Such a man is Olympian, having none of the foibles or soft moments of a human being. He dwells apart, in an atmosphere too rarefied for those who intrude into it. His subjects never regard him as a man of like passions with themselves: they would be quite shocked if such an idea were suggested to them. I once asked a distinguished _alumnus_ of a great school, which had been ruled with consummate success for twenty-four years by such a Head as I have described, to give me a few reminiscences of the great man as a _man_--his characteristics, his mannerisms, his vulnerable points, his tricks of expression, his likes and dislikes, and his hobbies. My friend considered. "He was a holy terror," he announced, after profound meditation. "Quite so. But in what way?" My friend thought again. "I can't remember anything particular about him," he said, "except that he _was_ a holy terror--and the greatest man that ever lived!" "But tell me something personal about him. How did his conversation impress you?" "_Conversation?_ Bless you, he never _conversed_ with anybody. He just told them what he thought about a thing, and that settled it. Besides, I never exchanged a word with him in my life. But he was a great man." "Didn't you meet him all the time you were at school?" "Oh yes, I _met_ him," replied my friend with feeling--"three or four times. And that reminds me, I _can_ tell you something personal about him. The old swine was left-handed! A great man, a great man!" Happy the warrior who can inspire worship on such sinister foundations as these! The other kind has to prevail by another method--the Machiavellian. As a successful Headmaster of my acquaintance once brutally but truthfully expressed it: "You simply have to employ a certain amount of low cunning if you are going to keep a school going at all." And he was right. A man unendowed with the divine gift of rudeness would, if he spent his time answering the criticisms or meeting the objections of colleagues or parents or even boys, have no time for anything else. So he seeks refuge either in finesse or flight. If a parent rings him up on the telephone, he murmurs something courteous about a wrong number and then leaves the receiver off the hook. If a housemaster, swelling with some grievance or scheme of reform, bears down upon him upon the cricket field on a summer afternoon, he adroitly lures him under a tree where another housemaster is standing, and leaves them there together. If an enthusiastic junior discharges at his head some glorious but quite impracticable project, such as the performance of a pastoral play in the school grounds, or the enforcement of a vegetarian diet upon the School for experimental purposes, he replies: "My dear fellow, the Governing Body will never hear of it!" What he means is: "The Governing Body shall never hear of it." He has other diplomatic resources at his call. Here is an example. A Headmaster once called his flock together and said: