THE LAST TERM
The last year, and especially the last term, is popularly supposed to be
the happiest of a public school career. And it is possible that this may
be so in the case of an industrious, worthy, but not particularly
brilliant fellow who reaches in his last year the privileges of house
prefectship, the immunities of the Lower Sixth and the social hall-mark
of a second fifteen cap. At last, after a struggle of five years, he has
extricated himself from the rut.
For the 'blood,' however, for the double first who has stayed on an
extra year to be captain of the Eleven, these last terms are a
disappointment. He has reached the limits of ambition. For a while he is
attracted by the charm of his new offices, but he can discern beyond
them no fresh fields to conquer. He is embarrassed by the finality of
his position. He cannot value what he possesses. He wonders what is
coming next. He scores tries in school matches, he makes centuries on
the upper, but he had already done that before. 'The doing savours of
disrelish.' He is expected to score tries and make centuries. The cheer
that greets him as he grounds the ball between the posts has not the
surprised enthusiasm that rippled down the touchline two years ago when
he amazed every one by giving two consecutive dummies and beating the
whole defence. He is expected to do well, and when he is a little below
his form, there is a feeling that he has lost the school the match.
Interest is focussed on the performance of the new men. A century by
Shepherd causes more excitement than a century by Hobbs. Hobbs is
established. The world has formed its estimate of his qualities. There
is little new to be said about him. He belongs to the present and the
past. Shepherd belongs to the future. He is a subject of speculation.
And so the double first at the end of the match hears far less talk of
his own performances than he did a year earlier. He is taken for
granted. It is all: 'What a beautiful drop that was of Smith's, he'll be
a fine player in two years' time.' He would not analyse his discontent.
But it is there the whole time. There is no longer a life of marked
stages in front of him. He can peer now over the wall of school. He is
worried, too, by the increasingly acute demands of his physical nature,
by the restraints that are imposed on it. Very often a quite popular boy
makes himself generally disliked during his last year on account of this
irritation that expresses itself in bad temper, jealousy, and outbursts
of unreasoning vindictiveness.
The last term is especially difficult. A boy finds himself freed from
the conditions that had for the five previous years directed his
conduct. He had always thought of 'next term.' Now he realises suddenly
that there is going to be no next term. He is no longer leading the
normal life of his companions. On all sides of him preparations are
being made for the future. Jones has decided to share the games study
with Evans instead of Smith. Plans are being made for the arrangement of
the dormitories. Ambitions are carefully tended, careers are nursed. So
and so is worried because some one else has got his firsts before him.
Dunston is distressed because he has been caught cribbing: 'There goes
my chance of house prefectship.' And the boy who is about to leave
slowly realises that these considerations have no longer any meaning for
him.
If he is caught cribbing he is concerned only with his immediate
punishment. If some one gets his colours before him it does not matter.
He has done with the troubles of seniority. The old life is falling from
him. He is perplexed, not seeing clearly what lies in front of him. Six
years seemed such a long time. He had not paused to wonder what lay
beyond them. He had come to regard that last Sunday in the school chapel
as a final stage. School stories always ended there: in the same way
that romances always closed on marriage, or on death. And, though now he
would be no doubt ready to admit that a man's life did not end at the
altar, and might even be prepared to consider the possibility of an
existence beyond the grave, he had not considered such speculation
profitable or entertaining.
And, in the same way that at a later point of his career he will awake
with a start six months after marriage and ask himself whether it is all
over: 'Heavens!' he will say, 'I can't be finished with; what's going to
happen now?' So, during his last term, he discovers that this stage has
not the finality he had supposed. Something has got to happen next.
School life was, after all, no more than a prelude. He had valued too
highly the enticing emoluments it had to offer. And he does not see what
new prizes life will hold for him.
If he is going to Oxford he may toy with the prospect of athletic
honours. But unless he is particularly gifted, or particularly
conceited, he will appreciate the vast degree of specialised rivalry to
which he will be subjected. If he is going into business he will
envisage, perhaps, the days of affluence and power, of private
secretaries and private telephones; but all that is a very long way off.
There is no immediate focus for his ambition. There is no particular
reason why he should not, if he wishes, make as big a nuisance of
himself as his fancy pleases. He is passing from one phase of discipline
to another; and because the nature of neither is definite, he considers
himself free. A last term is often indeterminate and ineffectual.
Now if the discovery that school life is only a prelude is made by an
unimaginative athlete during these last weeks, we can confidently assume
that it will be made a good deal sooner by a boy of originality and
independence, especially by one who has not entered with any great zest
into the conflict of athletic distinction, and has, therefore, been in a
sense above the battle. He realises a good year and a half before he has
to leave that life in its fullest is to be encountered beyond the limits
of a cloistered world. The discovery does not contribute to his content.
