
I have just mentioned, and are not out of
date, though they need, and can stand, change
and reform.

CHAPTER II

FAGS

" Praised be adversity ! It tarnishes the vile, but
gives polish to the noble. I was a mere mass of iron
when adversity forged me into a sword, and the
vicissitudes of fortune gave to my edge a free career."

KIRWASH,

I FEEL rather puzzled as to the best way of
arranging my chapters, but it seems evident
that this is the place for some remarks on
"prep, school" boys, the material out of
which the Public Schools have to make men,
and some remarks on new boys, and a few on
the fagging system.

First, then, the prep, schoolboy. He is not
guilty of immorality, because he is not
physically or mentally old enough to under-

12

FAGS 13

stand. As a rule, however, he has an
equivalent, which is common to young animals
as well — an element of vulgarity. Though he
may be very " straight," yet at times he will
be very amused at anything disgusting. He
is not, however, conscious of anything wrong,
because he is not generally ashamed of it, and
does it at home.

This trait is merely Nature again, and it
does not necessarily lead to anything.

The prep, schoolboy is as a rule rather
selfish, because he is swollen- headed. If he
is a year older than a friend, and therefore
learns a certain fact a year earlier, he will turn
round and accuse that same friend of arrant
stupidity ! Some prep, schools have " pre-
fects " or the equivalent. It may be a good
idea, but it leads to swollen-headedness. A
boy of thirteen is not old enough to rule, and
when he goes to a Public School he finds
it hard to obey. One thing may be noticed,

14 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

which rather shows a strange sense of the
proportion of sin — he never swears.

What of the new boy ? Of course real
bullying, that is to say cruelty such as one
reads of in Tom Broivris Schooldays, is a
thing of the past. A Flashman is rare. Yet
a new boy goes through a mill of feeling a
fool and a nobody. That is a charge brought
against the Public Schools, not by people like
Alec Waugh, who have been to them, but by
armchair critics and "reformers," and by
ladies as a whole. The Socialist denounces
both the unofficial suppression of the new
boys and the official system of fagging as of
a past age, because it is the " big boys bossing
the younger ones " ! All should be equal.
Imagine two to five hundred boys, of ages
ranging from thirteen to nineteen, of varying
intelligence and strength, and of varying
influence and experience, all being equal ! No
respect for age, talent or strength should be

FAGS IS

shown, except that there should be a few
monitors (" prefect " is too autocratic a word)
to see that rules are kept. That is what
some Socialists ask for. I have myself had
an argument on the subject with some. As
it stands, the system is a social ladder, its
" classes " regulated by various considerations
such as age, form, teams, and length of time
at the school. At school there are many
prizes to win — form prizes, team caps, prefect-
ships, etc. — and those who have passed through
the mill and have won things, and have gained
influence and experience, pass up the rungs.
After all, the Public School system is not
primarily mere knowledge-stuffing or games-
playing. It is a great combination of aims,
which can be described only by one word —
LIFE. In any life the beginners must go
through a mill of education; either birth,
money or talent (according to the age and the
country) comes to the fore; leaders are

1 6 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

produced. So it is in this wonderful life
which is called the Public School "system."
New boys are generally subject to a lot
of ragging. In different schools, different
things happen. So it is in after-life. A new
cadet at Osborne, a new member of the gun-
room, a new clerk in an office or a fresher at
the 'Varsity — all are " broken in." I suppose
it is the same at girls' schools, though the
methods employed may be different. Take
the case of a boy of thirteen from a private
school. He is now a member of a Public
School. His head is too big for his cap, and
his feet for his boots, because he was in the
cricket- eleven, or a " prefect," or top of that
school. He has got to fit in with the school,
and to realise that such honours gained in a
" dame's or prep, school " are of little worth
in the great life before him — in short, that he
is only a " kid." He has got to be " broken
in." It is no use saying to him, " You

FAGS 17

know, dear, you must bear in mind that all
your greatness at your prep, school won't
count here. You are only a little boy of
thirteen and you must remember that. Try
to behave yourself."

There is one tradition here, which I will
give you for what it is worth, trusting you
will not misjudge it. Every now and again,
when there are a good many people who
are not school prefects, but who are next door
to it, and are obviously near the office, and
who have influence through being high up
in form or in the team, and are in the senior
studies, a few will form a " Press Gang."
They suppress such people as I have described
above, either by a good dressing-down, or
forcibly with a gym. -shoe. It is not bullying ;
people on the verge of prefectship have a
reputation to keep. I can say that as a new
boy I may have been bullied, but I never

looked upon the above as bullies.
c

1 8 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

The spirit of the tradition is well described
by a little incident that happened once to one
such body. The prisoner was an arrogant
American good-for-nothing, who created a
scene, shouting, <f You aren't prefects ; what
right have you got to do this ? "

" No, we are not prefects," was the reply,
" but we are the senior people of this school,
and we don't see why a little skunk like you
should go about as if you owned the whole
place."

" Four to one. You call that fair ? British
boys are cads."

" It is not a case of four to one at all ; the
tone and traditions of this place are to be
upheld, not to be altered by you. Wait until
you've done something worth swanking
about."

If new boys had their own sweet way and
no discipline, the tone of a school would soon
descend. I remember hearing a lady say to a

FAGS 19

noisy little boy in the same hotel, " One day
you will go to a Public School, where they will
turn a silly little boy into a fine man."

Now for the official system of fagging.
This, more than anything else, helps to find for
a boy his proper place. There is nothing
servile or unworthy of a gentleman in this.
Slavery is dishonourable, but service is hon-
ourable. Ask a fag whether he feels servile.
Many feel rather honoured doing an errand
for a prefect they like or admire. Most, of
course, object to washing up prefectorial
crockery when coated with sardines and
treacle, but not because they object to the
system. Unless boys can be trusted, and are
given more responsibility and privileges as
they grow older, they will go out into the
world irresponsible, and fagging, while teaching
juniors to obey, teaches seniors to rule. A
bad prefect has admirable opportunities for
bullying, you may say. On the other hand,

20 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

a good prefect has admirable opportunities for
helping. After all, the whole system very
largely depends on the prefects, so I am going
to give them a chapter to themselves later on.
I have never met any one who, on looking
back on fagging days, possibly chequered by
unhappy incidents, has not said, " It jolly well
did me good." To quote the Eastern sage
again, " I was a mere mass of iron when
adversity forged me into a sword, and the
vicissitudes of fortune gave to my edge a
free career/'

CHAPTEK III

' THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM '

" It is God that girdeth me with strength of war, and
maketh my ways perfect. He maketh my feet like
harts' feet, and setteth me up on high. He teacheth my
hands to fight, and mine arms shall break even a bow of
steel." — PSALMS.

THE greatest accusation brought against the
Public Schools is one of " Philistinism/' and
the worship of "the Tin God of Athleticism."
This is not groundless, but exaggerated. The
average boy in a prep, school likes games above
anything else. That is Nature again. Lambs,
pups, kittens, all young, love games as do
children. They play instinctively, moreover
they are taught to play before they learn to
read and write. The average fag, a boy about
thirteen or fourteen say, puts pleasure first;
he loves games more than work. That is the

21

22 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

age when he is growing most, and only
naturally seeks to find outlet for his energies
in things physical. At that age, more than at
any other, he should be allowed plenty of
freedom for games and for developing his
strength. Let him be prouder of winning a
race than of beating a rival in form if he so
wishes. Athletics will probably keep him
straighter than too much book-worming and
indoor work.1 Let him admire the members of
the team if worthy of it. Strength is one of
the greatest gifts that Nature gives to Youth.
Loose Ends tries to prove that every boy
strives to be normal and to talk of nothing
but games — to read only the sporting columns
of the daily papers ; and that he ranks a poetry
reader as a " madder." The Loom of Youth
makes a boy care for nothing but House
Matches. The book ends a tragedy. As

1 As Joe Beckett, the boxing champion, informed the
leading Free Churchman who condemned boxing.

<THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM* 23

Gordon Carruthers looks on his old school,
from the window of the train, he seems to feel
the same of school life as the unknown
preacher did of life as a whole : " Vanity of
vanities, all is vanity."

Loose Ends, further, tries to prove that
although a boy may go to school with some
love of the artistic, it is knocked out of him.
The bloods despise it, and so on. This is not
true of Eton — as Mr. Martin Browne shows —
nor of many other places, including this one.
The average fag, perhaps, rather despises
literature, and puts those who like it in a
category with the feminine sex. Music
(especially in the choir, it seems here) bores
him. But this is utterly untrue of the middle
and upper form boys, as a whole. How is it
that one of the greatest Public Schools, the
pioneer of football, publishes a literary
magazine, besides its school chronicle, run by
some of the Sixth Form, who are, incidentally,

24 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

ipso facto, prefects ? That paper, I am told,
lias a good circulation. Again, how is it that
many, if not most, Public Schools have a
Literary Society, which is not totally despised
by those bloods who have athletic reputations
to keep up, nor by prefects who hope to keep
order (though I do not deny that many wise
young fags' heads may wag sadly at them) ?

Do not most school magazines have a fair
share of aspiring poets and writers ? Can it
be that in every case they are from the pen
of despised " madders " and bookworms ? Do
not most schools possess debating, musical,
or dramatic societies, or photographic clubs ?
In the face of all this, can it be said that we
only live for games, that we worship " the Tin
God of Athleticism " ?

No loom can prevent youth liking higher
things, even the artistic and the musical. Yet
it is "proved" (sic) that our god, this tin
god, bans religion, literature, art and music.

*THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM1 25

Games may come first with most of us, but
athletics do not crowd everything out. I have
known Games Captains who were also poets and
musicians in a modest way, others to whom
religion was the greatest living force, and
others who were fond of good books. I do not
think these are exceptional, or that this school
is different from all others.

Maddox, the athlete in David Blaize,
loved books. Gordon Carruthers loved The
Oxford Book of English Verse. The hero of
Loose Ends loves books, only he is ashamed of
it, because it seems to him unnatural at school.

The substitution for games of corps work
does not seem to me to be a very happy thing.
I will not say much about it, as I do not wish
to be thought unpatriotic or a pacifist. What
is Army discipline meant to teach ? (I am not
including gym. and Swedish drill.) Primarily
self-control, obedience, and the feeling that
one is but a unit in the whole. A well-known

26 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Head Master once said that boys get more
benefit from games. It does not need Army
discipline to teach self-control and obedience.
As for the feeling that one is but a unit in the
whole, is not the charge brought against Public
Schools that of producing a type ? Army drill
tends to suppress the energies of youth. We
are not yet men. Rugby football brings out
self-control, obedience, courage, and a hundred
other manly qualities without in any way
suppressing one's spirits.

There is also the charge of double authority.
Feuds have arisen in high places here between
N.C.O.'s who were not prefects and school
prefects who were privates or junior N.C.O.'s
in the Corps. A kind of " tit-for-tat " broke
out. That is a very bad thing. One O.C.
actually tried to prohibit prefects who were
not N.C.O.'s employing fags on days when
in uniform. If, on the other hand, N.C.O.'s
had to be chosen only from prefects, the

'THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM' 27

efficiency of the Corps might have been
impaired.

I think I have placed a pretty fair view of
athleticism before the reader — the necessity of
it for younger boys, and the combination of
that with higher things for senior ones. I am
not at all biassed on this subject, because,
though not a " bookworm," I have no school
colours. I have played for the First Fifteen,
and am in my House football and running
teams ; that is all.

If some boys live for nothing but for
athletics, then it is simply because " work" is
not made interesting. Is it not natural that a
boy should like and learn what he is interested
in ? For instance, I should enjoy an hour of
football more than an hour of mathematics;
but, on the other hand, I should enjoy an hour
of history, or perhaps classics, more than an
hour of cricket.

Should games be compulsory ? Some boys

28 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

who dislike football learn to hate and even
dread it. But if compulsion is the general
rule for football it leads to many advantages.
First of all, every one gets good exercise, even
the slacker, in football. Secondly, it ensures
that part of the half is spent in a healthy
way. In the third place, it gives the school
itself more chance of getting the best men
for her team.

I must not say all I think against cricket,
or I shall alienate and prejudice some of my
readers. I will say this much, that if at
about the age of fifteen-and-a-half a boy is
quite hopeless at the game, he is doing more
harm than good. Cricket takes up five hours
to one of football ; and five hours is a long time
for people who dislike the game, besides the fact
that it handicaps the more promising players.

Until recently most Public Schools have
banned tennis, although tennis is probably
the only game really useful in after-life. Of

'THE TIN GOD OF ATHLETICISM' 29

course tennis as an alternative to cricket
would probably mean the death of cricket,
because small boys would not give cricket a
trial. But for those who have reached an
age when cricket is obviously not any amuse-
ment, I plead for tennis.

Now that he has heard the other side of
the tale about our "tin God of Athleticism"
the reader can judge for himself whether or
not it has been exaggerated ; and then let
us have criticism — but in criticism fair play.
In closing I should like to remind you of a
poem by a present-day poet, called " Vitai
Lampada," of which the last verse is —

'This is the word that year by year,

While in her place the School is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,

And none that hears it dare forget;
This they all with a joyful mind

Bear through life like a torch of flame,
And falling fling to the host behind —
' Play up ! play up ! and play the game ! ' '

HENRY NEWBOLT.

CHAPTER IV

THE ROMANTIC SIDE

"Youth wants colour, life, passion, the poetry of revolt."

ALEC WAUGH.

I CANNOT proceed further without trying
to say a few words on the romantic side of
school life. There must be some good reason
for the fact that we all, with few exceptions,
get such happiness out of it. Though as
small children boys may dislike school, it
is wonderful how the Old Boy of a Public
School loves his school, and is invariably loyal
to her. A boy's career at school is not merely
educational routine, the return for so many
pounds, shillings and pence a year paid by his
parents. His school gives him far more than is
paid for. He does not actually pay for all his

happiness, or for friendships. We do not really

30

THE ROMANTIC SIDE 31

know ourselves why we love our school,
because the love is unconscious; we never
talk about it till we have left. It is only
rarely that we stop and try to think out why
we get so much joy from it. Do you know
the feeling one gets when one walks through
an orchard in the full bloom of spring, or
under the first leaves of the year, or by the
first flowers of approaching summer? It is
an inexpressible feeling of perfect freshness
mingled with infinite joy. There is none of
the sweltering heat of summer, or the sad
fading of leaves and whistling of winds which
autumn brings, or the drear sight of death-
like winter. Likewise is the youth, too, of
the animal kingdom and of human nature.

The feeling of growth, physical and mental,
of increasing energy, knowledge and strength,
the hundreds of things we see and hear and
do for the first time, make this part of our
lives one of the happiest. The knowledge

32 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

that we are getting wiser every day, and the
feeling of the immense, busy world all around
us is so wonderful, and bracing, and interest-
ing ; we are all so hopeful, so full of promise ;
our paths have not yet, as a general rule,
been crossed by sorrow, shame or failure.
We are full of hope and ambition, some to
be bishops and chancellors, others officers, or
engineers, or inventors; some again to be
county cricketers, explorers, farmers, and
countless other things. In chapel sometimes
I have looked round and tried to picture
some of those present in after-life. Who
will be greatest among them? What sort
of people will their wives and children be?
and so on. Life for the young is a Great
Adventure ; and experience, as Tennyson puts
it, is "an arch," through which we see still
more and more as we go on. Boys seldom
go into outward raptures over a pretty view.
The most said may be "Jolly fine/' partly

THE ROMANTIC SIDE 33

because it seems so natural to them ; they
are as much a part of Spring as the blossom
and leaves. In every one of them is an
innate love for the beautiful, however much
it is camouflaged or hidden. One of our Old
Boys, whenever he comes down, goes out into
the cricket-fields and looks at the view.
" Do you know," he said to me once, " I think
that view is perfectly wonderful." I was
so used to it that I had not thought much
about it. It is rather like a framed picture.
A ridge of downs, ending in cliffs, forms the
frame to an exquisite inset, of a marsh, with
the green football-fields jutting out into it,
and on the left the hills, with green copses
and green and yellow fields. "When I am
away in the trenches I conjure up that view,
it is so glorious," he said. It sounds rather
commonplace, but it illustrates what I mean.
He is a priest now. Once I asked him to
" prove God." He took that view, as it were,

D

34 ',THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

as his text. "Doesn't that strengthen your
faith?" he said. "Who but some Being
infinitely greater than we could have planned
all that ? Don't you think that the Creator
of that must be some great Personality, that
all could not merely have evolved, purpose-
lessly ? " He went on to show that the
Personality must be a God of love, and that
led to the story of the Gospel.

