Alpha and Omega are the most widely known letters of the Greek alphabet. And the first and last weeks of a public school career have inspired more essays and sermons than the other two hundred and fifty weeks put together. Yet in neither the beginning nor the end is to be found the essence of school life. The last week is a period of agreeable sentiment. The first of embarrassed loneliness. The new boy feels that he has no part in the life of the school. On that first afternoon, when he has said good-bye to his parents, and turns to walk away from the station, the school buildings, chapel, studies, cloisters, assume in the mellow September sunlight the prospect of a distant city that one day he may be privileged to enter. At present he is outside it, as he stands at the edge of the courts, forlorn in his black tie and wide brimmed straw hat, while the stream of boys in bowler hats and gaily coloured ties pours up from the station. On all sides he hears shouts of welcome, snatches of eager conversation. No one takes the least notice of him. He is an unrecognised foreigner.

During supper, he sits silent and nervous among the new boys at the day-room table. From time to time he casts hesitating glances at the raised table where the prefects sit. What giants they seem. He wonders which is Featherstone, the head of the House?[1] Is that imposing figure with the black hair brushed back from his forehead, the G. O. Evans, who made 121 in the Public School's match at Lords? Can it be possible that he and they are members of the same society?

A prefect rises from the high table and leaves the hall. Immediately forms are pushed back and the long narrow passage leading to the dormitories is filled with sound. The new boy is taken with the stream. What will happen to him now, he wonders? He has always understood that most of the ragging takes place in the dormitories. Will all new boys be subjected to some common lot? In a way he almost hopes that they will. He may thus be given an opportunity of showing his courage. He will be marked down at once as 'a bit of a sport.'

But nothing happens. He walks timidly into the large airy room with its bare boards, its row of wash-hand stands and red-quilted beds. He sees his bag lying in the middle of the floor. Three hours earlier when he and his parents had been shown round by the house-master's wife, he had placed his bag on the corner bed. It had seemed to him a good idea to reserve that particular bed. He would then be open to attack only on one side. Memories of Horatius Cocles had stirred his imagination. But some one else is already undressing there. He picks up his bag, and is about to place it on the bed nearest him when a warning voice informs him that Jones has bagged that bed. He looks round him in dismay. There are only two vacant beds. 'May I have that one?' he asks. The boy with the warning voice looks surprised at being questioned. 'I should think so,' he says, 'unless Hughes wants it. He had it last term.' The new boy does not know whether or not he dare begin to undress beside the bed that Hughes may possibly commandeer. He stands irresolute; then decides to take the risk. There is nothing to choose between the two positions, and Hughes would probably prefer a change.

He begins slowly to undress. No one takes the least notice of him. No one evinces the slightest inclination to test the courage of the new man. No hardened bully enters with a blanket. It is possible that two blasÉ young gentlemen from another dormitory will stroll in 'just to have a look at the new men,' will make a cursory examination, and having expressed their disgust at 'such an appalling crew,' will seek better fortune elsewhere. That will be all. The inquisition of preparatory school terrors is a myth. This generation is not more timid than its predecessors, but it is more subtle. The boy who has just ceased to be labelled 'new' wishes to impress his importance on the new boy. Forty years ago he achieved this object by putting the new boy on a chair and throwing boots at him. The appeal to physical force was not, however, invariably successful. Sometimes the small boy retaliated, and there is no reason why a boy of thirteen should not be a match for one of fourteen. At any rate the 'year older' has accepted the twentieth century doctrine that the easiest way to impress a person is to ignore him. And so the boy of a year's standing assumes an air of Olympian superiority. The new man is beneath his notice. He prefers to lean in the doorway of the dormitory, and talk of the days when 'Meredith had that far bed, and Johnstone had the wash-hand stand beneath the window.' He will casually let fall the names of the mighty and note their effect on the young. In the daytime he is probably quite an insignificant person, low in form and a funk at football. He can only appear great in the presence of his juniors during the quarter of an hour between supper and lights out. He therefore takes enormous pains to secure the admiration of those whom he affects to despise.

