It is but fair to say that this consoling philosophy was little required at Westminster: provided that he incurred no suspicion of "side", there was so general a disposition to help the strange newcomer that he suffered little; and even his service was made easy for him. The "shadow", in Westminster language, was instructed at once in the rules and customs of the house by a senior fag, his "substance", who shouldered his sins for the first fortnight and was theoretically liable to suffer vicariously for his shortcomings; after the days of grace a new boy could be fagged, though this involved little more than fetching and carrying, washing cups, filling saucepans and preparing call-over lists; he could also be "tanned", with an instrument appropriately designated a "pole"; but, though this was less agreeable, corporal punishment was not employed with undue frequency. There was always a right of appeal, too, with the menace of two extra strokes if the appeal was dismissed; but, as it was a point of honour never to appeal, the sufferer could only comfort himself with the thought that a tanning was over more quickly than "lines" or "drill" and with the hope that he might fall into weak or inexpert hands. Of bullying there was little; of systematic oppression and torture of the weak by the strong there was none at all, though the small boys of that generation (as of every other) believed that, if a companion was offensive, their right and duty impelled them to drum the offensiveness out of him. The war has caused the English people to examine searchingly its scheme of education and especially that public-school system which trains the sons of the well-to-do for future eminence in government, the public services and the learned professions. There have been many books and much discussion: the English love of finding fault with cherished institutions while approving the result has led to a hazy belief that the English public-schoolboy is the finest raw material in the world, but that only his inborn superiority has saved him from destruction by a burthen of useless learning, devastating ignorance, insane athleticism and vicious associations. It is more than time to suggest that his excellence is a delicate bloom nurtured and saved by the public school from the criminal neglect of his parents and that most critics, failing to distinguish between the phases through which every boy passes, have written down as chronic disease what was but temporary green-sickness.