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LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE
[Illustration: LORD'S]
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF
SCHOOL LIFE
BY IAN HAY
AUTHOR OF "A SAFETY MATCH"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED
FROM PASTEL DRAWINGS BY
LEWIS BAUMER
BOSTON
LE ROY PHILLIPS
_First Edition published October nineteen
hundred fourteen; reprinted May
nineteen fifteen_
_Printed in Scotland by_
BALLANTYNE, HANSON, & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
TO
THE MEMBERS
OF
THE MOST RESPONSIBLE
THE LEAST ADVERTISED
THE WORST PAID
AND
THE MOST RICHLY REWARDED
PROFESSION
IN THE WORLD
THE LIST OF CONTENTS
I. THE HEADMASTER _page_ 1
II. THE HOUSEMASTER 35
III. SOME FORM-MASTERS 57
IV. BOYS 91
V. THE PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE 121
VI. SCHOOL STORIES 149
VII. "MY PEOPLE" 175
VIII. THE FATHER OF THE MAN 205
THE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_reproduced from drawings by_ LEWIS BAUMER
LORD'S _Frontispiece_
THE HEADMASTER OF FICTION _page_ 16
THE SCHOOLBOY OF FICTION 32
THE DAREDEVIL 48
THE LUNCHEON INTERVAL: PORTRAIT OF
A GENTLEMAN WHO HAS SCORED
FIFTY RUNS 64
THE FRENCH MASTER: (I) FICTION,
(II) FACT 88
THE INTELLECTUAL 104
THE NIPPER 120
THE FAG: "SIC VOS NON VOBIS" 152
THE SCHOOLGIRL'S DREAM 176
RANK AND FILE 192
THE MAN OF THE WORLD 208
NOTE
_These sketches originally appeared in "Blackwood's Magazine," to the
proprietors of which I am indebted for permission to reproduce them in
book form._
IAN HAY
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SCHOOL LIFE
CHAPTER ONE
THE HEADMASTER
First of all there is the Headmaster of Fiction. He is invariably called
"The Doctor," and he wears cap and gown even when birching
malefactors--which he does intermittently throughout the day--or
attending a cricket match. For all we know he wears them in bed.
He speaks a language peculiar to himself--a language which at once
enables you to recognise him as a Headmaster; just as you may recognise
a stage Irishman from the fact that he says "Begorrah!", or a stage
sailor from the fact that he has to take constant precautions with his
trousers. Thus, the "Doctor" invariably addresses his cowering pupils as
"Boys!"--a form of address which in reality only survives nowadays in
places where you are invited to "have another with me"--and if no
audience of boys is available at the moment, he addresses a single boy
as if he were a whole audience. To influential parents he is servile and
oleaginous, and he treats his staff with fatuous pomposity. Such a being
may have existed--may exist--but we have never met him.
What of the Headmaster of Fact? To condense him into a type is one of
the most difficult things in the world, for this reason. Most of us have
known only one Headmaster in our lives--if we have known more we are not
likely to say so, for obvious reasons--and it is difficult for Man (as
distinct from Woman), to argue from the particular to the general.
Moreover, the occasions upon which we have met the subject of our
researches at close quarters have not been favourable to dispassionate
character-study. It is difficult to form an unbiassed or impartial
judgment of a man out of material supplied solely by a series of brief
interviews spread over a period of years--interviews at which his
contribution to the conversation has been limited to a curt request that
you will bend over, and yours to a sequence of short sharp ejaculations.
However, some of us have known more than one Headmaster, and upon us
devolves the solemn duty of distilling our various experiences into a
single essence.
What are the characteristics of a _great_ Headmaster? Instinct at once
prompts us to premise that he must be a scholar and a gentleman. A
gentleman, undoubtedly, he must be; but nowadays scholarship--high
classical scholarship--is a hindrance rather than a help. To supervise
the instruction of modern youth a man requires something more than
profound learning: he must possess _savoir faire_. If you set a great
scholar--and a great scholar has an unfortunate habit of being nothing
but a great scholar--in charge of the multifarious interests of a public
school, you are setting a razor to cut grindstones. As well appoint an
Astronomer Royal to command an Atlantic liner. He may be on terms of
easy familiarity with the movements of the heavenly bodies, yet fail to
understand the right way of dealing with refractory stokers.
A Headmaster is too busy a personage to keep his own scholarship tuned
up to concert pitch; and if he devotes adequate time to this object--and
a scholar must practise almost as diligently as a pianist or an acrobat
if he is to remain in the first flight--he will have little leisure left
for less intellectual but equally vital duties. Nowadays in great public
schools the Head, although he probably takes the Sixth for an hour or
two a day, delegates most of his work in this direction to a capable and
up-to-date young man fresh from the University, and devotes his
energies to such trifling details as the organisation of school routine,
the supervision of the cook, the administration of justice, the
diplomatic handling of the Governing Body, and the suppression of
parents.
So far then we are agreed--the great advantage of dogmatising in print
is that one can take the agreement of the reader for granted--that a
Headmaster must be a gentleman, but not necessarily a scholar--in the
very highest sense of the word. What other virtues must he possess?