A boy of fourteen or fifteen, far from being
the soulless animal that some people suppose
him to be, has a very highly developed sense
of the romantic. All his troubles, which are
really trifling, so that he soon forgets them,
are magnified to him and appear great.
Soulless ? At that age perhaps more than at
any other does he strive to win the friendship
of those he loves or admires. He may not
talk about them, but it is all very real and
large to him. Stereotyped? It is not true
of this place. It is surprising what may be
hid under an exterior perhaps rough or timid

THE ROMANTIC SIDE 35

or "ordinary." A great many of us try to
write poetry, crude perhaps, but the spirit is
there. A boy who does so, again, will not
talk about it. On one or two occasions,
however, such poems as these have been
shown to me in confidence, since I have been
a prefect, sometimes with a view to insertion
in the school magazine, sometimes not. They
have always been from the pens of boys very
keen on athletics. I have here one I was
given once, which was written by a boy just
on fifteen — a good gymnast, whom one might
not have suspected of poetic tendencies, a
fact which rather brings out the point of this
chapter. He was describing a walk in the
woods with a friend when he says —

"I said, 'midst many other things,
That we were happy as two kings.
And he to this at once agreed,
And said we should be ever freed
To live away up in the hills,
Away from all, and from all ills,
Until our lives be spent."

36 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

There is nothing wonderful, or out of the
way, or precocious in those lines, but they
do show the simple, sincere poetry of youth.

The Public School system, as represented
here, at all events, does not stifle this spirit,
but, if anything, fosters it. Life in a large
school is a very big affair. In a prep, school
boys have to be kept fairly tied up, but in
big schools there is enough scope for each
to live his own life, full of events, happiness,
disappointments. One poet — I forget which —
describes it in the happy phrase, " The joy,
the tears, of boyhood's years/'

One day we shall all grow old ; I shall grow
old, and I wonder what memories will be
conjured up when I think of my life here.
There will be memories of fagging days, and
various escapades; of football, first hated,
then loved ; of chapel services and the organ
on which I learned ; of debates and recitals ;
of study feuds and fun, and study teas ; of my

THE ROMANTIC SIDE 37

days as a prefect, the amusing and the sad
things that happened ; and memories of many
friends and countless other people who all
seemed so different, and peculiar in their own
way.

Perhaps by then the Public School tradi-
tions will have been swept away. Public
opinion seems to be growing against us.
This means a growing reason for my writing
this, my best effort to state what I sincerely
feel to be the truth.

Taste is largely a matter of environment.
If Britannia gives her young sons hundreds of
thousands of trashy novels, which lack both
creative genius and good expression, she must
expect her sons to get used to them. I
do not plead for Dickens and George Eliot
necessarily. Why ram fruits of a past age
down a boy's throat? After all Victorian
literature is not very easy reading. There are,
however, a host of books written by modern

38 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

writers more becoming a boy than either
Thackeray or a " threepenny blood."7

The same applies to music. Some people
imagine that we at school cannot appreciate
" classical " music. If one only hears ragtimes,
naturally one's taste is not cultivated. I know
that most boys seem to love good music when
they are given the chance of hearing it.

The same again applies to good pictures.

To sum up, Mr. Alec Waugh says, " Youth
wants colour, life, passion." What is more,
he can hardly fail to obtain it, if Nature is
allowed to develop. Experience will in time
show him what is true colour, clean life, and
pure passion. The following is from a poem
to a fallen school friend written for the
School Magazine —

"The beauty of your heart, untainted, young,
Ingenuous — you knew not yet the grime
And mud of life — and innocent for a time,
With open gaze and undinled tongue."

CHAPTEE V

MORALS— (l) HONOUR, BAD LANGUAGE

" Once to every man and nation comes the moment to

decide,
In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or

evil side;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward

stands aside,

Doubting in his abject spirit till his Lord is crucified."

LOWELL.

LET us turn from this last picture, some-
what idealistic, to a consideration of the
morals of the Public Schools. If you were to
think of even your best friend, and were to
magnify his faults and pettinesses, without
raising his good points to the same proportion,
you would be very liable to come to a con-
clusion quite unworthy of him and unfair to
him. So it is that if one takes hold of the

39

40 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Public School " code of honour," and makes a
great deal of the cribbing and the lying and
the swearing that goes on, then the verdict
would be very detrimental to that code of
honour. This has been the case lately.

A boy must be trusted if he is to grow up
trustworthy. For example, take him as a little
child. Unless he is allowed to walk alone and
then go out alone, how can he be expected ever
to be able to look after himself ? There are risks.
He may fall and break his ankles, he may
be kidnapped, or he may be run over. Use
that as an analogy. Trust a boy's honour.
There are risks here. He may make a slip
and break his word, he may be completely
carried away by self-interest, or he may fall
under some bad habits. Those risks must be
taken. One can only learn by experience,
and experience is often bitter. If a boy falls
one must not let him be like a dog with a bad
name.

The "code of honour" centres round one

MORALS— (I] HONOUR, BAD LANGUAGE 41

great principle, that of never betraying
another, be he friend or enemy. This may be
overdone ; all principles are liable to become
prejudices. There are times when it might be
profitable if a friend did give another away.
Those cases must be sacrificed for the general
principle. Unless one's honour is founded on
some fundamental principle there is no trusting
it. The fact that a schoolboy's honour, for
good or evil, depends on the system of never
giving another away, makes it worthy of the
name, and trustworthy. I do not know
whether a boy is supposed to be more trust-
worthy than a girl of the same age. If so, I
think it can be accounted for by the fact that
the boy lives up to his principles of never
telling on another, whereas a girl has no such
staple principle in her " code." It is not the
nature of every boy to live up to this principle.
It is part of the Public School traditions.
Take the case of a street-boy captured in a raid
on a college cricket-ground. When once he

42 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

is captured, and can no longer carry on some
underhand warfare, such as guerilla stone-
throwing, he breaks out into, "I never done
nothing ; it was him over there. I'll tell
mother. I'll have a policeman after you. It
wasn't me." Ten to one his pockets are full
of stones, but in either case it illustrates my
point. He has no such standard of honour.
If once this principle were broken down, my
Head Master once said, the whole social fabric
(i. e. of school life) would go.

Coupled with this, you may argue, is the
principle of never telling on himself, in other
words, of not owning up. This is unfair. There
are various reasons for this. He may be a
coward, or it might be involving the betrayal
of another. We saw just now that in some
cases the principle seems overdone. Another
reason is the boy's love of exactitude when
dealing with truth. Suppose a master were
to ask who threw a certain bit of paper on the
floor. No answer. The culprit, we will say,

MORALS— (f) HONOUR, BAD LANGUAGE 43

placed it there. That is quibbling, deceit,
lying ? Yes, it is, and yet it is not, because
he was not, most likely, consciously acting a
falsehood when he refused to own up when
asked who threw it. Great ingenuity is often
shown in this direction. Of course it is a
mistaken and distorted point of view, but the
point is that in a good many cases when our
" code of honour " is attacked it is misunder-
stood.

Public Schools are said to be hotbeds of
bad language, that is, either foul, or mere
swearing. They probably are, most of them.
It is, however, absurd to blame the system for
it. I think the fact of a school being, or not
being, a hotbed of bad language may depend
largely on the prefects, but in any case from
where does it come ? Certainly not from the
home, as a rule. It is true that boys do pick
up bad language at school.

A great many people have an extraordinary
idea as to what swearing is. It originally

44 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

meant giving an oath by some god or other,
I believe. So-called swearing now consists
very largely in prefixing some word, mean-
ingless by long misuse (generally an unrecog-
nisable derivative), to give force to a statement.
Is swearing a sin ? Personally I regard it not
so much as crime, but as a meaningless, weak
habit, ungentlemanly (therefore un- Christian)
— nothing more nor less. Many people classify
words ranging in strength from " bother"
to " d — n," some as harmless ejaculations,
others as swear words, which is farcical.
Words of either class are fairly equal in mean-
ing; as often they mean nothing at all, not
even loss of temper, but are not unlike so many
particles which Greek authors seem to enjoy
strewing about their sentences. Now which
of these two statements is really swearing,
" Oh, blast it ! " or " Oh, good Lor' ! " ? The
former is considered swearing, the latter
is even used in society. This shows how
ridiculous it is, trying to classify words into

MORALS-(T) HONOUR, BAD LANGUAGE 45

harmful and harmless, because the second
of these two examples is, if you carefully
examine it, swearing in its true sense, as
are also " Good heavens ! " and " Good
gracious ! " both considered harmless.

For the sake of argument we will call
words classified as " swear words " and
" undesirable " bad language. Whence is
this ? You cannot blame the Public Schools
for it, because their whole principle is
freedom. You therefore cannot legislate on
a boy's language. You must simply trust him.
I think a lot of it comes from novels and
magazines, and that the habit was accentuated
by our millions of fighting men in the late
war. If he is told it is wrong, a boy will
probably think it rather grand, like smoking
and drinking, " which grown-up men do."
If he looks upon it as a weak habit merely,
and as a sign of lack of self-control and
inability to express oneself, he will be more
likely to despise it. It is always such a

46 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

mistake to be shocked. Boys rather enjoy
shocking people ; for myself I love shocking
people who are very prim and proper. It
is no use saying it is "wicked," because he
knows it is not wicked. Simply show him
it is weak, and distinctly bad form, and he is
more likely to chuck it up. The following
lines, never before published, give a beautiful
ideal for a boy to hold in regard to his
morality : —

MY HOUSE

" I have to guard this house of mine —

Not mine, but His — and see
No wily foe doth enter in
And spoil, thro' treachery.

