Public School Life: Boys, Parents, Masters

by Alec Waugh

The information is hazarded that there have been several cases of typhoid recently in the town.

'It must be the drains.'

Then some one suggests that it may be the gas. The school custos is notoriously careless in these matters. The suggestion is welcomed. At any rate it deserves investigation. And such investigations, when conducted by twenty clumsy boys, whose clumsy feet are shod with heavy boots, are a long and noisy business. Books fall with a clatter on to the floor. The hindquarters of the inoffensive are accidentally kicked. Smith endeavours to jump from one desk to another, misses his footing and crashes on the desk. Musty is lost.

He stands in the middle of the room. He says 'Come, now!' a great many times. He varies it occasionally with 'That'll do.' He asks Smith whether he considers that what he is doing 'is really necessary.' At last a piping unrecognisable voice rises from the far corner. 'It isn't the gas. It must be Musty himself. He never washes.'

In most schools there are at least two masters who are the continual victims of such treatment. Such ragging, however, is too simple to content the truly adventurous. The Mustys of the scholastic world are objects of contempt, and we prefer to respect our enemies. It is far more entertaining to rag a disciplinarian. One has to guard oneself. The master has all the weapons. Among other things the ragster has to work. If he is unexpectedly put on to con, flounders through a couple of lines and breaks down completely at the third, he has played into his opponent's hand. He has deserved the imposition that he will most certainly get. The ragster must prepare his work. That is part of his defence. He cannot say to himself: 'I have been on twice running. I shall not go on to-day.' If he makes a cheeky remark in form, the master's just retort is: 'Jones, you seem to like talking. I think you had better translate the next passage.' And, if Jones translates the passage successfully he feels that he is one up. Such ragging is very different from the general rag of the complete incompetent. It is a free-lance affair. It is an art. The majority of masters meet it in some form or other. It is only a few who are subjected to displays in which the whole form take part.

Yet it is a puzzle to find out how exactly this ill-fortune selects its particular victims. Personality is limited. There are only a few who have a real genius for teaching. The majority are merely competent. And competence must fall before invention. Why is it that some are ragged and others not. The ragged master may be an excellent fellow. He may be good at games; he may be just as exemplary a member of society as his colleagues, and yet he is selected for this refined torture. There are some masters for whom one never works hard; one does enough and no more to avoid being bottled. One sits in the class-room for long, sultry, tedious hours; the insipid sunlight moves across the wall. One watches a fly crawl up the window-pane. One writes 'is a fool' upon the desk after the inscribed name of an enemy. One sticks a compass into the back of the man in front. Perhaps one revises the next hour's lesson. It may be that there is an imposition to be completed. The minutes pass slowly; one longs for the strike of the clock. And yet no one attempts to enliven the hour with some geniality. The few attempts that are made are spasmodic and unsuccessful.

We had a master who was nicknamed, I never knew why, Marchand. And, one day, a boy who was doing translation paused at the French word marchand. 'Please, sir,' he said, 'I don't know what marchand means.' There was no laugh, not even a titter. We were all too surprised. The master's face did not alter. 'It means merchant, Smith,' he said, 'and you will stay behind afterwards and speak to me.' He received six of the best. And it was, no doubt, such a master who made the historic retort to the boy who, during an hour that was devoted to the discussion of Old Testament history, inquired what 'harlot' meant. 'A harlot, Jones,' the master answered, 'is a lady who finds herself in unfortunate circumstances, and you will take two hundred lines.'

If such an answer had been made by Musty, the boy would have expostulated freely; other members of the form would have interested themselves in the cause of justice. As it is, Smith gets his half-dozen and Jones his two hundred lines, and the world says 'silly ass!'

There are certain masters who inspire neither industry nor insubordination, and yet I suppose that once they, too, had their hour of trial. So much depends on the first impression. Arnold Lunn has recounted in The Harrovians the story of one Crabbe, who was so unmercifully ragged that he had to leave at the end of his first term. 'He went on to another school where his reputation had not preceded him. He opened his first lesson by setting a boy a hundred lines for sneezing. After having successfully established a reputation for unbridled ferocity, he was able, by slow degrees, to relapse into his natural kindly self.' It is typical of much. The master who has once allowed himself to be ragged is lost for ever. He may beat, he may line, he will never restore order. His only chance is to try elsewhere.

The ragging of prefects is of very much the same order. There is less of it, because the head of the house has a way of jumping suddenly on the turbulent. 'I hear you were ragging Beetle last night in hall. You've got to stop it—see? and you're going to get six as a warning!' The head of the house has more authority than an assistant master. If a boy felt that an assistant master was unjust he might very well complain to the head master. But no boy would care to appeal against a boy—that would be sneaking. A good head of the house sees to it that none of the prefects are indiscriminately ragged, but there is always one of them for whom the rest of the house has but little respect, and to whom the taking of prep is always an anxiety. He beats and lines more than the rest of the prefects put together. But it has small effect. Indeed the second yearer acquires a hardened hide. Punishment is no deterrent to him; it is merely a pawn in the game.