Part 7

But several who come solely for food stay frequently to talk and unburden themselves of their troubles. It is then that I begin to think that after all there may be some chance of my doing good work as a schoolmaster. I cannot rid myself of the feeling that most of my time here is wasted. I cannot pretend that my mathematical teaching is really successful. Apparently good mathematical tutors are extremely rare: all through the school the standard here is lamentable. We keep on trying new methods and new textbooks, but with very little result. We can secure a dozen good classical scholarships at the University every year, whereas one mathematical exhibition every three years is considered extremely good. Mathematics, like English, is better taught at the grammar and secondary schools than at the Public Schools. I suppose they get more capable teachers at schools which are directly responsible to the Board of Education. I cannot believe that the material they work with is better. Of course, one reason why the secondary schools score so heavily in science and mathematical scholarships is because boys educated at these places know that they will have to depend entirely upon their own efforts to secure a living, whereas the Public School boy usually knows that if he fails entirely to make good there still remains some sinecure or other which he will be able to obtain through his family's influence. This and the fact that he will be rich anyhow combine to make him careless about taking every advantage of improving his mind while he is at school. To do any work which isn't definitely required is to call down upon a boy's head from his friends insult and abuse. The principle of "work for work's sake" is unknown to them: incentives of all sorts have to be provided, the honour of the House, the sporting tendencies of the master who takes them, the possibility of a prize, the fear of punishment, any and every device is employed except the right one.

_December 21, 1910_

I have had my fill of refereeing in House matches this term. Nothing is so calculated to bring one into bad odour with a House or with other members of Common Room. I only do it because they never can get any one else. One strives to be scrupulously fair, and the result is that the whole game devolves into a series of whistles and free kicks. The excitement of playing in a House match causes quite the majority of boys to forget that they are merely playing a game: they try to do everything in their power to secure the advantage, however alien to the spirit of the game. They are told before they go on to the field that unless they lose their tempers and fight from the very beginning they will not do themselves justice, which in itself is counsel of a most doubtful kind; they certainly act up to instructions. Every decision the referee gives is construed as a direct piece of favouritism, and conversation and argument run high on a doubtful try for weeks after the event.

Another thing that I have come up against this term is the dignity of the prefects.

As one grows older one forgets the awe in which these mighty men are held by the school, mighty, that is, if they have been elected for their physical prowess: they are of no account if they are prefects merely because of their intellectual attainments. I have been trying quietly to counteract this state of things by being peculiarly courteous and dignified in my treatment of the scholars and rather hail-fellow-well-met with the "games bloods." They are certainly obtuse, but they quite quickly saw through this. Of course a "games blood" takes infinitely higher rank than any assistant master under thirty, in fact than all of us except the House-masters: he resents being patronized by such an upstart, for instance, as myself. Consequently, by my action in this matter I have let myself in for a feud which may last for years. I have deeply offended the real rulers of the school.

It came about owing to the fact that I have several prefects (elected solely for their "beefiness") in my low mathematical sets. They never do any work and altogether set a rotten example to the others. Of late I have been punishing these boys very heavily, to the great astonishment of themselves and no little enjoyment of the other boys. One of these giants complained to Hallows, his House-master, who came to me in a towering rage and told me that I was subverting the whole of the Public School tradition, lowering the dignity of the prefects and--Heaven knows what besides.

"How the blazes are these fellows going to keep order when the rest of the school see that a young new master can defy them at will and set them punishments which degrade them in the sight of their own fags?"

"Wouldn't it be a good idea," I replied, "if prefects were not elected until they had risen high enough in the school not to have 'fags' in their forms? After all, one of the reasons for coming to school is to work, though we seem to do our best to gloss over that inconvenient fact."

I have had a series of visits lately from Stapleton, who was at Oxford with me: he has been appointed curate at Todsdale, an enormous mining town, and the life there is nearly killing him. The eternal squalor and dreariness of the life, the pettiness of the routine at the Clergy House, the lack of any intellectual or æsthetic interests all bid fair to send him out of his mind.

He usually comes over on a motor-bicycle on Thursday afternoons, and pours out all his troubles as we walk up and down the seashore: he reads to me his sermons, he gives me graphic accounts of the quarrels about ceremonial and duty that occur daily over meals in the Clergy House, of some of the hovels he has to visit, of his opponents among the laity and so on. He seems to be getting mixed up with some mill-girl in a way I can't quite understand: it sounds as if her people were trying their hardest to secure him as a husband for their daughter: perhaps they know that he has considerable private means, for the average curate is not much of a catch in the eyes of the north-country factory worker: he has no prospects.

