Hay The Lighter Side of School Life

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-3-95864-974-3
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 226 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

A series of sketches which the humorist, Ian Hay, has been publishing in Blackwood's under the above title, has more than anecdotal interest to those who can see In the boy the father of the man. Mr. Hay expresses the dominant quality as a dislike for mental cleverness coupled with "worship of force of character."

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hay, Ian

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO
THE HOUSEMASTER
To the boy, all masters (as distinct from The Head) consist of one class—namely, masters. The fact that masters are divisible into grades, or indulge in acrimonious diversities of opinion, or are subject to the ordinary weaknesses of the flesh (apart from chronic shortness of temper) has never occurred to him. This is not so surprising as it sounds. A schoolmaster's life is one long pose. His perpetual demeanour is that of a blameless enthusiast. A boy never hears a master swear—at least, not if the master can help it; he seldom sees him smoke or drink; he never hears him converse upon any but regulation topics, and then only from the point of view of a rather bigoted archangel. The idea that a master in his private capacity may go to a music-hall, or back a horse, or be casual in his habits, or be totally lacking in religious belief, would be quite a shock to a boy. It is true that when half-a-dozen ribald spirits are gathered round the Lower Study fire after tea, libellous tongues are unloosed. The humorist of the party draws joyous pictures of his Housemaster staggering home to bed after a riotous evening with an Archdeacon, or being thrown out of the Empire in the holidays. But no one in his heart takes these legends seriously—least of all their originator. They are merely audacious irreverences. All day and every day the boy sees the master, impeccably respectable in cap and gown, rebuking the mildest vices, extolling the dullest virtues, singing the praises of industry and application, and attending Chapel morning and evening. A boy has little or no intuition: he judges almost entirely by externals. To him a master is not as other men are: he is a special type of humanity endowed with a permanent bias towards energetic respectability, and grotesquely ignorant of the seamy side of life. The latter belief in particular appears to be quite ineradicable. But in truth the scholastic hierarchy is a most complicated fabric. At the summit of the Universe stands the Head. After him come the senior masters—or, as they prefer somewhat invidiously to describe themselves, the permanent staff—then the junior masters. The whole body are divided and subdivided again into little groups—classical men, mathematical men, science men, and modern-language men—each group with its own particular axe to grind and its own tender spots. Then follow various specialists, not always resident; men whose life is one long and usually ineffectual struggle to convince the School—including the Head—that music, drawing, and the arts generally are subjects which ought to be taken seriously, even under the British educational system. As already noted, after the Head—quite literally—come the Housemasters. They are always after him: one or other of the troop is perpetually on his trail; and unless the great man displays the ferocity of the tiger or the wisdom of the serpent, they harry him exceedingly. Behold him undergoing his daily penance—in audience in his study after breakfast. To him enter severally: A., a patronising person, with a few helpful suggestions upon the general management of the School. He usually begins: "In the old Head's day, we never, under any circumstances——" B., whose speciality is to discover motes in the eyes of other Housemasters. He announces that yesterday afternoon he detected a member of the Eleven fielding in a Panama hat. "Are Panama hats permitted by the statutes of the School? I need hardly say that the boy was not a member of my House." C., a wobbler, who seeks advice as to whether an infraction of one of the rules of his House can best be met by a hundred lines of Vergil or public expulsion. D., a Housemaster pure and simple, urging the postponement of the Final House-Match, D.'s best bowler having contracted an ingrowing toe-nail. E., another, insisting that the date be adhered to—for precisely the same reason. (He receives no visit from F., who holds that a Housemaster's House is his castle, and would as soon think of coming to the fountain-head for advice as he would of following the advice if it were offered.) G., an alarmist, who has heard a rumour that smallpox has broken out in the adjacent village, and recommends that the entire school be vaccinated forthwith. H., a golfer, suggesting a half-holiday, to celebrate some suddenly unearthed anniversary in the annals of Country or School. Lastly, on the telephone, I., a valetudinarian, to announce that he is suffering from double pneumonia, and will be unable to come into School until after luncheon. To be quite just, I. is the rarest bird of all. The average schoolmaster has a perfect passion for sticking to his work when utterly unfit for it. In this respect he differs materially from his pupil, who lies in bed in the dawning hours, cudgelling his sleepy but fertile brain for a disease which (1) Has not been used before. (2) Will incapacitate him for work all morning. (3) Will not prevent him playing football in the afternoon. But if a master sprains his ankle, he hobbles about his form-room on a crutch. If he contracts influenza, he swallows a jorum of ammoniated quinine, puts on three waistcoats, and totters into school, where he proceeds to disseminate germs among his not ungrateful charges. Even if he is rendered speechless by tonsillitis, he takes his form as usual, merely substituting written invective (chalked up on the blackboard), for the torrent of verbal abuse which he usually employs as a medium of instruction. It is all part—perhaps an unconscious part—of his permanent pose as an apostle of what is strenuous and praiseworthy. It is also due to a profound conviction that whoever of his colleagues is told off to take his form for him will indubitably undo the work of many years within a few hours. Besides harrying the head and expostulating with one another, the Housemasters wage unceasing war with the teaching staff. The bone of contention in every case is a boy, and the combat always follows certain well-defined lines. A form-master overtakes a Housemaster hurrying to morning chapel, and inquires carelessly: "By the way, isn't Binks tertius your boy?" The Housemaster guardedly admits that this is so. "Well, do you mind if I flog him?" "Oh, come, I say, isn't that rather drastic? What has he done?" "Nothing—not a hand's-turn—for six weeks." "Um!" The Housemaster endeavours to look severely judicial. "Young Binks is rather an exceptional boy," he observes. (Young Binks always is.) "Are you quite sure you know him?" The form-master, who has endured Master Binks' society for nearly two years, and knows him only too well, laughs caustically. "Yes," he says, "I do know him: and I quite agree with you that he is rather an exceptional boy." "Ah!" says the Housemaster, falling into the snare. "Then——" "An exceptional young swab," explains the form-master. By this time they have entered the Chapel, where they revert to their daily task of setting an example by howling one another down in the Psalms. After Chapel the Housemaster takes the form-master aside and confides to him the intelligence that he has been a Housemaster for twenty-five years. The form-master, suppressing an obvious retort, endeavours to return to the question of Binks; but is compelled instead to listen to a brief homily upon the management of boys in general. As neither gentleman has breakfasted, the betting as to which will lose his temper first is almost even, with odds slightly in favour of the form-master, being the younger and hungrier man. However, it is quite certain that one of them will—probably both. The light of reason being thus temporarily obscured, they part, to meditate further repartees and complain bitterly of one another to their colleagues. But it is very seldom that Master Binks profits by such Olympian differences as these. Possibly the Housemaster may decline to give the form-master permission to flog Binks, but in nine cases out of ten, being nothing if not conscientious, he flogs Binks himself, carefully explaining to the form-master afterwards, by implication only, that he has done so not from conviction, but from an earnest desire to bolster up the authority of an inexperienced and incompetent colleague. But these quibbles, as already observed, do not help the writhing Binks at all. However, a Housemaster contra mundum, and a Housemaster in his own House, are very different beings. We have already seen that a bad Headmaster cannot always prevent a School from being good. But a House stands or falls entirely by its Housemaster. If he is a good Housemaster it is a good House: if not, nothing can save it. And therefore the responsibility of a Housemaster far exceeds that of a Head. Consider. He is in loco parentis—with apologies to Stalky!—to some forty or fifty of the shyest and most reserved animals in the world; one and all animated by a single desire—namely, to prevent any fellow-creature from ascertaining what is at the back of their minds. Schoolgirls, we are given to understand, are prone to open their hearts to one another, or to some favourite teacher, with luxurious abandonment. Not so boys. Up to a point they are frankness itself: beyond that point lie depths which can only be plumbed by instinct and intuition—qualities whose possession is the only test of a born Housemaster. All his flock must be an open book to him: he must understand both its...