He knows that if he wishes to win a scholarship he will have to stay on
his full time, and he feels that he is marking time, that he is sitting
in the stalls of a theatre waiting for the curtain to go up. Now that is
a most unsatisfactory position to be in. In the theatre we kick our
heels, read our programmes, turn round to see if we can recognise a
friend, speculate on the possibility of innocence in the lady who is
sitting in the front row of the dress circle. One does anything to make
the quarter of an hour pass quickly. The imaginative schoolboy behaves
in a similar fashion. He frets and grows impatient. He assumes an
intellectual snobbery. He despises the majority of his companions and
labels them as Philistines. He disparages the values of athletics and
exalts in essays and in the debating society the literary standards of
the nineties.
It is possible that on Saturday evening he will leave a carnation
standing in green ink in the hope of emulating his divinities. He is
encouraged in his rebellion by the indignant astonishment of the master,
who refuses to regard his outburst as a very natural and, on the whole,
harmless pose. He is lectured severely on the dignity of his position.
He replies in a cryptic epigram. He even criticises the public school
system--an unforgivable offence. Being unacquainted with the ways of
systems, and feeling that his personal liberty is curtailed, he
considers that for this curtailment the public school system is solely
and peculiarly responsible. He will not allow that all systems oppress
the individual, that systems are made for the service of the many, and
that it is for the individualist to decide whether the privileges he
will receive by consenting to remain with the mass compensate for the
unpleasant restrictions that are placed on the free play of his
personality. It is, after all, the first system with which he has
contracted an intimate relationship, and in the same way that a
monogamist considers his wife worse than anybody else's, the schoolboy
delights, in spite of a deep affection for his own school, in hurling at
the public school system all manner of accusations, in which the word
sausage machine is not infrequently repeated.
There are such boys in every school. Age is an arbitrary definition of
development. Many boys reach the age of seventeen, and stay there for
the rest of their lives; others are twenty-five years old before they
have done with their teens. When a boy is tired of school he has
outgrown school. And there is only one sure remedy--to take him away.
But there are the claims of a university career; there is the parent's
natural wish that his son should gain a scholarship; it is often
impracticable for the boy to leave: in such circumstances we can only
recommend on the part of the masters a general leniency. Such outbursts
should not be taken seriously. The school, as a whole, is not concerned
with the unusual behaviour of those who, by the possession of brains,
are already considered slightly abnormal. And the jester who is
disregarded may well become a monk. If, however, a boy feels that notice
is being taken of him, he allows his flattered vanity to dictate to him.
He cultivates his pose; he wonders how best he may shock the
mid-Victorianism of the common room, and there is the danger that the
pose may, in the course of time, become part of his intellectual
equipment.
Sermons and addresses inform us that in the last term is to be found the
significance of school life. But, as I have previously tried to show,
the last term is no more significant than the first. The new boy is
outside school, pausing on the fringe, his eyes full of a sheltered
curiosity. The boy who is about to leave is equally outside school; he
looks backwards and he looks forwards; the continuity of his life is
about to be broken; its rhythm is temporarily suspended. He is no longer
leading the same life as his companions. And it is vain to compare the
new boy with the boy that is about to leave, and by analysing and
examining the change that there is between them to arrive at the meaning
of school life.
They are two entirely different people. One is a child; the other is a
man. The change that must necessarily have taken place during this
passage is so considerable that it is impossible to say how much of it
is due to environment and how much to physical growth. You might send a
man of thirty to Timbuctoo, recall him at the end of four years, and,
examining the change in him apprehend the significance of Timbuctoo
society. He went a man and he returned a man. What change there was in
him could be attributed directly to the wholesome, or unwholesome,
atmosphere of Timbuctoo.
You cannot follow this line of reasoning with a public school boy. A
parent cannot say: 'Six years ago I sent you a young, innocent boy,
industrious, honest, truthful. You have returned to me a young man who
knows more than I consider it proper that he should know, whose sole
object appears to be to extract from life as much pleasure as is
commensurate with a minimum of work, a young man, moreover, who
considers that a lie told to an official is not a lie. Look what you
have done!' But that is not a fair attitude. Anyhow, during those six
years, a boy must to a certain extent have lost his innocence; most
young men of nineteen place the claims of personal indulgence before
those of work. Most young men look on life as a game that is played
between themselves and a perfectly ridiculous antiquated body which is
called 'government,' and whom it is permissible to hoodwink, misinform,
or otherwise deceive whenever the opportunity is presented. The
corroding forces of knowledge must make themselves felt during those six
years. It is unreasonable and absurd to attribute their effects solely
to the public school system.
One can, however, by examining the mental state of a boy a week after he
has left school, form some estimate of what he has learnt at such
considerable expense to his parents.