" I have to watch, when, soon or late,

My Lord calls me away,

I may with joy resign to Him

This little house of clay."

ANNE HOOD.

CHAPTEK VI

MORALS — (ll) IMPURITY

" When you have a mind to sin, seek for a place
where God cannot see you." — Eastern Saying.

WHEN considering the worst form of sin
to which a boy can descend, I should like the
reader to have in his mind the beautiful
picture I tried to give you in Chapter IV.
of Youth as it should be. Think of the
spring, with its freshness and joy, then of
a boy, happy, poetic, strong, full of promise.
Think then of the phase of impurity, through
which, in some form or another, either of
thought, word or deed, most of us pass,
as something to be written in brackets, a
parenthesis. I do not deny the accusation
of impurity in Public Schools, though, judging

47

48 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

by this school, and many others I know,
the evidence, I should say, has been greatly
magnified. I want to suggest a few of its
causes, and how to deal with it, as it strikes
me. Again I say the blame is at Britannia's
door. Is the present moral tone of England
such as would be conducive to a high moral
tone in schools ? If the reader thinks it
is, he might spare himself continuing this
chapter. The cinemas, the revues, the novels,
the divorce court reports in almost every
newspaper — yes, there are many more things
I could add, Britannia — consider them, and
then answer my first question : Is the moral
tone of modern England conducive to a
high moral tone in schools ? Is a boy to
be blamed for going to cinemas provided
for him, or reading law court reports with
enticing headings? Add to this the general
atmosphere of women who wear freak fashions.
Is a boy then, after all that, to be blamed for

MORALS— (IT] IMPURITY 49

thinking that the value of purity and impurity
are not as the value of gold and dross, but
that it matters little which is chosen ?

As many, I think, fall through ignorance as
through what they see or hear. So many
parents forget or refuse to tell a boy what
he ought to know about himself. They may
possibly fear that he might think about
it too much. A fatal mistake. He has to
know all sooner or later. It is surely better
that he should be told at the hands of his
mother than by a schoolmaster ; a mother or
a father has the same flesh and blood. So
many, myself included, have been left to find
out these sacred, wonderful workings of
Nature for themselves. It means that a
boy gets hold of half the truth, and tries to
build up the other half by puzzling it out,
by observation, or, still worse, arguing with
another. Thus does he spend more thought
than perhaps his parents imagined they had

50 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

saved him. I always think at Confirmation
is a good time for a boy to be told what
he does not know, but only if he is confirmed
at about thirteen. Unfortunately the
tendency at schools is to confirm at fifteen
or sixteen, and to warn a boy against
temptations that have already attacked him,
and to offer him Spiritual Food to strengthen
him in the struggle in which he is already
being beaten ! It is like offering first aid too
late.

I refer you to A Dream of Youth for
a beautifully written chapter on this difficult
subject, because there it is set forth in a
better way than I can ever hope to do it.

Another cause is the complete reverse
of the last one. Many boys are told it all
and this added : " Impurity will do you great
harm, it will sap your strength of mind and
body. One day you hope to have a family ;
this will ruin all hopes of it. Besides, it

MORALS— (77) IMPURITY 51

is very wrong, and altogether dangerous.7'
I want to quote A Dream of Youth
twice. One passage, to do with this idea
of trying to frighten boys, is this : " We are
told it is dangerous. Well, that alone would
drive any self-respecting boy to it. If we
funked anything dangerous, we should never
look ourselves in the face again. If they
would tell us that God has entrusted us with
a power to keep for the future, that would
make all the difference. If a boy is trusted
lie always rises to the trust" (The italics are
mine.) It goes on to say that if a boy is given
the idea that he is fighting a great foe for
a great triumph it will work miracles, and that,
instead of commonsense warnings, he should
have personal sympathy and lofty inspiration.
It is just the same with smoking. Boys
are always told it will make them ill, and
so on. Boys are fully aware that the dangers
are very exaggerated, to frighten them. Few

52 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

feel sick in real life after their first cigarette.
Another way must be found.

Gathering from what I have heard of
schools forty years ago, they now show
a marked improvement in this direction.
Impurity is, as a rule, I think, kept secret,
whereas it used to be an open scandal. Of
course it makes it harder for those in authority,
whether masters or prefects, to fight against
it. Still boys are given wrong reasons for
keeping pure. On this is my second quotation
from A Dream of Youth. A boy thinks
that " impurity is condemned by authority,
and is therefore probably rather fun ; that the
people who are obviously pure are generally
dreadful prigs . . . that the time when the
price . . . will be paid is a long way off," and
therefore it is worth while trying it. They
little see that instead of being rather brave on
a risky adventure they are " doubting in
their abject spirit till their Lord is crucified."

MORALS-(II) IMPURITY 53

I once heard a Good-Friday sermon which I
shall never forget, because the idea expressed
in it was new to me. Instead of thinking how
the Jews of old crucified our Lord, we should
take the words, " Verily we are indeed guilty
concerning our brother," and see that, as it
was for us in A.D. 1919 as much as for
those in A.D. 29 that our Lord died, we
are to blame every time we sin, as much as
they, for the murder. If we were to remem-
ber that, when we were tempted, and the
suffering of the Passion, we might stop and
think.

The fact that immorality exists in Public
Schools may be the fault of a good many
people, of parents and masters in some cases,
as we have seen. In any case the system
itself can hardly be blamed. Are our brothers
of the " working classes " any better ? Is the
average shop-assistant or errand-boy any
better ? Could any system invented by a

54 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Soviet prevent it ? For example, at this
place it is fairly rare, and seems suddenly to
begin to be infectious, without any apparent
reason, after a lapse of terms or years.

4

If there are half a dozen cases in the House
the chances are that each is from a different
cause, not the fault of the school.

I repeat, try and think of it as a phrase
to be written in brackets. Do you know that
picture of Jesus as a Boy in the carpenter's
shop, looking up at a bright light and
holding three nails in His hand ? Forget for
the moment it is Jesus, but think of Him as
any boy before he has fallen. Look again,
and think of Him as any boy after he has
fallen, and then has seen it all in the right
light — just as beautiful as before. It is very
unfair to let a stain stick to a boy for the
remainder of his days. It is no use to be
shocked, and to shun him, and never to trust
him again. If a boy had some great sorrow,

MORALS— (If) IMPURITY 55

such as losing a relative, you would not be
continually reminding him of it. Then why
do it if he has given way to temptation ?
Is that the way to encourage him ? If he
once fell when he started off with a good
name, how much more is he liable to do
so when he starts off with a bad name ?

Take the case of a good sprinter on whom
you had pinned your faith. You had
imagined he was straight, professionally.
On one occasion he slips. Should you then
never trust him again ? Surely it is possible
for him to be as good a runner afterwards ?

Then how to deal with this. The stick?
By all means if it is the punishment for
enticing others, or if it is to warn others what
is going on. But the stick will never gain
the end required on the one concerned.
The only punishment is to convince and make
him feel thoroughly ashamed of himself, and
to give him a chance. Of course on frequent

56 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

occurrences he will have to be treated
differently; for the sake of the school he
must go, for the same reason for which a
murderer is hanged — not so much as a
punishment, but as an act of justice to the
rest of the world.

Think of a choir of beautiful trebles, and
remember that if boys fall they

"... may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."

This idea of a parenthesis cannot cover every
case, unfortunately. A certain portion of those
who fall victims to impurity, either in
thought, word or deed, do not merely pass
through a phase, but leave school without
throwing it off, and, into the bargain, leave
their bad influence behind for the generations
that follow. The world of life in which they
then plunge themselves is so full of it that the
chances are they will go from bad to worse,
and will make no attempt to "rise on the

MORALS— (If) IMPURITY 57

stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher
things."

This fact cries for a reformation somewhere ;
it denounces somebody. Who is that some-
body? Not, I think, the Public School
" system and tradition " so much as the home
and the nation, as we saw in the first chapter.
Keformation where ? In the relation of State
to citizen, of parent to child.

