Part 4

In the early twenties of the nineteenth century, boys who were mere children, hardly out of petticoats, were sent to Eton in order that they might gradually work their way up and get to King’s. Oppidans also were then very young, a child aged four and a half being admitted in 1820. At that time a boy could rise to the top of the school merely by seniority, due importance not being attached to hard work and sound scholarship. The “trials” were then more or less nominal, but the curious thing is, that in spite of all this Eton produced some very fine classical scholars, while the vast majority of the boys were better acquainted with Latin and Greek than their successors who went to Eton when a more exacting curriculum came into force. In 1827 there were no examinations after the Fifth Form was reached, nor any distinction attainable except that of being sent up “for good,” the reward for which then was a sovereign, and every third time, a book.

When a master came across some peculiarly good set of verses he would send them up to the Headmaster “for good”; in due course the writer would be called up by the Head, who would compliment him and read out the lines to the assembled boys in Upper School. A guinea was afterwards given to the boy by his dame. Sending up “for good” seems now on the increase, but in my own school-days one seldom heard of any one achieving such a distinction, whilst sending up “for play” was rarer still. In the past, getting into Sixth Form did not change an Eton boy’s life nearly so much as it does to-day. True, he had his seat in the stalls in chapel, and came into church later than any one else except the Provost and Fellows; in Upper School on certain public occasions, he had also the honour of making speeches. Beyond this, however, and the release from shirking the masters, his position was in no wise altered or improved.

Fifty years ago Eton in respect to school work somewhat resembled an oriental state in which the first symptoms of modernisation are beginning to appear. In the main the old classical traditions commanded a rigid adherence, boys with a totally insufficient knowledge of Greek being by a polite fiction supposed to be able to construe Homer with ease, whilst dunces who could not write a sentence in correct English were every week obliged to show up a copy of Latin verses. The wonder is how all this was ever done at all, but done it was; and, considering the vast ignorance of the majority, who frankly regarded the whole thing with a sort of good-humoured contempt, done fairly well. Perhaps this was in no small degree owing to the fact that in almost every house there was some easy-going clever boy who, having received a good grounding at a private school, was able and ready to help his less gifted schoolfellows.

[SN: MAP MAKING]

One of the great features of school work was the execution of a map once every week, illustrating various countries as they were in classical times. Occasionally boys with a turn for drawing would decorate the margins of their maps with some fanciful device. As a rule, the masters extended a good-humoured toleration to this practice, which often bore some reference to current events. At the time when a coming prize-fight was exciting great interest in sporting circles, a boy decorated the top of his map with portraits of the two fistic heroes of the day. This, however, was little appreciated by his master. A more clever form of decoration was the picture of an eight-oar manned by masters and steered by Dr. Keate which a clever pupil of the Doctor drew in the middle of the Mediterranean with _Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum navigat aequor_ inscribed beneath the boat. All the maps were shown up on the same day, when “Map Morning,” as it was called, filled the school yard.

The old system of sending mere children to Eton lasted up to about half a century ago. In 1857 boys went still there as young as nine or ten, nor was it uncommon to see children of seven or eight in the Lower School. Many stayed at Eton till they were eighteen, after having worked their way up from the First Form to Doctor’s Division, at the rate of two removes a year--a process which, including three years’ inevitable stoppage in Upper Fifth, required more than ten years to accomplish. In the school list for Election, 1834, Lower School has shrunk to a very small number. The first part of it, Third Form, contains but three boys; the second division, seven. “Sense” and “Nonsense,” which come next, have but six between them; there is no one in Second Form, and in First Form only two.

Up to the early ’sixties of the last century, certain divisions of Third Form retained some quaint old titles--the first sections being called Upper Greek, Lower Greek, “Sense” and “Nonsense.” Lower Remove, Upper and Lower Remove in the Second Form and First Form completed the tail-end of the school. “Sense” and “Nonsense,” it should be added, received their quaint titles because boys in the latter were doomed to a sort of “poetical purgatory,” and only wrote “nonsense” verses; that is, Latin compositions which scanned as verse, but contained no ideas; in which respect the effusions in question resembled the productions of some living bards.

