at St. Edward’s had been a namesake of that saint’s, Edward Carpenter,
who, as is related in his autobiography,[11] resigned his Orders,
together with his Fellowship at Trinity Hall, in 1871. Some thirteen
years later I made his acquaintance in London; and I have often
regretted that I went to Cambridge too late to hear him preach, for I
have never been able quite to picture the author of _Towards Democracy_
in the pulpit, arrayed canonically in surplice or gown.
The goal of a Kingsman’s career at Cambridge was the Classical Tripos;
and for three years he would read steadily, and with increasing
intentness, keeping that end in view. It was generally thought advisable
to have a “coach”; but experience led me to doubt whether, for those who
knew how to direct their own reading, and had the necessary
perseverance, it was not a waste of time to invoke such assistance; a
good “crib” was a far speedier and more effective instructor. Some
“coaches,” moreover, were apt to be rather lazy at times, and to put off
their pupils’ attendance on the plea, perhaps, that they had to go to
London for the day, or were called off by some equally important
engagement; and now, by a curious reversal, we, who at Eton should have
been only too delighted if our tutors had perennially shirked their
duties, had become in turn the studious ones, and having ourselves paid
for the tuition were annoyed if we did not get it! One contemporary of
mine at King’s was so upset by his “coach’s” remissness that he wrote
him a letter of remonstrance, more in sadness than anger, and roused him
to fury by quoting some words from Thucydides (οί δἐ προλαβόντες τὀ
ἀργύριον), in open allusion to those who first get their fee and then
neglect to earn it.
Young men often fail to realize the sensitiveness of their elders, and
thus say and do things which cause more hurt than was intended. We used
to be resentful, in those too fastidious pre-war days, of the
considerable amount of shale, schist, and rubble which was sold to us
with our coal; and a fellow Kingsman once asked me to accompany him to
the coal-merchant’s, to whom he proposed to return a basketful of the
refuse in question. Foreseeing sport, I went; but the scene that ensued
was sorrowful rather than amusing, for the head of the firm, a
venerable-looking old man with white hair, happened to be in the office,
and when the coal-substitutes were handed to him over the counter his
wrath was so great that his hand positively shook with passion. Savages
though we were, we came away rather penitent.
There was, however, one Kingsman at that time, an undergraduate senior
to myself, who was unpleasantly famed for the remorseless devilry with
which he scored off any unfortunate person whom chance placed in his
power. His tailor, it was said, having by mistake sent him in a bill
that had already been paid, was ordered to set the matter right, on pain
of being dismissed. He did so; and then the offended customer said to
him: “And now I dismiss you just the same.” On another occasion it was a
broken-down clergyman who had the ill-luck to appeal to this young
gentleman for pecuniary aid: so rare an opportunity could not be allowed
to slip. “You trust in God, I suppose,” said the undergraduate. It was
not possible for a clergyman to gainsay it. “Then I will toss up,” said
the other; “and if you cry rightly, I shall know you deserve
assistance”; and forthwith he spun the coin, and the clergyman
cried--“heads” or “tails” as might be. But unluckily for the poor
pilgrim, the Kingsman was a skilled manipulator of the coin in hazards
of this sort, and the result was never in doubt. The mendicant was
proved, on the highest authority, to be undeserving.
But to return to the Classical Tripos. Coached or uncoached, we came at
last to that great final examination, a sort of Judgment Day in
miniature, which, for some of us, would have an important bearing on our
later lives. The examination system is in various ways open to
criticism, and critics have by no means been lacking, but it need not be
denied that intellectual benefit in many cases may result from the
sustained effort to prepare oneself for a very searching test,
necessitating a thorough study of the chief Classical writers. But the
weightiest charge against the University education is the one which
least often finds expression--that a learning which would strengthen the
intellect only, and does not feed the heart, is in the main but barren
and unprofitable, a culture of the _literæ inhumaniores_. Except from F.
D. Maurice, I never heard, during my four years at Cambridge--from
preacher or professor, from lecturer, dean, or don--the least mention of
the higher social ethics, without which there can be no real culture
and no true civilization.
