Part 8

In my defence I mentioned that boys came and went just as they pleased in my rooms and that I couldn't very well prohibit any one of them at any special time. I also pointed out that I failed to see where the harm lay in this particular case of Damon and Pythias, that such a friendship might well be the saving of Senhouse, who is naturally inclined to be wild and restless. Like Rowntree, he has a habit of cutting chapel, prep., school, games, and everything that is compulsory, whenever he feels like it. He always takes his punishments without a murmur, but he likes to feel that he can escape from the routine when it bears on him too harshly: there is no speck of harm in his composition, any more than there is in Rowntree, but no one here could ever understand the point of view of either of them. Meanwhile the storm rages and Gillman and Senhouse continue to meet, while Hallows grinds his teeth in impotent anger. All the same the iron system will prevail in the end, routine always has the last word: they will both be expelled for continued disobedience of school rules, though nothing criminal can be proved against them. A boy's love for another boy is a pretty strong thing: it can withstand ridicule, punishment, and any weapon that authority can bring to bear against it in the case of such a faithful pair as these two. I cannot see what useful purpose can be served by these iron rules, which allow of no exceptions; that, normally speaking, it is better for boys not to make friends outside their own Houses, and not to encourage friendships in which there is any disparity of age is perhaps open to question, but at any rate strong arguments can be adduced in support of it--but when it comes to a piece of wanton cruelty like this, the whole business becomes silly. I have aired this opinion in Common Room to the no little indignation of all the staff. It is a relief to get back to the seclusion of my room and my books after all the riots, alarums and excursions of these school rows. I wish we could learn to pull together instead of squabbling like a pack of gutter children. I suppose I ought to keep quiet myself if I wished this consummation so devoutly, but I cannot stand by and see all my ideals smashed without remonstrating.

It is a mistake to herd thirty or forty men together for meals and companionship for three months on end: we ought to have our lives sweetened by marriage. Yet I suppose that married life would take off the edge of our keenness for our work: we should have domestic interests which would prevent us from devoting ourselves whole-heartedly to our work. Sometimes I find myself dreaming and pining for the life-companionship of some girl who would understand me and soothe my ruffled senses after a Common Room fight. Yet I suppose marriage fetters one: the married man is bound hand and foot, and can no longer set out on great adventures. He has given hostages to fortune and must be content to play for safety for the rest of his life. I can't see myself doing that. I want to be free as the air, free to play games, free to say what I like and risk being "sacked" if I offend. Yet I wonder sometimes, like Charles Lamb, what my children would be like. It would be splendid to perpetuate my name, to see another generation carrying on the work I have begun. There are so many changes to be wrought in education. We live in an age of pioneers: we are no longer content merely to accept the traditions of our fathers. We want to better their methods and results: we learn by the mistakes of our forbears. The Head Master hates this view. His idea is that only through experience can a man really teach, therefore we should accept the tenets which our elders hold and abide faithfully by them.

_April 3, 1911_

I have been of late reading numbers of books on education. The days of Thring and Arnold are over; instead of two textbooks on the theory, there are now two hundred or two thousand. Every day sees some new thesis appear hot from the press. People are beginning to take an interest in what is, after all, the most important department in the State. In all of these books I find the same points raised. As at present practised, education does not teach the younger generation to love the beautiful or the intellectual: without such a love all education is worth nothing. How to attain these affections is the next question. One man advocates the abolition of examinations, another the substitution of any method rather than that of rewards and punishments, another sees salvation in the teaching of English literature, geography and history, to the exclusion of the classics, and the cutting down of mathematics--but somehow I can't make much of these books on theory. I make marginal notes, underline passages, copy out good advice and I try to put what I believe to be practicable into practice, but on the whole I am left somewhat cold. I am on the search for a rich mine and, although I often feel that I am near it, I never quite succeed in doing more than unearthing one precious morsel of ore. In some ways the Head Master was right when he told me to read no books on education. He was right because I find nothing really new there. I am told to foster a boy's imagination: I spend all my time in trying to do this, and should do so even if I had read nothing whatever about education.

Only on Sunday nights, after a peculiarly good sermon and inspiring hymns, can one at all reach the mood in which it is possible to discuss quite openly with boys exactly what education means to you and ought to mean to them. Instead of rushing out of chapel and fighting for places at the sideboard in Common Room over the chicken and salmon, I go to my rooms and talk quietly to such boys as can get leave to come then. Most House-masters refuse to let their boys come to my rooms at all during lock-up. They think my influence is quite definitely pernicious and immoral. In other words I try to develop the imagination.