Well, he must be a majestic figurehead. This is not so difficult as it
sounds. The dignity which doth hedge a Headmaster is so tremendous that
the dullest and fussiest of the race can hardly fail to be impressive
and awe-inspiring to the plastic mind of youth. More than one King Log
has left a name behind him, through standing still in the limelight and
keeping his mouth shut. But then he was probably lucky in his
lieutenants.
Next, he must have a sense of humour. If he cannot see the entertaining
side of youthful depravity, magisterial jealousy, and parental
fussiness, he will undoubtedly go mad. A sense of humour, too, will
prevent him from making a fool of himself, and a Headmaster must never
do that. It also engenders Tact, and Tact is the essence of life to a
man who has to deal every day with the ignorant, and the bigoted, and
the sentimental. (These adjectives are applicable to boys, masters, and
parents, and may be applied collectively or individually with equal
truth.) Not that all humorous people are tactful: bitter experience of
the practical joker has taught us that. But no person can be tactful who
cannot see the ludicrous side of things. There is a certain Headmaster
of to-day, justly celebrated as a brilliant teacher and a born
organiser, who is lacking--entirely lacking--in that priceless gift of
the gods, a sense of humour, with which is incorporated Tact. Shortly
after he took up his present appointment, one of the most popular boys
in the school, while leading the field in a cross-country race, was run
over and killed by an express train which emerged from a tunnel as he
ran across the line, within measurable distance of accomplishing a
record for the course.
Next morning the order went forth that the whole school were to assemble
in the great hall. They repaired thither, not unpleasantly thrilled.
There would be a funeral oration, and boys are curiously partial to
certain forms of emotionalism. They like to be harangued before a
football-match, for instance, in the manner of the Greeks of old. These
boys had already had a taste of the Head's quality as a speaker, and
they felt that he would do their departed hero justice. They reminded
one another of the moving words which the late Head had spoken when an
Old Boy had fallen in battle a few years before under particularly
splendid circumstances. They remembered how pleased the Old Boy's father
and mother had been about it. Their comrade, whom they had revered and
loved as recently as yesterday, would receive a fitting farewell too;
and they would all feel the prouder of the school for the words that
they were about to hear. They did not say this aloud, for the
sentimentality of boys is of the inarticulate kind, but the thought was
uppermost in their minds.
Presently they were all assembled, and the Head appeared upon his
rostrum. There was a deathlike stillness: not a boy stirred.
Then the Head spoke.
"Any boy," he announced, "found trespassing upon the railway-line in
future will be expelled. You may go."
They went. The organisation of that school is still a model of
perfection, and its scholarship list is exceptionally high. But the
school has never forgiven the Head, and never will so long as tradition
and sentiment count for anything in this world.
So far, then, we have accumulated the following virtues for the
Headmaster. He must be a gentleman, a picturesque figure-head, and must
possess a sense of humour.
He must also, of course, be a ruler. Now you may rule men in two
ways--either with a rapier or a bludgeon; but a man who can gain his
ends with the latter will seldom have recourse to the former. The
Headmaster who possesses on the top of other essential qualities the
power of being uncompromisingly and divinely rude, is to be envied above
all men. For him life is full of short cuts. He never argues. "_L'ecole,
c'est moi_," he growls, and no one contradicts him. Boys idolise him. In
his presence they are paralysed with fear, but away from it they glory
in his ferocity of mien and strength of arm. Masters rave impotently at
his _brusquerie_ and absolutism; but A says secretly to himself: "Well,
it's a treat to see the way the old man keeps B and C up to the collar."
As for parents, they simply refuse to face him, which is the head and
summit of that which a master desires of a parent.
Such a man is Olympian, having none of the foibles or soft moments of a
human being. He dwells apart, in an atmosphere too rarefied for those
who intrude into it. His subjects never regard him as a man of like
passions with themselves: they would be quite shocked if such an idea
were suggested to them. I once asked a distinguished _alumnus_ of a
great school, which had been ruled with consummate success for
twenty-four years by such a Head as I have described, to give me a few
reminiscences of the great man as a _man_--his characteristics, his
mannerisms, his vulnerable points, his tricks of expression, his likes
and dislikes, and his hobbies.
My friend considered.
"He was a holy terror," he announced, after profound meditation.
"Quite so. But in what way?"
My friend thought again.
"I can't remember anything particular about him," he said, "except that
he _was_ a holy terror--and the greatest man that ever lived!"
"But tell me something personal about him. How did his conversation
impress you?"
"_Conversation?_ Bless you, he never _conversed_ with anybody. He just
told them what he thought about a thing, and that settled it. Besides, I
never exchanged a word with him in my life. But he was a great man."
"Didn't you meet him all the time you were at school?"
"Oh yes, I _met_ him," replied my friend with feeling--"three or four
times. And that reminds me, I _can_ tell you something personal about
him. The old swine was left-handed! A great man, a great man!"
Happy the warrior who can inspire worship on such sinister foundations
as these!
The other kind has to prevail by another method--the Machiavellian. As a
successful Headmaster of my acquaintance once brutally but truthfully
expressed it: "You simply have to employ a certain amount of low cunning
if you are going to keep a school going at all." And he was right. A man
unendowed with the divine gift of rudeness would, if he spent his time
answering the criticisms or meeting the objections of colleagues or
parents or even boys, have no time for anything else. So he seeks refuge
either in finesse or flight. If a parent rings him up on the telephone,
he murmurs something courteous about a wrong number and then leaves the
receiver off the hook. If a housemaster, swelling with some grievance or
scheme of reform, bears down upon him upon the cricket field on a summer
afternoon, he adroitly lures him under a tree where another housemaster
is standing, and leaves them there together. If an enthusiastic junior
discharges at his head some glorious but quite impracticable project,
such as the performance of a pastoral play in the school grounds, or the
enforcement of a vegetarian diet upon the School for experimental
purposes, he replies: "My dear fellow, the Governing Body will never
hear of it!" What he means is: "The Governing Body shall never hear of
it."
He has other diplomatic resources at his call. Here is an example.
A Headmaster once called his flock together and said:
"A very unpleasant and discreditable thing has happened. The municipal
authorities have recently erected a pair of extremely ornate and
expensive--er--lamp-posts outside the residence of the Mayor of the
town. These lamp-posts appear to have attracted the unfavourable notice
of the School. Last Sunday evening, between seven and eight o'clock,
they were attacked and wrecked, apparently by volleys of stones."
There was a faint but appreciative murmur from those members of the
School to whom the news of this outrage was now made public for the
first time. But a baleful flash from the Head's spectacles restored
instant silence.
"Several parties of boys," he continued, "must have passed these
lamp-posts on that evening, on their way back to their respective houses
after Chapel. I wish to see all boys who in any way participated in the
outrage in my study directly after Second School. I warn them that I
shall make a severe example of them." His voice rose to a blare. "I will
not have the prestige and fair fame of the School lowered in the eyes of
the Town by the vulgar barbarities of a parcel of ill-conditioned little
street-boys. You may go!"
The audience rose to their feet and began to steal silently away. But
they were puzzled. The Old Man was no fool as a rule. Did he really
imagine that chaps would be such mugs as to own up?
But before the first boy reached the door the Head spoke again.
"I may mention," he added very gently, "that the attack upon
the--er--lamp-posts was witnessed by a gentleman resident in the
neighbourhood, a warm friend of the School. He was able to identify
_one_ of the culprits, whose name is in my possession. That is all."
And quite enough too! When the Head visited his study after Second
School, he found seventeen malefactors meekly awaiting chastisement.
But he never divulged the name of the boy who had been identified, or
for that matter the identity of the warm friend of the School. I
_wonder!_
* * * * *
One more quality is essential to the great Headmaster. He must possess
the Sixth Sense. He must see nothing, yet know everything that goes on
in the School. Etiquette forbids that he should enter one of his
colleague's houses except as an invited guest; yet he must be acquainted
with all that happens inside that house. He is debarred by the same
rigid law from entering the form-room or studying the methods and
capability of any but the most junior form-masters; and yet he must know
whether Mr. A. in the Senior Science Set is expounding theories of
inorganic chemistry which have been obsolete for ten years, or whether
Mr. B. in the Junior Remove is accustomed meekly to remove a pool of ink
from the seat of his chair before beginning his daily labours. He must
not mingle with the boys, for that would be undignified; yet he must,
and usually does, know every boy in the School by sight, and something
about him. He must never attempt to acquire information by obvious
cross-examination either of boy or master, or he will be accused of
prying and interference; and he can never, or should never, discuss one
of his colleagues with another. And yet he must have his hand upon the
pulse of the School in such wise as to be able to tell which master is
incompetent, which prefect is untrustworthy, which boy is a bully, and
which House is rotten. In other words, he must possess a Red Indian's
powers of observation and a woman's powers of intuition. He must be able
to suck in school atmosphere through his pores. He must be able to judge
of a man's keenness or his fitness for duty by his general attitude and
conversation when off duty. He must be able to read volumes from the
demeanour of a group in the corner of the quadrangle, from a small
boy's furtive expression, or even from the _timbre_ of the singing in
chapel. He must notice which boy has too many friends, and which none at
all.
Such are a few of the essentials of the great Headmaster, and to the
glory of our system be it said that there are still many in the land.
But the type is changing. The autocratic Titan of the past has been
shorn of his locks by two Delilahs--Modern Sides and Government
Interference.
First, Modern Sides.
Time was when A Sound Classical Education, Lady Matron, and Meat for
Breakfast formed the alpha and omega of a public school prospectus. But
times have changed, at least in so far as the Sound Classical Education
is concerned. The Headmaster of the old school, who looks upon the
classics as the foundation of all education, and regards modern sides as
a sop to the parental Cerberus, finds himself called upon to cope with
new and strange monsters.
[Illustration: THE HEADMASTER OF FICTION]
First of all, the members of that once despised race, the teachers of
Science. Formerly these maintained a servile and apologetic existence,
supervising a turbulent collection of young gentlemen whose sole
appreciation of this branch of knowledge was derived from the
unrivalled opportunities which its pursuit afforded for the creation of
horrible stenches and untimely explosions. Now they have uprisen, and,
asseverating that classical education is a pricked bubble, ask boldly
for expensive apparatus and a larger tract of space in the time-table.
Then the parent. He has got quite out of hand lately. In days past
things were different. Usually an old public-school boy himself, and
proudly conscious that Classics had made him "what he was," the parent
deferred entirely to the Headmaster's judgment, and entrusted his son to
his care without question or stipulation. But a new race of parents has
arisen, men who avow, modestly but firmly, that they have been made not
by the Classics but by themselves, and who demand, with a great
assumption of you-can't-put-_me_-off-with-last-season's-goods, that
their offspring shall be taught something up-to-date--something which
will be "useful" in an office.
Again, there is our old friend the Man in the Street, who, through the
medium of his favourite mouthpiece, the halfpenny press, asks the
Headmaster very sternly what he means by turning out "scholars" who are
incapable of writing an invoice in commercial Spanish, and to whom
double entry is Double Dutch.
And lastly there is the boy himself, whose utter loathing and horror of
education as a whole has not blinded him to the fact that the
cultivation of some branches thereof calls for considerably less effort
than that of others, and who accordingly occupies the greater part of
his weekly letter home with fervent requests to his parents to permit
him to drop Classics and take up modern languages or science.
The united agitations of this incongruous band have called into
existence the Modern Side--Delilah Number One. Now for Number Two.
Until a few years ago the State confined its ebullience in matters
educational to the Board Schools. But with the growth of national
education and class jealousy--the two seem to go hand-in-hand--the
working classes of this country began to point out to the Government,
not altogether unreasonably, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce
for the gander. "Why," they inquired bitterly, "should _we_ be the only
people educated? Must the poor _always_ be oppressed, while the rich go
free? What about these public schools of yours--the seminaries of the
bloated and pampered Aristocracy? You leave us alone for a bit, and give
them a turn, or we may get nasty!" So a pliable Government, remembering
that public-school masters are not represented in Parliament while the
working-classes are, obeyed. They began by publicly announcing that in
future all teachers must be trained to teach. To give effect to this
decree, they declared their intention of immediately introducing a Bill
to provide that after a certain date no Headmaster of any school, high
or low, would be permitted to engage an assistant who had not earned a
certificate at a training college and registered himself in a mysterious
schedule called 'Column B,' paying a guinea for the privilege.
The prospective schoolmasters of the day--fourth-year men at Oxford and
Cambridge, inexperienced in the ways of Government Departments--were
deeply impressed. Most of them hurriedly borrowed a guinea and
registered in Column B. They even went further. In the hope of
forestalling the foolish virgins of their profession, they attended
lectures and studied books which dealt with the science of education.
They became _attaches_ at East End Board-Schools, where, under the
supervision of a capable but plebeian Master of Method, they
endeavoured to instruct classes of some sixty or seventy babbling
six-year-olds in the elements of reading and writing, in order that
hereafter they might be better able to elucidate Cicero and Thucydides
to scholarship candidates at a public school.
Others, however--the aforementioned foolish virgins--whose knowledge of
British politics was greater than their interest in the Theory of
Education, decided to 'wait and see.' That is to say, they accepted the
first vacancy at a public school which presented itself and settled down
to work upon the old lines, a year's seniority to the good. In a just
world this rashness and improvidence would have met with its due
reward--namely, ultimate eviction (when the Bill passed) from a
comfortable berth, and a stern command to go and learn the business of
teaching before presuming to teach. But unfortunately the Bill never did
pass: it never so much as reached its First Reading. It lies now in some
dusty pigeon-hole in the Education Office, forgotten by all save its
credulous victims. The British Exchequer is the richer by several
thousand guineas, contributed by a class to whom of course a guinea is a
mere bagatelle; and here and there throughout the public schools of
this country there exist men who, when they first joined the Staff, had
the mysterious formula, "Reg. Col. B.," printed upon their testimonials,
and discoursed learnedly to stupefied Headmasters about brain-tracks and
psychology, and the mutual stimulus of co-sexual competition, for a
month or two before awakening to the one fundamental truth which governs
public-school education--namely, that if you can keep boys in order you
can teach them anything; if not, all the Column B.'s in the Education
Office will avail you nothing.
That was all. The incident is ancient history now. It was a capital
practical joke, perpetrated by a Government singularly lacking in humour
in other respects; and no one remembers it except the people to whom the
guineas belong. But it gave the Headmasters of the country a bad fright.
It provides them with a foretaste of the nuisance which the State can
make of itself when it chooses to be paternal. So such of the
Headmasters as were wise decided to be upon their guard for the future
against the blandishments of the party politician. And they were
justified; for presently the Legislature stirred in its sleep and
embarked upon yet another enterprise.
Philip, king of Macedon, used to say that no city was impregnable whose
gates were wide enough to admit a single mule-load of gold. Similarly
the Board of Education decided that no public school, however haughty or
exclusive, could ever again call its soul its own once the Headmaster
(of his own free will, or overruled by the Governing Body) had been
asinine enough to accept a "grant." So they approached the public
schools with fair words. They said:--
"How would you like a subsidy, now, wherewith to build a new science
laboratory? What about a few State-aided scholarships? Won't you let us
help you? Strict secrecy will be observed, and advances made upon your
note of hand alone"--or words to that effect.
The larger and better-endowed public schools, conscious of a fat
bank-balance and a long waiting list of prospective pupils, merely
winked their rheumy eyes and shook their heavy heads.
"_Timeo Danaos_," they growled--"_et dona ferentes_."
When this observation was translated to the Minister for Education, he
smiled enigmatically, and bided his time. But some of the smaller
schools, hard pressed by modern competition, gobbled the bait at once.
The mule-load of gold arrived promptly, and close in its train came
Retribution. Inspectors swooped down--clerkly young men who in their
time had passed an incredible number of Standards, and were now
receiving what was to them a princely salary for indulging in the
easiest and most congenial of all human recreations--that of criticising
the efforts of others. There arrived, too, precocious prize-pupils from
the Board Schools, winners of County Council scholarships which entitled
them to a few years' "polish" at a public school--a polish but slowly
attained, despite constant friction with their new and loving playmates.
But the great strongholds still held out. So other methods were adopted.
The examination screw was applied.
As most of us remember to our cost, we used periodically in our youth at
school to suffer from an "examination week," during which a mysterious
power from outside was permitted to inflict upon us examination papers
upon every subject upon earth, under the title of Oxford and Cambridge
Locals--the High, the Middle, and the Low--or, in Scotland, the Leaving
Certificate. These papers were set and corrected by persons unknown,
residing in London; and we were supervised as we answered them not by
our own preceptors--they stampeded joyously away to play golf--but by
strange creatures who took charge of the examination-room with an air of
uneasy assurance, suggestive of a man travelling first-class with a
third-class ticket. In due course the results were declared; and the
small school which gained a large percentage of Honourable Mentions was
able to underline the fact heavily in its prospectus. These examinations
were, if not organised, at least recognised by the State; and once they
had pierced the battlements of a school an Inspector invariably crawled
through the breach after them. Henceforth that school was subject to
periodical visitations and reports.
Naturally the Headmasters of the great public schools clanged their
gates and dropped their portcullises against such an infraction of the
law that a Headmaster's school is his castle. But, as already mentioned,
the screw was applied. The certificates awarded to successful candidates
in these examinations were made the key to higher things. Three Higher
Grade Certificates, for instance, were accepted in _lieu_ of certain
subjects in Oxford Smalls and Cambridge Little-go. The State pounced
upon this principle and extended it. The acquisition of a sufficient
number of these certificates now paved the way to various State
services. Extra marks or special favours were awarded to young gentlemen
who presented themselves for Sandhurst or Woolwich or the Civil Service
bringing their sheaves with them in the form of Certificates. Roughly
speaking, the more Certificates a candidate produced the more
enthusiastically he was excused from the necessity of learning the
elements of his trade.
The governing bodies of various professions took up the idea. For
instance, if you produced four Higher Certificates--say for Geography,
Botany, Electro-Dynamics, and Practical Cookery--you were excused the
preliminary examination of the Society of Chartered Accountants. (We
need not pin ourselves down to the absolute accuracy of these details:
they are merely for purposes of illustration.) Anyhow, it was a
beautiful idea. A Headmaster of my acquaintance once assured me that he
believed that the possession of a complete set of Higher Grade
Certificates for all the Local Examinations of a single year would
entitle the holder to a seat in the reformed House of Lords.
In other words, it was still possible to get into the Universities and
Services without Certificates, but it was very much easier to get in
with them.
So the great Headmasters climbed down. But they made terms. They would
accept the Local Examinations, and they would admit Inspectors within
their fastnesses; but they respectfully but firmly insisted upon having
some sort of say in the choice of the Inspector.
The Government met them more than half-way. In fact, they fell in with
the plan with suspicious heartiness.
"Certainly, my dear sir," they said: "you shall choose your own
Inspector; and what is more, you shall _pay_ him! Think of that! The man
will be a mere tool in your hands--a hired servant--and you can do what
you like with him."
It was an ingenious and comforting way of putting things, and may be
commended to the notice of persons writhing in a dentist's chair; for it
forms an exact parallel: the description applies to dentist and
inspector equally. However, the Headmasters agreed to it; and now all
our great schools receive inspectorial visitations of some kind. That is
to say, upon an appointed date a gentleman comes down from London,
spends the day as the guest of the Headmaster; and after being conducted
about the premises from dawn till dusk, departs in the gloaming with his
brain in a fog and some sixteen guineas in his pocket.
He is a variegated type, this Super-Inspector. Frequently he is a clever
man who has failed as a schoolmaster and now earns a comfortable living
because he remembered in time the truth of the saying: _La critique est
aise, l'art difficile_. More often he is a superannuated University
professor, with a penchant for irrelevant anecdote and a disastrous
sense of humour. Sometimes he is aggressive and dictatorial, but more
often (humbly remembering where he is and who is going to pay for all
this) apprehensive, deferential, and quite inarticulate. Sometimes he is
a scholar and a gentleman, with a real appreciation of the atmosphere of
a public school and a sound knowledge of the principles of education.
But not always. And whoever he is and whatever he is, the Head loathes
him impartially and dispassionately.
Such are some of the thorns with which the pillow of a modern Headmaster
is stuffed. His greatest stumbling-block is Tradition--the hoary
edifices of convention and precedent, built up and jealously guarded by
Old Boys and senior Housemasters. Of Parents we will treat in another
place.
What is he like, the Headmaster of to-day?
Firstly and essentially, he is no longer a despot. He is a
constitutional sovereign, like all other modern monarchs; and perhaps it
is better so. Though a Head still exercises enormous personal power, for
good or ill, a school no longer stands or falls by its Headmaster, as in
the old days, any more than a country stands or falls by its King, as in
the days of the Stuarts. Public opinion, Housemasters, the prefectorial
system--these have combined to modify his absolutism. But though a bad
Headmaster may not be able to wreck a good school, it is certain that no
school can ever become great, or remain great, without a great man at
the head of it.
Time has wrought other changes. Twenty years ago no man could ever hope
to reach the summit of the scholastic universe who was not in Orders and
the possessor of a First Class Classical degree. Now the layman, the
modern-side man, above all the man of affairs, are raising their heads.
Under these new conditions, what manner of man is the great Head of
to-day?
He is essentially a man of business. A clear brain and a sense of
proportion enable him to devise schemes of education in which the old
idealism and the new materialism are judiciously blended. He knows how
to draw up a school time-table--almost as difficult and complicated a
document as Bradshaw--making provision, hour by hour, day by day, for
the teaching of a very large number of subjects by a limited number of
men to some hundreds of boys all at different stages of progress, in
such a way that no boy shall be left idle for a single hour and no
master be called upon to be in two places at once.
He understands school finance and educational politics, which are even
more peculiar than British party politics. He combines the art of being
able to rule upon his own initiative for months at a time, and yet
render a satisfactory account of his stewardship to an ignorant and
inquisitive Governing Body which meets twice a year.
He is, as ever, an imposing figure-head; and if he is, or has been, an
athlete, so much the easier for him in his dealings with the boys. He
possesses the art of managing men to an extent sufficient to maintain
his Housemasters in some sort of line, and to keep his junior staff
punctual and enthusiastic without fussing or herding them. He is a good
speaker, and though not invariably in Orders, he appreciates the
enormous influence that a powerful sermon in Chapel may exercise at a
time of crisis; and he supplies that sermon himself.
He keeps a watchful eye upon an army of servants, and does not shrink
from the drudgery of going through kitchen-accounts or laundry
estimates. He investigates complaints personally, whether they have to
do with a House's morals or a butler's perquisites.
He keeps abreast of the educational needs of the time. He is a _persona
grata_ at the Universities, and usually knows at which University and at
which College thereof one of his boys will be most likely to win a
scholarship. In the interests of the Army Class he maintains friendly
relations with the War Office, because, in these days of the chronic
reform of that institution, to be in touch with the "permanent"
military mind is to save endless trouble over examinations which are
going to be dropped or schedules which are about to be abandoned before
they come into operation. He cultivates the acquaintance of those in
high places, not for his own advancement, but because it is good for the
School to be able to bring down an occasional celebrity, to present
prizes or open a new wing. For the same reason he dines out a good
deal--often when he has been on his feet since seven o'clock in the
morning--and entertains in return, so far as he can afford it, people
who are likely to be able to do the School a good turn. For with him it
is the School, the School, the School, all the time.
If he possesses private means of his own, so much the better; for the
man with a little spare money in his pocket possesses powers of leverage
denied to the man who has none. I know of a Headmaster who once shamed
his Governing Body into raising the salaries of the Junior Staff to a
decent standard by supplementing those salaries out of his own slender
resources for something like five years.
And above all, he has sympathy and insight. When a master or boy comes
to him with a grievance he knows whether he is dealing with a chronic
grumbler or a wronged man. The grumbler can be pacified by a word or
chastened by a rebuke; but a man burning under a sense of real injustice
and wrong will never be efficient again until his injuries are
redressed. If a colleague, again, comes to him with a scheme of work, or
organisation, or even play, he is quick to see how far the scheme is
valuable and practicable, and how far it is mere fuss and officiousness.
He is enormously patient over this sort of thing, for he knows that an
untimely snub may kill the enthusiasm of a real worker, and that a
little encouragement may do wonders for a diffident beginner. He knows
how to stimulate the slacker, be he boy or master; and he keeps a sharp
look-out to see that the willing horse does not overwork himself. (This
latter, strange as it may seem, is the harder task of the two.) And he
can read the soul of that most illegible of books--save to the
understanding eye--the boy, through and through. He can tell if a boy is
lying brazenly, or lying because he is frightened, or lying to screen a
friend, or speaking the truth. He knows when to be terrible in anger,
and when to be indescribably gentle.
[Illustration: THE SCHOOLBOY OF FICTION]
Usually he is slightly unpopular. But he does not allow this to
trouble him overmuch, for he is a man who is content to wait for his
reward. He remembers the historic verdict of "A beast, but a just
beast," and chuckles.
Such a man is an Atlas, holding up a little world. He is always tired,
for he can never rest. His so-called hours of ease are clogged by
correspondence, most of it quite superfluous, and the telephone has
added a new terror to his life. But he is always cheerful, even when
alone; and he loves his work. If he did not, it would kill him.
A Headmaster no longer regards his office as a stepping-stone to a
Bishopric. In the near future, as ecclesiastical and classical
traditions fade, that office is more likely to be regarded as a
qualification for a place at the head of a Department of State, or a
seat in the Cabinet. A man who can run a great public school can run an
Empire.
CHAPTER TWO
THE HOUSEMASTER
To the boy, all masters (as distinct from The Head) consist of one
class--namely, masters. The fact that masters are divisible into grades,
or indulge in acrimonious diversities of opinion, or are subject to the
ordinary weaknesses of the flesh (apart from chronic shortness of
temper) has never occurred to him.
This is not so surprising as it sounds. A schoolmaster's life is one
long pose. His perpetual demeanour is that of a blameless enthusiast. A
boy never hears a master swear--at least, not if the master can help it;
he seldom sees him smoke or drink; he never hears him converse upon any
but regulation topics, and then only from the point of view of a rather
bigoted archangel. The idea that a master in his private capacity may go
to a music-hall, or back a horse, or be casual in his habits, or be
totally lacking in religious belief, would be quite a shock to a boy.
It is true that when half-a-dozen ribald spirits are gathered round the
Lower Study fire after tea, libellous tongues are unloosed. The humorist
of the party draws joyous pictures of his Housemaster staggering home
to bed after a riotous evening with an Archdeacon, or being thrown out
of the Empire in the holidays. But no one in his heart takes these
legends seriously--least of all their originator. They are merely
audacious irreverences.
All day and every day the boy sees the master, impeccably respectable in
cap and gown, rebuking the mildest vices, extolling the dullest virtues,
singing the praises of industry and application, and attending Chapel
morning and evening. A boy has little or no intuition: he judges almost
entirely by externals. To him a master is not as other men are: he is a
special type of humanity endowed with a permanent bias towards energetic
respectability, and grotesquely ignorant of the seamy side of life. The
latter belief in particular appears to be quite ineradicable.
But in truth the scholastic hierarchy is a most complicated fabric. At
the summit of the Universe stands the Head. After him come the senior
masters--or, as they prefer somewhat invidiously to describe themselves,
the permanent staff--then the junior masters. The whole body are divided
and subdivided again into little groups--classical men, mathematical
men, science men, and modern-language men--each group with its own
particular axe to grind and its own tender spots. Then follow various
specialists, not always resident; men whose life is one long and usually
ineffectual struggle to convince the School--including the Head--that
music, drawing, and the arts generally are subjects which ought to be
taken seriously, even under the British educational system.
As already noted, after the Head--quite literally--come the
Housemasters. They are always after him: one or other of the troop is
perpetually on his trail; and unless the great man displays the ferocity
of the tiger or the wisdom of the serpent, they harry him exceedingly.
Behold him undergoing his daily penance--in audience in his study after
breakfast. To him enter severally:
A., a patronising person, with a few helpful suggestions upon the
general management of the School. He usually begins: "In the old Head's
day, we never, under any circumstances----"
B., whose speciality is to discover motes in the eyes of other
Housemasters. He announces that yesterday afternoon he detected a member
of the Eleven fielding in a Panama hat. "Are Panama hats permitted by
the statutes of the School? I need hardly say that the boy was not a
member of my House."
C., a wobbler, who seeks advice as to whether an infraction of one of
the rules of his House can best be met by a hundred lines of Vergil or
public expulsion.
D., a Housemaster pure and simple, urging the postponement of the Final
House-Match, D.'s best bowler having contracted an ingrowing toe-nail.
E., another, insisting that the date be adhered to--for precisely the
same reason.
(He receives no visit from F., who holds that a Housemaster's House is
his castle, and would as soon think of coming to the fountain-head for
advice as he would of following the advice if it were offered.)
G., an alarmist, who has heard a rumour that smallpox has broken out in
the adjacent village, and recommends that the entire school be
vaccinated forthwith.
H., a golfer, suggesting a half-holiday, to celebrate some suddenly
unearthed anniversary in the annals of Country or School.
Lastly, on the telephone, I., a valetudinarian, to announce that he is
suffering from double pneumonia, and will be unable to come into School
until after luncheon.
To be quite just, I. is the rarest bird of all. The average schoolmaster
has a perfect passion for sticking to his work when utterly unfit for
it. In this respect he differs materially from his pupil, who lies in
bed in the dawning hours, cudgelling his sleepy but fertile brain for a
disease which
(1) Has not been used before.
(2) Will incapacitate him for work all morning.
(3) Will not prevent him playing football in the afternoon.
But if a master sprains his ankle, he hobbles about his form-room on a
crutch. If he contracts influenza, he swallows a jorum of ammoniated
quinine, puts on three waistcoats, and totters into school, where he
proceeds to disseminate germs among his not ungrateful charges. Even if
he is rendered speechless by tonsillitis, he takes his form as usual,
merely substituting written invective (chalked up on the blackboard),
for the torrent of verbal abuse which he usually employs as a medium of
instruction.
It is all part--perhaps an unconscious part--of his permanent pose as an
apostle of what is strenuous and praiseworthy. It is also due to a
profound conviction that whoever of his colleagues is told off to take
his form for him will indubitably undo the work of many years within a
few hours.
Besides harrying the head and expostulating with one another, the
Housemasters wage unceasing war with the teaching staff.
The bone of contention in every case is a boy, and the combat always
follows certain well-defined lines.
A form-master overtakes a Housemaster hurrying to morning chapel, and
inquires carelessly:
"By the way, isn't Binks tertius your boy?"
The Housemaster guardedly admits that this is so.
"Well, do you mind if I flog him?"
"Oh, come, I say, isn't that rather drastic? What has he done?"
"Nothing--not a hand's-turn--for six weeks."
"Um!" The Housemaster endeavours to look severely judicial. "Young Binks
is rather an exceptional boy," he observes. (Young Binks always is.)
"Are you quite sure you _know_ him?"
The form-master, who has endured Master Binks' society for nearly two
years, and knows him only too well, laughs caustically.
"Yes," he says, "I do know him: and I quite agree with you that he is
rather an exceptional boy."
"Ah!" says the Housemaster, falling into the snare. "Then----"
"An exceptional young swab," explains the form-master.
By this time they have entered the Chapel, where they revert to their
daily task of setting an example by howling one another down in the
Psalms.
After Chapel the Housemaster takes the form-master aside and confides to
him the intelligence that he has been a Housemaster for twenty-five
years. The form-master, suppressing an obvious retort, endeavours to
return to the question of Binks; but is compelled instead to listen to a
brief homily upon the management of boys in general. As neither
gentleman has breakfasted, the betting as to which will lose his temper
first is almost even, with odds slightly in favour of the form-master,
being the younger and hungrier man. However, it is quite certain that
one of them will--probably both. The light of reason being thus
temporarily obscured, they part, to meditate further repartees and
complain bitterly of one another to their colleagues.
But it is very seldom that Master Binks profits by such Olympian
differences as these. Possibly the Housemaster may decline to give the
form-master permission to flog Binks, but in nine cases out of ten,
being nothing if not conscientious, he flogs Binks himself, carefully
explaining to the form-master afterwards, by implication only, that he
has done so not from conviction, but from an earnest desire to bolster
up the authority of an inexperienced and incompetent colleague. But
these quibbles, as already observed, do not help the writhing Binks at
all.
However, a Housemaster _contra mundum_, and a Housemaster in his own
House, are very different beings. We have already seen that a bad
Headmaster cannot always prevent a School from being good. But a House
stands or falls entirely by its Housemaster. If he is a good Housemaster
it is a good House: if not, nothing can save it. And therefore the
responsibility of a Housemaster far exceeds that of a Head.
Consider. He is _in loco parentis_--with apologies to Stalky!--to some
forty or fifty of the shyest and most reserved animals in the world; one
and all animated by a single desire--namely, to prevent any
fellow-creature from ascertaining what is at the back of their minds.
Schoolgirls, we are given to understand, are prone to open their hearts
to one another, or to some favourite teacher, with luxurious
abandonment. Not so boys. Up to a point they are frankness itself:
beyond that point lie depths which can only be plumbed by instinct and
intuition--qualities whose possession is the only test of a born
Housemaster. All his flock must be an open book to him: he must
understand both its collective and its individual tendencies. If a boy
is inert and listless, the Housemaster must know whether his condition
is due to natural sloth or some secret trouble, such as bullying or evil
companionship. If a boy appears dour and dogged, the Housemaster has to
decide whether he is shy or merely insolent. Private tastes and pet
hobbies must also be borne in mind. The complete confidence of a
hitherto unresponsive subject can often be won by a tactful reference to
music or photography. The Housemaster must be able, too, to distinguish
between brains and mere precocity, and to separate the fundamentally
stupid boy from the lazy boy who is pretending to be stupid--an
extremely common type. He must cultivate a keen nose for the malingerer,
and at the same time keep a sharp look-out for fear lest the
conscientious plodder should plod himself silly. He must discriminate
between the whole-hearted enthusiast and the pretentious humbug who
simulates keenness in order to curry favour. And above all, he must make
allowances for heredity and home influence. Many a Housemaster has been
able to adjust his perspective with regard to a boy by remembering that
the boy has a drunken father, or a neurotic mother, or no parents at
all.