I remember, with shame, that I was once so moved by the florid rhetoric
of Dean Farrar, in a missionary sermon preached before the University,
that I made a contribution to the offertory which I could ill afford. A
day or two afterwards, with the return of sanity, I felt the force of
the adage that “fools and their money are soon parted,” and I saw that
it was worse than folly to send missions to other countries, when we
ourselves were little better than pagans at home. The mischief of this
spurious religionism was that it lessened the chance of any genuine
awakening of conscience to the facts that stared us in the face. We were
made to study Paley’s fantastic “Evidences,” while the evidence of
nature, of the human heart, and of actual life, was sedulously hidden
away.
In the Tripos of 1875 the Senior Classic was Mr. Peskett, who belonged
properly to the preceding year, but owing to illness or some other cause
had “degraded” into ours, and thus robbed my friend Mr. Arthur Tilley of
an honour which should rightly have been his. Dr. J. Gow, Headmaster of
Westminster School, was third; the fifth place was shared by Mr. Gerald
Balfour and myself.
It was the custom in those days for headmasters of Eton to draw largely
on King’s College for their supply of assistants: thus a King’s Scholar
of Eton, after taking his degree at Cambridge, would often return to the
school as a Classical assistant master, and so complete the academical
round. The process might, perhaps, have been likened to the three stages
of butterfly life, but with the first and the last phase transposed. We
_began_ as the gay Eton insects, whose ignorance was bliss; and then,
after passing through the chrysalis period by the Cam, reappeared on
Thames’s bank, metamorphosed into the caterpillars locally known as
“beaks,” and usually content thenceforth to crawl soberly along on a
wingless but well-nourished career. But even a worm, as we know, will
turn; and, as the next chapter must relate, some of the grubs would at
times be so unconscionable as to take new and unsettling notions into
their heads.
IV
THE DISCOVERY
“Why, they are cannibals!” said Toby. “Granted,” I replied; “but a
more gentlemanly and amiable set of epicures do not exist.”--HERMAN
MELVILLE.
What are the feelings of the poacher transformed into the gamekeeper?
They must, I think, be similar to those of a youth who, after studying
for a few years at the University, returns as master to the school which
he left as boy. _Quantum mutatus ab illo!_ The scene itself is the same,
but the part which he must play in it is now to a great extent reversed;
and the irony of the situation is that though henceforth an upholder of
law and order, he still, perhaps, sympathizes at heart with the
transgressors whom it is his duty to reprimand.
To be summoned as an assistant by Dr. Hornby, and at a few days’ notice
(his arrangements were frequently made in desperate haste), was to be
thrown very suddenly upon one’s own resources; for, an appointment once
completed, he showed no further interest in the matter, and did not even
trouble himself to provide a school-room in which his latest lieutenant
should teach: that the number of Divisions exceeded the number of rooms
was a trifle which did not engage his attention. A novice had therefore
to consider himself rather lucky when he was able to secure, for his
first term or two, even an apartment so ill equipped for educational
purposes as a sort of cupboard, situated under the stairs that led to
the headmaster’s room, and popularly known as “The Dog-Kennel.” Here,
with a class of about forty boys, a pleasant summer school-time had to
be spent.
It was a curious sensation, which I suppose all teachers of large
classes must have felt, to be confronted by serried ranks of boys whose
faces were entirely strange, though their names were entered on the list
which lay, like a map, upon the desk. Some time was required before each
name could be correctly fitted to the face; and in this process any
abnormality of feature or size in individuals, which might constitute a
landmark, was a great help. A red-haired boy, or a fat boy, served to
punctuate a row; and that classification of boys (I forget who made it)
into the beef-faced and the mealy-faced was a thing to be kept in mind.
Such were the auspices under which an Eton master was in those days
started on his career--shut up in the Dog-Kennel with a horde of young
barbarians, whom, in the circumstances, it was hardly possible to
instruct, and not very easy to control. There were a few masters at
Eton, as doubtless at other public schools, who had a real gift for
teaching; also a few, like our friend “Swage,” who were unable to
maintain any semblance of authority. Between these two extremes were
those, the great majority of us, who, while courteously and respectfully
treated by the boys, and having pleasant relations with them, could not
in strict truth flatter themselves that, except in special cases, they
had overcome the natural tendency of boyhood to be idle. So much has
been written about the defects of the Eton system that it suffices here
to say that while a reputation for cleverness was maintained by a few of
the boys, mostly King’s Scholars, the bulk of the school was inflexibly
bent upon other activities than those of the mind.
