THE SECOND YEAR
And it is splendid fun. Let us make no mistake about that. It is
splendid fun. For the ordinary boy, for all those, that is to say, who
have not been designed by nature for the contemptuous entertainment of
their companions, nothing is much better than the second and third
years. It is a light-hearted, swash-buckling period. The anxieties of
the fag have been forgotten, the responsibilities of the Sixth Former
are still remote. The second yearer can rag, and his ragging is not
taken seriously. At the end of the term house-masters do not address him
solemnly and appeal to his better nature. They beat him, and that makes
it a square fight. He knows where he is. He has to remain on the right
side of the law. If he passes the limit, he knows what to expect. Later
on the issue will be complicated by his position: for a while he can
afford to be an irresponsible free-lance.
It is a happy time of eager unreflecting action. There is a good deal of
noisiness and 'showing off.' But it is harmless. A boy has just begun to
find himself. He is free at last. At his Preparatory School he was
always under the eye of authority. His freedom was enmeshed by a network
of regulations. His first year at his Public School his freedom was
fettered by nervousness and prejudice. That is over now. I sometimes
think that we love Charlie Chaplin so dearly because he does all the
things we have not the courage to do ourselves. When a waiter hurries
past us with a pile of plates, how delightful it would be, we think, to
drive our feet between his legs; who would not love to hurl a brick at a
retreating foe; who is not tempted to crook his walking-stick round the
ankles of the pompous. We never do these things; not as we should like
to do them. But we come as near as we ever shall come to the attainment
of this desire during our second year at school. On a small scale it is
permitted us to destroy furniture. We can pull chairs from beneath an
unsuspecting foe. The strings of a hammock have been cut to the
discomfiture of the occupant. The terminal bill for breakages is often
considerable, but no one is ever really hurt.
For what little bullying exists nowadays the second and third yearers
are in the main responsible. The effect of a new-found freedom is
intoxicating. And there is always a boy in every house who is an
irresistible butt. There is a compound German word that means
'face-that-invites-a-box-on-the-ear.' And such a physiognomy is the
invariable possession of at least one scholar; in its own way the
magnetic influence of such ugliness is as irresistible as the charm of a
pretty woman. One has only to see that particular brand of face to want
to heave a boot at it. One refrains seldom. It used to be held that
every house contains one bully. It would be truer to say that every
house contains one boy who is bullied. Most boys go through their
schooldays without being subjected to any bullying, but most boys
indulge in a little spasmodic bullying themselves. It is a sort of bull
baiting, and it is in the main good-natured.
Four or five fellows are sitting in a study after tea. There are still
twenty minutes before lock-up, and the conversation has grown desultory.
They all feel a little bored. One of them suggests that they should go
and see how that ass 'Sniffy' is getting on. It is a popular suggestion,
and a raid is made upon Sniffy's study. Sniffy is discovered working.
This is considered to be a disgrace to the house, and Sniffy is informed
of the fact. He invites his guests to get out. 'But, my dear Sniffy,
what hospitality! Surely you are going to offer us a chair! No? Then we
must teach you manners!' Sniffy's chair is suddenly jerked from under
him and Sniffy is flung forward on to his table. He jumps up and lets
fly at one of his assailants. It is no fun ragging some one who does not
retaliate, and proceedings are soon less cordial. In the end Sniffy's
study is pretty effectively wrecked. This happens about once a
fortnight, but, beyond this, I am inclined to think that, except in a
bad house, there is very little bullying now in Public Schools.
The tone of a house changes far more quickly than the tone of a school.
And, in every school, there is usually a thoroughly bad house. As a
house-master grows old he tends to leave the management of the house
more and more in the hands of his prefects. As long as his prefects are
efficient all goes well; but, sooner or later, a weak head is bound to
come, and then the swash-buckling element gets out of hand. One of the
houses when I first went to school had got into this state. The head boy
was easy-going, and there were in the day room two members of the First
Fifteen who had in school failed to reach the Lower Fourth and who were
thorough 'wrong 'uns.' Terrible tales of refined torture used to be
repeated in the upper dormitories, and I can well believe that life
there was pretty wretched. But I always distrust second-hand accounts.
Nothing is more easily distorted than the story of atrocities, and, for
my part, I have neither been a victim, nor the witness of any serious
bullying. The only case that reached official notice during my time
savoured strongly of the ludicrous.
A parent had complained that his son had been ill-treated, and all the
house prefects were summoned into the head master's presence. The
offenders were leaning nervously against the wall; their victim was
enduring tortures of self-consciousness; the head master was fingering
his pen, and the avenging father blocked up the entire fireplace. There
was a dead silence. We were all hard put to it not to smile. The
offenders looked so much smaller than the prey. At last proceedings were
opened by the boy's parent. He followed the traditional line. He had
been a boy. He knew what boys were. He knew the public school code of
honour. He loathed sneaking. His boy had not sneaked. The confession had
been dragged out of him. What he, the father, wanted, was not
punishment, but the assurance that such a thing would not happen again.