It is the same everywhere. At Sandhurst, on the first night of each term, the seniors used to cluster round the piano and sing till 'rooms' with incredible violence and discord. It was done entirely to impress the juniors, and on the whole I am inclined to think it was successful. The junior is a shy person, and the din has on him an effect not unlike that of an intensive bombardment. As the junior sits in a far corner of the anteroom, cowed and unhappy by an exhibition that is being conducted, though he does not know it, entirely for his benefit, so does the new boy lie back in bed on his first night, wondering what it is all about.

The jargon puzzles him; the attitude to life puzzles him. The boy with the warning voice is lamenting that he has got his 'budge.'

'Rotten luck,' he says. 'I should like to have stopped in old Moke's for at least a year. I did just well enough in each paper to avoid being bottled. Fourteenth I came out, and now they've started a new form, so we've all got shoved up.' The rest of the dormitory express sympathy. Then some one wonders whether Davenport will turn 'pi' now he's a 'pre'; the opinion is expressed that Ferguson will find himself pretty lonely now that Wodehouse has left. A lot of people have apparently been waiting a long time to kick him with impunity. Some one says, 'Let's make up the Fifteen,' and the rival claims of Bradshaw and Murray are carefully weighed. And all the while four wretched new boys listen in silent, confused wonderment.

The conversation gradually becomes spasmodic. There are longer and longer pauses between the conclusion of one topic and the introduction of another. 'Well,' says the senior boy, 'about time we were going to sleep. Good-night all.' There is a murmur of 'good-night': silence: and then again the warning voice. 'Oh, but I say, Stewart, what about the new men's concert?' There is immediate interest among the senior members. Of course, they had forgotten that ... the new men's concert.

'Too late now,' says Stewart. 'Let's have it on Sunday.'

'Hear that, you new fellows; you must all have a song by Sunday. Good-night.'

But there is little sleep for the new boy. Where is he? What has happened to him? Such a little while ago he was secure, garrisoned, sheltered by his home. Only twelve hours. He begins to wish that he had not been so anxious to leave his prep. Why hadn't he stayed on there another year? He would have been head of the school. At this very moment if he had not been so absurdly impetuous he would be turning over to go to sleep, having wished his dormitory 'good-night.' Just as Stewart had done. The thought of the concert terrifies him. He is a bad singer. Will they make him stand on a chair? will they throw boots at him if his voice quavers, or if he forgets the words? It will be a long-drawn agony.

And for a couple of days he is made wretched by the prospect of this ordeal. It allows him no peace of mind. In form, on the football field, as he walks up to the tuck shop, the disquieting thought descends to torture him. But in the end it is a very tame affair. It takes place after lights out, and new boys, as well as lovers, win a strange courage of the darkness. Moreover, the object of the concert is to amuse the senior members of the dormitory, and bad singing amuses no one. Myself, I remember being stopped before I had completed one verse of 'The British Grenadiers,' whereas the boy next to me, who had an agreeable treble voice was made to sing, 'Put on your ta-ta, little girlie,' every other night for the rest of the term.

The concert is practically the sole direct ordeal that a new boy has to face: yet it is probable that he would, on the whole, prefer the old-fashioned methods. It is better to be ragged than to be ignored. And he spends most of his first week wondering whether he has done the right thing. It is especially difficult if he finds himself placed high in the school. The lower forms are mainly composed of new boys, companions in calamity, and the master in charge of the second is lenient during the early days. It is different for the boy who finds himself in the Lower Fifth, or Upper Fourth. As likely as not there is only one other new boy in his house in the same form, and, when he cannot find that particular boy, there is no one to whom he may turn for advice. He soon learns that it is not wise to carry his troubles to his seniors. He may find himself in his house-master's study, waiting to hand in the list of books he will require, and suddenly he remembers that he has forgotten to put down his Latin prose book on the list; he has also forgotten what Latin prose book his form uses. He casts a despairing eye round the room and recognises, leaning against a bookcase the languid, supercilious figure of Watney. What luck, he thinks, Watney has been in the Upper Fourth two years. He is sure to know. The new boy edges towards him. 'Please,' he asks, 'what Latin prose book do we use?'

His query is met by a look of amazed, outraged disapproval. Watney looks him up and down. Then at last: 'Who are "we"?' he says. The experiment is not repeated. The new boy arrives in form without his Latin prose book and is threatened with an imposition.

