There is the fear and the attraction of the unknown future. And, for the sake of it, a boy will work far harder than he would otherwise have done. He looks beyond the rewards and position that his own school offers. It is not enough to be in the highest form, not enough to be in the first eleven. He must improve himself so as to be able to take a high place in the next stage of his career. A public school boy, on the other hand, regards the honours that his school has to offer as an end sufficient in themselves. In occasional addresses he is adjured to think of the day when he will have to step out of that cloistered peace into the rush and traffic of life; but that day is distant. He has little ambition beyond 'a ribboned coat' and a seat at the high table. His horizon is contracted, and his behaviour is that of those who do not believe in a survival after death. He places an undue value upon the immediate and the present. The preparatory school boy always looks ahead to a future stage of life. And so it is that, when the last day at school comes, he is not the victim of the surprised sentimentality that overcomes the public school boy. He has begun to feel that he has outgrown his surroundings. He has chafed at the restraint of childhood. He has felt that success or failure is of little importance: so soon he will be making a fresh start. He has lived in the future. He has spent long summer evenings reading the history of his new school. He has studied photographs of its buildings; he has pored over old numbers of the school magazines, and has formed a romantic conception of the giants of whose prowess he has read. The future opens before him with limitless opportunities, and he can face it with an eager confidence after his five long years of discipline. How long they have taken in the passing, and yet in retrospect how flat they appear, how colourless, how tiresome. Nothing has happened; day has followed day. Ah, well, that is over now. Life is to begin. The new boy sets out hungry for experience. On the last day at his Preparatory School he is addressed, in company with the other boys who are leaving, by the head master. His egotism is flattered by the assurance that the honour of his old school lies in his hands. He is told that he will need a firm upper lip and a stout heart. He listens to a recommendation of honesty, truthfulness, and courage--all this he has heard before. He has read so many school stories. And then, suddenly, he is startled by a warning against temptations, the nature of which he imperfectly understands. His curiosity is roused. He learns that if he yields to these temptations his career will be spoilt, his health and brain will be ruined. How this fate is going to be brought about he is not certain, but he agrees with his head master that it is a fatality at all costs to be avoided. He asks a friend for enlightenment and receives a superior answer of: 'Oh,