As a spectacular game pelota is a great success, one side of the huge building being available for spectators, and the galleries at Barcelona will hold some thousands. The ground floors are occupied by the bettors, who are catered for by regular bookmakers and the pari-mutuel. Such an arrangement would no doubt answer well in England, but we need not think about that.
E. T. Sachs.
Jack Shepherd.
AN OLD HUNT SERVANT.
The accompanying portrait of Jack Shepherd, who for fifty-three years was so familiar a figure with the Fife Hounds, is reproduced from a photograph of a picture recently painted by Mr. A. F. Lucas Lucas as a companion to that of old Tom Carr, a former huntsman of the Bentley Harriers, also the work of Mr. Lucas Lucas. Jack Shepherd has a great record as a hunt servant. Born in 1835, he was very early entered to the work of the kennel, for at the age of 8 years he went to assist his father, who for thirty-five years held the office of feeder to the Fife Hounds. During the fifty-three years that Jack Shepherd was with the Fife there were naturally many changes in the Mastership of the pack; and as kennel huntsman he served under the late Colonel Anstruther Thompson and Colonel Cheape, Colonel Babington, Sir Arthur Halkett, Mr. R. Wemyss, and Major Middleton. In commemoration of his fifty years’ service with the Fife Hounds, Jack Shepherd was presented with a silver horn and a purse of gold subscribed by nearly two hundred of his admirers in Fifeshire. Last year he went as kennel huntsman to the Bentley Harriers, of which Mrs. Cheape is “Master.” It will be remembered that Mrs. Cheape, well known as “The Squire,” hunted the Bentley herself for many years; in fact, until she met with an accident last season. The picture, which was painted for Mrs. Cheape, represents Jack on his favourite mare, Whitethorn, with three and a half couple of the Bentley Harriers—Willing, Racket, Wanderer, Butterfly, Demon, Druid, and Lancelot by name.
The Preparatory School.
The last half century has seen a very great increase in the number of preparatory schools. As demand and supply always depend on each other, it is not difficult to see from this that the practice of sending boys to preparatory schools is becoming yearly more customary, and it must be admitted that this is of the greatest value in laying the foundations of a sound education and healthy constitution.
It is impossible to overrate the important effect which the preparatory school may have upon a boy’s life. It is the gradual substitution of school discipline for the unfettered liberty of home-life, and a gradual hardening process whereby the weakling gathers strength. At the age of eight and a half or nine the bitterness of leaving home is very great, and those who have the misfortune to be sent to a big school at that tender age find the plunge very cold indeed. The preparatory is a sort of half-way house between home and the public school, and not only in the matter of work but in every department of school life it has the greatest influence. The intellect of the average boy, when first he goes to school, is frequently quite frozen, and it sometimes requires several weeks of untold patience and individual attention before the thaw sets in. But not only is the mind of the small boy often in the most primary stages of development, but his physical strength is sadly deficient: and to plunge him suddenly into the midst of a number of boys far bigger and stronger than himself may very likely cause him to overtax his forces and to do himself real physical injury. Further, neither in the class-room nor in the playing field can he hope to have the same individual care and attention which is part and parcel of the preparatory curriculum. It is obvious, for instance, that the ordinary day at a public school is too long for most boys under fourteen years of age, and it is interesting to note that the headmaster of Eton is advocating more sleep for growing boys. Neither is the average boy under fourteen physically strong enough to rough it in the same way as older boys; he has no idea of taking care of himself, and would no more think of voluntarily changing his stockings because they were wet than of voluntarily going to bed because he was tired. When first a boy goes to school he cannot, as a rule, think for himself, and the first service which a preparatory school does for him is to teach him how to think, and the necessity of so doing. It may be argued that a boy will learn to think and act for himself far quicker if he is sent at once to a big school, but this is akin to the argument that throwing a man overboard is the best way to teach him to swim. It must be admitted, however, that there is a tendency nowadays to do too much for the boy, and that feeling of responsibility—which always has such a steadying and beneficial effect upon a boy’s character—is not sufficiently stimulated, owing to the overanxiety of parents and masters.