This fact also accentuates the peril of not
doing one's utmost, whether in the capacity
of chaplain, master, prefect or friend, to
stop impurity in schools ; or worse, of not
stopping it in the right way. To try to stop
it in the wrong way is like trying to stop a
rushing stream, instead of directing its course
to one side ; it will gain in strength and will
spread over a wider surface.

CHAPTER VII

PREFECTS

"Not for a moment can man idle sit,
But from him good or evil forces flit."

JALUDDIN RUMI.

PREFECTS in nearly every case are looked
up to and respected by those younger, from
the point of view of their very office and
authority alone. It is not all, unfortunately,
who are also looked up to and respected
because of their lives and characters. I do
not infer that a prefect should be saintlike,
but let him always remember that

" Never for a moment can he idle sit,
But from him good or evil forces flit."

Unless he lives to himself he is bound to

be in the public eye, and to be analysed,

58

PREFECTS 59

and his example followed by some. He
little knows how perhaps some boy, least
suspected, may make him the object of a
little hero worship, from some cause or
other, good or bad.

It is well-nigh impossible, from the
nature of the case, for a prefect to live to
himself. All the offices of the school, the
running of the teams and the various
societies and so- on, with a few exceptions,
centre round and in that little knot of school
or house prefects, and this, combined with
such duties as taking prep., taking dormitory,
and keeping school discipline generally, make
those prefects public men.

If this is the case, is it not a great
responsibility, and, what is more, a great
opportunity ? The majority of those who
rise to school prefectships or house prefect-
ships have no small influence in the school
in which they have risen to the top. The

60 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

fact that they are promptly obeyed, and that
their word is law, tends to obliterate the
self-consciousness of their responsibility and
opportunity. Their strength of will and
influence, which make the ordinary duties
of a prefect comparatively easy, tend to
make the duty of remembering their
incidental responsibility comparatively hard.
What do I mean by incidental responsi-
bility ? Technically speaking they are only
responsible for good order; in reality for
a great deal more. Towards the end of my
first term as a prefect there was something
of a row concerning an impromptu debate
that was held, in which about five of the
school prefects were involved. The motion
was, " That in the opinion of this House it
is better to be a king in hell than a slave
in heaven." The chaplain argued that such
was illegal, a disgrace to the society, and
very bad for the younger boys among the

PREFECTS 61

visitors. I don't think I agreed with that
point of view, but at the same time he
made a remark to those five prefects to the
effect that, as a body, we were not only too
exclusive, but were not good examples for
the school. I doubt whether any of us
admitted then the truth of the statement,
but the taunt stung me ; and ever since
then, though I make no pretence as to my
success, I have at any rate had a very
high ideal before me. The result of that
accusation, though I did not think at
the time there was really much truth in it,
has been that ever since I have often stopped
and thought how much our every action
is noticed : our characters, or some view of
them, are known to all. Boys who take
their lead from us, though they would
never own it, copy actions which we do
unthinkingly, take in statements that we
make without thought. No, they do not

62 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

own it. They think the prefects necessary
nuisances, most of them, others regard them as
officials ; but, to a large extent unconsciously,
the tone of a school is the tone of its prefects.
I once heard a very bad account of a large
Public School situated in the South of
England. I asked what the prefects were
like. " As bad as the rest," was the reply.
It is natural, it is obvious, that if the united
influence of the oldest and most influential
members of the school is bad, the tone of
the school must be bad, and vice versa. In
this there lies the great incidental re-
sponsibility of each individual prefect, and
of the whole bench. Let him remember
the tens or hundreds of boys who are at
an age when they are more easily impressed
and unconsciously influenced than he himself
is, bordering on manhood. Let him think
that among them are the future leaders of
the school, and that their characters are

PREFECTS 63

now being formed; and then let him think
how great is the value of the example of the
prefects as a whole, and of his own in
particular.

What do I mean by incidental opportunity ?
This differs from the last in being active,
as opposed to passive. The fact that a
prefect is respected, from the nature of his
office, relieves him of the necessity of
complete reserve and aloofness incumbent
upon the dignity of other seniors. One word
of encouragement from a prefect goes a long
way with a small boy, in exactly the same
way that a word of encouragement from the
captain of football or the house captain
very often works wonders with one who is
keen on his colours — he feels he must live
up to the trust, and not disappoint his
elders. In administering justice all should
be treated equally — yes, and yet in a way
all should be treated differently, because all

64 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

vary in thought and intent. That is to say,
a prefect ought to know sufficient about each
member of his house, however insignificant,
to be able to do the right thing by each
when giving punishment. This knowledge
comes by observation and common sense.
If two prefects are more or less equal in a
fag's estimation, and then one day he has
to fag for both of them, he will learn to
respect more the one who was civil to him,
and will be more willing to do things for
him, than for the one who was not. That is a
very small thing by itself, and so are all these
points, but put together they make a world
of difference.

There is no doubt too that prefects learn a
great deal from those under them. Just
before I was a prefect I used to think all fags
"beastly kids/' nuisances, in fact. Now I
have learned that one never knows what lies
behind an untidy exterior and inky collar,

PREFECTS 65

as we saw in Chapter IV. ; and one may
learn a great deal from them.

If prelects realised all this, I think it would
make them put themselves on their honour to
do themselves justice. Why, if he is worthy
of the love of his parents and relatives, should
a prefect not be loved, as well as respected, by
those under him ? Why, if it is in his power
to do so, should he not help them by his
words and actions ?

If the reader has followed the train of
thought I have endeavoured to trace through
the first seven chapters, he will realise why I
say that the key to the question as to whether a
school is moral or immoral is the morale of its
prefects.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE

" Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man,
and writing an accurate man." — FRANCIS BACON.

To my mind the truest of all the charges
brought against the Public School system are
those relative to its teaching. One must
admit the fact that if science and tennis have
taken their place beside classics and cricket,
and all schools to-day have modern sides, the
system must be credited with some spirit of
reform. The chief problem is the classics.
There was a time when the only thing taught
at schools, beside smatterings of divinity,
Euclid and history, was classics. If one
reads old school stories, all the work seems
to consist of " construes " of Greek and Latin.

66

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE 67

Nowadays boys at the most only learn
classics until they are about sixteen, and
then they specialise. There is a rivalry
between those who uphold the old classical
regime and the supporters of history and
science. I do not advocate the abolition of
classics, but the present way in which they
are taught. It is no use classical people
thinking they must fight for keeping the old
monopoly of classics ; they must adapt them-
selves to modern requirements, or go by the
board. What is the point of studying
the classics at all? The reason given by
some hard-headed classical masters to the
young who dare to ask such a question, is
that "it is excellent training for the mind."
In the first place, to use the writings and
thoughts of the great classics as mental
exercises is an insult to the writers and
thinkers concerned, and, in the second place,
it is such a very weak reason to give for the

68 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

hours spent on learning grammar, because
" excellent training for the mind " can be
more easily obtained in other directions. The
fact is, that hundreds of Third and Fourth
Form boys are forced to learn "dead
languages," which they hate, for no apparent
reason. They do not really learn the languages,
but churn up their minds with rules, excep-
tions and genders.

Surely there must be something wrong
in this. If so, what? Here we have got
mines of classical thought and philosophy, but
it is applied in such a way that boys not
only hate it, but fail to understand why they
spend as much time at it as at all the other
subjects put together.

Most of these boys will have to drop
classics, more or less entirely, when they are
sixteen, because then they have to learn
engineering, or agriculture, or something else
technical. All that the majority of them

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE 69

remember of classics is "mensa" and "amo,
amas, amat," or some gender rhyme, plus the
memory of many bitter hours. Should that
be so? Need it be so? Certainly not. If
classical masters know that a boy is going to
stop Latin and Greek at sixteen, they should
teach in such a way as to lead up to the
climax, at sixteen. There is only one way of
doing it — by a ruthless change. (This does
not, of course, apply to boys who are going
on with classics; but only to those who will
finish at sixteen.) Cut away the idea that
it is necessary to know the ins and outs, the
catches and exceptions provided in Kennedy's
Latin Primer, or to be able to construe a
sentence with six pitfalls into Latin from
a " North and Hillard" without a mistake.
All that only makes the boy hate Latin,
instead of loving it. What we want from the
classics are their romance, their poetry, their
art and history, their philosophy and ideas,

70 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

if we are to have anything. What we need,
then, is to be able to translate from Latin or
Greek to English easily and quickly, to be able
to take up a Vergil or a Homer and to read
it for pleasure. How many human boys of
sixteen, who have just finished their course
of concords, rules, exceptions, gender rhymes,
etc., in classics can translate any simple old
Latin inscription?

