authority felt, school hours must have often been a time of veritable
torment. Generally well-meaning men of gentle nature, when they did
punish they almost invariably punished wrong or in an ineffectual
manner, their usual practice being either to set some tremendous
“poena,” which they afterwards revoked, or settle upon the wrong boy,
to whom in the end they were obliged to accord something very like
an apology. In a few rare instances the perfectly legitimate loss of
temper by a master led to very grave consequences. Goaded to fury by a
long course of deliberate insubordination, some tortured tutor would
at last turn upon a pupil and box his ears. Physical chastisement
by a master in any form whatever was then strictly forbidden, the
infliction of corporal punishment being reserved for the Head and Lower
Masters alone. The boys were perfectly aware of this, and instances
occurred of grave consequences attending a well-deserved blow. One
master, I believe, was more or less compelled to leave the school
because he had hit a particularly impertinent boy with a book, and
several instances of masters receiving reprimands occurred from time
to time. By the irony of fate, the most unsuccessful masters were
sometimes the cleverest men, who, however, had begun badly and obtained
a reputation which caused them to be tortured by successive generations
of boys. Of one of these unfortunate pedagogues it was said that
during school hours the first rank of his division talked, the second
whistled, and the third sang.
[SN: AN UNFORTUNATE MASTER]
One of the most ludicrous jokes ever perpetrated upon any Eton master
was played some ten years ago. At that time several new masters, not
all of whom were Etonians, had been appointed, more or less, I believe,
upon probation. One of these, who taught modern languages, though a
clever man, was of too confiding and gentle a disposition to cope with
the boys, and during school hours a scene of great disorder became
the almost invariable rule. Paper darts flew all over the class-room,
and every kind of queer noise was heard, though the poor man was
always unable to bring the offenders to book. Finally, on the 5th of
November a regular pandemonium prevailed, fireworks being exploded
in all directions, even under his very nose, with the result that he
was driven into a state of rage merging upon despair and determined
to adopt stringent measures. On the next occasion, however, when the
same set of boys came to take their lesson in the language of Molière,
what was his surprise to observe that, contrary to all his former
Eton experiences, the greatest decorum prevailed, his remarks and
comments being listened to in respectful silence, whilst occasionally
subdued murmurs of admiration greeted the expounding of some difficult
sentence. At the end of that school it had been his intention to
address a few words to the boys referring to the scandalous scene of
the previous week, but in face of their changed attitude he felt that
it would be churlish to show any undue severity, and merely spoke in a
tone of surprised regret, adding that he was much pleased to observe
such improved behaviour. Upon this a boy, who on previous occasions had
been one of the worst offenders, stepping forward, enquired, “Sir, may
I say a few words?” Permission being accorded, the youth made a stately
little speech, in which he said that any outbursts of indiscipline were
deeply deplored by the whole division, for whom he had been deputed
to speak. “They were merely,” added he, “playful ebullitions--proofs,
he might add, of the great popularity of a master whom they all
respected and loved. The fact was, his friends had been carried away by
enthusiasm, which in future would be kept within due bounds, and now
he hoped the whole incident might be forgiven and forgotten. Meanwhile
he had been requested to crave a favour, the granting of which he felt
sure no one acquainted with Eton tradition would care to refuse. It
was,” he continued, “an ancient custom of the school, when a master
attained to an unusual degree of popularity, for his division to be
allowed the honour of hoisting him, and that honour he and his friends
now sought from their beloved pedagogue.” The master, though rather
surprised, felt very much flattered and pleased at having, as he said
in a neat little speech of reply, so quickly gained the confidence and
love of his young friends, and at the end of school was carried round
the new schools, finally being deposited upon the cannon which all
Etonians know so well. As his delighted boys went off to their houses
they gave him a final cheer, which filled him with joy. On his way home
he met one of the older masters and told him of the demonstration,
adding, “Oh, I do so adore your quaint customs!” The astounded old
Etonian held his peace, but at the end of that half the newcomer had to
betake himself elsewhere, it being clear that the Eton boys were too
much for him.
[SN: ESCAPADES]
The old lawless spirit which had prompted so many poaching expeditions
and illicit rambles in the eighteenth century still lingered in the
writer’s day, when six or seven boys established a regular club, where
they could smoke and play nap, in a room over a Windsor toy-shop. One
of the chief organisers--now a Peer who has filled several important
public appointments--always took care to provide a rope-ladder by
which the party might escape in the event of a raid. Some of the
Windsor billiard-rooms were also occasionally frequented by a few
older boys, some of whom had a regular arrangement which ensured them
the exclusive use of the table on certain days of the week. As far as
the present writer’s experience went, no serious harm resulted from
these sternly prohibited escapades. Nevertheless, afternoons passed
in the consumption of much tobacco and some alcohol did no good to
health. The authorities, whenever any rumour of such breaches of the
school discipline reached their ears, did everything in their power
to set matters right. The wonder was, considering how alert were some
of the masters, that more of the culprits were not caught. The writer
remembers three--one of whom was his friend Mr. Douglas Ainslie, now
a well-known poet and critic--who had a very narrow escape indeed. On
such afternoons as they indulged in surreptitious visits to a certain
hostelry, these boys used to get into their house after Lock-Up through
the room of a small fag, who received careful instructions to look out
for their return behind the drawn blind of his window, by which access
could be contrived from the street. The signal agreed upon was a pebble
thrown gently at the glass. For a time this arrangement worked well
enough, but one winter’s evening the party, on reaching their house,
were dismayed at obtaining no response. One of them--in after life a
gallant officer of Highlanders who fell fighting at the head of his men
in South Africa--by climbing up and breaking a pane of glass, managed
to effect an entrance; his companions followed, and what was their
surprise on relighting the light, which had fallen over in the scuffle,
to find, cowering in the corner of the room, a beautiful little girl,
who was fairly frightened to death! When at last reassured, this
child explained that she was the sister of the owner of the room, who
had gone out to borrow some tea-things from a friend. Needless to
say, under such circumstances, the Lower boy got no hiding for his
delinquency.
In addition to his traditional duties, a master, it seems, now has
to mark in the boys in his class-room. Formerly this was done by a
praepostor, one being attached to every division. His office dated
from the foundation of the school, when he appears to have possessed
considerable authority, being indeed a sort of monitor. In modern
times, however, praepostors merely had to mark in all the boys in
the division to which they were attached under three heads, “Leave,”
“Staying out,” and “ab horâ” or “Late.” After every school all the
praepostors assembled in the colonnade and handed in their bills to
the Headmaster. As a rule the office of praepostor, undertaken by
every boy in turn, was popular, for such an official escaped most of
the school hours, was never put on to construe, and passed a good deal
of his time chatting to boys reported sick, whom he had to go and
see. Some boys disliked it, however, and by arrangement passed the
praepostor’s book on. The whole institution was a curious survival
of a past age. Well does the present writer remember standing as
praepostor by the side of Dr. Hornby calling Absence in the school-yard
and thinking that the ancient office would not last very much longer.
Within recent years his forebodings have been justified, for at present
but one praepostor (of the Headmaster’s division) exists, the work of
marking in being undertaken by masters in school and the boys at the
end of the benches in Chapel.
[SN: ROOMS]
Thirty or forty years ago life in an Eton house remained much as it
had been in the eighteenth century, the boys, provided they did their
work, being left pretty much to themselves, though some housemasters
interfered to prevent boisterous sports, such as football in the
passages. The rooms, though often very small, were, it must be said,
not uncomfortable, and quite a number of boys prided themselves upon
their taste in decoration. Some even had pianos in their rooms, a
privilege which was highly valued and seldom abused. The furniture of
the rooms generally varied but little. For the most part it consisted
of a shut-up bed, a “burry” (bureau) washstand, which also closed
up, and sock cupboard. In this the owner kept his tea-things and such
delicacies as he could afford. A favourite form of decoration was a
mantel-board covered, according to Victorian taste, with stamped plush
and brass-headed nails. In the summer term there was some competition
in the matter of fire-ornaments and flower-boxes. The former were
generally appalling in their vulgarity, their main feature being a
profusion of extremely garish ornament, mostly tinsel and sham gold.
Almost every boy had a few pictures, generally of a sporting kind,
even though he himself had never taken part in sport. The Eton print
shops must have done a fine trade in oleographs and poorly reproduced
representations of famous runs and steeplechases. Some few brought
comparatively good pictures with them from home. The writer remembers
a set of Eton prints in a boy’s room which at the present day it would
be extremely difficult to procure at all. The books were, of course,
mostly connected with work, a crib or two being generally hidden away
in case of a raid. On the whole an Eton boy was extremely comfortable,
for he could have pretty well anything he or his parents could afford
to pay for, while there was scarcely one who did not boast an arm-chair.
On the whole, the long-suffering boys’ maids, as they were called,
did their work very well. As a rule, it should be added, they were
middle-aged women, not remarkable for beauty. One housemaster,
indeed--Mr. Walter Durnford, formerly a popular figure at Eton, and now
Vice-Provost of King’s--according to current report, used, with perfect
justice, to pride himself upon the extreme ugliness of his maids. Be
this as it may, the boys of his house, which was next to the writer’s,
were often to be seen peering through their windows in order to catch a
glimpse of one of our maids, of whose good looks we were quite justly
proud.
[SN: FAGGING]
Fagging, though probably more arduous than to-day, entailed little
hardships on the smaller boys. Thirty years ago a fag’s duties
consisted in laying his fagmaster’s breakfast, procuring chops, steaks,
kidneys, or sausages from a sock shop, making toast, and poaching eggs.
He had to attend at tea-time again, but then as a rule was not called
upon to do anything in particular, his appearance at that hour being
more or less a matter of form. Besides this, a fag had to carry notes
and render other similar services when required to do so, while obliged
to answer to the call of “Lower boy” shouted by any one in Upper
Division. It should be added that the qualification as to place in the
school entitling boys to fag has gradually been heightened. Formerly
the whole of the Fifth Form could fag; but about three decades ago that
privilege was withdrawn from the Lower Division, and I believe the
number of fagmasters has been further lessened since then. This was not
on account of the privilege of fagging having been abused, but merely
because the number of Upper boys had grown too large in proportion
with those of the Lower. With the institution of breakfasts provided
by housemasters and eaten by the boys all together, fagging has shrunk
to a mere nothing. The most irksome part formerly was being obliged to
answer the call of “Lower boy,” when every one “fagable” was obliged
to rush at headlong speed to the caller, the last to arrive being the
one who had to perform the particular service required. In College, I
believe, “Here” was called instead of “Lower boy.” Also, at one time,
it would appear that any boy able to call out “Finge” before the rest
could claim exemption from taking notice of the call. I must, however,
add that I never heard anything about this when I was at Eton. Another
College shout was “Cloister P!” on hearing which the lowest boy within
call had to fetch a canful of excellent drinking water from the famous
old pump in the Cloisters, at the spout of which, in a rougher age,
many generations of Collegers had performed their ablutions. Owing
to the dearth of Lower boys in College for a long time past, it has
been the custom that every newcomer, irrespective of his place in the
school, should fag for a year.
In the distant past cricket fagging existed, and must have pressed
very heavily upon small boys, who were liable to be waylaid by Fifth
Form boys coming out of school. Cricket fagging then included bowling,
and was an irksome infliction which was just as well done away with.
Another disagreeable form of fagging which has now long been extinct
was crib fagging, which consisted in a small boy being obliged to read
out a crib to an assemblage of big ones. As a rule, on these occasions
another fag would be posted in the passage outside in order to give
time for the crib to be secreted should there be any chance of the
tutor making his unwelcome appearance. Towing boats up to Surly was the
most severe form of fagging. This was abolished by Keate some eighty
years ago.
[SN: NO BULLYING]
It is much to the credit of the Eton system that amongst the Oppidans
(the state of affairs in old Long Chamber was different) there seems
never to have existed any bullying. During the investigations of the
Commission in 1861 all the evidence tended to show that small boys
underwent no ill-treatment or persecution whatever. In the writer’s
opinion this in a great measure accounts for the independent and
buoyant spirit which has ever been a characteristic of Etonians in
after life. Many sensitive boys educated at schools where bullying
has prevailed have felt the results of it in a tamed and often broken
spirit.
[SN: “ORDERS”]
One of the peculiarities of Eton in old days was that unless a boy
supplemented his dietary by the purchase of provisions from the shops
in the town he would often have to go hungry, and even thirty years ago
in most of the houses the old Eton traditions as regards feeding were
in full force. All the boys received was a loaf, pat of butter, and
pot of tea for breakfast. Luncheon they all had together with their
dame in the large dining-room; this was a fairly substantial meal. Tea
taken in their own rooms exactly resembled breakfast, besides which
there was a very light supper in the dining-room, at which attendance
was optional. Almost without exception, of course, this somewhat meagre
fare was supplemented by the boys themselves, who purchased appetising
dishes from the sock shops at a reasonable price. An Eton custom at
that day, which probably still exists, was for the boys to have what
were called “orders” at one of these shops. This “order” consisted in
an agreement with a shopkeeper to supply a boy with provisions to a
certain amount every day, the boy’s father or mother having previously
paid a sum in advance. The arrangement was, of course, intended to
prevent the boy from finding himself bereft of all luxuries after the
pocket-money given him when he left home had been exhausted; but, as
a matter of fact, in the case of the more extravagant boys it almost
invariably missed its mark, for, getting round the shopkeeper, they
would persuade him to allow the anticipation of their “order,” with the
result that whilst during the first fortnight of the half they revelled
in every sort of delicacy, their breakfasts and teas during the
remainder of the school time were unenlivened by any toothsome dishes.
The most popular sock shops were then Harry Webber’s (now Rowland’s)
and “little Brown’s,” the door of which the writer, on a recent visit
to Eton, found shut.
The system of “orders” extended to other things besides sock shops,
a dame or housemaster having the power of giving them for clothes or
any other necessary. A boy applying for one of these signed permits
was supposed to be able to prove that he was really in want of the
article he wished to procure, and, the order being handed to him, was
recognised by a tradesman as a valid voucher that the sum for which it
stood would be included in the boy’s bill at the end of the half. On
the whole this arrangement worked well, but occasionally unscrupulous
boys, by arrangement with some not over particular tradesman, would
obtain some other article which was really anything but a necessary.
Dames were sometimes easy about granting “orders,” and not a few boys
prided themselves upon their adroitness in obtaining anything they
liked, and some of them managed to run up comparatively large accounts
with their housemaster’s or dame’s permission. An even more extravagant
and reckless kind of boy would contrive to persuade some tradesman
(generally a London one who knew something about the circumstances of
his parents) to allow him to run up bills without any “order” at all,
the understanding being that these should be paid when the boy had left
school or came of age. One such case the writer well remembers, the
perpetrator being a very dissipated youth celebrated throughout the
school for always being in trouble with the authorities. This boy was
a great dandy as regards dress, and it was currently reported that
he never wore the same pair of trousers twice. This, of course, was
an exaggeration, but he certainly had a wonderful stock of clothes.
On leaving Eton he had accumulated debts to a considerable figure,
and his after career was anything but a success, for after attempting
various forms of occupation, including amateur newspaper reporting, he
was last heard of keeping a little store in South Africa. An account
of the curious professions adopted by Eton boys would fill a volume.
On the whole, however, the majority do well, as, after all, is only to
be expected, considering that in the first instance their parents must
have been possessed of considerable funds in order to send them to Eton
at all.
[SN: IMPISH MISCHIEF]
Some tutors, unable to keep order in their houses, were the victims
of all sorts of unpleasant jokes. One of the most mischievous and
dangerous of these was to stretch a string across a passage and then
set to work to create such a noise as would be sure to attract the
tutor’s attention, with the result that when he arrived upon the scene
he would be tripped up. Another diversion of a somewhat similar sort
was to pile a number of iron coal-scuttles just at the top of a flight
of stairs, and, after creating a great din, kick them down upon the
ascending tutor, who would seldom be able to discover the organiser
of the outrage. A more amusing trick was the following. A small Lower
boy, having, with his own consent, been tied up in one of the huge
dirty linen bags, was placed in the middle of a passage and told to
keep perfectly motionless till he felt a slight kick, when he was to
rise at his assailant and hold on to his legs, calling out the name
of some big boy well known to all. This being done, all the occupants
of the passage would set to work to make sufficient noise to produce
their tutor’s appearance, upon which complete silence would prevail.
Nine times out of ten the tutor, walking down the passage to ascertain
the reason of the disturbance, seeing the dirty linen bag, would try
and kick it on one side, with the result that, rising at him, it
would clutch him by the leg and cause him to execute a multitude of
undignified gyrations, to the delight of boys peeping through doors
just ajar. When, finally, the small boy had been extricated from the
bag, it was very difficult to punish him, for he would invariably
plead that he had been tied up against his will, and in pinching his
assailant’s legs had been merely acting in self-defence against some
one whom he had good reason to suspect was a persecuting schoolfellow.
Throwing bits of coal out of the window at passers-by or shooting with
a catapult used to be favourite pastimes with boys of a past age.
Fierce battles were sometimes waged in the winter evenings between
the boys in adjacent houses, when they would bombard each other with
pea-shooters or squirts charged with ink or water. Occasionally this
warfare involved onlookers in the street below. The writer remembers a
great disturbance caused by an angry policeman whose helmet and uniform
had been liberally bespattered with ink.
Some of the houses contained broad and lengthy passages, on each
side of which were ranged boys’ rooms, a favourite amusement for the
occupants of which was standing by the open doors and awaiting the cry
of “Slough; change here for Staines, Windsor, Datchet,” when every boy
would slam his door in turn down the passage with a view to produce the
effect of a train about to start. Immediately after the completion of
this manœuvre the boys would at once fly to their “burries” (bureaus),
at which they would be found hard at work when the infuriated tutor or
housemaster arrived to discover the cause of the disturbance. In some
cases the unfortunate man would ignore the first performance of this
ingenious form of torture, but a second and louder slamming seldom
failed to bring him in hot haste from his private quarters. To punish
for this kind of thing was exceedingly difficult, for the boys were, of
course, at liberty to shut their doors, and collusion was not easy to
prove.
A number of boys spent their time experimenting with electricity and
chemicals, and the writer well remembers a friend having his face
severely injured by the explosion of some dangerous compound mixed
together in a flower-box. On another occasion the same boy (now a
well-known sporting peer) occasioned a serious panic. Having inserted
some detonating composition amongst the bricks of the railway arches
over which trains run into Windsor, he contrived to make it explode
just before the Royal train bearing Queen Victoria passed. It was a
time when Ireland was in a very disturbed state, and there was much
dread of some outrage. Consequently the Windsor and Eton police were
convinced that the explosion had a political origin, and every effort
was made by means of detectives to find the perpetrator. It was,
however, never discovered that he was an Eton boy.
[SN: HOAXING THE PRESS]
About thirty years ago, Eton boys were seized with a craze for hoaxing
the London Press, and some extraordinary letters appeared in various
papers. The most extraordinary of all was one bearing the signature
of an Eton master which described the writer’s remarkable experiences
in the country, where he had witnessed a conflict between a cow and a
partridge, in which the cow, after a prolonged chase, had eventually
captured and devoured the bird. The master eventually wrote an
indignant denial, but he was never able to discover who had taken his
name in vain.