I must say I admire Stapleton's courage and devotion to duty in cutting himself off from the beauties of the south, from all decent society, and all chance of meeting a girl of his own status: it must be a terrible life for him, for his senses are not blunted. He sits and mopes, thinking over old days when he too lived in Arcadia.

I don't think that I could ever settle down in the north. I like the bustle and the sense of importance that possesses the money-makers in Leeds, but I object to the absence of sun, of the sleepy happiness of the south; the crude dialect, rasping and hard, seems typical of the people here. They seem to have no time to devote to anything which does not actually increase their income, they pride themselves on their parsimony and yet they are strangely inconsistent.

I have just got back from a House supper, a quaint terminal affair held by the House which wins the Senior Athletic Cup for the term: how different these tame, nervous affairs are from the full-blooded, riotous orgies of Oxford days. It appears that it is necessary to get a man drunk before you can really put him at his ease at a big gathering. The much-watered claret-cup which passes for strong drink at these school-shows is pitiable enough, but it is typical of the spirit of the whole thing. Most of the principals concerned are in a state of pitiable terror because of the speeches which they are expected to make at the conclusion of the feast. Conversation is tedious and conducted in undertones; there are frequent dead silences; House-masters work unflaggingly to put people at their ease, but every one feels conscious of his clothes and his neighbour's criticisms. We are all afraid of saying the wrong thing or of omitting to praise some one who coached the team or played well: every time some name is left out which ought to have been included, some one asked to sing who breaks down, some one to speak who only succeeds in stammering out platitudes.

And yet if there ever was a man calculated to put people at their ease, it is the House-master in whose house I live. Heatherington is one of the finest men I have ever met: he represents the high-water mark in schoolmasters.

He is an excellent scholar, bred in the best traditions of Eton and Christ Church, of good family, hard as nails physically, a double Blue, a prominent mountaineer, a born humorist, well-to-do, whose one great aim in life is to make and keep his House famous for sportsmen, scholars and gentlemen. He knows his boys through and through and makes friends with all of them: every one in the place is devoted to him. He belongs to no clique in the Common Room, but preserves the best traditions of the Englishman in his own life and in that of his boys. Yet even he cannot attain the unattainable: he cannot make a House supper "go." The only people who enjoy themselves to the full are the fags: they have no responsibility, they simply eat and drink and applaud. For the rest of us it is one long agony.

_Christmas, 1910_

As usual I have come home for Christmas: as usual I miss Radchester and my boys more than I can say. There is nothing to do here except visit the villagers, go for walks with my mother, and write letters.

I like the villagers best at our Christmas dances. They are more natural then, and sing and talk and play games and dance with utter abandon: they no longer suspect one of ulterior, hidden motives. They extend the right hand of fellowship and we all give ourselves up to whole-hearted enjoyment. They are all, young and old, content to be as children, innocent and friendly, actuated by no other motive than the giving and taking of pleasure. Would that they were always like this.

I have been getting up debates in the village institute this Christmas, and I have been surprised at the high level of intelligence displayed and the sincerity of the oratory of the few who speak. They were diffident at first, but soon warmed up as they got interested and we have always roused considerable warmth of feeling before we have finished the evening's entertainment.

What does distress me about village life is the education. I am almost certain that no education at all would be better than the present half-and-half system. To take away a boy or girl from school at thirteen or fourteen is criminal: children at that age have just been trained to want to know--and they are then taken away and the labour of years all undone by being pushed into mills, on to farms, or behind counters, where nothing but mechanical obedience and servility are required. They forget to read, they forget how to write, they have no interest in the things of the mind. It amazes me that they grow up at all with anything but animal instincts. Education in England, so far as the majority of the children go, is useless and will continue to be so until it is made compulsory that no boy or girl shall leave school before the age of sixteen or seventeen. You can't do much with mindless louts of eighteen with one hour's Bible lesson a week. If any one disbelieves this, let him try to coach a dozen villagers in amateur theatricals: I've tried it and I know. They are simply blocks of wood once you put them on a platform. The average Public School boy of fifteen is quite at home on the stage: your yokel of any age is simply stiff and lifeless, unable to be anybody but himself, charcoal his face never so deeply.

_January 15, 1911_

I have had a gay fortnight in the Potteries, staying with the Pasleys. Young Pasley is in Heatherington's house and in my form; his father is a tile manufacturer and fabulously wealthy. I found the whole family lovable. They live in a large house in the middle of grimy Hanley. They are real sons of the soil and proud of it. The father and mother speak broad Staffordshire, the three girls and the two boys as the result of Public School education are ultra-refined and are inclined to bully their parents, who, however, hold the whip-hand. They have high tea instead of dinner; they sit down soberly in the evening to hear Adela (who is fresh home from Dresden and is engaged to the local curate) play the violin. At ten Mrs. Pasley rises with, "Well, lads, it's time for bye-bye: I'll be sayin' good neet to you, Mester."