'And now, John,' he concluded, 'show the head master that bruise upon
your arm.' Very sheepishly the boy drew off his coat, rolled up his
sleeve and revealed a bruise, certainly of extensive proportions.
'How did they do that?' asked the chief.
'By flicking him with wet towels, head master,' said the parent.
A simultaneous denial came from both offenders. 'We didn't make that
bruise, sir.'
'But did you flick him?' asked the chief.
'Well, sir; yes.'
'Then how on earth can you tell that you did not make that bruise?'
There was a moment's silence, during which the smaller of the offenders
surveyed the wound with an almost envious eye.
'It couldn't have been me, sir,' he said at last. 'I can't flick well
enough to have done that.'
I hope I may be pardoned for retelling this story, which I have already
told elsewhere. But it seems to me to interpret perfectly the attitude
towards bullying that exists in most houses. No doubt there was a great
deal of bullying fifty years ago. And people think that what was true of
the Rugby of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_ is true of the Shrewsbury of
to-day. They still think that the three chief sins of a Public School
are bullying, stealing, and midnight escapades into the town. But those
days have passed. In Desmond Coke's _The Bending of a Twig_ the new boy
who sought for bullies behind every cloister quickly won the nickname of
Don Q.
It is usually during the course of his fourth term that a boy first
begins to swear. For swearing is, on the whole, confined to members of
the Middle School. It is side for a fag to swear, and an oath, except on
rare occasions, is considered beneath the dignity of a blood. He is
supposed to dwell in an Olympian fastness beyond the reach of
inconvenience, where the need for violent language is infrequently
presented. For the second yearer, however, life is full of emotion that
demands to be registered forcibly.
I can never quite see why so many people refuse to believe that a
schoolboy's conversation is punctuated with 'damns' and 'bloodys.' We
employ the idiom of our surroundings. A boy does not swear at home; at
school he does. And there is no particular reason why he should not. An
oath means little to him. He knows that some indecency is implied. But
the meaning of the word is not defined by his use of it. He rarely
employs it appropriately. He recommends the most contradictory
performances. A powerful expression is needed. He wishes the world to
know that he has been moved powerfully either to anger, or to delight.
That is all. Any word that would have this effect would suit him, and I
remember a dormitory captain insisting that the only expletive to be
used in his presence should be 'daggers'; this crasis satisfied every
one. The language a boy uses is no index to his character. Swearing and
'talking smut' are very different things.
It is also in his fourth term that a boy who is anything of an athlete
begins to discover himself on the football field. He finds himself
scoring tries in home games. He is noticed by the bloods as a coming
man. He makes friends among his seniors. He is no longer outside the
life of the school. The road of ambition lies clear and straight before
him. It is marked out in distinct stages. He learnt, of course, during
his first term that a house cap may put one hand in his trouser pockets,
that a seconds may put both, that a first may walk across the sixth form
green in break; but these facts were distant in the imagination like the
ritual of a mediæval court: they now become realities. In a year, he
reminds himself, he will be in his house fifteen. The year after he
should get his house cap. In four years he should be a first. It might,
indeed, be maintained that the blood system is at the same time the
magnet and the expression of the second yearer's ambition. The blood
would not value his performances so highly were he not encouraged by
others in the belief that he is of supreme importance. And, at fifteen,
one idealises the future. It seems splendid to be a blood, to play for
the school against Blackheath, to saunter across the courts with one's
hands in one's pockets, one's books stuck under one's arms; to be on
terms of friendly intercourse with masters, to be beyond the reach of
punishment. And, because the future seems so glorious, the second yearer
idealises the dwellers in it. In the same way that in Chelsea the latest
poet or draughtsman can disregard the social laws of property and of
propriety, in the eyes of the junior the blood can do no wrong. His
voice is hushed when a blood passes him in the cloisters. If one should
speak to him, he blushes and stammers and feels proud of it for days.
The blood naturally endeavours to realise the popular conception of
himself. He owes his position to it. For the higher up the school we go,
the less important the blood appears, and, when our time comes to sit at
the high table, we can hardly believe that we are occupying the same
chair that Meredith sat in four years ago. It is absurd. How the house
must have come down. To think of that little ass, Barton, being a
prefect. How short a time since he was playing in junior house games and
getting cursed for funking. And for ourselves--it is only yesterday that
we were trembling, a diffident new boy, at the far corner of the
day-room table. We cannot but believe our generation to be vastly
inferior to those that have preceded it, and we do not think otherwise
even when we win the senior cricket cup, although in Meredith's year the
house was beaten by an innings in the first round. It is not in our
nature to desire, or even value highly, what we possess. The last year
is often a disappointment.
