Mr. Harris, who always resented not being allowed to wear a cap and
gown like the other masters. Highly tenacious of such privileges as
he could contrive to obtain, he was always well pleased when small
boys touched their hats to him in the street, punctiliously returning
such salutations with a grand sweep of the arm. A hater of steel pens,
one of his principal occupations was mending quills and trying their
nibs on his thumb-nail. He had always a quill behind one of his ears,
occasionally behind both; and, being a little absent-minded, would
sometimes, to the general delight, sally forth from school with his
hat on and a pair of fresh-mended quills sticking out underneath. Mr.
Harris taught only Lower boys, but big ones, whose bad hand-writing had
attracted attention, were sometimes sent to him to learn how to write
properly; this, needless to say, was looked upon as a great humiliation.
The old Eton system could not, of course, fit a boy for a commercial
or business career--as a matter of fact it was never intended to do
so. The modern system, on the other hand, makes something more than a
pretence of equipping Etonians for any profession they may select,
though, considering the traditions of the school, this is no easy task.
The old idea was that, exclusive of the Collegers, a number of whom
were always fine scholars, it did not much matter if the boys were
taught Sanscrit or Chinese, the main purpose of an Eton education being
not so much to inculcate what was vulgarly called “book-learning,” as
to fit Etonians to take their place in the great world outside.
[SN: “TARDY-BOOK”]
Of late years, however, the authorities have made real progress in
their efforts to convert “an Eton education” into more of a reality.
The facilities for study at Eton have always been good, and within
recent years much has been done to improve them, with, it would seem,
satisfactory results. White tickets have been invented as a final
supreme punishment when yellow tickets have failed to make a culprit
realise his own shortcomings, whilst the quaintly named “Tardy-book,”
an institution of entirely modern origin, has been devised to strike
terror into those who make a practice of being late for school.
The old haphazard methods which formerly prevailed have been discarded
in favour of more business-like ways, the school office, which
undertakes the distribution of much connected with the work of the
school, being a thoroughly workmanlike and efficient institution. In
its early days, however, a few things somehow got mislaid, which,
of course, furnished unscrupulous boys who had failed to do any
punishment with the plausible excuse that their lines had got lost
there.
Much less idleness seems now to prevail, the boys being certainly
forced to work more than was the case in the writer’s day, when so many
of them, it must be admitted, learnt very little indeed, contriving to
go through the school with a really surprising lack of mental effort.
To such as these the only real time of danger was Trials, when they
were absolutely obliged to make some attempt at working. Most idlers,
however, took such an ordeal very lightly, occasionally supplementing
their defective memories by various ingenious contrivances. An expert
once, it is said, equipped himself as follows: Right waistcoat pocket,
Greek verbs; left waistcoat pocket, Latin verbs; breast pocket, crib to
Horace; right tail pocket, crib to Virgil; left tail pocket, crib to
Homer; finger-nails, important dates. His ingenuity, however, was all
wasted, for he was plucked. The amount of application and intelligence
needful to take a good place in such examinations was formerly quite
moderate.
Cunning boys had all sorts of ways of avoiding work. Some could
calculate to a nicety when they were likely to be put on to construe,
and learnt only a particular bit. One master for a long time made it a
practice to call upon each boy in turn right through his division, with
the result that they confined themselves to learning only about a dozen
lines or so apiece. At last, however, the trick was discovered, and one
fatal morning the master caused consternation by putting on the first
boy at the end instead of the beginning. A general collapse ensued, boy
after boy standing dumbfoundered and speechless, instead of rattling
off his portion with glib proficiency.