The geography of the school is very puzzling.

No new boy could be expected to gather much help from the information that his class-room is 'under the library, up on the right, next to Uncle Ned's.' For at least a week he is always entering the wrong form room. In the lower forms it is customary for the master to glance round the class, see that five boys are missing, and send the senior member in search of them as a matter of course. Indeed the first week of term is very pleasant for the senior member of the lower forms. He spends most of his time searching for lost lambs, and he is in no frantic haste to complete his task. But that is in the lower form, and, in the middle and upper schools, form masters do not care to have their time wasted. The absence of Jones mi. is not regarded as a joke.

Nicknames are confusing.

The new boy does not realise that 'Crusoe' and Mr Robinson are the same person. And, when he finds himself a quarter of an hour late in Mr Robinson's class-room, his excuse that he thought he had to go to 'Mr Crusoe' is not an official success. He is always on the brink of a mistake.

Probably his life is further complicated by the fact that he is playing Rugby football for the first time, and, for at least a month, his performances on the field can give him little satisfaction and less amusement. In the course of two or three puntabouts he is taught by his house-captain how to pack and how to take a pass. He is then drafted on to pick ups and house-games to fare as best he may. He fares extremely badly. He hangs about on the edge of the scrum. He catches hold of his opponents when they are dribbling and attempts an Association barge when they are running. For a long time he never touches the ball with his hands at all, and on the rare occasions when he discovers it at his feet, he takes a terrific rout at it and is contemptuously informed that he is not playing soccer. He is playing with boys older and heavier than himself. He has little chance of acquiring self-confidence: no footballer is really any use till he has scored a try, and that day is slow in coming. The new boy's chief anxiety on the field is to avoid the notice of any house caps that may be on the touchline. At half-time he will rub worm-casts on his knees to present an appearance of muddy valour. He is terribly afraid he will be reported and beaten for slacking. This fate rarely, as a matter of fact, overtakes a small boy. A beating for slackness is usually reserved for the boy about half-way up the house who has committed no definite offence, but has been making a nuisance of himself generally.[2] Slackness on the field is the excuse for an official reprimand, and its effect is usually salutary. This, however, the new boy does not know. Games, when the house-captain is on the touchline, become a misery. During his first term he looks forward to the First Fifteen matches chiefly because on those days he will not himself have to play.

But it is in his spare time that he most acutely feels himself outside the general life of the school. He is oppressed by liberty. He does not know what to do with it. At his Preparatory School an elaborate time-table was posted on the notice-board, and every moment of his day was pigeonholed. A boy had no excuse for not knowing at any given time what he ought to be doing, and where he ought to be doing it. There was constant supervision. But, at a Public School, provided a boy answers his name at roll-call, and fulfils his social engagements in the form room and on the football field, no one worries much what he is doing during the rest of the time. He can search for plovers' eggs, or hunt for fossils, or develop photographs, or overeat at the tuck shop. He is his own master, and this the new boy cannot understand. When he has changed after football on a half-holiday he asks himself: 'What ought I to be doing now?' The answer is, of course: 'Nothing in particular. Whatever you like.' A disconcerting answer, for there is nothing in particular that he wants to do. The day room is inhospitable. The big chairs round the fire are occupied by the mighty. The library is only of less interest to him than the museum. The tuck shop at such an hour is full of bloods in whose presence he feels embarrassed. He wanders disconsolately round the courts. All the other new boys seem to have found something to do (a common delusion this). In the end he succeeds in finding some one equally lonely with whom he goes for a walk: and a walk, unless one is a botanist, is such a strange way of spending an afternoon, that I have since wondered whether any one after his first term ever goes for a walk at school without an ulterior motive, except when he is in training.

It is a strange business that first term, and its importance is, I think, overrated. It is not public school life. It is composed of the hesitations, the reactions of a novice. School life is on the other side of it. The new boy sees that life in fragments. It puzzles him. He tries to fit it into shape with the scale of values he acquired at his Preparatory School. And fails. The Preparatory School belongs to childhood, the Public School to adolescence. The new boy understands little of what is going on round him. Indeed there is no person whose testimony can be less relied upon than that of the new boy of four weeks' standing. He never knows what he should, and what he should not, believe. The new life is so strange to him that he is prepared to accept any absurdity for the truth. The veriest nincompoop can pull his leg.

The following story is true.

It was the custom in my house for the matron to put out clean underclothes for each boy on Saturday evening. On my first Saturday I noticed that no clean pants had been put out for me. I asked an elder boy why this was. 'Oh, don't you know?' he said, 'we only have clean pants twice a term.' I believed him. The matron thought that I, in common with many others, did not start wearing pants till well into the winter. In consequence I wore the same pair till the second week in November. It is the same with regard to the more serious issues of school life. Mischief is often caused by the mistaken ideas that new boys give their parents of what does and what does not go on in their house.

I was provided the other day with a good example. At a certain house in a famous school it was the practice of the house-master's wife to sit at the day-room table for lunch. The idea was admirable. The house-master's wife was a sympathetic woman who wished to recall to the small boys the regenerating atmosphere of their homes. The results, however, were unfortunate. The small boys became communicative. In their innocence they repeated stories of which the true significance had escaped them. In their ignorance they misinterpreted stories of which the nature happened to be direct. In neither case did the reputation of certain light-hearted sportsmen on the Va. table rise in the official esteem. Indeed of that particular house there was composed a limerick, the exact wording of which has more humour than propriety, to the effect that the house reports of the Sixth Form table were written by the fags. Few parents, however, would accept this explanation.

Officially the first term is usually an unqualified success. The new boy is not distracted from his studies by the stress of house politics nor by the ambitions of the football field. The weekly form order is his chief excitement. And it would be surprising, considering the qualified enthusiasm with which the majority of the form welcome this occurrence, if the new boy did not soon find himself in the running for promotion. There is, indeed, little else for him to do.[3] He lives in a world of his own. He sees a good deal of new boys in other houses, and the usual question in break on Saturday morning is: 'Where were you this week?' His offences against discipline are inconsiderable. It is 'side' for a new boy to rag in the day room, in the changing room, and in the dormitories. That is the privilege of his seniors. He is not hardened enough to rag in form. He still regards work as important. I remember once seeing a very small and inoffensive scholar crumple up a sheet of paper and fling it at the head of his chemistry master. He maintained, however, that he was aiming at the waste-paper basket, and, though the excuse was not accepted, the offender's subsequent performances on the cricket field have inclined me to think he spoke the truth. At any rate this is the sole piece of audacity on the part of a new boy that I have witnessed. Indeed the new boy who does not return home with a thundering good report is a well-placed candidate for expulsion. Most of us start well. How many public school boys would have to confess that they won their only prize in their first term. The new boy returns home as from a Roman triumph. The indulgent father is prodigal of largess and theatre-tickets. His secretary is instructed to type out the report and send copies of it to aunts and uncles and his former head master. It is a great occasion, and we do well to make the most of it. It does not come twice.

The change begins, I suppose, on the first evening of the second term, when the novice, clad appropriately in bowler hat and coloured tie, is accosted by a member of the form into which he has been promoted and informed that he will be expected to do the 'con' for them that term. There is no threat. It is merely the announcement of an arrangement for mutual help. The old stagers who have slowly moved up the school, with the danger of superannuation camping on their trail, consider that their last terms should pass in a soft tranquility. They expect the newcomer to provide them with that peace. 'Here,' they say, 'is a smart lad who has got his promotion straight away; he can be of great service to us.' It is a form of practical communism of which the scholar is particularly the victim. There is a general conscription of intellect. Scholars are expected to do the work of the bloods. 'You are paid to come here,' say the great men, 'you must prove yourselves worthy of your hire.' Arnold Lunn has described how the captain of his house used to hold an educational raffle. Slips of paper on which were written: 'Greek Prose'; 'Latin Prose'; 'Essay,' were placed in a hat and the scholars took their chance of drawing a blank. I can still hear the voice of the school fast-bowler shouting over the banisters to a wretched goggle-eyed youth, 'No. 69, Becke, and shove it in my study before prayers.'

