“Of which we don’t see any too much . . .” Selby growled.
“None of you take it seriously. The thing is enormous,” said Leeming. “What can you expect in a way of improvement when a housemaster like Selby makes jokes about it? I’m convinced that there’s only one way. . . . You can’t drive boys. You’ve got to understand their hearts.”
“You’ve got to understand their bodies,” said Cleaver.
Mr. Leeming flushed. “I think you are merely disgusting, Cleaver.”
“He’s quite right,” said Downton. “It isn’t sexual education, it isn’t moral instruction that’s going to work the miracle. When a boy reaches a certain age—and it isn’t the same age with all boys—he begins to be conscious, and quite properly, of his physical passions. You needn’t shudder, Leeming. They exist. You know they exist as well as anybody. Well, when he reaches that stage a public school isn’t the proper place for him.”
“The games would go to pot,” said Cleaver. From his point of view there was no more to be said.
“It depends entirely on your boy. Some are too old at seventeen. Some are perfectly safe at nineteen. The trouble is that just when you get them in sight of these dangers you put them in supreme authority. A prefect can do pretty well as he likes. . . .”
“It’s the essence of the system . . . responsibility,” said Selby.
“It gives them what Shaw said about something else: the maximum of inclination with the maximum of opportunity.”
“Shaw?” said Cleaver. “You fellows are too deep for me. Anyway, I don’t believe there’s much wrong here. So long.” He swung out of the room.