[SN: SUNDAY QUESTIONS]
Thirty or forty years ago, it may safely be affirmed, any boy of
ordinary intelligence who had received a good grounding at a private
school could manage to make his way up to the higher forms without
once “muffing Trials,” and yet not increase his stock of learning in
the very slightest degree. He lived, as it were, upon a capital of
knowledge imbibed in the very different atmosphere of some hard-working
preparatory school. The enthusiasm for learning which inspired many
a boy fresh from such modest seminaries was too often quickly cooled
by the banks of the Thames. It was, indeed, admitted by not a few
that the longer a boy remained at Eton the more lazy he became. One
cheeky lad, indeed, being lectured for idleness by his tutor, who at
the same time eulogised the industry of a comparatively new comer, was
met by the answer, “Well, sir, I have been here three years and he
only one.” The tone, at least amongst the majority of the Oppidans,
was not encouraging to enthusiasm of any kind, besides which the frank
absurdity of certain portions of the Eton curriculum was calculated
merely to depress a boy gifted with even average intelligence. Sunday
questions, for instance, instituted by Dr. Goodford about 1854, usually
resembled nothing so much as a page of acrostics, the correct solution
of which, whilst involving a vast amount of trouble, conduced to
anything but a love of the Bible. As an aid to holy living, for which
purpose, I believe, they were supposed to be devised, no more pitiful
failure ever existed, the sole effects produced being unmitigated
boredom and much bad language. In modern days they may have been
improved, but in their original form these questions, a number of which
dealt with the genealogies of Hebrew kings, were a most unstimulating
exercise for the youthful brain.
In many other respects the school-work was idiotically useless and bad,
a great part of it having seemingly been devised to entail a maximum
of drudgery with a minimum of useful information. Above all, it lacked
elasticity, little or no effort being made to encourage a boy in any
particular subject for which he exhibited aptitude.
Some features of the curriculum might have been modelled upon the
ancient Chinese system. What could have been more ridiculous than to
make boys who could scarcely construe a simple sentence attempt to
turn out Latin verse? It would have been far better to teach greater
Eton--that is, the mass of more or less ignorant dunces--how to write
a good letter in their own language, or driven into their brains
some knowledge of modern geography, yet nothing of the sort was ever
attempted.
The writing of Latin verse was one of the most time-honoured Eton
traditions which had to be undertaken by every boy who emerged from
the Lower Forms of the school, and every week a copy of verses was set
by the masters who took the divisions of the Fifth Form. These verses
had to be done by the boys as best they could, being submitted for
correction to the tutors, who got the verses into shape, eliminating
“false quantities” and all other mistakes, in the course of which
operation they themselves often composed a good deal of Latin poetry.
The revised copy was then returned to the boy, who wrote a “fair copy”
out of school, and afterwards showed up both copies to the Division
Master. The strain on the tutors was at times great, and unscrupulous
boys, with the additional help of a clever friend, would sometimes
go through the whole of their Eton career without in the least
understanding anything at all about verse-writing.
[SN: “TUGS” AND “SAPS”]
Such a state of affairs exerted a demoralising effect upon the minds
of earnest, well-meaning boys, who gradually came to see that certain
features of their education were entirely futile. Besides this, owing
to the general tone of the school, a large part of which regarded
school-work as being merely a sort of useless way of wasting time,
their estimation of the value of effort of all kind lessened, whilst
the conviction was forced upon them that no particular _kudos_ was to
be gained by conscientious study, which they came to look upon as the
peculiar appanage of “Tugs” and “Saps.”
No feat of learning on the part of a King’s scholar ever aroused the
slightest surprise, it being generally assumed that “Tugs,” unlike
the rest of the school, having been born “Saps,” or always made to
work, could master every kind of learning with the greatest ease. The
Newcastle Scholar, always a boy of high intellectual attainments,
excited no interest amongst the mass of the school--the majority
indeed scarcely knew who had won it, and, if asked, would generally
reply, “Oh, some Colleger or other.” No aspirations to gain Balliol
scholarships or places in the class-lists disturbed the serenity of
the Oppidan’s mind. Such petty ambitions might excite the miserable
rivalry of boys at other schools, vain mortals toiling in the lower
world of scholarship, “vying with and outrunning and outwitting one
another.” In such contests Eton could afford to look calmly on, secure
in that “repose of character” which has for so many generations marked
her students. There existed, indeed, a sort of tacit understanding that
it was the business of the Collegers to do the intellectual work and
to win the school and University honours, whilst the Oppidans were to
prove victorious at Henley and, if possible, beat Harrow and Winchester
at cricket. A great portion of the school, assuming a natural licence
to be idle, had a deeply implanted conviction that reading was not in
their line, and at heart believed it was rather a slow thing to do.
The general result of this unsatisfactory standard of course yielded
bad results. Calmly secure in the conviction that to be in the eight
or eleven was to have reached the highest pinnacle of boyish ambition,
those who excelled in athletics became naturally prone to undervalue
intellectual effort and attainments.
[SN: GAMES, NOT WORK]
To excel at games, not at work, was the ideal set before their
youthful eyes; no wonder that for one who persevered in conscientious
preparation of his school-work ten succumbed and became content to sink
lower and lower in Trials, till at last they just scraped through a few
places from the bottom. Admiration for athletics indeed was carried to
an almost absurd extreme. Whilst there can be no doubt that exercise
and an indulgence in manly games and healthful forms of relaxation
are excellent for schoolboys, they should be regarded from a sane
and proper point of view, and not held up as the sole end and aim of
human existence. Curiously enough, scarcely any great men have been
keen athletes during their youthful days, whilst a large proportion
of those who have excelled in the cricket field or on the river have
been utterly unheard of in after life, where capacity to propel a boat
through the water at high speed or drive a cricket ball to the boundary
counts scarcely at all. An entire absorption in games to the exclusion
of practically all other interests cannot be called a healthy feature
of education. Loafing, every one agrees, is a slovenly and demoralising
habit, but fanatical interest in cricket, football, or the river is bad
in another way, for though it may produce muscle, it may also, when
carried to an extreme, produce atrophy of the brain.
In the rough old days, though sporting pursuits, like fighting, were in
high repute, games do not appear to have been taken very seriously at
Eton, where there was nothing approaching the modern spirit which makes
heroes of the eight and the eleven. In the eighteenth century, though
games were played, not a few of the more clever boys would appear to
have viewed them with something of good-humoured contempt.
“I can’t say I’m sorry that I was never quite a schoolboy,” wrote
Horace Walpole; “an expedition against Bargemen, or a match at
cricket may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars,
I can remember things that are very near as pretty.”
[SN: HOOPS]
His friend Gray, though in his famous ode he touched upon the school
games, expressed no particular enthusiasm for athletics:--
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle’s speed.
Or urge the flying ball?
Gray, it should be added, originally wrote
To chase the hoop’s elusive speed,
for, extraordinary as it may appear to the modern Etonian, the hoop was
formerly in high favour with Eton boys. Trundling a hoop has long been
recognised as one of the best forms of exercise; indeed, the writer has
been told that the present Headmaster of Eton, in his day an athlete of
high distinction, being once abroad where no games could be played,
in order to keep himself fit purchased a hoop and took to trundling it
with great zest.
As late as the early part of the nineteenth century, during the October
half, the majority of Lower School used to indulge in the somewhat
infantile delights of trundling a hoop with a stout stick. The Eton
hoop was made differently from the ones still used by children, being
formed out of a strong ash lathe with a remnant of bark upon its
surface. The inevitable collisions of hoops and their trundlers not
infrequently led to hostilities, and on several occasions regular
pitched battles occurred between Collegers and Oppidans. A famous
encounter once took place at the end of the wall near the Chapel door,
about twenty boys being on each side, one Saturday after four, big
boys in front, little ones behind. Thanks to their gowns, which they
adroitly twisted round one arm, the Collegers had the best of the
encounter, though the Oppidans were able to draw off without having
been definitely beaten. The contest excited great interest, a crowd of
people watching the battle, and though the masters were fully aware of
what was going on, no attempt was made to interfere. For some reason
or other, however, there was no more hoop-trundling till the following
year.
[Illustration:
_“Say Father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race.
Disporting on thy margent green.
The paths of pleasure trace.”
GRAY’S ODE._
_From a scarce print in the possession of the Earl of Rosebery, K.G._]
In long-past days another form of amusement, generally associated
with childhood--marbles--enjoyed an occasional popularity amongst
Lower boys, many of whom prided themselves on the variegated colours
contained in their collections, whilst for a time “Bandalore”--which,
as “Diabolo,” quite recently enjoyed a great vogue all over
England--quite captivated the school.