If only classical teachers would first think
what is the aim of learning classics — to get
hold of classical ideas, and to cultivate lofty
tastes, something that a boy will hold on to
after he leaves school — and would adapt their
teaching to that end, and none other!
Mathematics and logic can only be mathe-
matical and logical, but do not, classical
scholars, turn the study of classics into a
mathematical affair. It is the ideas we want
— the spirit, not the letter of the classics.

If boys knew that was the aim of teaching

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE 71

classics, and were allowed to pass on quickly,
with the aid, if necessary, of good translations,
to the great authors, they would get interested
—or at least many more of them would. In
writing all this I voice my own feelings, and
those of many smaller boys. Once they were
interested, they would appreciate and pick up
some of the treasures (nowadays reserved for
Classical Sixth Forms) to be found — ideas,
poetry, etc. Then, if necessary, grammar
could be taught a little, but probably boys
would have picked enough up by all this
reading. The same applies to the teaching
of modern languages. Burn most of the
grammar books, and get boys to read French
newspapers, novels and magazines. Then
they would really learn something useful to
them, should they travel, and the grammar
would come naturally, as also the ability to
write in French. Personally my French has
simply stagnated because all I am given ia

72 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

grammar (the usual lists of feminines, plurals,
and irregular verbs), and then composition
into French, instead of French newspapers
and such like.

There is only one way to teach, and one
way to learn, that will ever succeed, and
that is, through interest. If a boy who is
keen on games finds interest in classics, he
will cultivate both, but not if he gets to hate
all work.

Have we not a right to be shown the
interest of the subjects we study ?

Take History, for example. Kead The
Living Past. This is truly a revolution in
historical books. It is not, of course, the
old-fashioned type of book, divided into reigns
and centuries, or the better kind, started by
Green, divided into movements. It is history
regarded from the point of view of progress.
It begins about prehistoric people, and cave-
dwellers, and remnants of various civilisations.

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE 73

Then come more definite divisions — the
Eastern Empires ; then the great Eoman and
Greek eras. After them come the mediaeval
ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the
birth of exploration and of science, and so on.
That is true history. It is on so much
wider a scale than the conventional history
books, and gives one the idea of the whole.
I think it would interest many more, because
it includes the progress of science, and
invention, and learning, and the progress of
social conditions. All history and science
are essentially real life, in a greater way than
classics, and as opposed to mathematics.
Real life is interesting. Except for those
who are going to specialise in history, national
and European, I advocate a change similar
to the one to do with classics. For instance,
teach a boy of Erasmus and Sir Isaac Newton
before you teach him of Henry VIII. 's wives,
and of local events like the Great Fire.

74 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Teach the specialist and non-specialist
what will give him as a citizen a good idea
of the outline of progress, and an idea as to
the extent to which social conditions have so
far been bettered, and as to what is still left
for improvement. To-day the average man
remembers at school learning "William I —
1066," and that, on the whole, it was fairly
interesting.

One master here used to make his form
jot down the chief events of each day as
depicted in The Times. That is a true
way of making the meaning of history clear.

The same principle may be applied to
English. Do not teach analysis, parsing and
grammar to such an extent as to prejudice
a boy against all English in the future.
Dislikes are hard to move. If only those
who taught tried to instil some interest
in a boy's work, half the failures would be
stopped. Essay-writing is about the most

THE SYSTEM AAD KNOWLEDGE 75

important of all curriculum subjects, because
it makes some think who are unaccustomed
to do so, and helps to expand the ideas of
others who already think. School education
should open up the whole of one's mind so
as to be ready to receive and develop ideas
in after-life, rather than be a period of a few
years in which to cram in all the scraps of
knowledge one will need to scrape through life.

If we take Divinity, we find here, again,
it should be a much broader subject. Take
for one term's work the whole Bible together,
and trace some ideas right through it, so as
to form some connected idea of the whole
and the progress of thought and ideas. What
matters to the average person the names
of the Kings of Israel?

Divinity, of all subjects, should not be
treated too much like an ordinary school
subject. For older boys a certain amount of
Bible criticism may be good, but there is one

76 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

thing that always used to annoy me about
Greek Testament. One period would be spent
on three verses, at the end of which the
master would say, " Now you see why St.
Paul used the aorist there, and not the perfect
or any other tense." It seemed like trying
to count the pebbles on the beach. This,
again, does not apply to the specialist.

I always think a master can teach as much
out of school as in, if he interests his form.
They will, if he is friendly, ask him many
questions should they get talking in the study.

Why is it that art is not taught in the
school curriculum? I believe nearly every
girl learns the piano, but men have always
made the greatest musicians, especially crea-
tive ones, and more especially organists. At
school such things as Latin grammar and
trigonometry are compulsory to most, yet
music is treated as an extra, to be done out
of school, so too drawing and painting. The

THE SYSTEM AND KNOWLEDGE 77

argument brought up is that you should not
force art on any one. I reply to this, that
the same can be said of classics or science
or cricket, and that were artistic subjects
form subjects, many more would get interested
and thence capable, whereas arrangements
could be made for those obviously inartistic.
In time these latter gentlemen would be the
exceptions and not the rule.

It is easy to write schemes, you may say,
especially when one is inexperienced. If you
have read this chapter, you will see that I
have voiced no airy, Utopian schemes, but
simply advocated that the present system
of teaching classics, languages, history, and
art should be modified, and a broader outlook
given to boys on all subjects, and more
interest instilled. I do not think the present
system is superannuated or effete, but merely
like a watch that will not go because it needs
winding.

CHAPTER IX

RELIGION — (l) FAITH

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

Psalms.

As regards religion in Public Schools, there
is more often a general non-religious feeling
than an actual irreligious one, and the fault
lies in the way religion is applied. Children
are brought up with certain conventional
beliefs, such as heaven being a kind of land,
material, where all are dressed in white and
where the good sing hymns all day long in
the shade. Hell is a fire where " devils "
dwell, and where the wicked will be tortured.
This, of course, being merely Eastern allegory,
has to be discarded sooner or later.

To my mind the crucial age is when a boy
78

RELIGION— (/) FAITH 79

begins to discover for himself that he has
been told only fairy tales up to now, and
all that the hymns tell him about heaven
and hell is merely the strange way the Jews
had of describing things. The Bible, he is
told by some, is not meant to be taken
literally. The Creation was not a seven-day
miracle, but consisted of an evolution lasting
for centuries.

Then, as he begins to think a little more
about these matters, he gets puzzled. Some
people still tell him to believe the Bible as
it stands, regardless of the fact that it contains
allegories, some worn-out philosophy, analogy,
myths, legends, and traditions, besides its true
philosophy, history and prophecy. A clergy-
man preaching in our chapel a little while
back said, " Boys, there is a lot of what is
called Higher Criticism in the world to-day,
which tries to explain away the Bible. I
have always found it most helpful to believe

8o THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

all the Book, as it stands, word for word,
as being inspired of God ; and I hope you
will do the same."

That kind of sermon is foolish and
dangerous. The result is this : Many boys
are doubting. Many people, they think,
including no less personages than university
Professors of Science and great writers, do
not believe either in the Bible or in Christi-
anity. The boy begins to wonder : Is it all
a great hoax to keep me straight ? Can I not
keep straight without that ? Is not religion
old-fashioned? Do not scientists know how
the world was made ? Is not man descended
from the ape ? On the top of that he hears a
sermon which makes him think that he has to
believe in the Bible simply because he is told to.
If he dares ask any one to prove the Bible,
he is silenced with the answer that it is wicked
to harbour doubts. Then he is given some
trite anecdotes of wicked or uncivilised men

RELIGION- (7) FAITH 81

who by chance finding of a Bible became
good. Yet, though he is at the age when
he thinks much, and learns more than at
any other time, he is treated as a child that
must not ask "why?'* He feels he has a
right to know why it is true, what he is
told about the Bible — that Book which is
printed always in small type, on thin paper,
in narrow columns, divided up into little
bits, the most uninviting of any printed book
in the world. (If only it were printed in
such a way that any ordinary man could
take it up and read it off as any other book,
what a wonderful difference it would make !)
He is not told why ; he is simply bidden
to stop his ears to any criticism. He then
gets hold of verses in the Bible that obviously
are not inspired as they stand, such as a
passage in Kings which contradicts one in
Chronicles, and he says, "I am told to take

this word for word ; this is the result ! " After
a

82 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

a little more puzzling he decides that he
will be an agnostic. He thinks he will try
it. He will feel more independent, being no
longer bound to a Book which apparently
must be taken without question. It is so
like the Roman Church, which prohibits its
sons from asking that any doctrine should be
proved. They must take it on trust at the
hands of her uneducated priests that it is
true. If a man doubts, he is excommunicated.
Should that be so ? Why cannot a boy be
taught the Gospel story first, with reference
to the contemporary historians who corroborate
the New Testament ? Deal with boys as
you would with atheists or agnostics. Start
from the very beginning. Do not treat them
all as though, being boys, they naturally
believe in the Bible and in Christianity,
because many do not, especially those who
have read a lot of science, or, still worse,
those who are acquainted with any psychic

RELIGION— (1} FAITH 83

cults. Tell them the honest truth about the
Truth. Tell them what is historical fact,
and what is not. Then go on to trace how
the Church has become what she is to-day.
Especially at Confirmation time let a boy
have explained to him ecclesiastical funda-
mentals such as baptism and the ministry.
Of the Old Testament, treat the various parts
as they should be treated. Of such books
as Genesis, let a boy understand, that he may
believe as much of it as he wills; that if
he believes the New Testament, grace will
come to him to help him in his doubts
concerning the Old Testament.