[SN: LOWER SCHOOL]

When Mr. John Hawtrey was an Eton master, Lower School, somewhat altering its constitution, became larger again; the boys in it, mostly very young, being all together in his house at the corner of Keate’s Lane, where he kept what was practically a private school apart. His boys were not allowed the same amount of liberty as those in other houses: they took breakfast and tea in common, and generally played their games in Mr. Hawtrey’s private field. On reaching the Upper School they usually went to other houses.

The curriculum of Lower School was entirely different from that followed by the Upper Forms. In “Nonsense” the boys, besides being taught to write nonsense verses, grappled with intricacies of the old “Eton Latin Grammar.” After this they were promoted to “Sense,” when the nonsense verses were discarded; Lower Greek and Upper Greek did very elementary work.

After Mr. John Hawtrey had left Eton to set up a preparatory school at Aldin House, Slough, Lower School once more became small. In 1868, just previous to its abolition, it contained 69 boys. The school list had then ceased to give the old terms, Upper Greek, “Sense,” and “Nonsense.” Shortly after First and Second Forms were abolished and Fourth Form placed under control of the Lower Master, the Reverend Francis Edward Durnford, so well known as “Judy” to several generations of Etonians. Third Form still continued to exist in the writer’s day (1879 to 1883); but it then seldom contained more than two or three boys. Since that time it has varied in number, sometimes amounting to ten or a dozen, or, as at present (1911), eight. It is interesting to note that there are now more than sixty assistant masters, as compared with ten in 1834. In the same time the number of boys at Eton has more than doubled.

[SN: SHIRKING]

Up to the end of the nineteenth century there was a glaring inconsistency in various unwritten regulations which ruled the Eton boy out of school. Certain ordinances were seemingly moulded upon an Hibernian model, many things being forbidden in theory though allowed in practice. Up to 1860 everything beyond Barnes Pool Bridge was considered out of bounds, though the river and terrace of Windsor Castle were not. The boys, of course, went up town freely, most of the shops they used being in the High Street beyond the bridge, and so the ridiculous custom of “shirking” grew up. When an Eton boy up town perceived a master he would get behind a lamp-post or rush into a shop, the merest pretext of concealment from view being, as a rule, sufficient to prevent the “beak” from taking any notice of him, for it was not etiquette for masters to see boys, provided “shirking” was observed. A number of extraordinary usages prevailed in connection with the somewhat senseless custom. For instance, it was not the thing for a master to turn round to look out for a boy following behind--the whole system was ludicrous. One boy, seeing a master enter a confectioner’s shop, where he was eating an ice, escaped notice by shutting one eye and holding up the spoon in front of the other!

At one time Sixth Form boys had to be “shirked” like the masters, but this seems to have been very laxly observed, “liberties,” that is to say exemptions, being often granted.

Another great inconsistency was that though by the laws of the school, no Eton boy might enter the Christopher, there were very few Etonians who were not thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the old town, where at one time Upper boys had regular dinners which were known to the whole school.

[SN: WINDSOR FAIR]

Though “shirking” as a general rule ensured a boy’s immunity from punishment when out of bounds, it ceased to exercise its charm at Windsor Fair (abolished about 1871), which was strictly prohibited. Nevertheless, the boys attended it in flocks, part of their amusement consisting in dodging the masters.

It was highly characteristic of the old-fashioned Eton system, that though the Fair was strictly forbidden, no efforts at all were made to prevent boys from going there, though they were often severely punished if caught. Not a few of the masters, however, almost openly tolerated such transgressions, and a few even made a point of giving their pupils double pocket-money in Fair week. It must be remembered that at that time all the masters were old Etonians, having passed their lives between the school and King’s. Consequently they were generally imbued with the old traditions, and had never come across any external influences likely to alter a point of view adopted when they themselves were being trained by masters of an old-fashioned Conservative type.