But the scholar is an exceptional person, and the novice who is accosted in the courts has an easier fate. He does not have to do other people's work. He merely has to do his own out loud. He is, moreover, a privileged person. He does not have to look the words up in a dictionary. That is the task of another member of the combination. He is spared the hack work of translation. It is for him to discover the sense. At a first glance it would seem that this arrangement would be to the advantage of the new boy; certainly it will ensure his industry. There is no chance of his scamping his work. The fate of others depends on his efficiency, and it does not pay him to guess at the sense. I remember once translating Remotis arbielis, surrexit e lectulo, 'having kicked off his bedclothes he rose from his bed.' No one questioned the interpretation, so I proceeded to the next sentence. None of us luckily was put on to translate that passage, but I can recall now the icy looks of the other members of the combination when the sentence was correctly rendered. I made a bolt for it afterwards, but they caught me. I did not guess again.

The form interpreter is never able to say to himself: 'I went on to con yesterday, and I went on the day before, there's not the least likelihood of my being put on to-day. I shan't prepare it.' He has to labour for the general good, and probably, by the end of the term, he knows the Latin and Greek books pretty well. But he has not only learnt the correct rendering of certain obscure classical passages; he has learnt also, through contact with older boys, the correct public school attitude to work and the relative importance of football and mathematics.

This is what he learns.

It is the business of the school to win their matches and to produce first-class footballers and cricketers; it is the business of the house to win their house matches and to produce as many colours as possible. It is the business of every individual member of the school to subscribe to this creed. The value of scholastic achievements is relative. It is a feather in the cap of a double first to be privileged to wear the dark blue ribbon of the Sixth. But it is not a necessary achievement. Scholars, on the other hand, should work. They are no use to the school at games. It is for them to do what little lies within their power; a scholarship has its value. The school likes to get scholarships. It is a side show, of course, but a creditable side show. And the Fourth Former, after recounting the feats of Lewis in the big school match, comments on the fact that Bevan won a Balliol scholarship in the same way that the village greengrocer will say: 'Oh, yes, sir, we have a drapery department, too.' Real brains are accorded a sort of grudging admiration. They are entitled to respect. A Fellow has done his job well. It may not be an important job, but he has done it. Our Fourth Former remembers the parable of the talents. The Balliol scholar has converted his one talent into two.

The boy, however, who, without being a scholar, shows unusual signs of industry, is a swot. Valuable time is wasted. The school is divided into two parts: the scholars and the rest. The rest brings to its work whatever energy is saved from its more arduous activities. No one thinks any the less of a man for being low in form. Slackness on the football field is anti-social. In the long category of an unpopular boy's offence the final evidence of worthlessness is the statement: 'He doesn't even work.' Even that resort, 'that last infirmity,' is denied him. What purpose has his existence? These are the articles of faith; these are the conventions. And the new boy who is ambitious, who wishes to win the respect and admiration of his comrades realises that athletic prowess will win him a position that is beyond the reach of the liveliest intellect. He begins to look on his work as a side show. It does not particularly matter what happens to him in the class-room. It would be nice to reach the Sixth. There are agreeable privileges. But it is not of first importance.

No sooner has he decided this, than he discovers that his form work is intolerably dull. Of course he does. He brings no enthusiasm to it. The masters who can inspire the indifferent are rare. And the mind wanders from the inky desks, the hunched row of shoulders, and the far voice of a master droning monotonously, to the swimming bath and the cricket field. Will Butler get the cricket cup? Did Frobisher get his firsts because he was worth them, or because he was in the Captain's house? These topics offer inviting prospects; speculation follows speculation till suddenly the tired voice breaks into the day-dream: 'Will you continue now, please, Dunkin?' There is a scuffle as Dunkin collects his books and thoughts. There is a whisper of: 'Where's the place?' 'What does crates favorum mean?' And the delinquent begins to stumble through his lines in a fashion that may, or may not, result in an imposition. To the unresponsive the atmosphere is one of intolerable listlessness.

He makes another discovery, namely, that during his first term he did far more work than was strictly necessary. That he should discover the idiosyncracies of certain masters was a matter of course. Sooner or later he would have been bound to learn that in Old Mouldy's he could pin the repetition on to the back of the boy in front of him, that the Moke's mathematical class provided him with an admirable opportunity for writing the imposition that his house-master had given him the evening before. A good batsman soon sizes up the opposing fieldsmen; he knows whether he can risk a single to cover, or whether there is one for a throw when the ball goes slowly to third man. That is part of the game. The new boy makes more important discoveries than that. He comes to understand the intricacies of the set system by which the middle and upper schools learn French, German, Science, and Mathematics.

