I suppose each individual master unconsciously draws to him a peculiar type of boy. I begin to think that the pariah finds himself especially attracted to me.
There have been two horrible rows this term, one during the first week when I was fresh from the healthy wilds of Dartmoor, full of vigour to instil my high ideals into the minds of all who came into contact with me.
Immorality appears to be all-prevalent; some of the finest boys in the school had to leave at a moment's notice, among them Illingworth. Even now, a month after the event, I can scarcely credit it. I cannot believe that it is the small boys' fault. Jefferies came up to say good-bye and appeared to be heart-broken: yet he was the most flagrant offender of them all. I felt quite unable to cope with the disaster at all. I didn't know what to say to him. I tried to elicit from him what it was that first of all started boys off in this hideous vice, and I think he tried his best to give me a rational answer.
"I suppose with me, sir," he began, "it was pure boredom. Life here seemed so narrow; there was no possibility of an outlet for the emotions. We are so narrowly confined, so closely watched, so driven and looked after every hour of every day: the routine is killing to the imagination. Then comes along a good-looking small boy; a longing comes over one to make a friend of him, but the school rules most stringently forbid that, so we are driven to secrecy and secrecy breeds vicious ideas. We can't meet openly: we have to think out lonely and unlikely places: then human nature asserts itself and the rest follows only too quickly."
"But surely," I interposed, "surely the thought of your own honour, if not of the physical ills that are bound to follow, act as a deterrent? Sermons and house-master's warnings and so on must have some effect."
"None, I'm afraid, sir, when it comes to the point; the attraction proves too strong and the added spice of danger, as in the case of those Sundays in the public-houses, is a tremendous incentive. The sin seems to lie, not in the action, but in being found out. There are heaps and heaps of fellows who have left here loaded with honours, thought by all of you to be paragons of virtue, veritable Sir Galahads, who in reality are infinitely worse than any of us who are now being sacked. You don't cleanse your Augean stable by firing out a score or so of unfortunate wretches every year as a horrible warning to the rest. Immorality is not like a fire which can be stamped out; if there is any certain method it lies in gentle handling and weaning us gradually from impure thoughts to higher things. I know that you are awfully sick with me and I feel a rotten swine to you, as if I had betrayed a trust, but you came too late for us; probably you'll do more for the new kids. It can only be done by catching us before we are bored and making us really interested in literature, music, art—something with Beauty in it which is not compulsory. I know the prevalent opinion is that those who are interested in art are the worst of all: the truth is quite the reverse, the worst offenders are the unimaginative beefy bloods. There seems to be a lurking suspicion in the average schoolmaster's mind that all beauty is effeminate, if not actively immoral. I believe in reality that immorality is as much due to the suspicious and not too clean minds of our masters as to any other agency.
"We are never directly spoken to on the matter. If a house-master does talk about it he blushes and stammers and talks about sex as if it were in itself foul. He makes a quite innocent youngster begin to take a delight in these hidden things. The truth is that they ought not to be hidden at all. Once people begin to talk openly and discuss without false shame all these matters, this vice will disappear, not before. I've got to suffer, so there's no point in my making excuses, but you, sir, if you are really keen on getting rid of this evil, remember that the only way to do it is to get hold of boys and interest them in life. Give them something to occupy their minds, so that there is no empty corner of their souls swept and garnished ready for the occupation of the spirit of evil."
It is altogether horrible; all my best friends have gone, the very boys that I had trusted most and loved most. I cannot imagine evil of young Illingworth after our month together on Dartmoor. I dare swear no evil thought once crossed his mind the whole time we were together. I am certain in my inmost mind that this vice is not an essential part of life as some writers try to make out; I do not believe that youth must pass through this stage of adolescence and that it would be uncanny if he did not give way to his natural feelings.
I believe one reason for our failure here to cope with this dire disease is the lack of feminine society. I wonder how co-education schools stand in this matter. I believe the natural throwing of boys into the constant society of girls would result in a total elimination of all foulness, whether of thought or deed.
One of the most disgusting things in all my life here is the uncleanness of so many boys' minds. I hate the idea of a Bowdlerized Shakespeare, for instance, and yet when I come across a passage that could possibly be construed in a dirty way, I find my boys sniggering, loving the innuendo: it is then that I want to make the reading of Rabelais compulsory: that would cure them. I have never passed occasions like this without bursting forth into a vehement tirade against the clod-like state of a mind that can find matter for jesting in such things.