At the Fair a large quantity of pocket-money was expended at the various booths, the keepers of which, of course, at once recognised an Eton boy, whom all the professional tricksters of the place looked upon as their surest game. Every device was put before him, and all sorts of temptations held out to induce him to stop and have a trial, as they called it, of his luck. Cards, rings, coins, everything in fact was made into an instrument for gaining a little money during this harvest of inexperience.

The rifle gallery, where they gave two shots for a penny, was a favourite resort, and every stall which the boys passed, whatever was the sort of trumpery with which it was filled, formed an excuse for loitering to examine what there was. Dolls and knives and penny trumpets and rattles, all required attention; boxes and brooches were haggled over, and rings, and even rags, minutely inspected.

The Fair consisted of a number of booths stretching from the Town Hall to Castle Yard. There were the usual shows, and in the eighteenth century a bull bait on Bachelors’ Acre, the place of which, in latter years, was taken by roulette. This game, of course, run by doubtful characters, was highly attractive to certain venturesome Etonians--there was real danger in it, for a boy caught playing was turned down to a lower form as well as whipped.

Though many boys were flogged for going to this October festival, it was always a source of great delight to the school, for it gave rise to many jokes.

It was a common practice for boys to purchase all sorts of mechanical toys--jumping frogs and the like--there, and surreptitiously introduce them upon some master’s desk. On one occasion, a perfect menagerie was successfully planted on the table before Dr. Hawtrey’s very nose, and all the punishment the culprits received for their tomfoolery was his withering remark, “Babies!”

As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century the old Windsor Theatre was often visited by Etonians. The gallery, indeed, seems to have been more or less reserved for their use. By the middle of the century, however, the boys had long ceased to indulge in this amusement, but up to the late seventies a considerable number frequented Windsor races, at that time an open meeting.

In 1879, the writer’s first year at Eton, an idea prevailed that if we could run there and back without missing Absence, such a visit was not forbidden. Be this as it may, the writer, with a friend, did run there and back, the only unpleasant consequence being the loss of some pocket-money. In the following year, besides the notice prohibiting boys from being on the Windsor bank of the river during the races (which, nevertheless, did not prevent a considerable number from crossing over), drastic measures were taken by the authorities to prevent Etonians from going there on foot, which, owing to the vigilance of masters in Windsor, had to be abandoned altogether. It was no unheard-of thing for a boy in those days to run to Ascot races and get back in time for Absence--then at six. This, of course, was contrived by getting lifts on the way, and though some were caught and punished, quite a number indulged in what was to them an exciting adventure. Two or three got to the races by assuming a disguise, whilst others were picked up and hidden in carriages and traps by obliging elder brothers or old Etonians. One boy--Bathurst by name--according to current report, so tickled young Lady Savernake by his impersonation of a nigger-minstrel that she gave him a £5 piece.

[SN: PIG FAIR]

In Eton itself up to the ’thirties of the last century, every Ash Wednesday there was held a Pig Fair, just outside Upper School; this, of course, led to great disorder--the boys delighting in letting the pigs loose, and chasing them in all directions. At the last of these Fairs in Keate’s time, a boy actually rode a pig from the gate of Weston’s Yard to the Christopher, at the identical moment when Keate came out of Keate’s Lane on the way to chapel, his gown flying in the wind. Keate took little notice of this at the time, merely remarking, “Pigs will squeak, and boys will laugh; don’t do it again.”

When Gladstone was a boy at Eton, considerable brutality existed in connection with the Fair. The boys, according to old custom, hustling the drovers and then cutting off the tails of the pigs. Gladstone boldly denounced such cruelty, and gave considerable offence by declaring that the boys who were foremost in this kind of butchery were the first to quake at the consequences of detection. He dared them, if they were proud of their work, to sport the trophies of it in their hats. On the following Ash Wednesday he found three newly amputated pig-tails hung in a bunch on his door, with a paper inscribed:

“Quisquis amat porcos, porcis amabitur illis; Cauda sit exemplum ter repetita tibi.”