They delight in showing me over the warehouses. They love every inch of their hideous streets and proudly point out the excellence of their schools, their public baths, their shops and theatres; every one knows every one else. They almost bow the knee at the name of Wedgwood, they unaffectedly despise London. They know that the hub of the universe is to be found in the Five Towns. The exact income of every visitor to the house is known and talked about almost to the exclusion of every other topic. They read nothing at all; they genially regard me as a fool for wasting my brains at "school-teaching," as they call it, but they are genial and hospitable. Looking back on it, my visit seems to have been a long succession of feeding fowls, dancing, shopping, and looking at priceless china in the making.

I had one or two long talks with father Pasley on the subject of Public School education: he is not quite certain that he is getting his money's worth at Radchester.

"That lad of mine is not squeezing all he might out of yon school: I don't like throwing a hundred and twenty quid a year into the sea. You've got antique methods of learning a lad mathematics at your place, Mester, and I don't hold with ignorance; classics and such fal-lals is all right for parsons and the likes of you, but my lad's not going to be a parson nor a school-teacher neether: he's going into t' business and he knows it: he's going to have to earn his brass, same as I did mine. I don't believe in a lad being brought up soft with the notion as 'ow he's going to have a mint o' money at his fingers' ends to play the fool with. Pasley and Son's a firm as wants men as 'ev got some grit to 'em: I sends my boy to school to get grit--learn 'im that, Mester, and let the rest go."

VI

_March 3, 1911_

These Easter terms, short as they are, are a big strain on the nervous system: no sooner do we get back to work than some luckless youth spreads measles, chicken-pox, scarlet fever or some other malady through the school, and we have to teach depleted forms, drill depleted companies and play House games with half our side away. I find that my favourite illness is influenza. I usually manage to keep a sort of running cold all through the winter months, which develops periodically into that vile sickness; it is then that I get pessimistic. I feel intolerably lonely and uncomfortable, and sigh for the sunny south and warmth and cosy fires and more humane companionship. The doctor here is a dear, but rather rough and ready in his methods. He hasn't the time to waste his hours on individual cases, neither is he exactly an expert. It is dreadful to lie in bed and hear the tramp of feet down the cloisters, the bells ringing for chapel, hall and school and not be in it.

One is forgotten almost at once by every one. People simply haven't the time to sit at a bedside even if they wanted to, and I long for conversation and a cheery laugh on these occasions. School is all right so long as one keeps fit, but once fall out of the race and it is a veritable hell. My last bout of "flu" has left my nerves in a thoroughly disordered condition: I feel almost suicidal at times. I get very restless. I long to create in writing: of late I have been trying, without any great success, in all sorts of directions, verse, short stories, plays, articles--even a novel. Everything I submit to publishers comes back after I have endured agonies of anticipation in waiting. Something is wrong. Yet I feel convinced that I have it in me to write. I can only let myself go in this diary: here I don't have to think of publishers or editors. I write just to please myself. That is what so delights me in reading Pepys. He just rattles on with no thought of an audience, absolutely unselfconscious. I look on this diary as a secret companion to whom I can confide all my troubles and joys: my hatred of Hallows, my love for the boys, my theories on education, the good days of the holidays, books I have read--anything and everything that interests me.

I am quietly amassing a library. I only wish that I could rely on borrowers to return the books I lend them. It is not the slightest good my going into form and advising boys to read Lamb and Browning and Dickens and Thackeray unless I can provide the books for them. The House libraries are under-equipped, the school library is only accessible to the Sixth Form. But boys have no consciences in the matter of returning books: they prefer to cut the fly-leaf out and substitute their own names in some cases! Still my job is to instil a love for the old and new masters of literature by whatever means, and to do this I suppose I must not grudge an impoverished library.

One thing that annoys me is the fact that I cannot share all my treasures with the boys. Most modern writing is too strong wine for adolescents. I wish Common Room did not also imagine that it is too strong meat for their innocent minds. It seems to me that the man who refuses to try to keep abreast of all the modern thought has no right to be a schoolmaster at all. What in the world is the use of living solely on a diet of the _Times_ and the _Spectator_? I advocated the _New Statesman_ for the reading-room and was promptly howled down. Apparently the idea that a man can look on both sides of a question is looked on here as preposterous. What the _Spectator_ says is looked upon as a final judgment in all things. The middle articles of that quite estimable paper are read aloud as examples of perfect modern English style to boys in the top forms, and they are incited to ape it assiduously.