Nor were the masters themselves unaffected by the general tone of the
school. There were some fine scholars, it is true, on Dr. Hornby’s
staff, experts not in Classical literature only, but in various
branches of learning; yet in not a few cases these gifted specialists
seemed as artless in their outlook on life as they were skilled in their
particular department. “A d----d fool, with a taste for the Classics,”
was the too unceremonious description given of one of them by a
sarcastic acquaintance; and the epigram, however reprehensible in
expression, hit the mark. Knowledge is not wisdom; and this academical
learning often went together with a narrow and pedantic spirit which
blindly upheld the old order of things and resented every sign of
change. For example, there was one learned master who used to assert, in
those years of peace, that what England most needed was a war--a grim,
hard-fought war; and this was the sort of reckless talk often indulged
in by the mildest-mannered of men, who themselves were in no danger
whatever of exchanging the gown for the sword.
New ideas were under a ban at Eton; notwithstanding the specious
invitations given to some distinguished men to lecture before the
school. Gladstone, Arnold, Ruskin, Morris and Lowell were among those
who addressed the boys in the School Library; and it was instructive to
note the reception which they severally obtained. Lowell was the most
popular; his cheery contention that this world of ours is, after all,
“not a bad world to live in,” being delightedly received by an audience
which had good personal reasons for concurring in such a sentiment:
William Morris, on the other hand, having ventured on the then dangerous
ground of Socialism, was hissed. Gladstone discreetly kept to the
unimpeachable subject of Homer; and Matthew Arnold’s staid appearance,
with his “mutton-chop” whiskers and mechanical bowing of the head in
accord with the slow rhythm of his sentences, was sufficient to lull to
sleep any insidious doubts of his respectability. As a speaker, Ruskin
was by far superior to the rest; his lucid train of thought and clear,
musical voice could hold enchanted an audience, even of Eton boys, for
the full space of an hour.
Science lectures formed another branch of the intellectual treats that
were provided for the school; but Science was still rather under a cloud
at that date. I recollect the title of but one discussion, and that only
because I happened to be able to throw some light on the geological
problem with which it dealt. I was living in a small house (once famous
as “Drury’s”), which had a much higher one on either side; and as it was
the practice for the boys in neighbouring houses to bombard each other
with any missiles or minerals that might be handy, my garden became a
sort of “no-man’s-land” between the two rival fortresses, and its
surface was enriched with a very varied deposit. When, therefore, a
lecture was announced on the question, “Will coal be found in the Thames
valley?” I was able to solve the problem affirmatively by the production
from my own premises of some remarkably fine samples.
It would doubtless have shocked Dr. Hornby if any one had suggested that
there was a lack of religious instruction in that most conservative of
schools. Chapel services there were in plenty; and a Greek Testament
lesson on Monday morning; and “Sunday Questions” to be answered in
writing; and “Sunday Private” to be attended in the Tutor’s pupil-room;
and Prayers every evening in each House. Yet the general tone of Eton
was far from being religious, even in the conventional meaning of the
term; for the many superficial observances did not affect the deep
underlying worldliness of the place. It was Vanity Fair on Sundays and
week-days alike. There was an Eton story of a servant in a private
family who, when the bell was rung for evening devotions, was overheard
to cry in a weary voice: “Oh, dear! _Why_ do gentry have prayers?” The
reference to “gentry” shows the light in which such ceremonies are
regarded downstairs. In the same way, the religious teaching in schools
is looked upon by the boys as imposed on them for purposes of
discipline.
It was not the boys only who found the Chapel services very tedious; for
most of the masters were laymen, many of them unorthodox, and for these
it was no agreeable duty to be victimized both on Sundays and on Saints’
Days for the sake of keeping up appearances before the school.