I have made friends during the last two or three weeks with Copplestone, who is a House-master of a very religious turn of mind. He dislikes corporal punishment and is hence looked upon as anæmic both by his boys and his colleagues. He reads (quaintly enough) nothing but Arnold Bennett. I go up to his rooms and talk by the hour about "The Old Wives' Tale," "Clayhanger," and "Hilda Lessways": he is rather a pitiable sort of man: he feels that he owes his allegiance to the old school, and yet he feels that we represent the humanitarian side of education. He is like Sir Thomas More, torn between his reason and emotion: like Sir Thomas More he is going to suffer for his ill-timed birth. Had he been born ten years earlier he would have been a whole-hearted upholder of _l'ancien régime_. Had he been born ten years later he would have been one of us and not cared a rap about the old men or tradition. His only course is to resign and become a village priest: he would be admirable with old ladies, and the younger members of his congregation would approve of him because of his love for Arnold Bennett. Here he behaves like Shelley's mother, alternately petting and spoiling his boys, punishing them out of all proportion to their offence at one moment, only to let them off and feed them extravagantly the next. The result is that no boy can tell what he is going to do. He is quite unreliable: he allows himself to be hopelessly "ragged" for two days and then flares up and half kills a quite inoffensive youngster who happens to cough.

I feel really sorry for him, for no one cares for him. He has successfully fallen between two stools and become despised by both the great opposing forces on the staff. He is neither new nor old, hot nor cold, and exactly fulfils that horrible prophecy of Ezekiel about being spewed out of the mouth of all parties.

Thank Heaven this term is over. I haven't learnt much more about my job: I have had some illusions shattered: I have luckily made a few more friends, but boys are queer--one is apt to offend them without in the least knowing why. I shouldn't care to spend my time, like Smithson, who lives for nothing but to curry favour with every boy he meets: he's as bad as the type of boy who always "sucks up" to masters, the very worst sort of creature. Smithson "treats" them all lavishly: he makes fun of the weaklings and the unpopular, he "toadies" to the prefects and generally makes a damned fool of himself. He doesn't see, poor devil, that popularity, like Fortune, is a fickle jade, and only pursues those who take no notice of her at all. Good God! Fancy becoming a schoolmaster in order to be popular!

_May 4, 1911_

This has been one of the best Easter holidays I can remember. Stapleton managed to get a month's sick leave from his curacy and we set off for Oxford and the Cotswolds, to try to regain something of the irresponsible gaiety of Oxford days. I had no idea how hateful the country round Radchester was until I got back to the City of Spires. It seemed impossible to believe that only two years ago I had still to take my Finals, that I was disporting myself on the upper river and the Cher, lazily enjoying all the sweets of life and now--well, I felt about a hundred years old at the end of last term. There was no beauty or interest anywhere or in anything, and then Stapleton wired for me--and since then life has been one all too short ecstasy. We stayed in Oxford just long enough to buy tobacco, a few books and some clothes, and then set out on foot to go over again some of the country we had learnt to love so well as undergraduates. Rucksacks on back, we climbed Cumnor Hill on a glorious spring morning and made our way down to Bablock Hythe and then kept along by the river for the rest of the day: we strolled languidly and talked rabidly about our scholastic and church experiences, our disappointments and successes. The air cleared our minds: we evolved great schemes of new schools and new religions, undefiled by effete traditions. Gradually the beauty of the meadows and the old-world villages made us forget our worries and we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the time. We travelled without map or guide and just wandered at will. When we saw an inn that we liked we stayed there, and ate and drank ourselves drowsy. At night-time, when the bar-parlours were closed and we had reluctantly to say good night to the labourers who came in and gave their views on world-politics, we used to read for a little, and then to a ten hours' sleep.

I had taken the "Note Books of Samuel Butler" as my pocket companion for this journey, and I never took a book which served its purpose so well. In compact paragraphs the philosopher sums up with amazing shrewdness, humour and insight into the human mind all that he discovered to be interesting or worth repeating. The "Note Books" are crammed with the cream of his thinking on every sort of subject, science, music, literature, religion, architecture, sheep-farming, authorship--everything that could possibly appeal to any thinking man. It is an invaluable book to argue about. Butler at least clears the brain more than any writer except Swift. He scatters pedagogy and all cant and humbug to the winds: just as the air of the Cotswolds scatters all thoughts of Radchester from one's mind, so does Samuel Butler fill it with new ideas and fresh weapons of thought.

Stapleton and I kept on discovering old Tudor houses with moats, and churches containing carved screens and tombs of Crusading Knights. We stayed for three days at an old mill at Tredington on the Fosse Way, miles from any town or station, and there heard the farmers sing all the old Gloucestershire folk-songs in the Wheatsheaf Inn.

