BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE BEQUEST OF 
 
 LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY 1868-1883 
 1905 
 
 9306 
 
arV16385 
 The Grecians 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 
 3 1924 031 422 953 
 olin.anx 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031422953 
 
THE GRECIANS 
 
BY THE SAME A UTHQR 
 
 THIRTY-SIX POEMS 
 
 Adelphi Press. 2S. 6d. 
 
 " There is not likely to be written 
 in our days much poetry more 
 exquisitely wrought." — The Nation. 
 
 " There is not one poem which 
 lacks the stamp of his individuality. 
 His technique is admirable." — The 
 AthencBwm. 
 
 " Mr. Flecker is an artist, not an 
 amateur." — The English Review. 
 
THE GRECIANS 
 
 A DIALOGUE ON EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES ELROY FLECKER 
 
 Sometime Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford 
 
 and Student Interpreter at Caius College, Cambridge 
 
 Author of " Thirty-six Poems," etc. 
 
 LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS LTD. 
 NEW YORK : E. P. BUTTON & CO. 1910 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In a technical matter such as education only 
 the experienced seem to me to have a right 
 to speak. For this reason only I think it 
 worth while mentioning that I was educated 
 in one public school, and have lived most of 
 my life in another; that I passed four years 
 at Oxford and two at Cambridge, and that 
 it has been my duty as civil servant to learn 
 some eight or nine modern languages. Litera- 
 ture I have practised and art I have studied, 
 but my chief claim to the kind attention of 
 my readers is, after all, that I myself have been 
 many times and in many places a school- 
 master. 
 I have tried to make this dialogue resemble 
 real conversation, and have aimed at abrupt- 
 ness, vigour, and compression rather than 
 at rounded periods and exact arrangement 
 of subjects. And this I mention in case any 
 
vi THE GRECIANS 
 
 reader, offended by a merely artistic violence 
 of language, may imagine it expressive of 
 thoughtlessness or lack of sincerity on the 
 part of the Author. 
 
 The British Consulate, 
 Constantinople, September igio. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. The Three Englishmen 
 
 page 
 
 V 
 
 r 
 
 II. The Aim of Education 
 
 IS 
 
 III. Physical Training .... 
 
 43 
 
 IV. Technical Training .... 
 
 6S 
 
 V. The Grecians or True Education 
 
 79 
 
 Vll 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 
 
THE GRECIANS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 
 
 Outside Bologna, that old and wise city, 
 rises a little hill with a large prospect called 
 San Michele. The bends of the zigzag path 
 which leads to the summit of this so mag- 
 nificent hill are embellished with delectable 
 arbours, where fat babies play and their 
 young nurses sleep during the long drowsy 
 evenings of late summer. Such an evening 
 I would have you imagine: picture to your- 
 self the babies engaged in innocent diversions, 
 the little nurses wandering with princely 
 lovers in the forests of their dreams. 
 
 Suddenly a tremendous trampling startled 
 those gentle souls. A little man with hair 
 and beard of that ferocious orange colour 
 which we call red, with iron-rimmed spectacles 
 bobbing on his nose, and a heavy gold watch- 
 chain swaying against his chest, was thunder- 
 3 
 
4 THE GRECIANS 
 
 ing up the hill as though it had been the 
 Matterhorn and he an enthusiast for records. 
 A sight to make babies cry and nursemaids 
 laugh was Henry Hofman; and strange were 
 the clothes of Henry Hofman, his black 
 trousers, his Norfolk jacket, and his green 
 tie. " Funny man! " said the babies, in 
 Italian. " Pazzo inglese! " replied the nurse- 
 maids and slept again. Hofman paid no 
 attention : intent on higher things he crashed 
 through a row of trees and attained the top. 
 Then might you have seen him stalk to the 
 parapet, wave his arms round his head with 
 fervour and delight, and slap himself on 
 the chest. "Grand!" he cried. "Magnifi- 
 cent! " he shouted, and had he been, as his 
 father was, a German, he would have added, 
 " Kolossal! " Then, arms folded, foot on 
 parapet, absurd and twisted body silhouetted 
 against the eternal sky, he stood, he gazed, 
 he exulted. 
 
 It was only the view over Bologna and the 
 plain that had called forth his admiration. 
 After all, few men are epicures in prospects. 
 All healthy persons will climb to see a view, 
 and it takes little to thrill these aesthetic 
 gluttons, provided the weather be clear and 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 5 
 
 they can see plenty at one time. For no 
 regions of this world are totally unpleasing 
 when viewed from an eminence. Henry 
 Hofman had seen a hundred landscapes finer 
 than this; yet this was fair enough. A 
 hundred miles of silver plain reflected the 
 fitful shadows of the clouds; a faint blue 
 haze hid and hinted the Adriatic Sea; and 
 the peculiar quiet fire of sunset deepened to 
 crimson the cheerful red of Bologna's roofs, 
 and shone right through the little windows 
 of the two great towers that dominate the city. 
 
 Let us leave him gazing at the Torre degli 
 Asinelli and consider a companion of his who 
 has just arrived, a very bad second. This 
 grizzled, middle-aged man of uncertain aspect 
 presents something of a contrast to Hofman. 
 We note the new-comer's rather fine features, 
 marred by an incessant frown; we approve 
 the decent obscurity and neutral tint of his 
 clothes. His raiment well brushed, without 
 style or flair, seems to be like its wearer, to 
 be something to which no one could reason- 
 ably object. His method of walking, more- 
 over, is unobtrusive; his voice as he exclaims, 
 "Here we are, Hofman! " is not annoyingly 
 brusque or strident, but verges on a mellow 
 
6 THE GRECIANS 
 
 cheerfulness. Yet beneath the contrast which 
 these two men present lurks resemblance; 
 and the indefinable, ineradicable stamp of 
 a great profession marks both those pairs of 
 weary and watchful eyes. 
 
 " Ah, it's grand! " shouted Hofman, " grand! 
 Only three days ago I was taking my horrible 
 chemistry class, and now I am on a hiU, 
 looking at this! " 
 
 He swept his arm round parallel to the 
 horizon. 
 
 " Ah, those boys indeed," said Edwinson 
 quietly. " Yes, it is pleasant to be free of 
 them for a little — yet I am fond of them, 
 very fond of them. At my age I couldn't 
 give it up: I couldn't do anything else but 
 teach. It's duU work, our trade of instruc- 
 tion; but there are times when I feel it's 
 rather a grand work. Now this city, Hofman, 
 is the foster-mother of education; Bologna 
 has one of the oldest universities of Europe. 
 Teaching in those days must have been much 
 more delightful, when each new book read 
 was a new country explored, and each pupil 
 taught was a new friend won. What a 
 beautiful city it is with all those useless, 
 insolent, aspiring towers — so like Oxford in 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 7 
 
 a way, and so emblematic of that profitless, 
 beautiful training of the mind we try to give." 
 
 " So like the education you medisevalists 
 try to give," grunted Hofman. " I have to 
 teach facts. But it's getting late and dark." 
 
 " And all the ways are shadowy," broke in 
 Edwinson, quoting the stock translation of 
 Homer. " And I am hungry. Let us go 
 down to the city and eat." 
 
 So saying the unobtrusive Edwinson took 
 his companion's arm, a thing he had never 
 done before during their six years of common 
 toil, and arm-in-arm they sauntered down 
 the hill. 
 
 To explain this unusual, almost emotional 
 impulse on the part of Edwinson, we must 
 remark that it was the first visit of these two 
 men to Italy. Indeed, it was their first day 
 in the country if we exclude the inevitable 
 halt in dreary northern Milan. True, they 
 had been twice abroad together before; they 
 had been for one walking tour in Brittany, 
 and one in the Black Forest. But as a rule 
 Hofman spent his winter holidays with his 
 people at Gospel Oak and visited a seaside 
 resort — Southsea or Worthing — in summer. 
 With equal regularity Edwinson retired to 
 
8 THE GRECIANS 
 
 Hampstead, or in the bright season of the 
 year took some of his more brilliant and 
 attractive pupils with him for a reading party 
 in Devonshire. This Italian journey had 
 been a bold venture, meticulously pre- 
 arranged. Expenses, routes, second class 
 fares had been calculated with nicety and a 
 Baedeker; and there had been much diligent 
 self -teaching in a tongue which Hofman 
 found hard and learnt thoroughly and Edwin- 
 son found easy and mastered ill. The whole 
 thing was an Event. Events are rare in the 
 pedagogic life. 
 When they reached the walls of Bologna — 
 Italian cities are still walled — they took a 
 tram which passed along the endless lovely 
 arcaded sheets, and brought them back to 
 the vast central square that has its name 
 from Neptune. They had decided against 
 dining at their hotel, and sauntered vaguely 
 along the Via Ugo Bassi to find a suitable 
 place of refreshment — no easy task when 
 sumptuary expense is to be avoided and 
 cheap squalor shunned. At last they halted, 
 and boldly pushed open a creaking door; 
 for favourable chance had led them to the 
 Toscana. Here in term-time assemble the 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 9 
 
 students of Bologna; here, when there are 
 no students, the modest traveller is welcomed 
 with cordiality and served with dispatch. 
 
