_The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's_ is a story of public-school life,
and was written for the _Boy's Own Paper_, in the Fourth Volume of which
it appeared. The numbers containing it are now either entirely out of
print or difficult to obtain; and many and urgent have been the
requests--from boys themselves, as well as from parents, head masters,
and others--for its re-issue as a book.
Of the story itself little need be said. It deals in a bright and
vigorous style with the kaleidoscopic, throbbing life of a great public
school--that world in miniature which, in its daily opportunities and
temptations, ambitions and failures, has so often afforded superabundant
material for narratives powerful to enchain the attention and sway the
emotions, whether to smiles or tears. This will take its place, amongst
the best of them.
Though the story is one of school life, its interest is by no means
limited to school or college walls. Boys of all sorts and conditions--
ay, and their parents too--will follow its fortunes with unflagging zest
from the first page to the last; and it is difficult to conceive of any
reader, be he young or old, who would not be the better for its vivid
portraiture and bracing atmosphere. There is a breeziness about it
calculated to stir the better life in the most sluggish; and without
pretence or affectation it rings out its warnings, no less than its
notes of cheer, clear and rousing as trumpet blasts.
"Do right, and thou hast nought to fear,
Right hath a power that makes thee strong;
The night is dark, but light is near,
The grief is short, the joy is long."
Without the most distant approach to that fatal kind of sermonising
which all but inevitably repels those whom it is meant to benefit, the
story forcefully illustrates how rapidly they may sink who once tamper,
for seeming present advantage, with truth, and how surely, sooner or
later, a noble character comes to vindication and honour; and in all
such respects it is eminently true to life. These boys of Saint
Dominic's, even the best of them, are very human--neither angels nor
monstrosities, but, for the most part, ardent, impulsive, out-and-out,
work-a-day lads; with the faults and failings of inexperience and
impetuosity, no doubt, but also with that moral grit and downright
honesty of purpose that are still, we believe, the distinguishing mark
of the true British public-school boy. Hence one is impelled to take
from the outset a most genuine interest in them and their affairs, and
to feel quite as though one had known many of them personally for years,
and been distinctly the better, too, for that knowledge. Such boys
stand at the antipodes alike of the unreal abstractions of an effeminate
sentimentalism--the paragons who prate platitudes and die young--and of
the morbid specimens of youthful infamy only too frequently paraded by
the equally unreal sensationalism of to-day to meet the cravings of a
vitiated taste.
_The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's_ is the kind of book we should place
with confidence in the hands of our own boys when leaving the home
shelter, whether for school or the sterner after-battle; and we cannot
conceive of the parent who, having read it with care and pleasure, as we
have done, and knowing at the same time anything of the stress and
strain of daily life, would not, with gratitude to the author, gladly do
the same. With all their faults, Oliver Greenfield and Wraysford are
splendid boys, of just the fibre that the Church needs, and the world
cannot afford to do without; and yet their school career proves by no
means a bed of roses. To drift with the current is proverbially easy;
to seek to stem it manfully, and steer by the stars, may, and often
does, lay one open to misapprehension or envy, and all the ills that
follow in their train; yet--
"God is God, and right is right,
And truth the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."
Our heroes had their full share of trouble--what real hero has not?--but
they come out of the ordeal purified and strengthened, with nobler
aspirations after duty, and tenderer thoughts of helpfulness towards
those needing, if far from seeking, their succouring arm.
How all this comes about it is not for us to tell. Readers will find
that out for themselves, and thank us for allowing them, unaided, to do
so. The school cricket match, the grand football struggle, the
ever-memorable prize-day--these are matters that no alien pen may touch.
Our prayer is that God may abundantly bless the book to the building up
in our schools and families of strong Christian characters, who in the
after days shall do valiant service for Christ and humanity.
G.A. Hutchison.