Public School Life: Boys, Parents, Masters

by Alec Waugh

Soc.: Then how do you expect the unformed mind of a boy to draw this line for himself. It would seem to me, Mr. Featherbrain, that you are not training the youth as it should be trained, when you order its conduct not by the results of logical deduction but by arbitrary ruling. For if in your own mind you are not certain at what exact point the good becomes the bad, and indeed are not certain of what the bad consists; what confusion must you not expect to discover in the minds of those that are taught by you. You must remember that on the football and cricket field a boy is under orders which he accepts, but of whose moral nature he is ignorant. He knows that if he is offside in football a free kick is awarded to the other side; he knows that if he knocks the ball forward with his hands a scrum is given. He has made a mistake. He has committed a tactical, but not a moral offence. The rulings of the Rugby Union are arbitrary and subject to frequent alteration; whereas the rulings concerning what is good and what is bad are fixed and irradicable. Is it not likely, therefore, that a boy will come to regard your rulings in these matters of cribbing as arbitrary rulings that may be altered. His life is a game, you must always remember that, and it is on that basis that he accepts it. He knows that he will be punished if he uses a crib; he knows that you appear to apprehend a distinction between the written and printed word; he knows also that you have discovered a difference in the nature of the studies of translation and prose, and that while you will allow him to ask advice on certain points you will not allow him to seek advice on the whole, though at the same time you do not define the point at which these same certain points cease to be certain points and become sufficiently part of the whole to be called the whole. Can you expect him, then, to regard such a system as anything but the complicated rulings of a game played between you and him. And can you expect him to attach to these regulations any moral significance. On the cricket field he places his leg in front of the wicket and tries to hit a short length ball over square-leg's head. If he misses the ball he is leg before, and goes to the pavilion. In his study he prepares his translation with a crib; he is discovered by his house master; he goes to the head master. And it is in this spirit, Mr. Featherbrain, that your form deceives you. You have to make clear to the young many things before you can expect them to attach a moral significance to what has no logical proof.

There may be flaws in the argument, for the Socratic method is insidious, but I have not, myself, been able to discover them. The ethics of cribbing from the master's point of view are illogical. The exact point where co-operation starts and cribbing begins is not fixed.

Cribbing goes by form and houses. Its activities expand and contract according to the demands of popular opinion. It is always communal. There is a conscription of intellect and knowledge. No boy would prejudice his chances of winning his house cap; but most boys would assist their most dangerous rivals in promotion. We hear in chapel sad stories of the large and brutal bully who cribs steadily throughout the term and wrests the prize from the pure innocent who looked up every word in a large Lewis & Short. But it rarely happens like that. No one cribs for a prize, because few really want a prize. Occasionally cribbing wins a prize, but it is usually through a fluke.

A boy is particularly nervous about the results of a certain paper. He takes elaborate precautions to make sure that he will not have to spend the last Saturday of term rewriting the paper, and, in consequence, unexpectedly discovers himself at the head of the list. I recall one such instance in particular, and, because it seems to me so singularly appropriate, I may be pardoned, I trust, for retelling a story that I have incorporated elsewhere.

Divinity in the army class was a casual affair; a knowledge of the Old Testament not being considered a necessary part of the intellectual equipment of a subaltern, the Sandhurst authorities did not examine candidates on the subject, and both the form and its master regarded the hour's lesson on Sunday morning as a pause in the exertions of the week. The yearly divinity examination always occasioned, therefore, a measure of panic among the soldiers, for the form master, when confronted with irrefutable proofs of his own indolence, was in the habit of punishing not only the form but himself by keeping in for two hours on the last Saturday those of the form who had failed to score an adequate percentage. During the preceding days feverish and spasmodic attempts were made to cope successfully with the complicated relations of kings and prophets. One year, however, the form was fortunate.

A certain Mallaby, while searching in the class-room just before lock-up for a book he thought he had left there, saw lying among the papers on the master's desk, the rough draft of the questions for the divinity exam. In surprised delight he copied them all down. According to the popular conception of schoolboy honour, Mallaby, being a potential thief, would have kept the information to himself. Being a boy, however, he imparted it to his companions. The form entered the examination room in a mood of quiet confidence, and left it in a mood of deep content. Two days later, however, it was announced that this year the annual interest of a bequest would be devoted to a series of divinity papers throughout the school. The next day Mallaby learnt that he was head of the army class in divinity.