 They seated themselves, and Edwinson sug- 
 gested timidly that the wine of the country 
 might be both cheap and good. 
 
 " Wine ? " said Hofman. " Of course we 
 will drink wine. The water would probably 
 be poisonous." 
 
 Their debate was cut short by the arrival of 
 their wine, unbidden, in a shapely wicker- 
 covered flask. Next, at Hofman's unhesitat- 
 ing command, arrived spaghetti (this dish 
 had a lot of local colour, but they found it 
 dull) and veal cutlets aUa Milanese, which 
 strong men eat every night: and they ate 
 this and drank enormously of the wine, con- 
 versing and laughing without cease. 
 
 The restaurant was full; the waiters rushed 
 about: the incessant clatter of spoons and 
 forks and knives on plates, dishes, and glasses 
 was most exhilarating; while expectoration 
 was, for Italy, comparatively rare. 
 
 The two friends were only half way through 
 their cutlets when they were disagreeably 
 interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, who 
 hung up a sort of large felt sombrero in such 
 
10 THE GRECIANS 
 
 a way as to obscure Hofman's old but com- 
 fortable cap, and prepared to sit down beside 
 them. Hofman was bored and, being an 
 honest man, immediately looked what he 
 f^ Edwinson drummed with his fingers on 
 the table. 
 
 " I hope you will excuse me," said the 
 stranger to them in pleasant English, " but 
 the place is quite full." 
 
 Looking up, they saw before them a young 
 man of elegant figure and handsome appear- 
 ance, indeed, a remarkably splendid young 
 man. Hofman thought to himself that the 
 new-comer had rather a womanish face. But 
 he ignored the strong chin and resolute thin 
 mouth, and was considering only the com- 
 plexion. If Hofman had justly realised his 
 own feelings in the matter he would have 
 found out that he esteemed all beauty a 
 rather womanish thing, unworthy of serious 
 attention. Edwinson meanwhile gazed in- 
 tently on the young man and since he held 
 the neo-pagan idea of Greece, mentally raved 
 about ApoUo. Yet no one could have been 
 more unlike the swarthy, straight-nosed 
 Greeks than this merry -eyed young man, 
 with long, light hair, high cheek bones, and 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN n 
 
 a vivid colouring: no one was less like a lay 
 figure for idealists than this youth with his 
 strong torso and his whimsical and lively 
 countenance. However, Edwinson's admira- 
 tion of the fascinating stranger even increased 
 when he heard him order special local dishes 
 and wines with an Italian accent so graceful 
 and correct that it seemed far above anything 
 a mere native could possibly have achieved. 
 
 By the time the young man turned to look 
 at the two schoolmasters their ill-humour 
 had vanished and their conversation, in- 
 stigated by Chianti and an audience, had 
 become more brilliant than ever. To Edwin- 
 son returned the fire of his Oxford days: for 
 long ago no one more often than he had sent 
 the sun — and the moon too — to bed with 
 talking. Social qualities, said his friends, 
 had spoilt his chances (never too brilliant, it 
 must be confessed) of academical distinction. 
 Hofman was once more the penurious lad 
 who, in the rare hours snatched from the 
 arduous study of science, used to electrify 
 the Gospel Oak Ethical Club with his incisive 
 wit and outrageous opinions. The stranger 
 put in a word here and there, yet hardly 
 entered into the conversation, but maintained 
 
12 THE GRECIANS 
 
 a mysterious though friendly reserve. He 
 vouchsafed nothing about himself save that 
 his name was Harold Smith, a severe blow to 
 Edwinson, who had imagined him to be of 
 noble parentage. 
 
 When the meal was at an end Hofman was 
 so delighted with their new acquaintance 
 that he was preparing to ask him to come 
 and take coffee with them; but he was fore- 
 stalled by Smith, who leant over towards 
 them and, in a voice of extreme charm and 
 gentleness, said, " I hope you will do me the 
 favour of coming round to my place: I have 
 a little room of my own in a back street here 
 which we may find a little pleasahter than 
 any cafe." 
 
 They willingly accepted this novel invita- 
 tion and followed their guide through the 
 colonnades of Bologna, whither they knew 
 not. They entered a low and obscure door- 
 way, toiled up a painful staircase, turned a 
 corner, and found themselves in the sitting- 
 room of Smith. It was a smaU room, but 
 comfortable beyond all an Italian's dreams, 
 and beautiful enough to satisfy the most 
 exacting of Cambridge aesthetes. A dim 
 reddish light suggested tapestried hangings. 
 