Let him be given the "two folds of the
toga," and let him choose, " To believe or not
to believe." If you tell a boy he cannot live
straight without the Bible, and he knows he
can, will that convince him ? Tell him that
there is the true heaven to be gained through
Christianity, even perfect happiness and

84 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

friendship ; that without it, is the true hell,
even remorse and loneliness.

In Loose Ends the hero comes up against
a very difficult problem. Why is it, he asked
himself, that, if God is Omnipotent and Omni-
scient, and means and knows that in the end
evil will be destroyed, He should, in the first
place, go through the trouble of thinking out
the details of the life and death of a Saviour,
and, in the second place, allow us to fall, when
the whole time He could destroy evil in a
moment ? A master tried to answer the
question in this way : Do not think of God as
Omnipotent, but think of Him as still fighting
evil, in that His creatures will sin, and that
we should for our own sakes, and in gratitude
to Him, help Him to fight evil by ourselves
fighting it.

Such problems do perplex us all when we
get to the age when childhood's ideas are
discarded, and we are endeavouring to find

RELIGION-(I] FAITH 85

others to put in their place. Atheists and
followers of psychic cults are doing their best
to prevent us, while our own religious teachers
merely tell us to believe, and do not explain
why Christianity is true. If a boy of fifteen
had two days, say, with some very learned
theosophists, do you not suppose he could be
convinced ? All the more shame then that he
is not more often convinced by Christians in
years.

This leads us to another consideration.
There is a great deal of such cults as Theo-
sophy, Christian Science, and Spiritualism
rampant in the world. A boy is generally
warned against them. He is told never to
read any of their works. Now any boy of
sense can see that if people with great names,
like Lodge and Conan Doyle, believe in these
things, there must be something in them.
Moreover, their books are generally very inter-
esting, and have certain elements of truth in

86 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

them. He feels that if his Christian teachers
will still go on the tack that he must believe,
because he ought to be able to see which is the
truth, he will only naturally be led away by
those who explain themselves clearly.

Another thing, the loss of a near relative
tends to make a boy more interested in such
things as the Eesurrection and life after death.
The average Christian preacher, he notices,
rarely preaches any simple, straightforward
sermon on the greatest thing a human wants
to know. Either he preaches on an Old Testa-
ment saint, or else on the Resurrection in a
veiled way. The boy notices that the Christian
preacher sticks to the old allegorical heaven
and hell, which are not good enough even for
the brains of fifteen and sixteen. On the
other hand, he notices that Spiritualists profess
to know all kinds of details about the life to
come, and even to be able to communicate
with the dead ; they are at least reasonable.

RELIGION— (7) FAITH 87

I speak partly from personal experience, and
partly from what I have gathered from those
with whom I have ever talked on higher
things. To sum up what I think (I am open
to criticism) to be the cause of the lack of
religious enthusiasm in Public Schools ; it is
the way in which a boy is preached to, and the
comparison between Christian sermons and
non-Christian books and articles. A boy likes
to be definite. No one can be very definite
about the life to come, but at least a boy need
not be given pictures of it which he knows
are only allegorical, and which are unattractive
to a boy's nature, and which he does not trust.

Every boy should have explained to him
what such things as Spiritualism are, and if
untrue, why they are so. Give him a reason-
able, hopeful picture of the life to come. No
boy wants to sing hymns all day ; he would
rather fight with devils. Dismiss that kind
of idea. Above all, discard the old defence

88 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

the Roman Church uses, the " Gospel of
Ignorance." Tell a boy all about the Bible,
about Christianity, Spiritualism and the rest
of them, reason with him, and let him choose ;
and he ought to choose Christianity. This
may seem to be so much nonsense, but it is
what I feel to be the cause of the lack of
religion here. Give a boy a reasonable and
a manly picture of a reasonable and a manly
faith, and he will no longer regard Christianity
as old-fashioned, effeminate or unreasonable.

CHAPTEE X

RELIGION (ll) — PRACTICE

"God who created me

Nimble and light of limb,
In three elements free —

To run, to ride, to swim :
Not when the sense is dim,

But now, from the heart of joy,
I would remember Him :
Take the thanks of a boy."

H. C. BEECHING.

WE have already discussed morality apart
from religion. A moral man need not neces-
sarily be a Christian. We have also considered
how it is possible to teach faith in a school.
But granted a school is moral, and that it
believes, all has not yet been done. Faith
has to be put into practice.

At school all go to chapel every day. This,

combined with the fact that most Public Schools

89

90 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

possess beautiful chapels, and that as buildings,
at all events, they are treasured by those who
worship there, is a great advantage for the
start, yet there has been a failure somewhere.
Schools are not, for the most part, imbued
with any active religious fervour, to say the
least of it. The first thing to realise is the
nature of religion. I think the Puritan view of
religion as a duty is dangerous. Every boy,
it is sometimes argued, surely can spare an
hour every Sunday morning for his Maker — it
is his duty. We ought rather to get away
from the point of view of time. It is quality,
not quantity, that is required. Now, in our
school chapel on a Sunday are boys ranging
in age from seven to thirteen on one side, and
from thirteen to nineteen on the other. In
matter of time we must not take the pace of
the strongest. Is an hour, and a quarter's
service, which becomes tedious to some, and
which makes others wish they were elsewhere,

RELIGION— (IT] PRACTICE 91

much good ? Surely the extra twenty minutes
spoils the whole service, and does away with
its value both to God and to us. If by making
the service forty to fifty minutes long, instead
of seventy -five, we are getting more and giving
more, would it not be wise to shorten it ?

Chapel services on Sunday seem very long ;
and if a shorter one will bring with it more
attention, more interest, and therefore better
praise and prayer, why do we not have it ?

In no way should it be made into a children's
service. This will be resented. The best way
to shorten a service by twenty minutes is what
is done in most churches where there is a
Communion Service to follow, namely, by
leaving out the last collects ; and a sermon of
fifteen instead of the usual twenty-five minutes
would ensure more attention and reap better
results.

In preaching let a school chapel have sermons
on simple fundamental facts like the Atone-

92 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

ment and the Resurrection, before going on to
more delicate subjects. Above all, they should
be preached as to reasonable men. In the
preceding chapter I suggested a great deal
about preaching which need not be repeated
here. The chief thing, we saw, to fight is
anti-Christian literature, which finds its way
into schools as much as anywhere else, and
which nourishes doubts of those who are try-
ing to think out religion for themselves. One
sentence I will repeat : Give a boy a reason-
able and a manly picture of a reasonable and
a manly faith, and he will no longer regard
Christianity as old-fashioned, effeminate or
unreasonable.

There is a danger in the opposite extreme.
Here there is a small " sect," whose members
have been recruited from all classes in the
school, who are dangerous, because their faith
is making them fanatics. Their ideas are
borrowed from a certain missionary band in

RELIGION— (IT) PRACTICE 93

Japan, and tend to produce self-righteousness.
At one time they even thought of trying to
" instil more fire " into the chaplain ! One
boy, when he gave this up, received a letter
from a lady who was a patroness of these
views, in which she said : " Can it be true
that you have listened to the hiss of the
serpent ? Do come back to the Lord. I am
in agony of prayer for you." The so-called
"hiss of the serpent" was the friend to whom
I have dedicated this book — one of the
straightest, both spiritually and in the
athletic world — and myself. That kind of
thing is obviously absurd. The boy in ques-
tion hopes one day to be ordained, and in
no wise had " gone away from the Lord," as
they would put it. That kind of thing is
very difficult to deal with. Professedly non-
religious people laugh at them. They rather
like feeling martyrs, but, for my part, I have
reasoned, with some success, with a few of

94 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

them. The result is that I am called " the
hiss of the serpent " ! It is a better sign in
a school than such things as were said of the
other school quoted in Chapter VII. , but it
is not a manly form of Christianity, and
almost does more harm than good.