For the days have passed when a boy learnt only Latin and Greek and a little French grammar. A liberal education is supposed to give him a general idea of a wide number of subjects. A choice of subjects is allowed, and it is hard to arrange a fair system of marking that will bring the boy who does German into line with the boy who does Greek. Each school tackles the situation in a different way, but each system probably leaves a loophole for the idle. It could hardly be otherwise, and it is enough to describe one system and the tactics that are adopted to cope with it.

This particular system works as follows: It is accepted that the only universal subjects, that is, the only subjects that are studied by the whole form under the same master, are Latin and English, and, under English, are to be included History, Literature, Geography, and Divinity. On the marks earned in these subjects the form order and promotion depends. All other subjects, Greek, German, French, Science, and Mathematics are treated independently of the form order and are taught in sets of varying standards. It would seem to be a very sound scheme. A boy, for instance, may be a bad historian and a poor classic, but a fine mathematician. If all subjects were included in the same order he would be kept back by his bad English and Latin and would have to do algebra that he had long outgrown, yet at the same time his mathematical ability would place him in a form where the English and classics would be too difficult for him. Under the set system it is possible for the boy to reach the highest set in the school at mathematics and yet remain in the Shell or Lower Fourth.

During his first term the new boy worked with equal industry at form and set subjects. During his second term he realises that he is wasting his energy. Proficiency in Greek will not help him to secure his promotion into the Lower Fifth; whereas, if he takes things easily at Greek, he will be able to spend more time on History and Latin. Indeed, it might be said that the wily one 'makes a book' in form and set subjects. He appreciates the need of reserve strength. He ought always to have a little in hand. He casts his eye down his time-table. There is no reason why he should not spare himself during the hour in the laboratory. The time might be so much more profitably devoted to his Latin 'con'; and at the time, of course, he will not consider the possibility of allowing such an arrangement to divert in any way his classical activities in 'prep' on the previous night. Far from it. He will have an opportunity to revise. He again studies his time-table. French with 'Bogus.' A little relaxation there is possible. Greek with 'Crusoe,' however, presents difficulties. Crusoe is something of a martinet; he expects lessons to be prepared, and he has a way of remembering what impositions he has set. He will have to work hard for Crusoe. Indeed it would be as well if he tried an honest, or the equivalent for an honest term's work for Crusoe. Is not the next set conducted by the Moke on admirably communal grounds. In the Moke's every one helps every one. There is no haste, no envy, no striving for position. A few scholars hurry through on their way to Balliol scholarships. They do not matter. They are only ripples on the surface of that calm, deep pool.

Sometimes 'the book is made' the other way. A member of the school eleven has at last reached the Lower Fifth, and is content for a term or two to rest upon his achievements. He decides to do just enough work to avoid being bottled. He realises, however, that it will be as well for his father's peace of mind if a few single figures appear after his name in the report. And so he devotes himself to Chemistry and French. Two subjects appear on the time-table for each evening's preparation. And it is a bad day when it is impossible to dismiss at least one of them in a quarter of an hour.

Examinations present difficulties. And it is here that the new boy, at the end of the summer term, makes his first serious compromise with the rigid code of ethics that he has brought with him from his Preparatory School. Why should he not crib in set subjects. They are unimportant. Promotion does not depend on them. He is not taking an unfair advantage of any one else. He will only do just well enough to avoid having to do the paper again. Why should he have to spend hours sweating up a useless subject. It is absurd. Besides, cribbing is rather an exciting game. It is a daring feat to smuggle the principal parts of the irregular verb, into a waistcoat pocket. It needs courage to open a French dictionary beneath the desk. He will be able to talk about it afterwards, and fellows will say he is a sport. It is the first step, and afterwards the compromise becomes increasingly easy.

He returns home at the end of his first year fortified with a deal of worldly wisdom. He looks forward to the next year hopefully. He knows where he is now. He has learnt the tricks of the trade. It is all going to be splendid fun.