In the first place, he has acquired an extremely valuable social
technique. A public school education is a passport. Its assailants would
describe it as the membership of a select trades union. An old public
school boy can enter a new mess without feeling any great embarrassment.
He knows how to comport himself in the more superficial of the
situations in which he will from time to time discover himself. All of
which is distinctly valuable.
He has also learnt to understand the type of man with whom he will have
most dealing. He is admitted, that is to say, to terms of good
fellowship with a very large number of persons. He will be treated by
them as a decent chap till he proves himself otherwise. He will have
enough in common with them to be able to bridge superficially the
uncertain moments that precede friendship. If he were introduced to a
man at his club, he would have no difficulty in finding a congenial
topic of conversation, during which conversation he would be able to
decide whether or not the man to whom he had been introduced was likely
to prove a sympathetic companion.
He would have learnt, through the exercise of these qualities in a
communal life, patience and tolerance of a certain kind. A tolerance,
that is to say, that might condemn a man on the cut of his coat, the
colour of his ties, or the use of an incorrect idiom, but would allow
each man to lead his own private life provided he wore the conventional
uniform. Such a tolerance may be described as snobbish and narrow, but
is an admirable social lubricant. An old public school boy would be
unlikely, for instance, to cause trouble to a mess or company or cricket
club by injudicious interference. He will have learnt that it is not
easy for an assorted collection of men to live together without
occasionally getting on each other's nerves, and he will have learnt, in
consequence, the value of tact and compromise.
He will also have learnt a version of his duty towards his neighbours.
He would not tell a lie to a friend unless it was absolutely necessary,
and he would never let a friend down. He has the sense of loyalty
developed to a high degree. All of which goes down on the credit side of
the ledger. On the debit side, however, there are enough entries to make
the cashier wonder whether, or no, the account is overdrawn.
It is amazing how little knowledge the average public school boy has
managed to acquire. He has rushed from one class room to another,
learning French for one hour, and history for another, and science for a
third. He has worked at each of these subjects spasmodically according
to the particular form and set in which he has happened at the time to
find himself. For a whole year on end he may have neglected French
because he was under a lazy master. Then, at the end of the year, on
finding himself in a higher and more strenuous form, he may have made
feverish efforts for a couple of terms, to the detriment of his
mathematics and history, with the result that there is an enormous gap
in his knowledge. Whole periods of history are a blank to him. He has
acquired a certain quantity of uncorrelated information. Within a few
years what little connection there was between the appreciation of these
isolated facts will have slipped away. There will remain a few phrases,
a few catchwords, a few dates--an admirable framework indeed for social,
moral, and political prejudice.
The average public school boy knows, I imagine, a great deal less than
the continental school product. Not only has he learnt little, but he
has not been encouraged to use his brains. He does not, indeed, regard
his brain as a possession to be valued highly and carefully trained. He
will get out of bed five minutes earlier than he need do in the morning
to wave his legs about his head and do exercises with his arms that will
improve his physical condition, but he would never think of learning a
dozen lines of English verse to improve his memory. No one ever appears
to have impressed on him the fact that at thirty-five he will have to
abandon football; that, by the time he is fifty, he will be bowling very
slow stuff indeed, and will be grateful to the opposing captain who
offers him a runner. Yet, at sixty, his brain will, if properly cared
for, be as powerful as it has ever been.
Now I do not want to suggest that boys should devote their whole spare
time to the reading of poetry; literature is only a part of life; but I
do maintain that every public school boy should take some part in the
intellectual life of the world, that he should be able to discover as
much interest in his mind as in his body. At present he does not. He has
very little inner life. He depends far too much on outside interests, on
games during the term, and theatres during the holidays. If he has to
rely on his own devices, he is woefully deficient.
This fact was brought home to me vividly by my experience as a prisoner
of war in Germany. The average officer had no resources of his own; he
could draw no sustenance from the contemplative side of life. He mooned
round the square, wondering how soon he could decently set about his
next meal, longing sadly for the lights of Piccadilly. In the evenings,
when he had to return to his room, he spent the three or four hours
before lights were extinguished engraving rather aimless pictures on the
lids of cigar boxes. It was a pathetic sight to see a man of
twenty-eight, in the prime of life, sitting down night after night to
fiddle about with a knife, a piece of wood, and a box of paints. He
derived no pleasure from it. It was a narcotic. As long as his hands
were employed his brain could go to sleep, and he needed to contemplate
no longer the tedious procession of days that lay before him. Every man
should have sufficient part in the intellectual interests of life to be
able to keep his intelligence active for eight months in surroundings
that provide no physical outlets.
The public school boy has derived little satisfaction from his work. He
has laboured spasmodically with expediency as the goal. Promotion has
promised certain attendant privileges, and the historical Sixth lies,
calm and pleasant, like a lake in the desert.
