Autobiographical fiction; England -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Teachers -- Fiction
local tradesmen into a new foundation, the “Commercial School,” built
a couple of miles away. And it started boarding-houses. It had not the
gracious antiquity of Eton or Winchester, nor, on the other hand, had
it a conscious policy like Lancing, Wellington, and other purely modern
foundations. Where traditions served, it clung to them. Where new
departures seemed desirable, they were made. It aimed at producing the
average Englishman, and, to a very great extent, it succeeded.
Here Mr. Pembroke passed his happy and industrious life. His technical
position was that of master to a form low down on the Modern Side.
But his work lay elsewhere. He organized. If no organization existed,
he would create one. If one did exist, he would modify it. “An
organization,” he would say, “is after all not an end in itself. It
must contribute to a movement.” When one good custom seemed likely to
corrupt the school, he was ready with another; he believed that without
innumerable customs there was no safety, either for boys or men.
Perhaps he is right, and always will be right. Perhaps each of us
would go to ruin if for one short hour we acted as we thought fit, and
attempted the service of perfect freedom. The school caps, with their
elaborate symbolism, were his; his the many-tinted bathing-drawers,
that showed how far a boy could swim; his the hierarchy of jerseys and
blazers. It was he who instituted Bounds, and call, and the two sorts
of exercise-paper, and the three sorts of caning, and “The Sawtonian,”
a bi-terminal magazine. His plump finger was in every pie. The dome of
his skull, mild but impressive, shone at every master’s meeting. He was
generally acknowledged to be the coming man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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