On the important issues of school life they are both driven to accept the verdict of the house master or head master. And he, although he is working in the dark on both sides of him, is their only intermediary. But the relationships between parents and children are too intricate for so short a book as this. Indeed, I doubt whether it is possible ever to tackle satisfactorily a subject, the nature of which alters with every individual case. One would be lost at once in a labyrinth of generalisations and exceptions; Lytton Strachey made no attempt to write a history of the Victorian era. He selected and analysed a few specimens; that is, I believe, the only way in which to deal with the complex subject of parenthood. And it can only be thus dealt with by the story-teller, by the man who says: 'I care nothing for general principles. But this is how things went for one family.' In a general study such as this, it is quite impossible to dogmatise from individual cases. But I would submit this facet of the relationship between father and son as an important one in the study of school society. It throws the need for co-operation almost entirely on the schoolmaster. It makes his responsibility greater than he knows. Now there are three types of men to whom the scholastic profession makes its chief appeal. There is the brilliant scholar, the man with the double first, who will turn out to be either completely incompetent, or will become a head master. There is the athlete who takes a third, or at best a second in mods, and on the strength of a blue, returns as games master to his old school. Lastly, there is the idealist, the man who regards teaching as a calling and not a trade, the man who may be either an impossible crank or, in his own line, a genius. The first class of master plays, on the whole, a small part in the politics of school life. If he is incompetent he is ragged in form and his opinion carries no weight in the common room. If he is successful, he is a bird of passage, on his way to some rich head-mastership. He may become a house master for a while, but he is always looking beyond his immediate surroundings. He is ambitious. He does not regard one school as his compass. Always he is just outside the drama. The second class, however, forms the backbone of tradition. The old boy comes back to his old school with an intense loyalty and with the intention of staying there for the rest of his life. His ambition is to have the best house in the best school in the best county. He is usually a very fine fellow indeed, but he represents eternally the spirit of reaction. He lives in the standards of his youth. He has had no opportunity of testing those standards in another environment. His whole life has moved within the circle of one school.