There is to be found a rest 'for all who come.' It is a sure port after
the shipwrecks of the fourths and fifths. The traveller need work no
more; he has laboured faithfully, let him enter into the joy of his
lord. He returns one holidays having gained his second eleven colours.
Paternal pride is flattered, and the spirit of welcome is only partially
relaxed by the accompanying report. About a week later the following
conversation takes place over a glass of port.
_Son_: I say, father, don't you think all these classics are rather
a waste of time?
_Father_: Well, I don't know, my boy. I did them myself, you know.
_Son_: Of course, father, of course; but things were a bit
different then, and besides you were so much better at them than I
am.
_Father_: Oh, well, if you put it like that, my boy, well,
perhaps----
_Son_: You see, father, I thought it would be rather a good idea
for me to read history.
_Father_: History, my boy, whatever for?
_Son_: Well, I was thinking of taking up politics, father, and
anyway, history scholarships are awfully easy to get. That ass,
Kenneth, got one--you know, the fellow in the School House with the
yellow hair. If you'd just drop a line to Chief, father, I'm sure
he would be only too glad....
One more pilgrim has arrived at Mecca.
The higher up the school one goes, the less work one does. After a few
terms the habit of work is lost, and the only real diligence is
displayed by that melancholy type of scholar who is trained like a pet
Pomeranian.
This is not an ideal apprenticeship for life. It starts a boy with an
entirely false idea of the position that his work should occupy in his
life. I do not wish to seem parsonic, but, if the experience of
practically every big man that has ever lived means anything to us, we
do know that a man's happiness, or unhappiness, depends in the main on
whether his employment is congenial to him. Work is the finest antidote
to boredom. And a public school boy has not realised this by the time he
is on the threshold of his career. He does not consider that the choice
of his career should be the expression of his temperament. He drifts
into the most accessibly remunerative job. He brings to it no
enthusiasm.
The trouble is that school life lasts too long and is far too jolly. Six
years is a long time. A boy of thirteen can hardly be expected to
realise that it is only a prelude. The years pass so happily, the
pursuit of ambition is so engrossing that he has no time to consider
whether the prizes he is winning have any lasting value. As the new boy
he longs to be captain of the school: and, having set himself a task, he
does not shrink from the contest. School life is so vast, so varied, so
many-coloured that it would be difficult for a boy to relinquish his
hold upon the ambition that lies close to him in favour of the shadowy
ambitions of the life that lies beyond it. School life is too big a
pedestal for the statue that is to be placed on it. It dwarfs what it
should present. The boy finds on leaving school that an entirely
different technique is required. It is not that the standards are
changed, but the whole manner of life is altered.
His school career was divided neatly into stages. He could at any moment
consult a house list and see how he was progressing on the road to
authority. At such a period he should have reached the Fifth table. If
he were one day to get into the Fifteen, he should by his sixteenth
birthday have got his house cap. Everything was mapped out. The rungs of
the ladder were labelled. Colt's Cap, House Cap, Seconds, Firsts, Fourth
Form, Fifth Form, Sixth.
In business he finds no such ladder. His abilities are placed upon the
open market. He is fighting an intangible foe. He has to come to terms
with himself. He feels that he is driving into the void. He also finds
that he has to rearrange his scale of values. Athletic distinction is
not greatly prized in Wall Street, and the young man who, when asked to
present his qualifications, remarks that his batting average was over
thirty, without a single not-out score to help it, is likely to receive
a rude shock. I spent a few months before I went to Sandhurst in the
Inns of Court O.T.C. (a corps that had, by that time, ceased to be
composed of ex-public school men), and it was a blow to discover that
the fact that I had been in my school eleven and fifteen made not the
slightest impression on any of the N.C.O.'s.
It may be that a readjustment of one's standards is a healthy
experience. But that is hardly the attitude that officials could safely
adopt. The public school system is supposed to produce trained citizens,
who are in harmony with their environment. And that is exactly what the
public school boy is not. He tries to tackle life with the scale of
values that he learnt to apprehend at school. And it is not an easy
task. Some, indeed, never accomplish it. They never readjust themselves.
They surround themselves with old friends, revisit their old schools,
endeavour to recapture the old atmosphere. They regret vaguely that
something has passed. Like Jurgen, they return in quest of their youth,
but the distorted shadow of Sereda prevents them from entering
completely their former selves. In _The Harrovians_ Arnold Lunn makes
two of his characters discuss this question.
'There's West, for example,' Peter said, 'he'll never be such a blood
again. He hasn't any brains. He couldn't even struggle into the Upper
School, but he's a mighty man here. Rather a pity, I think, that life
should reach its highest point at nineteen. This ought only to be a
beginning.'
That states the case.