Calculations are sometimes made of the number of years spent in prison
by some hardened criminal or “gaol-bird.” Why does no one tell us how
many hours, amounting to how many years, some zealous church-goer, or
pew-bird, has spent on such devotions? Without claiming that
distinction, I calculate that during some twenty years spent in
connection with public school and University I passed several thousands
of hours in church and chapel.
Human nature could not but chafe under the fearful dulness and length of
the sermons in Eton College Chapel. Dr. Goodford, the Provost, was a
sort of personified Doom; when once he mounted the pulpit he was in the
saddle, so to speak, and rode his congregation well-nigh to despair with
his merciless homilies, all uttered in that droning voice, with its
ceaseless _burr_ and inevitable cadence, which became to generations of
Etonians as familiar as the Chapel bell itself. Scarcely less fearsome
were some of the elder Fellows, retired masters, such as Bishop Chapman
and the Rev. John Wilder, who were often let loose on us on Sunday
mornings and blithely seized the opportunity: it was their field-day,
and they were out to enjoy themselves, quite unconscious that what was
pious sport to them was death to their unwilling audience. Small wonder
that some assistant masters used to dread the weeks when they were on
duty (“in desk” it was called); but providentially there were others
who, disliking still more the labour of correcting Latin verses, were
willing to barter “verses” for “desks”; that is, they would take so
many of a colleague’s desks, while he in return would look over a
stipulated number of exercises. Thus did the Muse come to the aid of her
devotees:
Sic me servavit Apollo.
Perhaps the strangest form that religion took at Eton was that of
missionary zeal; we used to have sermons periodically about carrying the
gospel to “the heathen”; though if ever there was a benighted spot on
earth, it was that pleasant school by the Thames. Some of the boys were
at times infected by the passion for making proselytes: on one occasion
an extremely dull and idle youth, who had lately left Eton, wrote to
tell me, as his former tutor, that he had decided to become a missionary
“to the poor perishing heathen”--in his case, the Chinese, a people much
less ignorant and barbarous than many of their self-appointed rescuers.
“Divinity” was one of the studies most encouraged and fostered at Eton;
one would have thought the place was a training-school for theologians,
from the prominence that was given in examinations to this particular
branch of learning. The result, as might have been expected, was the
same as in the writing of Latin verses: a few boys became adepts in the
Bible Dictionary, while the bulk of the school scarcely advanced beyond
that stage of biblical knowledge exhibited by a certain Etonian who,
when invited to write an account of St. James the Elder and St. James
the Less, was able to give a brief description of the Elder, but was
reduced, in the case of the Lesser saint, to the rather inadequate,
though so far correct, statement that: “The other was another.”
We were perhaps somewhat overdone with the Saints at Eton: the masters
who had to set the Sunday Questions were nearly as tired of asking about
St. Peter and St. Paul as the boys of answering; and in the Chapel
sermons we suffered, year after year, under the whole Hagiology, until
some of us, it must be confessed, sighed in secret for the time:
When Reason’s rays, illuming all,
Shall put the Saints to rout,
And Peter’s holiness shall pall,
And Paul’s shall peter out.
But if Christianity was the nominal religion at Eton, the real creed was
Respectability. To do the “proper thing”; not to offend against any of
the conventional canons; to dress, walk, speak, eat and live in the
manner prescribed by “good form”--this was the ever-present obligation
which neither boy nor master could disregard. Any slip in matters of
etiquette was regarded as deadly. There was a dark rumour about one of
the masters, a good and worthy man, but very shortsighted, that by a
tragic error in the High Street he had taken off his hat to his cook: it
was only less dreadful than if he had failed to perform that act of
courtesy in some case where it was required.
As is usual in barbarous societies, the number of things that were
“taboo” was considerable. In the early ’eighties the bicycle and
tricycle were frowned upon, not for boys only but for masters; and a
lady living in Eton once received from Mrs. Hornby, who of course, was
at the head of the Fashions, a message that to ride a tricycle was “not
a nice thing to do.” Yet for the boys it _was_ considered a nice thing
to hunt and “break up” hares. I once witnessed the virtuous indignation
of one of the masters, a clergyman, and a follower of the Eton hounds,
when some rather “shady” incident of the hunt was reported to the
headmaster; but Dr. Hornby soon set matters right by explaining that, as
_all_ hunting was cruel, he obviously could not take notice of any
particular malpractice. That was the sort of reasoning with which any
attempts to humanize Eton customs were parried and thwarted.
Yet new ideas could not be wholly excluded, even from that stronghold
of the antique; there were, in fact, several members of Hornby’s staff
who held views too advanced to be avowed in such surroundings. One of
the least prejudiced men at Eton was the French Master, M. Roublot, who
was a close personal friend of his German colleague, Herr Griebel; and
it is pleasant to recall the fact that during the horrors of the
Franco-German War, some ten years earlier than the period of which I am
speaking, these two “enemies” had kept their friendship unbroken, and
might be seen daily taking their walk together, just as if their
countrymen were not insanely engaged in cutting each other’s throats.
Among the Classical tutors, two of the most enlightened spirits, men of
great personal charm, were Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, afterwards lecturer at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and the Rev. Duncan Tovey, who a few years
later took the Eton living of Worplesdon. Shuckburgh, though himself
most impatient of the old traditions, and sympathizing largely with the
newer thought, was of a very critical habit of mind, and used to
delight, for argumentative purposes, in dwelling on the difficulties and
shortcomings of the reforms which some of us advocated. Tovey was a
literary man (his works on Gray and Thomson are well known), out of his
element in such a place as Eton, but in his happier moods a most
delightful talker and companion. Mrs. Tovey, too, had a lambent wit
which could play lightly round the anomalies of Eton life. She once
wrote a charming list of some imaginary books of fiction, the authorship
of which she assigned to various local celebrities: one of the works,
the supposed creation of an Eton upholsterer notorious for his big
bills, had a title which might make the fortune of a modern
philosophical novelist: “Man’s Time; a Mystery.”
Some of the junior masters played a useful part in challenging the old
superstitions. Mr. J. D. Bourchier, afterwards a famous correspondent of
_The Times_ in south-east Europe, was the first rider of the bicycle at
Eton, and incurred much obloquy through his persistence in a practice
which no Eton master could then countenance with safety. My
brother-in-law, J. L. Joynes, jun., was a still worse offender. He had
been impressed by Henry George’s _Progress and Poverty_, and in the
summer holidays of 1882 travelled with George in Ireland. By a
ridiculous blunder of the Irish Constabulary, the two were arrested and
locked up as dangerous conspirators; and, though they were quickly
discharged when the magistrates discovered the error, the whole Press of
the country rang with amused comments. The Government had to apologize
to Henry George as an American citizen; and an account of the fiasco,
written by Joynes, and published in _The Times_, caused great scandal in
Etonian circles, where publicity was regarded, not without good reason,
as the thing of all things to be deprecated. Great, then, was the horror
of the Eton authorities when, a few weeks later, an advertisement
announced Joynes’s forthcoming volume, _Adventures of a Tourist in
Ireland_. In hot haste he was informed by the headmaster that he must
choose between his mastership and his book: he chose the latter, and
resigned his post. That was the result, as a patriotic colleague and
friend pointed out to me, of giving heed to “a mouldy American.” Thus
fallen from the high estate of an Eton mastership, Joynes became a
leading spirit in the Social Democratic Federation; and by him I was
introduced to many well-known socialists whose names will be mentioned
later on.
During the sixteen years of his headmastership Dr. Hornby dismissed no
fewer than four assistants, and was himself involved at times in serious
conflicts with the Governing Body. A weak man, he was obstinate to the
last degree when once engaged in controversy; as was shown by his
determination to get rid of Mr. Oscar Browning, who, whatever the
merits of their quarrel, was worth much more to Eton than Hornby
himself. It was not generally known that three other assistant masters
proffered their resignations as a protest against Mr. Browning’s
dismissal; a most ill-judged step, because matters had then reached a
point where either Hornby or Browning had to go. The resignations were
accepted, and the three mutineers had to ask leave to withdraw them,
which they did with as good a grace as they could muster. Thus the
headmaster triumphed; but it was a victory that brought him little
credit, and it was a lucky day for Eton when, on the death of Dr.
Goodford, he was appointed to the Provostship in 1884.