This has been a wonderful holiday for me. I wonder how many men become schoolmasters simply in order to be able to have such good holidays. It is a great temptation to a man who cares nothing for education: he can submit to the routine all the better if he is indifferent and has no ideals. All he has to do is to sit tight for three months at a time; he is certainly not bound to exert himself very severely by the letter of his contract. Then come these golden weeks of lovely spring when he may disport himself as Stapleton and I have done, prying into unknown nooks and crannies of mediæval England, lazily wandering by hedgerow and riverside, gossiping over gates to farmers, reading to his heart's content on sunny beach or secluded meadow by day, or in the ingle-nook by night. He has no cares, no worries: his salary will pay for all these jaunts so long as he steers clear of London and big hotels. If the truth were told, I think that the reason why a number of men enter the profession is no more than the lure of possessing freedom for a quarter of their lives.

I wonder if this is how old "Jumbo" Stockton became a master. He is a most lovable fellow and quite content with life. He is associated with none of the school activities; he plays no games except golf; he is not in the corps (very few members of Common Room are); he never entertains boys in his rooms; he does very little work and is always ready for a chat or a walk at any hour of the day or night. He just purrs contentedly like a cat and rambles on about Vacs. that he has spent in the Ardennes or the Pyrenees, yachting round the coast of Scotland or caravaning in the New Forest. His one business in life seems to be the holidays; his rooms are filled with Baedekers, "Highways and Byways," and guides to every place under the sun. Of educational reform or ideals, in other words, of shop he never talks. Most of us talk of nothing else. Common Room conversation gets dreadfully oppressive at times owing to the continued debates about rules and the characters of endless boys. Stockton never enters into these controversies, consequently he is never at daggers drawn with any of us. We all affect to despise him, but secretly we are rather envious of his detachment. He seems quite popular with the boys, he finds that it pays to adopt a strict demeanour; his work is never shirked and he rarely has to punish any one. I sometimes wonder whether he does not feel a sudden pang when one of his old associates at Oxford comes to the front after years of struggling at the Bar, in politics, or the Church, and leaves him behind in the race of life. Yet I have never met a more contented man. He doesn't regard teaching as anything but a sinecure: his main occupation in life is travel. He is rather like a city clerk who goes up to his office every day solely in order to earn enough to take a holiday. The difference lies in the fact that Stockton gets his reward three times a year, the clerk only once; the master gets three months, the clerk (with luck) three weeks.

I suppose that I may regard myself as exactly the opposite of Stockton in every way. I live for my work: he lives for his holidays. When the term is over I love to get away principally because Radchester would be intolerable once the boys were gone, secondly because I want to fill myself up with new ideas, to develop my theory that the cult of beauty and imagination is the whole duty of the schoolmaster. I rarely forget the school in the holidays. All the time that I am exploring new scenes I am storing up memories which I hope to use in my work. All my talks with Stapleton during these last few weeks have been so much sifting of matter which I want to get clear before I start on a new term.

The difficulty is that so few of the men in Common Room think it necessary to do more than prepare the textbooks they propose to read with their forms, while I read up all I can on social problems. I strive to discover new methods of interesting boys in the conditions of life outside school. In so doing I am frequently attacked on the ground that I am making them restless and dissatisfied with their narrow round at school. I am not certain that restlessness is a thing to be condemned: unless you are discontented with abuses you will never stir a finger to reform them, and unless a boy leaves school firmly convinced that it is his duty to leave the world better than he found it, education means nothing.

Stapleton has gone back to work reinvigorated, fully determined to bear with the many thorns in his flesh, in the shape of irritating curates, the dead weight of indifference to religion, morality, or high ideals in the bulk of his parishioners, with notes for a dozen sermons in his head, and a healthy conviction that in spite of temporary setbacks the world really is progressing.

I return to Radchester determined to alter for the better the code of morality of the school, to make boys see that work is not a disgraceful thing to be avoided whenever possible, but the only means by which any one can equip himself to fight the battle of life: I return determined to live at peace with my colleagues so far as it is possible, to be more sociable and less critical, to dwell more insistently upon the things that matter, and to try to wean away my boys from spending themselves upon unworthy objects, to foster a love for all that is pure and good and holy and to appreciate the millions of manifestations of Beauty that nature displays even at Radchester for our spiritual delectation.

VII

_June 4, 1911_

We've been back a month and many things have happened since I last wrote in my diary.