His conscience was fluttered. He could not, he felt, take a prize which he would have won through cribbing. It would be dishonest. It would be stealing. He announced his intention of explaining matters to the chief. This announcement was not, however, received with the enthusiasm that should have welcomed the imminence of so noble, so disinterested, so sacrificial a performance. The form was indeed seriously perturbed. It explained to Mallaby that, if he went to the chief, he would be queering not only his own pitch, but theirs as well, and that there were certain members of form who did not stand well enough in the eyes of authority to be able to risk such an addition to their score of discovered crimes. 'And, after all,' they said, 'why shouldn't you take the prize? We all knew the questions; you took the trouble to prepare them. You worked hard, and prizes are the reward of hard work. You've worked for the prize, harder than we did. Therefore you deserve the prize. And let's have no more of this nonsense about confession.'

In these matters each form and each house works out its own salvation. In some houses cribbing is not general, and in some forms cribbing is not general; and, in such cases, cribbing is anti-social. It might be urged that boys from houses that do not crib find themselves at a disadvantage in relation to boys from houses that do. But life usually manages to adjust itself, and a boy's position in form is chiefly important as regards the relation it bears to that of the other members of his house. It does not matter much to a boy in the school house if he is passed by a boy in Buller's. It will not affect his seniority in his own house, and it is his seniority in his own house that matters. Only a very few are concerned with the specialised rivalry of the Upper Sixth that decides who will be the official head of the school. Scholastically the ambition of few passes outside their house. In games it is different. But then the eleven is not a fluid body like the Sixth; it is a close corporation, and once the reputation of being the best slow left-hand bowler is lost, the chance of a ribboned coat grows distant.

I remember once a parson from the East End preaching a sermon in the school chapel, in which he intimated that in comparison with the loathsome atrocities that had for setting the Mile End Road, a schoolboy merely played at sin. This was reassuring to certain genial sportsmen who had hitherto been unable to view with any confidence the prospect of immortality: and the phrase 'playing at sin' passed into the vocabulary of the school. To such an extent, indeed, that the head master was forced to deliver a special midweek address, in which he pointed out that the degree of sin was relative to environment, and that the moral offences of a man who had been nurtured in surroundings of bestiality and filth were less grave than those of the boy who had spent his childhood in the clean atmosphere of a decent home. The complacence of the aforesaid sportsmen was broken. Not only were their offences as serious as those of their less fortunately placed brethren, they were actually more grave: a disquieting reflection. But I have often felt inclined to question, not the irrefutable logic of the head master's sermon, but the truth of that original contention about 'playing at sin.' Are, that is to say, the vices of the lower orders actually more startling than those of Mayfair? Are they more startling? I wonder: a higher standard of civilisation refines our pleasures, quickens our powers of appreciation, makes us more subtle, more complex; does it not also sharpen the edge of misbehaviour? It is a point on which perhaps Casanova would be able to enlighten us. But, certainly, in the matter of cribbing, the methods of the lower forms are clumsy, unimaginative, bourgeois in comparison with those of the Fifths and Sixths.

A master who expects to discover in the Third the guile of the Fifths will be disappointed; and, equally, the master who has successfully combated the guile of the Lower Second may discover himself completely outwitted by the Middle Sixth. In the Lower School the use of the actual crib is rare. It is easy for the Sixth Former to possess himself of a translation. The Everyman series contains excellent renderings of Thucydides and Plato. The Loeb library is not useless. Gilbert Murray may be a poet, but his translations of Euripides have proved of assistance to many a harassed student. Jebb's version of Sophocles is to be found in the shelves of the school library. It is a different job to find a crib of Ovid and Livy. Dr. Giles has done some excellent research work, but questions are apt to be asked about bona fide students; an address such as 'The School House, Fernhurst,' is likely to wake suspicion, and the Third Former has not read enough French novels to appreciate the value of the poste restante. He considers that a crib is more trouble than it is worth. And what is cribbing but laziness! Moreover, he has a distrust of cribs. He is naturally stupid or he would be higher in the school, and he knows that when a boy gives the right meaning to the wrong words there are unpleasant investigations. He prefers to rely on the inspiration of the moment: as a result the offences of the Lower Second are trivial. They rarely reach the green baize of the head master's study. One boy looks over another's paper, another is prompted during 'con,' there is a strange similarity between two Latin proses, an unusual mistake is repeated in several exercises. The offender is beaten afterwards, and no more is heard about it. As a matter of fact there is less cribbing in the Lower School than in the Upper. Opportunities are rare and the example of hardened criminals is absent. The second yearer only becomes a practised deceiver under the influence of his seniors, and there are not many third yearers in the Lower School. Higher up it is different. But it is to be doubted whether the effects of cribbing are as serious as they are depicted.