Part 6

Such implicit confidence had Old Bob in birch, that he imagined he could absolutely whip us up Parnassus, and he very often flogged a boy for not being able to do his verses. ‘I’ll make thee a poet, my boy,’ he used to say, ‘or the rod shall.’ Flagellation formed so essential a part of his system, that he had a large quantity of birch-broom kept constantly at hand in an old cabinet, which may have belonged to the Monastery of Rood itself. The rod-boy—one of the scholars appointed to the office—not only ‘hoisted’ the sufferer, and had the custody of the birch, but also manufactured the rods: and soundly was he drubbed by us, if he did not carefully knock the buds out of them. I think James—who shared the power of the scourge—insisted that his rods should not be tampered with. At any rate, the skin upon which he operated looked afterwards as if it had received a charge of small shot. Such correction, it is obvious, might be repeated a little too often; and it was a rule of Old Bob’s that no boy should be flogged more than once a week. Some, however, were flogged regularly as the week came round. I recollect one boy with whom this was the case for a long time: owing, I believe, to his sheer inability to construe Virgil. I heard of him in after-life; oh, Heaven! such a stupid man!

A minor species of correction was inflicted with the cane, generally on the hands. Old Bob confined himself to two ‘spats’ on the tips of the fingers; or, as he called them, ‘summits of the digits.’ In spite of the sufferer’s attempts to dodge him, he generally hit these sensitive points exactly, to his manifest delight. James struck from four to six blows across the palm with all his strength. I have seen a little boy cast himself on the floor and writhe in the agony of this torture.

James, at the time to which I am referring, appeared to be upwards of fifty. Perhaps he looked older than he was, through powdering his hair. He was much more hasty and irascible than his father. He punished violently and promptly. Old Bob, on the other hand, would sometimes say, ‘I won’t whip thee now, my boy; but I _will_ whip thee. Not now—no. I’ll let it hang over thy head.’ And so he did, occasionally, for some weeks; and whipped him at last. James was rather a better scholar, and somewhat worse informed in other respects than Old Bob. He had small regard for a plodding student, and great partiality for anyone who could make neat verses. It being a tenet with him that not a moment should ever be wasted, he insisted on our taking books into the hall to read during meals. In conformity with this principle, it was said that, having a benefice in the neighbourhood at which he preached weekly, he used to drive there, reading Horace, with his whip stuck upright in his vehicle. These itinerary studies ended, as might have been foreseen, in a serious accident; his horse running at its own sweet will over a cow in the road, and spilling him. He had a preposterous antipathy to the least noise, and his appearance in the school produced an awful silence immediately. James’s greatest defect was the absolute dependence which he placed on the word of the inferior masters. In answer to a complaint from one of them, unlike Old Bob, he would never hear a boy speak, but punished him instantly. Yet he was naturally of a kind disposition; and his alacrity in flogging, arose partly from impatience and irritability—partly from his having been brought up in that faith.

The severities practised in Old Bob’s little kingdom, were not unattended with the effects which they sometimes have in larger monarchies. We had an under-master, whom I will call Bateson; a north-countryman, with a disgusting brogue, only less repulsive than his unwholesome looks and malicious temper. He was continually—as though from a savage delight—procuring some boy or other to be punished. Not long before my time, his conduct had created a regular rebellion. A conspiracy, headed by the senior boys, was formed against him. An opportunity was taken one evening when he was alone in the school. By an arrangement preconcerted with the ‘candle-custodes,’ most of the lights were extinguished. Books, ink-bottles, missiles of all kinds, were flung at his head. The larger boys set upon him and gave him a severe beating. Had not the school-door, which they had premeditatedly fastened, been forced upon, there is no knowing to what extent they would have maltreated him. As it was, he was shockingly bruised and disfigured. The expulsion of some of the ringleaders, and the flogging of several of the other rioters, was the issue of this transaction. Bateson, untaught by what he had suffered, continued to be as spiteful as ever. His delight was to give us tasks beyond our ability, that we might be chastised for not doing them; and he stimulated our exertions by menaces and abuse. Often did we vow to thrash this dull spiteful pedant, if we caught him anywhere after we should leave school; and some of us, I think, had left it a pretty long time before the resolution thus formed, was abandoned.

Consistently enough with his notions about the rod and the gallows, Old Bob not only allowed, but encouraged his boys to settle their disputes by fighting. After the battle he usually enquired who was the aggressor; and if Right had triumphed, he often gave the victor a shilling. Two boys who, for talking in the hall at breakfast, had been made to stand on the form together, contrived to quarrel while thus exalted, and came to blows. Old Bob being present with his cane (misdoers were commonly ‘given up’ to be ‘spatted’ at breakfast-time), rushed instantly from his table to the scene of action. But instead of using the instrument of correction to visit this aggravated breach of discipline, he actually employed it in keeping order during the combat, forgetting the offence in the delight which it afforded him. Our fistic encounters were managed strictly in accordance with the laws of the ‘noble art of self-defence.’ They had the regular accessories of seconds, and a ring, added to the superintendence of ‘Sheep,’ and sometimes, too, the paternal countenance of Old Bob himself! They were divided into rounds, they lasted as long as real prize-fights, and issued, mostly, in similar results to the combatants, who generally pummelled each other so severely that they were forced to retire afterwards to the sick-room. There, strangely enough, they often became great friends. I recollect one desperate contest occurring between the son of a celebrated comic actor and a boy whose family resided in the neighbourhood. The spectators from the public road which skirted the field—they were mostly farmers on horseback, it being market-day—discovered who were the combatants, and exhorted them by name to ‘go it.’ The heroes, I think, fought for upwards of an hour. Both were severely punished—of course I do not mean by Old Bob. On another occasion I was present when a boy in fighting was knocked down. His leg, as he fell, bent under him and was broken. I heard the bone snap.

It will be inquired whether Old Bob’s arrangements included anything that could counteract, or modify, at least, the not very humanising influences of his general system. There was plenty of what is termed religious instruction—mingled always with infusion of birch. We had prayers morning and evening, and a collect in the middle of the day read by one of the senior boys; and as stripes would have been the penalty of a smile, if discovered, our devotions were characterised by great decorum. Before and after dinner we had a Latin grace, pronounced by a young gentleman standing on a form, but a senior boy was liable to be called upon to say it at his bodily peril. The essential difference between the two graces lay in the words ‘_sumus sumpturi_,’ ‘we are about to receive,’ and ‘_accepimus_,’ ‘we have received.’ As not all who could repeat these words attended precisely to their meaning, the distinction was occasionally disregarded, with what consequences may be imagined. Two boys, morning and evening, each elevated on a desk, read a chapter in the New Testament a-piece, as loud as they were able, whilst Old Bob generally kept bidding them to speak louder and slower. The rest had to follow them—the higher Parts, in the Latin and Greek Testament—and take up the text when called on, under the usual liability. It was sometimes a fearful thing to have to read from the desk. St. Paul, in the Second Epistle to Timothy, alludes to one Alexander the Coppersmith. There was a ragamuffin who used to hang about the field-palings, on whom we had conferred this appellation, which, consequently, to our mind had a most ludicrous association. When the fatal name was pronounced, every breath in the school was held to stifle a laugh. Imagine the agony of the unlucky boy obliged to read it in all gravity, deliberately, and, as Old Bob required, ‘loud and slow.’

The loud and slow style of delivery was especially insisted upon in our elocution. Old Bob made all his boys recite. He caused the speaker to mount a table at one end of the schoolroom, he, Old Bob, sitting at the other. The orator had first to perform a gymnastic feat, consisting in putting himself in the first position, and stooping till his fingers’ ends nearly touched his instep—this was the Rood Priory regulation-bow. He then made his speech, lifting his arms up and down alternately, which, if he failed to do with vigour, Old Bob bellowed for ‘Action! Action!’ The mounting on the table was intended to cure us of bashfulness. On my first appearance on that conspicuous altitude, my brain reeled, and I was near falling off for very giddiness.

All this training was a preparation for the public speaking already mentioned. We spoke from a stage erected at the upper end of the school. Our auditors at this exhibition were our friends and the gentry of the neighbourhood. We recited verses, such as ‘Hohenlinden,’ and ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore,’ ‘Edward and Warwick,’ ‘Brutus and Cassius,’ and divers scenes from other poets and dramatists, ancient and modern. Whatever was the character, the speaker appeared in full dress. Once, the part of ‘Mawworm’ was assigned to me. I enacted it with my hair frizzled, in an olive coat, black waistcoat, white trousers, silk stockings, and pumps.

The great attention paid by Old Bob to our acting, seems to indicate that he supposed we were, for the most part, intended for the church, the bar, or political life. What opinion then, of his system, are we to form, judged of by its results? Did it contribute to the formation of any great minds or distinguished characters? At this moment I know of but three persons of any eminence, pupils of his, who have reflected credit upon their master. One of these was a celebrated statesman, now deceased, who, however, completed his education at Eton. Another was a Greek scholar of some repute, whether as yet surviving or not, I am ignorant. The third is a living ornament to his College. This last had a natural aptitude for learning, and inasmuch as he never needed the stimulus of the rod, he cannot be considered indebted for his attainments to that element in Old Bob’s method of tuition. Not one single stupid or even idle boy, within my experience, did Old Bob with all his flogging improve in the least; and his severities, I am sure, disgusted some, possessed of good abilities, with study. For my own part, I never was flogged; but the fear of being so kept me continually in misery: and as long as I was subject to it, hindered my advancement, prevented me from learning anything with pleasure, and caused me to look upon my tasks as impositions, and to perform them with ill will, in a sulky, perfunctory manner. I shall never forget the torment I suffered in cramming long lessons in Greek Grammar, under terror of the rod. Exert myself as I would, I could not get anything dry well by rote; whereas, poetry, or whatever else interested me, I remembered without an effort. This was lucky for me; my good performances were a set-off against my bad. I knew then, as well as I know now, how worse than foolish and idiotic was the notion of whipping a boy into parrot-learning. I perceived then as clearly as I see at this present time, that memory is no single power of the mind; that there is as much of feeling in it as of intellect; that we best remember the ideas which we delight to dwell upon; and that the proper way of imparting knowledge is to render it as pleasant as possible, or if this cannot be done, to instil it by degrees: to administer the medicine whose flavour you cannot disguise, in minute doses. I say, I knew all this: judge then with what different sentiments from those presented in the catechism, I, a boy, looked upon my pastors and masters, who knew it not.

But I can speak positively as well as negatively as to the efficacy of the flogging system. I was fast sinking into despair of my capacity, and arming myself with dogged obstinacy against the consequences, when Old Bob gave up the school. His former pupil, the Statesman, during his brief tenure of office, had secured him a prebendal stall. Rood Priory then came under the sole management of James, assisted by one of his brothers. On his retirement, Old Bob wisely dismissed Bateson, with whom he would not trust James. As wisely, he engaged as second master a teacher in every respect Bateson’s opposite. This gentleman made our work as easy to us as he could; his manner towards us was kind and affectionate; he endeavoured to interest us in our studies; and he urged us to exertion by recommending proficiency for reward, instead of giving up dulness for punishment. Under this management, I, previously considered a dunce, rose rapidly to the first Part of the school; and my career terminated in my writing the English Prize Poem, a pretty good burlesque—though I intended it seriously—on the more moody portions of the writings of Lord Byron.

James did not preside over the concerns of Rood Priory for more than a year-and-a-half. At the end of that time he abdicated in favour of his brother. But the latter was quite incompetent to wield the rod of Old Bob. He permitted a degree of license among his subjects which soon demoralised his empire. He then abruptly attempted to restore discipline. The result was a rebellion. His scholars combined against him in a regular ‘barring out.’ The mutiny was quelled, and the principal insurgents were flogged. But the affair became public, and fatally damaged the school; which instantly fell off, and, as certain writers phrase it, after a few convulsive struggles, ceased to exist. And so there was an end of Rood Priory; one of the last, I am happy to believe, of the genuine ‘good old schools.’

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.