But The Hill stands high. It cannot be hid.
It is supersentimental at times, but then so are schoolboys. And the characters are clean-cut and finely finished. Scaife is a memorable figure; so is Warde. John Verney, like most virtuous persons, is a bit of a bore at times; but the Caterpillar, with his drawling little epigrams, and their inevitable tag—"Not my own; my Governor's!"—is a joy for ever. Lastly, the description of the Eton and Harrow Match at Lord's takes unquestionable rank as one of the few things in this world which will never be better done.
Two other books may be mentioned here, as illustrating the tendency, already mentioned, of modern school-novelists to shift the limelight from the boy to the master. The first is Mr. Hugh Walpole's Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill. A young man lacking means, and possessing only a moderate degree, who feels inclined, as many do, to drift into schoolmastering as a pis aller, should read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this book. It draws a pitiless picture of Common Room life in a third-rate public school—the monotony; the discomfort; the mutual antagonism and jealousy of a body of men herded together year after year, condemned to celibacy by want of means, and deprived
of all prospect of advancement or change of scene. It hammers in the undeniable truth that in the great majority of cases a schoolmaster's market value depreciates steadily from the date of his first appointment. Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill is a very able book, but should not be read by schoolmasters while recovering, let us say, from influenza.
If the reader desires a further picture of the amenities of the Common Room, viewed from a less oblique angle, he can confidently be recommended to turn to The Lanchester Tradition, by Mr. G. F. Bradby. The Lanchester Tradition is a comparatively short story, but it is all pure gold. It is written with knowledge, insight, and above all with an appreciation of that broad tolerant humorous outlook on life which alone can lubricate the soul-grinding wheels of routine. In Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill we have a young, able, and merciless critic exposing some of the weaknesses of the public-school system. In The Lanchester Tradition we have a seasoned and experienced representative of that system demonstrating that real character can always rise superior to circumstance, and that for all its creaking machinery and accompanying friction the pedagogue's existence can
be a very tolerable and at times a very uplifting one. It is the old struggle between theory and practice. Solvitur ambulando.
There are many other school stories of recent date, of which no mention has been made in this survey; but our excursions seem to have covered a fairly representative field. What is the prevailing characteristic of the new, as compared with the old? It appears to be a very insistent and rather discordant note of realism—the sort of realism which leaves nothing unphotographed. Romance and sentiment are swept aside: they might fog the negative. Our rising generation are not permitted to see visions or dream dreams. And there is a tendency—mercifully absent in most of the books which we have described—to discuss matters which are better not discussed, at any rate in a work of fiction. There is a great vogue in these introspective days for outspokenness upon intimate matters. We are told that such matter should not be excluded from the text, because it is "true to life." So are the police reports in the Sunday newspapers; but we do not present files of these delectable journals to our sons and daughters—let us not forget the daughters: the sons go to school, but the daughters can only sit
at home and read schoolboy stories—as Christmas presents.
There is another marked characteristic of modern school fiction—its intense topicality. The slang, the allusions, the incidents—they are all dernier cri. But the more up-to-date a thing may be, whether it be a popular catchphrase or a whole book, the more ephemeral is its existence. A book of this kind reproduces the spirit of the moment, often with surprising fidelity; but after all it is only the spirit of the moment. Its very applicability to the moment unfits it for any other position. Books, speeches, and jokes—very few of these breathe the spirit not only of the moment but of all time. When they do, we call them Classics. Tom Brown is a Classic, and probably Stalky too. They are built of material which is imperishable, because it is quarried from the bed-rock of human nature, which never varies, though architectural fashions come and go.