Thirdly, he declines upon all occasions, be he scholar, or soldier, or lawyer, to discuss matters of interest relating to his profession; for this is "shop." He remembers the historic "ragging" of two harmless but eccentric members of the Fifth at school, who, dwelling in different Houses, were discovered to be in the habit of posting one of Cicero's letters to one another every evening for purposes of clandestine and unnatural perusal at breakfast next morning.
If he rises to a position of eminence in life or
performs great deeds for the State, he laughs his achievements to scorn, and attributes them to "a rotten fluke," remembering that that was what one of the greatest heroes of his youth, one Slogsby, used to do when he had made a hundred in a school match.
If he is created a Judge or a Magistrate or a District Commissioner he is especially severe upon sneaks and bullies, for he knows what sneaking and bullying can be. For the open law-breaker he has a much kindlier feeling, for he was once one himself. He is intensely loyal to any institution with which he happens to be connected, such as the British Empire or the M.C.C., because loyalty to School and House is one of the fundamental virtues of the public school boy.
Lastly, compulsory games at school have bred in him an almost passionate desire to keep himself physically fit at all times in after life.
He has grave faults. Loving tradition, he dislikes change, and often stands mulishly in the way of necessary progress. Mistrusting precocity, he often snubs genuine and valuable enthusiasm. His anxiety to mind only his own business sometimes leads him into deciding that some urgent matter does not concern him
when in point of fact it does. As a schoolboy he was the avowed enemy of all "cads," and his views on what constituted a cad were rather too comprehensive. Riper years do not always correct this fault, and he is considered—too often, rightly—cliquey and stuck-up. Disliking a bounder, he sometimes fails to penetrate the disguise of a man of real ability. Similarly his loyalty to his friends sometimes leads him to believe that there can be no real ability or integrity of character outside his own circle; with the result that in filling up offices he is sometimes guilty of nepotism. The fact that the offence is world-old and world-wide does not excuse it in a public school man.
Finally, all public school boys are intensely reserved about their private ambitions and private feelings. So is the public school man. Consequently soulful and communicative persons who do not understand him regard him as stodgy and unsociable.
But he serves his purpose. Like most things British, he is essentially a compromise. He is a type, not an individual; and when the daily, hourly business of a nation is to govern hundreds of other nations, perhaps it is as well to do so through the medium of men who, by merging
their own individuality in a common stock, have evolved a standard of Character and Manners which, while never meteoric, seldom brilliant, too often hopelessly dull, is always conscientious, generally efficient, and never, never tyrannical or corrupt. If this be mediocrity, who would soar?