THE THREE ENGLISHMEN 13 
 
 surprising pictures, and innumerable books: 
 yet for all the display of furniture and fabrics 
 in a little space the room was mysteriously 
 cool. Hofman, turning his eyes to the book- 
 shelves, as reading men wiU, was delighted to 
 find his beloved moderns, Teutonic and Scan- 
 dinavian, bound in pigskin and arranged in 
 order; while Edwinson marked with delight 
 the rows devoted to the classics, for he was 
 a devoted scholar, although so pathetically 
 second class. Smith let them busy them- 
 selves with inspection while he prepared an 
 excellent coffee: soon they drank it not un- 
 accompanied by seductive liqueurs. Then 
 pipes were lighted with English tobacco, 
 glasses filled with Scotch whisky, and there 
 sank into arm-chairs worthy of the noblest 
 university traditions two happy middle-aged 
 schoolmasters, clothed in drab and a little 
 beside themselves; and then it was that 
 Harold stood before them with uplifted glass 
 and swore in Italian, German, and English 
 that they should drink the health of their 
 glorious profession, and drain their glasses 
 to the Education of Youth. 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE AIM OF EDUCATION 
 
 Smith roused no enthusiasm by proposing 
 this toast. Hofman started and groaned, 
 and Edwinson remarked sadly that he wanted 
 to forget that dire, unspeakable thing. 
 
 Smith. Is it possible that you hate your 
 work, and that you are sincere in expressing 
 your unhappiness ? One would think there 
 could be nothing more delightful than train- 
 ing the young and watching the subtle dawn 
 of intelligence. 
 
 Edwinson. Our work has its compensations, 
 my dear Smith. Yet I cannot conceive of 
 any vocation more disheartening, toilsome, 
 and unpleasant. 
 
 Smith. Yet perhaps you have not really any 
 
 standard of comparison. What evidence have 
 
 you that members of other professions are 
 
 more cheerful than schoolmasters ? 
 
 Edwinson. I think I have some evidence. 
 17 B 
 
1 8 THE GRECIANS 
 
 I have often been in the City and observed 
 narrowly the faces of the business men who 
 pour out of the tube terminus. Anxious 
 those faces often are, pale, feverish, elated 
 with success, dejected -with impending ruin; 
 yet none of them were languid, none bored. 
 Now you know, perhaps, that there is a special 
 service held for schoolmasters and members 
 of the Teachers' Union once a year in the 
 chapel of some great public school ! ^ I once 
 attended such a service. There in a narrow 
 space were collected some two hundred head 
 and assistant masters. A more tragic sight 
 I have never seen. It may be that the 
 sermon, preached by a young Anglican of 
 great eminence, had affected me strangely: 
 but I know that when I left the chapel I 
 nearly wept. Thank God one does not often 
 see a congregation of schoolmasters. Those 
 withered trees are usually surrounded by the 
 fair and delectable shrubs of youth: they 
 look ill in a forest by themselves. Usually 
 we see the usher's unromantic figure graced 
 by the boys who flock around him; and to 
 them he is so familiar and trite a thing that 
 they pay no heed to his sagging trousers and 
 
 1 Here Hofman snorted. 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 19 
 
 rusty coat, to his surly manners and un- 
 kempt hair, to his unchanging cravat and 
 rectangular boots. But when I saw that 
 unearthly congregation of men who had 
 failed, whose lips were hard and their faces 
 drawn and sallow, when I remarked the im- 
 becile athletes who taught football, the puny 
 scientists who expounded the dark mystery 
 of nature, the blighted and sapless scholars 
 who taught Plato and Catullus by the page 
 and hour, the little wry-bodied men in 
 spectacles who trained their pupils in King 
 Lear for the Cambridge Locals, I shuddered 
 and felt faint; for I remembered that I, too, 
 was one of these: I, too, was rusty — I effete 
 — I growing old. 
 
 Smith. You are convincing as to the fact, 
 yet you hardly suggest a reason. Why is it, 
 do you think, that teachers are such sad and 
 bitter men ? 
 