In the first place Marshall has gone. I am much too near the event to be able to judge of it sanely and I can't write of it at length. He was always antagonistic to me. I can't say I liked him but I tried never to show my aversion. He was repulsive in every way, but his sermons were good: he was a good disciplinarian and teacher. Boys in his form were at any rate thoroughly taught. In mine they fail because I always attempt too much. I envied him his gifts a good deal.

The reason of my quarrel with him was Daventry. Daventry is in his House and in my form and is the most astonishing youth I have yet come across. He has a fertile brain and his sole object in life is "to do every one down": he will probably end in prison or Park Lane. He is quite unscrupulous (I have already found him rummaging among my letters and this diary to find out things about masters and boys): he finds me useful just at present, because he can sponge on me for food and books: he reads and eats omnivorously. He has decided gifts and is safe for a good scholarship at Oxford unless he gets sacked first, which is exceedingly likely. Somehow he has the trick of getting out of all the scrapes he finds himself in: he has the power of making people believe him, even after he has deceived them before. He haunts my rooms night and day. Marshall resented this and forbade him to come except on business. He immediately invented business by writing verses and essays, which he produced for my inspection at the rate of about two a day.

After all it hurt me to be told by Marshall that my influence on the boy was bad. I am afraid Daventry is bad through and through, but I'm going to make a big effort to cast out the devils in him before he leaves. There are signs of grace certainly: he is very emotional and is passionately fond of reading and music. I have lately bought a gramophone, and any records that he wants to hear I buy for him at once; consequently, I find him in my rooms when I come in from games with a rapt expression on his face, having spent the entire afternoon by himself, giving himself up to the joy of hearing good music. He cuts games with impunity--if there is any likelihood of trouble he forges a "leave"; he is disconcertingly open with me in these things. Having put me in a difficult position by relying on me not to give him away, he divulges one scheme after another for outwitting authority. That he needs very careful handling I naturally see, but why Marshall should have taken it for granted that I only do the boy harm I don't know. Anyway, Marshall did his best to prevent my seeing Daventry at all. That naturally only piqued the boy to try to circumvent him in every possible way. Things came to such a pass that I had to let Marshall know that he was driving the boy to extremities which he might regret. It was rather silly of me. He rated me loudly before all Common Room for interfering in another man's business. He then launched into a diatribe against the uppishness and "infallibility" of the junior masters, and declared that the school was quickly being ruined by the new blood. He ranted at some length and for a wonder I kept silent and listened to it all without comment.

And now this awful thing has happened. Daventry kept away from me when I told him that there was no other course open. He went about threatening vengeance on Marshall, and even started writing to me by post. He was badly "hipped" at being deprived of music and books and food. I don't believe he cares a tuppenny curse about me.... Then came that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday morning when I found him in my rooms after breakfast with a small, untidy fag in tow. They both looked as though they had been condemned to the guillotine.

"Hello, Daventry," I began, "what on earth are you doing here? Don't you know----" He cut me short.

"Erskine has something very important to say to you, sir," he broke in, in a voice I scarcely recognized as his.

"All right; fire away, my son," I replied. "Get it off your chest, whatever it is--all the same I don't quite see what Daventry is doing."

"He--he made me come, sir," said Erskine.

He then told his story. It was so revolting that I first refused to believe it; I thought it was some damnable scheme of Daventry's, got up to ruin his House-master--I nearly kicked both of them downstairs without hearing them to a finish. Instead of which I went straight to the Head and took them with me.

Marshall went on Tuesday. Every one believes that he is seriously ill: after this term they will give out that he has retired. I have lately wondered whether I ought not to have gone to see him and told him that I knew: couldn't it have been possible to keep him on at his post? Never again shall I move a finger towards the undoing of any man, however much an enemy of mine he may be. All Marshall's interest in life was bound up in Radchester. I am daily assaulted by fears lest he should commit suicide: his blood will be on my head if he does.

Expulsion is no cure either in man or boy. It's a frightful confession of our own weakness. It's our fault that Marshall went wrong: Common Room ought to have sweetened his life so that such malpractices would have been impossible to him; instead of that the ugliness and pettiness of the life he led there, the miserable lack of real friendliness all combined to undo him. There are men here who can extract sweetness from their life. What could be finer than the devotion of Patterson to Northcote? Both these men have been on the staff for years. Neither would accept any job, however lucrative, unless he could take the other with him. They live in each other's pockets: they are as close as man and wife: their friendship is strong enough to survive any momentary difference of opinion. They discuss their methods of education, the boys they take, the games they play, the books they read--everything together. They spend all their holidays in each other's company and it is impossible to know the one without the other. Neither of them would be capable of a mean action--they are a beacon-light to all the rest of us.