Beauty is a great thing in leading boys
to love religion. Beauty need not necessarily
mean elaborate adornment or ritual ; a chapel
can be made with simple beauty or elaborate
beauty. Our chapel has its simple beauty.

Prayers in the evening are held in Hall, and
I doubt if a tenth really feel at prayer. The
surroundings are unsympathetic ; yet most
learn to love their chapel.

Music should as a rule be congregational,
though a much higher standard can be lived
up to than by an ordinary parish congregation.
Short anthems are always appreciated, especi-
ally as a change, and will touch some one or
other that maybe has not been touched before.
The effect of an anthem will be ruined if the

RELIGION- (IT) PRACTICE 95

congregation is made to stand. As a vicar I
heard once put it, " The anthem is a sermon in
music, therefore the congregation will sit to
listen to it." There is more chance of one
getting some good out of an anthem if one can
feel oblivious to everything else, which is
difficult when standing. Sacred recitals and
organ recitals also help.

Voluntary Preparation Services before cele-
brations of the Holy Communion are found
helpful by some. I doubt if some com-
municants really believe what they profess by
their act of coming : some come to keep up a
good appearance. If a school chaplain can
instil a love of the Sacrament in a boy's heart,
it will assuredly do more good even than
persuading him to read some portion of the
Bible every day, because this latter, so good
in theory, tends to become mere habit in
practice, though, of course, I do not say
anything against it ; only get boys to love and
feel the need of Communion.

96 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

Here, again, a great deal depends on the
tone of the prefects. If they are fairly good
Christians they give the lead, and you may be
sure that being a Christian will not be called
" not the thing to be " ; whereas if they are
irreligious or indifferent, it may be harder for
those younger to be "religious."

The real key to the question is the person-
ality of the chaplain himself. If he is liked,
and is thought manly (boys do not like
effeminate or " par sonic" chaplains), and
combines a happy and a " sporting " life with
a religious tone, the school can see then
religion need not be dull, in fact it is the very
opposite, it creates happiness.

If he is in any way rather looked down
upon, there is little hope that the majority of
the school will be religious. The chaplain will
probably do more good out of school and out
of chapel than in. If he can get boys to
discuss and argue religious things, and to
reason things out, and if he tells them about

RELIGION— •(//) PRACTICE 97

other Christian bodies and other religious
systems, he will get them interested, which,
as we saw in regard to work in a previous
chapter, is the only way to succeed.

Both the extreme Eoman Catholic and the
extreme Puritan lay stress on duty and the
punishment of not doing that duty in regard
to religion. What we want is interest in,
knowledge about, and love of religion. That
is what we need ; whether we get it or not
depends on the way chapel services are taken,
and the Bible is taught.

Many of the hymns we sing are worse than
useless. Many are bad poetry and misdirected
sentiment, especially in regard to the Atone-
ment, and more especially the future Life.
Here we use a book which is more or less free
from this indictment, The Public School
Hymn Book.

One last word on the subject of practical
religion. What should God be to a boy ? It
sounds a strange question, but it is an im-

98 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

portant one. Not, I think, a "god," in the
sense, that is to say, that He is the Jehovah of
the Jews, or the Allah of the Mohammedans.
Not, I think, the God of the old Puritans, a
narrow-minded Being, almost as terrible as
Jehovah or Allah, who exacts duties, if not
sacrifice. Nor, again, should He be a King, if
it makes Him far off, hard to approach or
awful. But simply a perfect human Friend ;
and perfect human means divine. A boy
loves friendship ; he feels the need of it and
the help of it.

I came across a beautiful passage quoted
from Beaconsfield the other day about school-
boy friendship. At first I thought it rather
exaggerated, in fact " soft." On second
thoughts I think it is wonderfully true, if one
can put aside for a moment the English boy's
shyness for such subjects. I quote it at
length : " At school friendship is a passion.
It entrances the being ; it tears the soul. All
loves of after-life can never bring its rapture

RELIGION- (II) PRACTICE 99

or its wretchedness ; no bliss so absorbing, no
pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and
so keen ! What tenderness and what devo-
tion ; what illimitable confidence, infinite
revelations of inmost thought; what ecstatic
present and romantic future ; what bitter
estrangements and what melting reconcilia-
tions ; what scenes of wild recriminations,
passionate correspondence ; what insane sen-
sitiveness, and what frantic sensibility ; what
earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of
the soul are confined in that simple phrase, a
schoolboy's friendship ! "

That is the spirit one wants to instil into
our conception of Jesus as a Friend. Most of
us, when talking to old ladies, avoid topics
such as House matches, motor-bicycles or
chemistry, because we know they are of a later
age. Unfortunately we treat God like this.
(The exceptions are those who pray for victory
at a match, and are angry with God if they
do not get it, and so on.) God is not a Friend

ioo THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

who only thinks of our " religious side/' On
the contrary, we should find it a help and
encouragement if we looked upon Him as a
keen Friend, interested alike in our games, or
work, or stamp-collecting. He is interested in
all these, because if we thus treat our life, our
life and religion become one and the same
thing. In our mind we must not have a State
and a Church separated ; but a State- Church
or Church-State as it were. Despair, loneli-
ness, misery, fear are qualities which many
suppose are only felt by men and women,
more especially those in novels ; but in reality
they are more keenly felt at school, because
troubles assume such large proportions in
immature eyes. Therefore it will come the
more natural to a boy to develop this idea of
friendship, which we so often need, and which
we can never dispense with, if he is put on the
right paths. By this the problem of religion
will be solved, and by this the evils of
immorality will be remedied.

EPILOGUE

IN conclusion I must say that I have done
my best to put before you a fair view of
Public School life, socially and religiously,
and trust that in criticism you will consider
the spirit of the book rather than the letter.
The letter of the book is not finished English,
and also it is taken from one school ; the
spirit of the book applies, I hope, to most
schools. I have tried to show you that, of the
attacks made on Public Schools, that of bully-
ing new boys is exaggerated ; that of worship-
ping the " tin god of Athleticism " untrue ;
that of immorality misjudged, and also that
the blame is largely elsewhere ; that of failing
to teach due to lack of ability to instil interest
and lack of a useful course in classics ; that of

101

.02 THE' HE'ART OF A SCHOOLBOY

irreligion due to failure to regard what a boy
needs, and to forgetting the existence of other
religions, which are fighting for perverts.
Further I have tried to show you what a
glorious, romantic LIFE the " Public School
system " really is ; and what a lot depends on
the prefects. I trust that I have not entirely
failed in all those endeavours.

This book, I hope, will act as an introduc-
tion to better and larger works. It makes no
pretence of being exhaustive on the subject,
though it has tried to touch on most points.

I have said little about masters, because I
feel I am not in the position to criticise them
much, before I have myself left this college.

The time will come when there will be a
Labour Government. They intend, I believe,
to make sweeping changes in the Public
Schools. If by then we have had internal
reforms we shall prove ourselves worthy of
second thought on their part ; and we shall be

EPILOGUE 103

better able to defend our ancient heritage
This lies in the hands of masters and of college
councils. These latter seem very apt to be
counter-reformers and very conservative men,
who hate adapting themselves to modern
requirements. Unless they see the peril in
which, as a whole, the Public Schools are
placed, and act accordingly, we shall be lost.

Many years ago some admirals sat in solemn
conclave to settle an important question :
Should ironclads take the place of the old
wooden ships? After a long and serious
discussion they decided in the negative ! This
is rather the picture of a good many men who
are in the same position to schools as those
admirals were to the Navy. When we pro-
gress, old forms either adapt themselves or go
under. That is the alternative before the
schools, either they adapt themselves to the
present-day requirements, or they will go
under.

io4 THE HEART OF A SCHOOLBOY

My thanks are due to him who has kindly
written a preface to this little book ; also to
a friend who read through my ill-written
manuscript, and to my prompt Stepney typist.

I should like to condole with those to whom
this book is dedicated without their considera-
tion.

Further, I am indebted to many poets and
writers, whom I have quoted, with or without
their permission.

THE BND

PRINTED IN GRBAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & Sows, LIMITID,

BRDNKWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., 8.B. 1. AND BTTNGAY, SUFFOLK.

OK IS DUE ON THE LAST DA
STAMPED BELOW

ETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT

O— •+> 202 Main Library

DAN PERIOD 1
HOME USE

2

3

5

6

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date.

Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405.

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

NOV 1419ft

D6cr\,w

MjioDtsaoec 14*88

'JAN 1 6 200:

ORM NO. DD6

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

BERKELEY, CA 94720

®$

YB 04.W

GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY

BOD031330b

3409

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY