Nothing so far has been said of the discipline exercised by boys over boys outside the house, since it seemed important to emphasize the fact that the boarding-house system, whatever its defects, supplies lessons in the art of government which could not well be learnt except in so close a society. But of course the management of organised games provides other opportunities which the day school shares almost equally with the boarding-school. On the field the athlete reigns supreme, and he may learn much which is of permanent value. But the boarding-house has at least this advantage, that it gives to others besides the physically strong their chance. The house football captain, if he is not also an intellectual light, has to learn that off the field his authority is not paramount, that he must accommodate himself to the wishes of those who are his athletic inferiors, that the proficients in the various departments must work together if the house is to be united and is to gain a position which is not attainable if it is divided against itself.

Again, it must not be forgotten that every boy of spirit hopes to hold a position of authority some day. Meanwhile, as soon as he attains any prominence, he may be encouraged to hope for a position of trust, and this hope may be in itself a chastening influence. Indeed, it is the middle boys in a house who are in some ways the most important. They see and hear most of what goes on, while many things may escape the notice of 'the gods.' It is therefore important to select the steadiest of this middle stratum and entrust them with subordinate responsibility. Thus in some schools the captains' of dormitories are boys below the sixth form, and posts such as captaincy of a dining hall or classroom (according to the arrangements of the particular school) are easily devised. Of course in all these positions difficulties occur: they provide plenty of

occupation, and not a little entertainment, for the man behind the scenes. There will be new brooms who sweep with more zeal than discretion, Jacks-inoffice who start with a ludicrous idea of their own importance. But the constitution provides checks and balances, and the boy-ruler who does not presently find his own level must be strangely indifferent to his own peace of mind. For criticism is free and candid; the governed are usually far from servile, though prompt enough to obey when they think that obedience is reasonable. There certainly would seem to be in the English character, not only independence, but a readiness to submit to properly constituted authority. And it is just this characteristic quality which the public school system seizes on and develops. Under this system the rise from obedience to command is gradual, while those who hold the highest commands are themselves under authority. If the system produces results which are from this point of view unsatisfactory, the fault probably lies, not in the system itself, but in the working of it

One criticism of the system may suggest itself. If a boy at school has much of his thoughts and a good deal of his time taken up with cares of government, may not his own work and intellectual development suffer? And may not this be especially the case where the boy is particularly conscientious? The danger is, no doubt, a serious one. To some extent it is consoling to reflect that such a boy, though he may be imperilling his first class, is acquiring compensating gains which are not open to the intellectual recluse; that, e.g., he may take a lower place in the Civil Service Examination than he would otherwise have done, and yet may turn out in the end a more useful civil servant. Yet such cases do certainly call for vigilance, and it is here that the despot in the background comes in,

who is not after all, or ought not to be, a negligeable quantity, even in such are public as has been described. Indeed, the republic is not really autonomous. It is a political fiction, though it is not on that account impotent or unreal, since the boys. themselves are well aware that their authority is not ultimate while the rulers can justly feel that their powers command from their subjects the respect readily given to an authority which is understood, yet they also know both that interference is to be expected in case of any failure of justice, and that in a case of difficulty sympathy and support are ready for them. In fact they mostly realise that they are not men, but are playing at being men that they may become men. It is the master's duty to discern when he should step on to the stage; and, if he does so, he will, if he is wise, appeal less to his own position as supreme authority than to those inherited traditions of house or school which are sacred to the conservative mind of boyhood, and which no academy newly manufactured on abstract principles can produce ready made.

XVIII.

SOCIAL LIFE.

BY THE REV. C. A. ALINGTON.

NOT long ago a great public school was taking to itself a new habitation. On the governing body there were two headmasters to whose opinion, on technical matters, their colleagues were accustomed to defer. A question arose, of a sufficiently fundamental nature, as to the advantages and disadvantages of the dormitory system. It was referred to the educational experts, but, if rumour has not grossly erred, their disagreement was as profound as their convictions, and the governing body had to rely on its own judgment after all.

This small story is a parable of the difficulty which awaits all those who endeavour to speak in detail of social life at a public school: they must expect to find that what are truisms at Rugby are paradoxes at Harrow, and that an Eton custom would prove a Marlborough revolution. The only hope in treating such a subject is to keep to generalities.

When in the course of an argument it has been incontrovertibly proved that a public school education produces none of the intellectual results which the nation has a right to demand, the defender of that education, being (ex hypothesi) impervious to reason, is in the habit of falling back on his last line. of defence. "It is true," he will say, "that we

didn't learn much at school in the way of scholarship, nor much that has been of practical utility; but still we did learn a good deal. It isn't what the masters teach you that matters, that may be much or may be little; it is what the boys teach one another. That's the lesson you never forget."

It will be understood that this is not an argument often heard on the lips of a school-master, but even the members of that much-harassed profession are not altogether blind to its truth. They recognise, sometimes with pleasure and sometimes with regret, that in some points, and those not the least important, the formation of character is taken from their careful grasp and is roughly carried out by public opinion. The "tone" of a house or of a school is like the fragrance of a garden, something which cannot be analysed into its component parts, nor explained to those who do not know it, although the impression which it conveys is both definite and permanent. It is this "tone" which the social life of a school creates by processes which, for the most part, defy description, although to those who know a public school from the inside they are the most natural things in the world. But it would be ungallant to forget that there is a large proportion of society which cannot attain this first-hand knowledge, and those who have it will, at least, realise the difficulty of description.

The ordinary public school novel fails to give a message except to those who know. They can discount the high pressure at which the hero of such a book must live, and can supply the interminable and fruitless conversations which intervene between the crucial dialogues of the plot. This is the real difficulty-that it is in conversation that the social life of a school exists, and that these conversations so seldom bear reporting. It is not that boys cannot "fold their legs and talk": there are few ages which