He would have learnt, through the exercise of these qualities in a communal life, patience and tolerance of a certain kind. A tolerance, that is to say, that might condemn a man on the cut of his coat, the colour of his ties, or the use of an incorrect idiom, but would allow each man to lead his own private life provided he wore the conventional uniform. Such a tolerance may be described as snobbish and narrow, but is an admirable social lubricant. An old public school boy would be unlikely, for instance, to cause trouble to a mess or company or cricket club by injudicious interference. He will have learnt that it is not easy for an assorted collection of men to live together without occasionally getting on each other's nerves, and he will have learnt, in consequence, the value of tact and compromise. He will also have learnt a version of his duty towards his neighbours. He would not tell a lie to a friend unless it was absolutely necessary, and he would never let a friend down. He has the sense of loyalty developed to a high degree. All of which goes down on the credit side of the ledger. On the debit side, however, there are enough entries to make the cashier wonder whether, or no, the account is overdrawn. It is amazing how little knowledge the average public school boy has managed to acquire. He has rushed from one class room to another, learning French for one hour, and history for another, and science for a third. He has worked at each of these subjects spasmodically according to the particular form and set in which he has happened at the time to find himself. For a whole year on end he may have neglected French because he was under a lazy master. Then, at the end of the year, on finding himself in a higher and more strenuous form, he may have made feverish efforts for a couple of terms, to the detriment of his mathematics and history, with the result that there is an enormous gap in his knowledge. Whole periods of history are a blank to him. He has acquired a certain quantity of uncorrelated information. Within a few years what little connection there was between the appreciation of these isolated facts will have slipped away. There will remain a few phrases, a few catchwords, a few dates--an admirable framework indeed for social, moral, and political prejudice.