No such foreknowledge mars the enjoyment and anticipation of the second
yearer. It is indeed hard to imagine a more fortunate combination of
circumstances. From an agreeable present he surveys the prospect of a
delightful future. The days may pass slowly, or swiftly, as they
will--their passage will be a long enchantment.
It is during this period that a boy gets through the majority of his
ragging in form. Now the ragging of masters is a very specialised art.
The master holds all the cards. He has behind him the marshalled forces
of the law. He can cane, he can give lines. He has every implement,
physical and moral, for the preservation of order. He ought to be able
to keep order. Yet the boy usually wins. Indeed, I often wonder how a
master, who has once begun to be ragged, can ever hope to regain order.
He is fighting a confident foe. The new boy learns during his first week
that 'one can do anything one likes in Musty's.' Musty stands no chance.
He enters the form room nervously; he is on the lookout for trouble; he
is afraid to turn his back on the class when he is working on the
blackboard. For ten minutes there is silence, a suspicious silence,
perhaps, but still a silence. Musty tells himself that if any one
attempts to break that silence he will make him sorry for it. He will
punish the first whisper: that is the only way. And then, suddenly, from
the back of the room, comes an ominous sound. It is not a cough: it is
not a sneeze: it is a hideous nasal and vocal croak that Musty has
learnt to recognise as the prelude to rebellion. He observes that some
one is cramming a handkerchief into his mouth, and is choking in the
subdued manner of one who is unsuccessfully stifling a laugh.
Musty decides on action. 'Jones, take that handkerchief out of your
mouth immediately, and you'll spend the afternoon doing me a hundred
lines.' Jones withdraws the handkerchief from his chin, and his face
assumes an expression of outraged innocence. 'But, sir----' he begins.
'A hundred and fifty lines,' snaps Musty.
At this point the democracy of the class feels that its independence has
been violated. There is a murmur of disapproval. And a tall, cadaverous
youth rises from the front desk.
'Please, sir----'
'Silence, Evans.'
'No, sir, but really,' Evans persists, 'I must explain to you, sir, that
the younger Jones is suffering from a very severe cold.'
'Yes, sir, I am,' blurts out the victim. 'And the matron said I was not
to play football this afternoon.'
At this point Musty should, of course, be firm.
'I am sorry,' he should say, 'but, at the same time, that will allow
you, Jones, to do me two hundred lines instead of a hundred and fifty.
And perhaps you, Evans, will do me a hundred and fifty. Thank you. We
will now proceed with the lesson.'
Such tactics might succeed. But Musty hesitates; for a moment he wonders
whether Jones is telling him the truth. And the delay is fatal. Already
other members have started to produce testimonials to Jones mi.'s
integrity and disease. 'He really is awfully bad, sir. My study's next
door to him, and he was coughing all last night. He made such a noise
that I was only able to do you three problems instead of six!'
A general conversation begins. Members cease even to address the chair.
When Evans assures Musty that 'Jones would never tell a lie,' Power
retorts that the other day Jones sold him a watch as new which went
smash at once. 'Dirty little liar, I call him!' 'You wait till
afterwards,' is Jones's reply. And, by the time honour has been
vindicated, there is no chance of restoring order that day. The class is
already out of hand. Jones mi. has the general permission to sneeze as
often as he likes, a permission of which he generously avails himself.
Such a disturbance should have been quelled by a firm hand. Masters have
to run the risk of being unfair. There is, of course, the possibility
that Jones's cold may have been genuine, but his previous record should
preclude it to a 100 to 1 chance. At any rate, it is unlikely that Jones
would be anxious to carry the case to the head master. Criminals avoid
Bow Street.
It is not usually, however, so easy to distinguish the preliminary
manoeuvres. When, for instance, a boy walks quickly up to the master's
desk and says that he thinks there is a peculiar smell in the room, the
master is taken off his guard. He assumes interest. He walks to where
the boy was sitting and sniffs. A polite boy rises and asks respectfully
if anything is the matter. 'No, nothing,' says the master, 'Jones
thought there was a curious smell where he was sitting.' The interest of
the form is quickened. There is a general sound of sniffing. 'Well, sir,
now that Jones comes to mention it, I do seem to recognize--I don't
quite know what it is, sir.'
'Come, come,' says the master, 'that'll do.'
'No, but really, sir, I don't know if it's quite healthy. Do you think
the drains are all right?'
The information is hazarded that there have been several cases of
typhoid recently in the town.
'It must be the drains.'
Then some one suggests that it may be the gas. The school custos is
notoriously careless in these matters. The suggestion is welcomed. At
any rate it deserves investigation. And such investigations, when
conducted by twenty clumsy boys, whose clumsy feet are shod with heavy
boots, are a long and noisy business. Books fall with a clatter on to
the floor. The hindquarters of the inoffensive are accidentally kicked.