Underneath these lines the future Prime Minister wrote a challenge to the pig-torturers, inviting them to come forward and take a receipt for their offering, which he would mark “in good round hand upon your faces.” The pig-baiting, however, continued till Dr. Hawtrey did away with the Fair.

Even in the rough old times the life of the Oppidans was pleasant enough; a totally different state of affairs prevailing amongst them from that which flourished in Long Chamber, where small collegers were so roughly treated that many of them preferred to be Oppidans till such time as they had attained a place in the school which would guarantee them against being bullied.

Amongst the Oppidans, indeed, there would seem never to have been any bullying at all, whilst their health and comfort was looked after pretty much as it is to-day. Nevertheless, in old days, they had a far greater knowledge of the stern facts of life than is at present the case. Their rambles round the slums of Windsor--visits to the Fair and contact with the rough and undesirable characters of the vicinity--taught them what human nature really is, while the fighting, which was then recognised, precluded all trace of namby-pambyism. In those days Eton sent forth few sentimentalists into the great world, but it undoubtedly furnished England with the very best type of officer to meet the enemy in the Peninsular and at Waterloo. It was an era when the sickening cant of humanitarianism, born of luxury and weakness, had not yet arisen to emasculate and enfeeble the British race.

[SN: FAGGING]

Fagging at Eton seems never to have degenerated into brutality. In former times, however, fags had to perform many services which sound strange to modern ears. An Etonian, for instance, who had been fag to the future Wellington, it is said, used to declare that the chief service he had to perform was that of bed-warmer, for the Fifth Form then made the Lower boys lie for a time in their beds to take off the chill. This story, however, is probably legendary, fagging amongst the Oppidans having generally been limited to getting breakfasts from sock shops, taking messages, and cooking. Fag-masters have seldom been anything but considerate, and the old joke of sending a green newcomer (after his first fortnight of immunity from fagging) to Layton’s, the confectioner on Windsor Hill, for a pennyworth of pigeon milk, has probably never been put into practice.

As long as a hundred years ago cases of bullying out of College were sternly repressed by the boys themselves. At that time a great sensation was caused because a boy high in the Fifth Form flicked with a wet towel the bare back of his fag, who complained after Absence to the captain of the school. The circumstances soon got wind, and nearly the whole school followed the captain to the bully’s dame’s, which was Raguineau’s. He was pulled out of his room, and most soundly horsewhipped close by one of the large elms, to the delight of all.

Though the accommodation was not uncomfortable, the boys’ rooms were then, as a rule, smaller and less luxurious than is the case to-day, the windows being often barred like those of a prison or a lunatic asylum. The furniture was all of the commonest wood, and consisted of a table, two chairs (well carved by preceding generations), a bureau--a sort of _multum in parvo_ for books, clothes, and everything else--and a large press which turned into a bed; this, small boys always regarded with misgiving, it being a practice for raiding parties to shut the occupier up in it.

In 1825 some of the rooms were as small as five feet by six, some were not carpeted, and a few of those on the ground floor were unpleasant owing to the contents of pails descending from the upper windows.

On the fifth of November the Lower boys revenged their wrongs by making a bonfire of their Greek grammars in the school-yard; and later in the year, when the snow came, they would industriously collect it in the house, in order that in the evening they might overwhelm some little fellow and his books with a pile of it.

Very early rising was then the rule, and in winter boys got up by candle-light. The Fourth Form had an infliction called “Long-morning.” They had to be in school by half-past seven, but when the masters overslept themselves there was a “run”--_i.e._ no school. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was an earlier school still, at six o’clock.

