“We are very glad to hear that you are in upper-middle one, and it will make us very happy if you can get another remove at Christmas. It is to be done if you like, and as you cannot play football just now (worse luck) you will have more time. Don’t you want some help in your tutor work? If so, send me the book; or is there anything else in which I can help you? You are now rapidly becoming a young man, and have probably some influence in the school, and will have more. Be kind to the new boys and juniors; even if they are ‘scrubby,’ your business is to polish them, and you will do this much better by a little kind advice than by making their lives a burden (I don’t say, mind, that you are unkind to them). Don’t ‘bosh’ your masters. Remember that they are gentlemen like yourself, and that it is insulting them to ‘bosh’ them when they are taking trouble with you. As to the sixth form, I don’t quite approve of all the customs thereof, but it is an institution of the school, and, on the whole, beneficial, and it is no use kicking against it. Now I have done with my preaching. I don’t know that it is necessary, but it can do you no harm, and I know you respect my opinion. Your mother is horrified at your signing yourself ‘Hughes,’ tout court (as the French say), so to please her don’t forget to put in ‘your affectionate son’ (as I know you are). God bless you.
“Yours most affectionately,
“G. E. Hughes.”
“I was much pleased by your writing so openly to me. It will make me very happy if you will treat me with perfect confidence in all matters. You need have no fear that I shall not understand and sympathise with you, for although (as we have said in joke) I was a Rugbeian in the time of the ancient Britons, when we had no breeches, and painted ourselves blue for decency’s sake, it seems to me a very short time since I was as you are, and I have a very vivid recollection of my youth, feelings, prejudices, faults, and all the rest of it.”
And then, after some advice about his matriculation at Oxford, his father goes on:—
“I am not going to preach to you about billiards. If there had been a table at Rugby in my time (there was none), I might very possibly have played myself; although, like you, I should certainly not have made a habit of it, preferring, as I did and do, more active amusements. Don’t play again at Rugby; it would be childish, as well as wrong, to risk leaving the school under a cloud, for such a paltry gratification. I don’t agree with you in comparing billiards to your school games: billiards (public) generally involve smoking, and a certain amount of drinking, and losing money (or winning, which is worse); and engender a sort of lounging habit. I am afraid you have rather a fast lot at Rugby, and what you tell me about card-playing makes me rather anxious about Jack. It is altogether abominably bad form, and I wish you would get up an opposition to it. It ought to be put down for the credit of the school. I must say that there was no such card-playing in my time. Having said my say, I must leave you to do what you can, in concert with any other big fellows in the house, who may be brought to see the matter in my light.”
The “Jack” referred to in the last letter was his third boy, who was now in his first term at a preparatory school for Rugby. This chapter may fitly close with his letters to this, the youngest of his boys whom he lived to see launched at school. He was a favourite subject of study to his father, who writes of him at Pau, years before: “Jack will be, I think, the strongest of the lot. He always clears his plate, fat and all, and always clears his lesson, however disagreeable;” and again, to his sister, who was the boy’s godmother:—
“Your favourite Jack is always running after me, and is a very good boy, and surprisingly good company too. He has not quite forgotten how to ‘beak’ himself when he feels insulted. About a week ago the children had some shrimps for tea, and Jack was offended because he was presented with a ‘baby’ shrimp instead of a big one; so he pushed his chair from the table, and prostrated himself on his knees, with his nose in the carpet. After remaining for five minutes in that position, he felt better. It is a more amusing way of getting rid of steam than crying. Children have the funniest fancies in the world. There is a Scotch terrier next door to us, with a grave and venerable face, and a long grey beard. Jack said one day, ‘that doggy like Moses coming down de mountain;’ and so he really is like Moses, in one of those little woodcuts in which children delight, but I should never have thought of such a ridiculous comparison.”