The first class of master plays, on the whole, a small part in the politics of school life. If he is incompetent he is ragged in form and his opinion carries no weight in the common room. If he is successful, he is a bird of passage, on his way to some rich head-mastership. He may become a house master for a while, but he is always looking beyond his immediate surroundings. He is ambitious. He does not regard one school as his compass. Always he is just outside the drama.
The second class, however, forms the backbone of tradition. The old boy comes back to his old school with an intense loyalty and with the intention of staying there for the rest of his life. His ambition is to have the best house in the best school in the best county. He is usually a very fine fellow indeed, but he represents eternally the spirit of reaction. He lives in the standards of his youth. He has had no opportunity of testing those standards in another environment. His whole life has moved within the circle of one school.
He imbibed as a boy the public school spirit, and he did not outgrow that spirit at the university—hardly a proof of mental elasticity. He has no sense of progress or of change in the world for which he is training the young. As things have been, so shall they be. The old boy turned house master is the most powerful force in the common room. He is the chief obstacle that the enthusiast has to face.
With regard to the enthusiast, one is tempted to put an asterisk against the heading and a footnote, 'Vide the novels of S. P. B. Mais passim,' and leave it at that. For Mr. Mais knows more about the reception of this type of master than any other man in the kingdom. He has himself a genius for teaching. I cannot imagine a better English master. He inspires enthusiasm in the confirmed slacker. He is an invaluable asset to any staff, and yet nearly everywhere he has been met by opposition. His own story, as set forth in A Schoolmaster's Diary, is typical of the young movement. Only there is this difference, that, whereas Mr. Mais has never yielded to the reactionary influences, the majority of young masters conform to the custom of the country. Their position is extremely difficult.
They leave Oxford with high ambitions. They have dissected and analysed the system, they have discovered the vital spot; they are eager to put their reforms into action. They have wonderful schemes for inspiring boys with a love of the beautiful, with an interest in politics and life. They are prepared to be ruthless in their battle; they will neither ask nor give quarter. They will not be fettered to the reactionary indolence of the intolerant and the effete. They have a mission and a purpose. They bring a sword. They arrive at school with a quenchless ardour.
Like the small boy home for the holidays, they want to do everything on the first day. Before they have had time to look round they are suggesting schemes for founding literary and dramatic circles: they want to open a political debating society where there shall be files of The Nation and The Daily News. They start a mile race at the speed of a hundred yards and find themselves alone in the void. Every one else is going at a very leisurely pace. There is no need for hurry. Their whole life is before them. The school has been in existence a very long while. It is moving in its own time to its duly appointed ends. The young enthusiast grows impatient: like most intense people he is tactless and makes mistakes. He ignores his colleagues, or interferes with their arrangements. He creates an atmosphere of opposition. This is, of course, what he has anticipated. The fight, he feels, is going to begin. But the nature of the fight is very different from what he had expected.
It is not waged with the intolerant and the effete, but with men whom he cannot help admiring. He cannot make himself hate his enemies. The old boy house master, it cannot be too often repeated, is a very fine fellow. And his point of view is reasonable. He has given his youth, his energy, his ambition to his school. He has cared for nothing else. He has allowed many of the good things of life to pass him because of this unwavering devotion, and it is natural that he should resent the intrusion of a young fellow who has not had time to learn to love the school, but who wants to overturn the most cherished privileges.
And his methods are so impeccably direct and honest. He does not go behind the young man's back to the head master. He has the young man into his study for a chat; he looks him straight in the face. He says: 'Come now, we've got to have this out.' And the young man finds it so desperately hard not to admire him. He endeavours to open a discussion: he states his case. For a moment he seems to forget the personal issue in the case. Confidence comes back to him. He develops his argument, and then, just when he feels that his grip is closing on the contest, he is beaten by that disarming sentimentality which is the most powerful of all the old boy's weapons.
'My dear fellow,' he will say, 'you have your point of view and I have mine. We are both in our own ways working for the good of the school; why must we quarrel? We are fighting the same fight. But we can do nothing unless we stand together. I've given my whole life to the cause; you are just beginning.'
The acceptance of this offer of friendship and co-operation means defeat. The young man knows it. But it is so hard to refuse. The rebel in any sphere of life has no harder task than the cutting adrift from his own caste and the subsequent alliance with men of different upbringing and different standards. He sees, on the one hand, a vast number of noble, if bigoted men, men whom he can trust and admire. And, on the other side, as a setting for the few idealists in whose principles he believes, the arrayed forces of envy, greed, and malice. The temptation to cling to what he knows and what secretly he admires is too great. Most of the young enthusiasts give way soon. They join the forces of reaction.