Smith endeavours to jump from one desk to another, misses his footing
and crashes on the desk. Musty is lost.
He stands in the middle of the room. He says 'Come, now!' a great many
times. He varies it occasionally with 'That'll do.' He asks Smith
whether he considers that what he is doing 'is really necessary.' At
last a piping unrecognisable voice rises from the far corner. 'It isn't
the gas. It must be Musty himself. He never washes.'
In most schools there are at least two masters who are the continual
victims of such treatment. Such ragging, however, is too simple to
content the truly adventurous. The Mustys of the scholastic world are
objects of contempt, and we prefer to respect our enemies. It is far
more entertaining to rag a disciplinarian. One has to guard oneself. The
master has all the weapons. Among other things the ragster has to work.
If he is unexpectedly put on to con, flounders through a couple of lines
and breaks down completely at the third, he has played into his
opponent's hand. He has deserved the imposition that he will most
certainly get. The ragster must prepare his work. That is part of his
defence. He cannot say to himself: 'I have been on twice running. I
shall not go on to-day.' If he makes a cheeky remark in form, the
master's just retort is: 'Jones, you seem to like talking. I think you
had better translate the next passage.' And, if Jones translates the
passage successfully he feels that he is one up. Such ragging is very
different from the general rag of the complete incompetent. It is a
free-lance affair. It is an art. The majority of masters meet it in some
form or other. It is only a few who are subjected to displays in which
the whole form take part.
Yet it is a puzzle to find out how exactly this ill-fortune selects its
particular victims. Personality is limited. There are only a few who
have a real genius for teaching. The majority are merely competent. And
competence must fall before invention. Why is it that some are ragged
and others not. The ragged master may be an excellent fellow. He may be
good at games; he may be just as exemplary a member of society as his
colleagues, and yet he is selected for this refined torture. There are
some masters for whom one never works hard; one does enough and no more
to avoid being bottled. One sits in the class-room for long, sultry,
tedious hours; the insipid sunlight moves across the wall. One watches a
fly crawl up the window-pane. One writes 'is a fool' upon the desk after
the inscribed name of an enemy. One sticks a compass into the back of
the man in front. Perhaps one revises the next hour's lesson. It may be
that there is an imposition to be completed. The minutes pass slowly;
one longs for the strike of the clock. And yet no one attempts to
enliven the hour with some geniality. The few attempts that are made are
spasmodic and unsuccessful.
We had a master who was nicknamed, I never knew why, Marchand. And, one
day, a boy who was doing translation paused at the French word
_marchand_. 'Please, sir,' he said, 'I don't know what _marchand_
means.' There was no laugh, not even a titter. We were all too
surprised. The master's face did not alter. 'It means merchant, Smith,'
he said, 'and you will stay behind afterwards and speak to me.' He
received six of the best. And it was, no doubt, such a master who made
the historic retort to the boy who, during an hour that was devoted to
the discussion of Old Testament history, inquired what 'harlot' meant.
'A harlot, Jones,' the master answered, 'is a lady who finds herself in
unfortunate circumstances, and you will take two hundred lines.'
If such an answer had been made by Musty, the boy would have
expostulated freely; other members of the form would have interested
themselves in the cause of justice. As it is, Smith gets his half-dozen
and Jones his two hundred lines, and the world says 'silly ass!'
There are certain masters who inspire neither industry nor
insubordination, and yet I suppose that once they, too, had their hour
of trial. So much depends on the first impression. Arnold Lunn has
recounted in _The Harrovians_ the story of one Crabbe, who was so
unmercifully ragged that he had to leave at the end of his first term.
'He went on to another school where his reputation had not preceded him.
He opened his first lesson by setting a boy a hundred lines for
sneezing. After having successfully established a reputation for
unbridled ferocity, he was able, by slow degrees, to relapse into his
natural kindly self.' It is typical of much. The master who has once
allowed himself to be ragged is lost for ever. He may beat, he may line,
he will never restore order. His only chance is to try elsewhere.
The ragging of prefects is of very much the same order. There is less of
it, because the head of the house has a way of jumping suddenly on the
turbulent. 'I hear you were ragging Beetle last night in hall. You've
got to stop it--see? and you're going to get six as a warning!' The head
of the house has more authority than an assistant master. If a boy felt
that an assistant master was unjust he might very well complain to the
head master. But no boy would care to appeal against a boy--that would
be sneaking. A good head of the house sees to it that none of the
prefects are indiscriminately ragged, but there is always one of them
for whom the rest of the house has but little respect, and to whom the
taking of prep is always an anxiety. He beats and lines more than the
rest of the prefects put together. But it has small effect. Indeed the
second yearer acquires a hardened hide. Punishment is no deterrent to
him; it is merely a pawn in the game.