Occasionally, on Sunday mornings, a progressive young master will read a little "In Memoriam" or "A Death in the Desert" to his form as a variant to ordinary Divinity, but he does so tremblingly lest authority should hear of it and rebuke him.

One of our men preaching last Sunday even ventured to read an extract from "Romola," in the pulpit, but apologized profoundly for so doing and damned poor George Eliot with faint praise by saying, "She was not a bad woman."

There have been a number of feuds in Common Room lately which have reminded me of the umbrella episode in "Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill."

Young Rowntree who joined us this term has a brother in the army who happens to be stationed close by: he had him over to dinner one night last week and brought in some "fizz" to liven things up a bit. He sits, of course, at the bottom of the junior table, not very far from me. Not wishing to appear niggardly to the rest of us he brought in three bottles in order to pass them round to those who sat near him. We had a quite riotous orgie and for the first time since I have been at Radchester the junior table quite drowned the senior both in laughter and conversation.

It really was funny to watch the white drawn faces of the water drinkers of the top table, with the one syphon of seltzer as relief, while we, upstarts of a new age, were regaling ourselves with Pommery. There was a fearful row about it afterwards. Rowntree was written to by half the staff (who had not tasted the champagne) about the etiquette with regard to visitors. It was only by courtesy of the senior members that junior masters were allowed to invite visitors at all: it was taken for granted that if such a privilege were extended juniors would not abuse it by drinking anything but water. There was a battle royal. Rowntree is young enough not to give in without a struggle: during the last week he has taken in a bottle of some sort to dinner every night. He is the kind of man who won't be kept longer than a term. He "rags" his form and incites them to "rag" him and everybody else. He refuses to take Radchester seriously: he walks across the prefect's lawn (an unpardonable offence for a master), he walks about arm-in-arm with the boys in his form if he likes them; he swears quite openly and fluently in Common Room, he takes away the papers so that he can read them comfortably in his own room and forgets to return them, he even smokes cigars in the masters' reading-room. The old men can do nothing with him: he is impervious to black looks and misunderstands rebukes. He cuts every other chapel and usually forgets to take "prep." or "roll." On "halves" he always goes away, sometimes as far afield as Leeds or York on his motor-bicycle, and does not arrive home till two or three the next morning. He wears bright ties, silk socks, soft collars, and very well-fitting light clothes, totally regardless of the convention which demands black from boy and master alike. He is a very disturbing factor in Common Room and every one is moving Heaven and Earth to have him "sacked." What worries me about him is his ability: he writes with considerable success. He confessed to me one day that he only meant to stay one term: "I want copy for a novel I have in my mind--these old fossils with their moth-eaten, stereotyped conservatism give me a grand field. I guess this is just the best Public School in the country for my purpose, but my hat, I shouldn't care to have to stick at it for a year. It's funny to think that you all were alive once as undergraduates."

He read a chapter or two of his book to me the other day: he's got the spirit of the place exactly. I wish I had his gift. He sees everything and has the power of sifting his evidence with wonderful accuracy: he misses nothing.

Since he came I have given up my Sunday walks with Renton, who talks of nothing but dyspepsia and his own powers of teaching, and have accompanied Rowntree on some of his excursions on his motor-bicycle. We lunch in Scarborough and get into conversation with week-enders. Rowntree looks on all humanity as "copy," and is without any sense of modesty. He picks up loungers in hotel bars, girls behind counters, girls on the pier, tramps, hotel porters, "nuts" in the hotel lounge and all sorts of unexpected people. He always gets some fantastic story out of them: he is as good a story-teller as George Borrow and just as great a liar. His imagination combined with his experience make him a rare raconteur. He doesn't buy many books, but he is not averse from borrowing mine. I only regret that I can never get them back; he is quite shameless in the matter of purloining literature: he takes books out of the school library without "entering them" and soon begins to think that they really belong to him. He reminds me a good deal of a boy called Senhouse who is also unable to bow the knee in the house of Rimmon; he conforms to none of the school regulations and how he has escaped expulsion up to now beats me. At present he is raising for himself untold trouble by making friends with a small boy called Gillman in Hallows' house. He is desperately fond of this child, and waxes quite sentimental over him to me. There is no harm in either of them, and they are as open as the day in their relations with one another: they wait for each other after chapel, hall, and school. They go for long walks together, they contrive to sit together at school lectures and in prep. Hallows and Heatherington have each lectured both of them, and Hallows has caned Gillman frequently, but they refuse to give up the friendship.... Common Room is as usual in a frenzy over it and I have been reported to the Head Master for aiding and abetting them in their scandalous defiance of rules by having them to tea together in my rooms.