A public school, then, is the home of the commonplace. It is there that mediocrity sits upon her throne. There the spirit which conforms to custom is lauded to the skies. There the spirit which is independent and original is apt to be crushed. And yet to these public schools of England come boys of all sorts, conditions and characters, strong boys, delicate boys, rough boys, impudent boys, sensitive boys, unhappy boys, boys who have many friends, boys who have no friends, boys who are capable of fighting their way against odds, and boys to whom every harsh or inconsiderate word is a pang; they are all sent without discrimination to live as they may, and to shape their own characters or the characters of others by the simple primitive process of rubbing down inequalities through constant friction. Parents and schoolmasters often assume that the English system of public school life is suited to all boys, and that, if boys dislike it, it is all the better for them. It is forgotten how many boys of highest temper and keenest feeling have derived not benefit but injury from their school. There is no reason to deny that the public school system is good for the majority of boys. But it has its victims. How often has it happened that the boys, whose names have in after life been the glory and pride of their schools, have been ignored, depreciated, persecuted in their school lives! It is not needless--it cannot be wrong--to plead for a kindly sympathetic forbearance from masters and boys, yes, from masters as much as from boys, towards the stricken, suffering, despised members of the flock. For of these was Gerald Eversley. It will, perhaps, be thought that the masters of a public school, as being presumably men of wisdom and experience, should correct the sympathies and prejudices of their pupils. But to think so is to exaggerate the power of masters. Masters have less influence upon a school than is sometimes supposed, perhaps than they themselves suppose. They do not always create public opinion, and often they follow it. They take their tone from the boys, as well as the boys from them. Sometimes they admire the boys whom the boys themselves admire; they ignore those whom the boys ignore. It is only here and there that a master has the courage and the self-denial to leave the popular, pleasant, responsive boys to themselves and seek those who are destitute and out of the way. There are masters who do this, and they deserve great credit for it. But too often masters waste their favours upon those who do not need them, and the misunderstood boys whom their schoolfellows neglect are equally neglected by their masters.