“I should think so, nasty pigs!” exclaimed Reginald, who, although he could make very good play with his knife and fork at dinner or breakfast, had a great contempt for sweatmeat and sugar-plum eaters.
“You are right,” said Power. “Those sort of fellows are mere gratifiers of a low animal propensity, like the unlicked cubs of a bear, who will steal sugar wherever they can find it. I never put much confidence in such fellows, and I wish Etonians could be cured of the habit.”
Reginald was very anxious to have an insight into the plan of the school arrangements, and Power undertook to enlighten him.
“In the first place,” he observed, “you must understand that there is the Lower School, and whatever the boys belonging to it may think of themselves, it is but a very insignificant appendage to the establishment of Eton. It is generally composed of small boys, who have been to no other school. It is, indeed, more of a private school with none of the advantages of one, and all the disadvantages of a public school. So I will say no more about it, and you, at all events, will not belong to it. The Upper School, which is really Eton, is divided, in the first place, into Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Forms. The Fourth Form is again separated into two parts—the lowest retains its name, and the other is called the Remove. The Fourth Form is subdivided into Lower, Middle, and Upper, and the Remove into Lower and Upper. The Fifth Form is also divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper, and these divisions are again subdivided according to convenience, usually into three divisions each. The Sixth Form consists of twenty fellows, namely, ten Oppidans and ten Collegers. The boys on the foundation are called Collegers: the management of the College and the Collegers is a very complicated matter. They are the fellows you see going about in heavy black cloth gowns. They go by the name of ‘Tugs,’ which is short for tug muttons, because they used, it is said, to be fed on tough mutton. The lower boys treat Tugs with great contempt, because they look down upon them as belonging to an inferior class. This they should not do, and it is arrant folly into the bargain; for many a Tug has risen to be a Lord Chancellor, or to fill one of the highest offices of the State, while the self-satisfied Oppidan, who has snubbed him as a boy, has ended his days as a sub in a marching regiment, having run through all his property before he was of age. High up in the school there is a good deal of party-feeling indulged in by fellows who ought to know better. It comes out when ‘Collegers and Oppidans’ are being played, either at football or cricket.”
“I do not think that I shall ever be able to remember all about the Fourth and Fifth Forms and Removes,” said Reginald.
“Here you have it in black and white, then,” said Power. They were sitting in his room after chapel, enjoying that otium cum dignitate which an Etonian learns so well to value.
1. Lower School, composed of small boys neither learned nor wise.
Fourth Form: 2. Lower. 3. Middle. 4. Upper.
Remove. 5. Lower. 6. Upper.