House-masters resent any humane intercourse between members of their houses and junior assistant masters, though by the laws of common sense it would seem obvious that the senior boys would prefer the society of men only a little older than themselves as likely to be more in sympathy with their ideas, more helpful in their troubles than the elder members of the staff whom they, quite rightly, place on an unapproachable pedestal.
December 1909
Now that examinations are upon us I have been attempting to revise my mathematical and English work, with appalling results. My math. sets appear to have learnt nothing: just a glimpse here and there of an idea, all mixed up with the most amazing nonsense. I must have gone too fast. Some of them have certainly tried to work. Perhaps it is that mathematics is not the Queen of Sciences, after all, at any rate for the unformed mind. I know that in my own school days I was successful at it owing to a natural aptitude without understanding in the least its practical usefulness.
There are boys who go again and again over the same ground, term after term, working out quadratic equations, formidable and unwieldy algebraic fractions, solving problems about triangles, parallelograms and circles quite mechanically and perfectly without the ghost of an idea as to what they all mean or what bearing they have on practical life. They are, if questioned, content to talk about "mental discipline" and "the more odious a task is the better it is for one's education" in a manner unbearably priggish and foolish.
If a boy can work out a hundred examples correct to type, most of us seem to think that we are teaching him something. On the contrary, I believe that the only point in mathematical teaching is the training of the mind to think logically and exactly, and to detect all vague and shallow fallacies in argument or writing.
According to this theory the better a boy was at mathematics the better he would be at English, whereas the truth is that the able mathematician is rarely able to express himself in writing at all, and certainly is not remarkable for simplicity or direct reasoning power in his essays. It never strikes us that if a boy is capable of working out an intricate equation he ought to be able to build up a paragraph of carefully connected sentences, all sequent and working to some definite solution or proof.
I am coming to the conclusion that all true education is a striving after Beauty, and what does not actively pursue this end is a waste of effort.
No sooner do I reach this idea than I begin to wonder what can have induced our forefathers to erect such a hideous structure as Radchester, in the middle of so barren, ugly, and terrifying a country.
Surely there can be no more depressing district in England than the country round the school. On Sundays I occasionally go for walks, but I never return without being obsessed by the gloom and drabness of it all. If I walk down the seashore I see nothing but a bare waste of grey waters, relieved by an interminable stretch of sand. There are no gorgeous colourings on sea or land, such as we expect from the sea and get in Devon and Cornwall. If I go inland I have no alternative but to tramp over muddy fields the grass of which is as colourless as the sea, and the only variety to the monotony of the level stretch is a wind-swept naked tree, wan and haggard as an old tramp who has been buffeted by Nature too long to care about his personal appearance: if I take to the roads I am immediately led to contrast the solitary deadness of these straight lanes, where you know for miles exactly what is coming, with the rich lanes of the south, with their high hedges, a riot of colour and song, deviating romantically every few yards, up and down, round and round, ever calling you on to explore some gem which an all-provident Nature has built for you just round the corner. There are no mysteries to be explored in the vicinity of Radchester unless you dive down a drain.
It is not strange that the cult of Beauty is neglected in such a place, for where is Beauty to be found? The answer I find within my rooms: only in my books and my few chosen friends among the boys can I rid myself of the discontent which is so persistently seething within me.