It is, indeed, impossible to say how much one learns at a Preparatory School. At the age of ten one has not the necessary detachment to view oneself as an objective reality. It is impossible, for instance, to remember where, or when, was learnt the spirit of comradeship and sportsmanship that is, perhaps, the most lovable quality of the old public school boy. It is hardly inherited. For the average small boy is greedy, selfish, and acquisitive; and, when one is given leg before to a left-hand round the wicket bowler who is turning the ball from the off, the temptation to protest against the umpire's decision is natural. The primitive man, indeed, would have uprooted a stump and walked to the other end of the pitch. Where does one learn to turn straight round and walk towards the pavilion? I think it is at the Preparatory School. A small boy knows that he has got to play cricket like a sportsman; he knows that a sportsman does not question the umpire's decision; and he is terribly afraid of doing the wrong thing in the presence of his schoolfellows. The first time he is given out caught at the wicket off his pad, a blind anger seizes him. His mouth opens to make a protest. The same thing happened last year when he was playing cricket in the garden with his brother and sister, and, when they insisted that he was out, he sat down in the middle of the field and howled till they told him he could continue his innings. The temptation to repeat the experiment is considerable. But he dare not make any exhibition of himself. He would be mercilessly ragged; and so he returns to his seat under the trees and contents himself with the announcement that Jones is a mean sneak who was trying to get a revenge for the kicking he got that morning. And of course the incident will be repeated. Umpires make mistakes in first-class cricket: small boys make them with a melancholy frequency on lower grounds, and few batsmen are satisfied with an l.b.w. decision. The young cricketer has many opportunities of displaying the Christian qualities of patience and restraint, and every time the temptation to sit down in the middle of the pitch and howl grows weaker. 'The monster custom is angel yet in this,' and, by the time he goes to his Public School, his features have learnt to assume a good-natured smile, and he says something about it being all in the game and that last week he had a decision in his favour.