[SN: NICKNAMES]

Nicknames have always been popular at Eton, many of them enduring in after-life. Thomas James, who in 1766 wrote an account of the school, was nicknamed Mordecai and Pasteboard, whilst the three brothers Pott were called Quart, Pint, and Gill.

About the middle of the eighteenth century nicknames both for masters and boys were very common. Certain masters were then called Pernypopax Dampier, Gronkey Graham, Pogy Roberts, Buck Ekins, Bantam Sumner, and Wigblock Prior. The following are some boys’ nicknames:--Bacchus Browning (Earl Powis), Square Buckeridge, Tiger Clive, King Cole, Mother and Hoppy Cotes, Damme Duer, Dapper Dubery, Baboon FitzHugh, Chob and Chuff Hunter, Toby Liddell, Squashey Pollard, Codger Praed, Hog Weston, Gobbo Young, and Woglog Calley.

In old days many Eton nicknames were superior, and often elegantly classical. At one time a boy named M’Guire was well known in the school, because, if prizes had been given for knock-knees he would have carried off the first prize anywhere. Homer has a stock of phrases with which he is apt to fill up his verse, just as lawyers use “common forms” for their prose. One of these, frequently occurring in the description of a hero, is _phaidima guia_ (beautiful limbs), and Paddy M’Guire bore the appropriate name of “Phaidima Guia.”

A peculiarly happy nickname was Lapis Lazuli or Cornelius a lapide, applied to a boy (Newcastle scholar), in after-life well known to Etonians as the Rev. E. D. Stone. He recently contributed some most interesting recollections of Eton to an attractive book written by Mr. Christopher Stone, his son.

One of the most apt nicknames ever bestowed on any boy was Verd Antique, applied to the eldest of five brothers Green, who were at Eton at the same time--the other four being known as Maximus, Major, Minor, and Minimus.

Slang, though fairly prevalent then, in later years was of a different kind. It would appear that Eton boys did not then say “burry” for “bureau,” nor “brolly” for “umbrella,” whilst “footer” for “football” was unknown. A favourite old Eton colloquialism, “con,” a word equivalent in its meaning to chum and pal, has now long died out, whilst “pec” used for money was about obsolete thirty years ago. “Scug,” an untidy boy, and “scuggish,” bad form, words which were constantly in the mouths of Etonians of two or three generations back, are now, I believe, much less used by Upper boys. “Sock,” a term denoting all kinds of dainties, still exists, but masters are called “ushers” instead of “beaks.” “Gig,” an old piece of Eton slang which comprehended all that was ridiculous, all that was to be laughed at and plagued, has long ceased to be used.

[SN: DAMES AND TUTORS]

A curious and old-fashioned word once in constant use amongst Eton boys, but now quite obsolete, was “brozier”--this indicated a boy who had spent his pocket-money, and was without means of obtaining “sock.” Brozier was also used in connection with a disconcerting manœuvre sometimes executed by boys at the expense of a dame. When one of these ladies had gained the reputation of not providing sufficient food at the usual meals, and of keeping an ill-stocked larder, an organised attempt would be made to eat her “out of house and home”--as the supply of provisions became exhausted, more would be demanded in the most pointed manner--this was known as “Brozier my dame.”

One of these ladies, possessed of great strength of mind and resource, being exposed to a determined attempt of this kind, turned the tide just as her boys--though nearly choked in the moment of victory--were winning the battle. Whispering two words to her maid, the latter disappeared only to return with an enormous cheese, as strong as it was big. This the dame cut away liberally, saying with a smile, that it must not be spared, for there was another bigger one handy. The boys never tried a brozier with her again. This lady had a happy knack of managing her boys, and after getting them flogged relentlessly on slight provocation, would, in spite of themselves, laugh them out of all ill-humour.

The earliest “Tutor’s” house on record seems to have been kept by W. H. Roberts, a master who took a few pupils in 1760. When the eighteenth century had got fairly under way, the Oppidans were in all probability distributed amongst “dames” and tutors in much the same way as has prevailed in recent times.