There are many other school stories of recent date, of which no mention has been made in this survey; but our excursions seem to have covered a fairly representative field. What is the prevailing characteristic of the new, as compared with the old? It appears to be a very insistent and rather discordant note of realism--the sort of realism which leaves nothing unphotographed. Romance and sentiment are swept aside: they might fog the negative. Our rising generation are not permitted to see visions or dream dreams. And there is a tendency--mercifully absent in most of the books which we have described--to discuss matters which are better not discussed, at any rate in a work of fiction. There is a great vogue in these introspective days for outspokenness upon intimate matters. We are told that such matter should not be excluded from the text, because it is "true to life." So are the police reports in the Sunday newspapers; but we do not present files of these delectable journals to our sons and daughters--let us not forget the daughters: the sons go to school, but the daughters can only sit at home and read schoolboy stories--as Christmas presents. There is another marked characteristic of modern school fiction--its intense topicality. The slang, the allusions, the incidents--they are all _dernier cri_. But the more up-to-date a thing may be, whether it be a popular catchphrase or a whole book, the more ephemeral is its existence. A book of this kind reproduces the spirit of the moment, often with surprising fidelity; but after all it is only the spirit of the moment. Its very applicability to the moment unfits it for any other position. Books, speeches, and jokes--very few of these breathe the spirit not only of the moment but of all time. When they do, we call them Classics. _Tom Brown_ is a Classic, and probably _Stalky_ too. They are built of material which is imperishable, because it is quarried from the bed-rock of human nature, which never varies, though architectural fashions come and go. CHAPTER SEVEN "MY PEOPLE" [Illustration: THE SCHOOLGIRL'S DREAM] I Under this comprenhensive title the schoolboy groups the whole of his relatives, of both sexes. "Are your people coming for Speech Day?" inquires Master Smith of Master Brown. "Yes, worse luck!" "It is a bore," agrees Smith. "I wanted you to come and sit with me." "Sorry!" says Brown, and the matter ends. It never occurs to Brown to invite Smith to join the family party. Such a proceeding would be unheard of. A schoolboy with his "people" in tow neither expects nor desires the society of his friends. His father may be genial, his mother charming, his sister pretty; but in the jaundiced eyes of their youthful host they are nothing more or less than a gang of lepers--to be segregated from all communication with the outer world; to be conveyed from one point to another as stealthily as possible; and above all to be kept out of the way of masters.