July 29, 1912
This has been a wonderful summer term from the point of view of weather. All our school matches came off, all our field-days passed without a hitch. The summer term makes an enormous difference to life here. Then the sea at last seems to take on some sort of colour, the country seems less drab, people are more cheerful and human: the long evenings on the shore are a pure joy—and then of course there are the early morning bathes, the lazy afternoons watching the cricket, or reading or trying to concoct an article. Every one seems to be in the best of health, there are fewer rows, and we are less antagonistic in Common Room.
We have started an illegitimate "rag" called the Radchester Ram, which gives me unalloyed pleasure. We got tired of the everlasting succession of accounts of matches in the Radcastrian, and so we have collected all the really original literary stuff we could get and now we bring this new periodical out once a month. There is nothing offensive in it, as there so often is in magazines of this sort. It is simply a medley of verse and sketches, short stories and articles of general interest. On our first number we made about a sovereign profit. It gives many of us something to think about and encourages boys to write. We pay for all the contributions we use.
We have had two wonderful addresses given us here, one on Speech Day by Lord Dunnithorne, in which he implored the boys to keep up their ardour and energy not only in games, but in every side of life, in keeping an eye while still at school on public affairs, and developing a sense of proportion as to the relative values of the spiritual and the material, the other by a Fellow of All Souls from the pulpit on the hypocrisy that is so rampant in Public Schools. He asked us to think for ourselves, to set ourselves against any tradition, however strong, when and if we felt clear that it was against the principles of Christ and Liberty. He dwelt not on the greatness of the Public Schools, but their failure to produce the big men of the day. He brought out name after name of men who are now leading the world in politics, in science, in religion, in every department of life who owed nothing to the Public Schools. He accounted for this by telling us that we always tried to level up the many and so levelled down the few who really mattered, that our general level was far too low and meant a crushing of that Divine spark which alone could help us to do our duty. It was like a breath of inspiration from another world to hear this fine exponent of the best Oxford spirit trying to rouse us to a sense of our shortcomings. The Head was furious about the sermon, as were quite half the members of Common Room. I made it the text of pretty well all my discourses for the rest of term. Most of the boys of course didn't know what he was driving at; those who did were divided into two great camps: the upholders of tradition and those who agreed with him. I am afraid we who agreed with him were in a minority. Montague and Jimmy Haye refused to speak to me for weeks. Poor devils. Probably before very long they will come to understand what the preacher meant and metaphorically sit in sackcloth and ashes because they heeded not his warning. How the old men hate individuality: they fear it as Shakespeare feared and hated the mob.
Individuality, like originality, is dangerous to custom: when people begin to think for themselves there is usually trouble somewhere, but unless people learn to think for themselves they will surround themselves with unimaginable horrors. How often in the train does one come across half-educated louts gesticulating and laying down the law on every conceivable point, their arguments, theories and principles all emanating from the halfpenny press. More harm has been done to the cause of progress and good sense in this country by cheap journalism than by any other agency. It is not drink, but the gutter press that gnaws at the very vitals of the commonwealth. It is an appalling thing to think that as a nation we prefer to take all our theories and principles at second hand from the sayings of unscrupulous ink-slingers of Grub Street who have never done an honest day's work in their lives, but have just earned their daily bread by obeying the dictates of some foul capitalist who thinks of nothing but filling his own pockets. Politics may be dirty, but there is nothing quite so foul in this country as journalism. Unless we can make boys rise above the pinchbeck claptrap of the cheaper writers we fail entirely to educate them. To pin one's faith to anything but one's own intellect is to fail to make anything of life. I've tried every means in my power of late to rouse my boys to take an interest in their work, to show them the continuity of history, the reason why we read good literature, the reason for exercising the faculties: we must send them out into the world with the critical spirit fully developed, not ready to be gulled by every shibboleth of party politics or mad cry in the market-place of people with axes to grind. We want them to mould other people's opinions, not to take everything ready made—as a sort of reach-me-down suit that they can wear without question. I want them to probe all difficulties and not to rest until they have planted the new Jerusalem in this green and pleasant land of England.
Of all missionary work, this is the most important, to get people to think for themselves, not to have minds like the rows of suburban villas in which they live, each one an exact replica of its neighbour's; dull, correct, unambitious, cramped and futile, but to launch out in experiments, to probe for some underlying purpose in life, to keep on searching for some Holy Grail, to work for the amelioration of mankind and the progress of humanity, not to sit down quietly under abuses but sword in hand to set out to destroy the powers of evil. One gets easily worked up to preach the gospel of the nobility of work to boys: the hard part of the task is to rouse them from the appalling apathy and listlessness which characterize them. They are used to being shouted at and preached to—they don't take the trouble to listen to one quarter of what one says. They can understand punishment, but they have very little use for a mere appeal to their better nature, their reason or their emotion.
Every night at 6.30 I have a voluntary class for Shakespeare lovers. We run through play after play, and those who come on the whole gain a great deal. The difficulty is to get them to come. The great majority of them prefer to go over to the gym. or to laze about in their studies. They don't realize at all that I have to eat my dinner in five instead of thirty minutes in order to give them this time. They look on me as a sort of Shakespeare fanatic and come only when there is nothing else to do. They have no idea that Shakespeare has something very definite to say to them, some principle of life to disclose for their benefit, if only they will do their part. They all think that there is some royal road to learning by which all virtue can be achieved without ardour, energy or suffering. If they could only hear the complaints of Old Boys who come back and discuss over the fireside their wasted opportunities it would do them a world of good. I try every means I can think of to interest my forms. I lecture on a century of English literature and get each boy to select a subject and make it his own by reading up and writing a paper on his favourite author in that century. These papers are read aloud before the rest of the form, who comment favourably or adversely, and debates are held to try the opinion of the House on the different verdicts formed by each member of the class.
I find my system of entertaining boys to tea a very expensive one. I gave a large party to my form en bloc at the end of term: it cost me £2 10s. I shouldn't mind if I were earning a living wage, but £40 a year out of my £150 is docked for a pension scheme in which I take no interest, and Oxford bills still come in and I can never meet them. The holidays, too, eat such a hole into one's salary. I am always "broke" and always in debt. I wish I could learn to save. Some men seem to have put by quite a lot for the inevitable rainy day. I have had one good excursion lately. Our team won the Rapid Firing Competition at Bisley and I was sent down with the team to claim the cast of the Winged Victory which it is our good fortune to have won. I have never seen a more motley crew than the different competitors who went up for prizes.
Tony has got into the Shooting VIII, so I had him with me during this tour, which gave me tremendous joy. I managed to read Edith Wharton's wonderful romance of "Ethan Frome" in the train on the way down and "The Innocence of Father Brown" coming back. I have read the latter book to my form since. They simply gloat over it. It makes admirable material for reproduction: another good idea is to read half of one of the stories and make them finish it in their own words—a sort of Edwin Drood idea. Thank God this term is over: the tiredness of my brain can be guessed by the virulent language of my reports. I had to write several of them over again because the Head objected to my candour.