Peg-tops were once in great favour, Weight, who kept a grocer’s shop
and was known as “Old Tallow Weight,” doing a brisk business in such
tops and the whip-cord necessary to spin them. The Rev. E. D. Stone
(see page 61) says that in his day, under Hawtrey, backgammon and
knuckle bones were popular in College.
About 1770 the games[10] popular at Eton were “Cricket, Fives, Shirking
Walls, Scrambling Walls, Bally-cally, Battledores, Pegtop, Peg in the
ring, Goals, Hopscotch, Heading, Conquering Lobs, Hoops, Marbles,
Trap-ball, Steal-baggage, Puss in the corner, Cat-gallows, Kites,
Cloyster and Flyer gigs, Tops, Humming-Tops, Hunt the Hare, Hunt the
dark lanthorn, Chuck, Sinks, Store-Caps, Hustle-cap.” Of football, it
will be observed, there is no mention; nevertheless it was played,
though not in very good repute. Fives, of course, was then played
between the buttresses of the Chapel, the favourite time being before
eleven-o’clock school, when a ring of spectators would assemble to
watch good players. As every one knows, the pepper-box of the modern
fives court takes its origin from the stone termination of the steps
leading up to the Chapel door, which was copied in the first regular
fives court built at Eton in 1847.
It would seem that the old Eton authorities, whilst not disapproving
of games, did not attach any very considerable importance to them. In
theory, indeed, boating on the Thames was forbidden, but in practice
even Keate tolerated the joys of the river, though he made violent
efforts to prevent any rowing before Easter, in order to prevent the
boys from catching chills.
[SN: HOCKEY]
In the ’forties of the last century foot races and the three-mile
steeplechase, with its almost impossible jumps and immersions, were a
source of considerable interest just before Easter. The winter games
were then football and hockey, the latter of which, however, only held
its ground for a time, during which it was patronised by many of the
swells. There was then a tradition, which still seems to exist, that
it had been from time to time forbidden as dangerous; nevertheless it
was played for years without either injury or any reprimand. The sticks
were not rough, but smoothed and artificially bent, with blades about
a foot long. There were two clubs, called upper and lower hockey; but
football gradually superseded it, and the game entirely disappeared
about the year 1853. With regard to the prohibition, a writer mentions
(in 1832) hockey and football as the chief winter games at Eton, and
says that more came away “hobbling” from the latter than from the
former, but speaks further on of a boy having in his room “an illegal
hockey-stick.” He observes that this fine old game had died out in
England, except at Eton and Sandhurst, and adds quaintly: “It is one of
the most elegant and gentlemanly exercises, being susceptible of very
graceful attitudes, and requiring great speed of foot.”
As time went on, athletics began to exercise more and more influence,
till in the ’sixties they attained to much the same preponderant
position as they hold at Eton to-day. A few, however, viewed the
growing worship of skilfully trained brute force with unconcealed
dislike. In the early ’seventies of the last century a little magazine,
called the _Adventurer_, contained an article signed E. G. R. called
“Eton as it is,” which scathingly attacked the growing deification of
muscle rather than brain:--
“While in the world around us, for which we are here preparing
ourselves, a vast worship of intellect universally prevails, at Eton
it is the worship of the body which enslaves the whole community.
What, in our estimation, is mind, intellect, hard and successful
cultivation of the faculties? Nothing. What is cricket, rowing,
athletics, football? Everything. And our School is meanwhile being
degraded almost to the level of an Athletic Club.... Idleness holds
sway everywhere, and _such_ idleness! As a man who has never had
dealings with the Chinese can have but a faint idea of what swindling
is, so a man who has never been at Eton has but a poor conception of
what idleness is.”
[SN: “POP”]
This protest was not, however, well received by the school, the
_Adventurer_ being expelled from the rooms of “Pop,” which, curiously
enough, on its foundation in 1811 by Charles Fox Townshend as a
political and literary society, had only elected the captain of the
boats in order to show that the members _had no prejudice_ against
athletics.
Its tone was distinctly Conservative. Fourteen years later, in Mr.
Gladstone’s day, only one member, a Colleger, was suspected of having
Liberal tendencies. Originally “Pop” was located in the upper room of
Mother Hatton’s “sock shop.” In 1846, when the house, together with
another, was formed into Drury’s, “Pop” migrated to the yard of the old
Christopher. The site of Drury’s is now covered by part of that huge
and incongruous building--the “Memorial Hall.”
The early members of “Pop,” it is curious to find, were originally
known as the Literati, their first debate, held on February 9, 1811,
dealing with the question of whether the passage of the Andes by
Pizarro or the passage of the Alps by Hannibal was the greater exploit.
No political event within fifty years was permitted as a subject for
debate. Mr. Gladstone, who was elected a member in 1825, made his
maiden speech before this Society, the subject being “Is the Education
of the Poor on the whole Beneficial?”
The future Prime Minister took great pains to improve himself as an
orator, going, it is said, to rehearse his “Pop” speeches in Trotman’s
gardens, on the site of which the old fives courts were afterwards
built. To the end of his days he continued to take great interest in
the “Eton Society.” His correspondence as to its records, in which
every speaker has written his speech, has been amusingly described by
Lord Rosebery, who on succeeding the great statesman in office one
day received a letter in which the Grand Old Man expressed himself
much distressed because during a recent visit to the rooms of “Pop” he
had seen a picture of a recent Derby winner over the chimney-piece. A
generation, wrote Mr. Gladstone, which had such depraved tastes could
not, in his opinion, be fitted to have the custody of the invaluable
records of the Eton Society, and he therefore begged Lord Rosebery to
address the authorities at Eton on the subject. The state of affairs
of which Mr. Gladstone complained, did not cause the recipient of his
appeal so much disquiet, for the Derby winner which hung over the “Pop”
mantelpiece was Lord Rosebery’s own horse, Ladas, which won the great
classic race in 1894.
Lord Rosebery, who, even in his Eton days, was a most effective
debater, is another member of “Pop” who has risen to high distinction.
Retaining a singularly keen interest in everything connected with his
old school, he it was who made the most eloquent and witty speech at
the dinner in the Memorial Hall, where, on July 14, 1911, 400 Etonians,
the vast majority old members of “Pop,” met to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the Society’s foundation. In the aforesaid speech he
very happily described “Pop” as being a noble companionship like the
Garter, not always given for merit, but a high companionship with
illustrious tradition to which anybody might be proud to belong.
[SN: ETON VICEROYS]
Though athleticism has now in a great measure dominated the “Eton
Society,” it must be confessed, as another distinguished old Etonian,
Lord Curzon, said at the same dinner, that neither title, means, nor
athletic distinction _per se_ ever enabled a man to get inside the
walls of “Pop.” There must be something else--he must be what the world
calls “a good sort,” and it is well that this happy state of affairs
still remains unchanged. On the same occasion Lord Curzon pointed out
that Eton had laid a vigorous hand on India, six out of the last seven
Viceroys having been old Eton boys, whilst that illustrious veteran
Lord Roberts was also an old Etonian.
In the course of the nineteenth century the importance of the
captain of the boats has gradually grown, and at the present day his
personality dominates Eton. He occupies a unique position, being envied
and admired by the Upper part of the school and regarded as a sort of
superior being by Lower boys.
When, about half a century ago, a Royal Commission was taking evidence
as to the state of affairs prevailing at Eton, it was elicited in
evidence that “the captains of the boats and the eleven were scarcely
ever distinguished in scholarship or mathematics.” One master indeed
declared that he had “not observed any boys, during a short experience,
distinguished both in intellect and athletic pursuits.” Young Lord
Boringdon, himself one of the “eight” for two years, was “afraid
that the crews of the boats were generally distinguished for want of
industrious habits.” Cricket the Commission pronounced to have been
found “hardly compatible with high scholarship.” Although the Collegers
formed the larger proportion of the oldest boys in the school, they
were seldom in the eleven, because they were unwilling to spare so much
time from the school work as was considered necessary for practice.