 Edwinson. It is a little difficult to explain. 
 Perhaps it is because we don't know 
 
 Hofman {interrupting violently). That's it. 
 We do not know. We don't know where we 
 are going to. We have no idea what sort of 
 man we want to make, and while we have no 
 definite aim we are beset by a pillion irrita- 
 
20 THE GRECIANS 
 
 tions from faddists and quacks. " Bring up 
 boys and girls together," say some: "the 
 school will then be a paradise." " Never 
 teach a child what it doesn't want to know," 
 says the benign paidophilist. God, I would 
 like to teach him something he wouldn't 
 like to know. " Science, grand, practical 
 science! " says a crude person from the 
 North: once I had faith in the crude person, 
 before I taught grand, practical science. 
 " Our old beautiful traditions," say people 
 like my friend here : " there is nothing wrong 
 except the spread of scientific knowledge." 
 " Modern tongues, not dead ones : something 
 really useful to help the boys to good business 
 positions." So clamour parents who do not 
 realise that German clerks who know six 
 languages to perfection may be purchased 
 for about £i6o a year. " English history, 
 how splendid, how important! " says the 
 blustering Member of Parliament, in a speech 
 which would shame the school debating club, 
 when he comes to give away our prizes. 
 " English literature," cry the dames, " up 
 to the death of Wordsworth, but including 
 Tennyson, not omitting Beowulf if you want 
 to understand Shakespeare." A pox on the 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 21 
 
 fools : art, music, religion, and woodcarving — 
 all have their votaries : — 
 
 Ce monde est plein de fous, et qui n'en veut pas voir 
 Doit se tenir tout seu!, ou casser son miroir. 
 
 Edwinson. True, Hofman. Why, if I could 
 get a paragraph into the Daily Mail suggest- 
 ing that it is a disgraceful thing that our 
 great public schools never teach Etruscan, 
 which is not only the true foundation of any 
 really thorough knowledge of Latin, but also 
 a study most likely to foster mental ingenuity 
 and deep thought, I should be styled " one 
 of our most prominent educationalists " on 
 the morrow. But since we are in such a 
 vortex of new and absurd ideas, is there not 
 some sense in keeping to the old lines ? You 
 have never understood, Hofman, and perhaps 
 you never will, what is the true value and 
 meaning of a classical education. Every 
 year that this education continues to exist 
 at all, it becomes more and more indispens- 
 able to any one who desires to understand 
 history. We do not merely educate people 
 to understand the world of Thucydides and 
 Tacitus, ^schylus and Virgil, but we educate 
 them to understand Petrarch and Ariosto, 
 Racine and Montesquieu, Pitt and Johnson 
 
22 THE GRECIANS 
 
 and Pope, Milton, Landor, Shelley, Arnold, 
 Browning, Tennyson, and Swinburne — for we 
 have hardly had a great poet who was not a 
 good classical scholar 
 
 Hofman. Except Shakespeare! 
 
 Edwinson. Even that is doubtful. To know 
 the story of literature, of law, of science 
 and philosophy you must study] the classics: 
 while a true and just use and knowledge of 
 the subtleties of words may be inborn in a 
 genius, but is the natural outcome of a 
 scholar's training. 
 
 I readily admit that certain changes ought 
 to take place from within. Wilamowitz- 
 Moellendorf has made what I consider to be 
 a quite admirable suggestion. He says in 
 effect that we ought to read all Greek litera- 
 ture and not confine ourselves to a little 
 cluster of classical writers. He suggests that 
 we should read Greek written as late as the 
 tenth century a.d., and, indeed, the Byzan- 
 tines are neither so uninteresting nor so in- 
 capable as is generally believed. With regard 
 to the Latin tongue, I myself would rejoice to 
 see the more suitable passages of Petronius, 
 Apuleius, and the elegiacs of that dainty 
 poet of the decline, Ausonius, included in 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 23 
 
 the regular course. For I am a person of 
 liberal ideas, though Hofman will credit me 
 with none. I think, too, that one ought to 
 get on much faster with the books one reads 
 and not spend a whole term droning through 
 a book of Virgil at thirty lines a day. I 
 believe that boys should be allowed to use 
 translations: they are given plenty of un- 
 seens on which to exert their minds, and I 
 consider, though this is rather heresy, that 
 only the most intelligent boys should be 
 worried with Latin and Greek composition. 
 We may teach our young Swinburnes or 
 Jebbs to write Greek and Latin verses: I 
 am not very much in favour of compelling 
 the ordinary boy to undergo so severe a 
 training. 
 
 You see, the grand old classics are waking 
 up, Hofman. During the last few years the 
 scientific treatment of art and archaeology 
 has made tremendous strides; while the 
 study of folk-lore and comparative mythology 
 is revolutionising our ideas upon Roman and 
 Greek religion. Our comprehension of the 
 classics has advanced more between the year 
 1880 and the present time than between the 
 years 1600 and 1880. This is literally true. 
 
24 THE GRECIANS 
 
 Then we still find and always shall in the calm 
 
 logic of Latin grammar 
 
 H of man (furiously). O Death! Do you dare 
 to insinuate that any one was ever taught to 
 think about the universe by learning perfects 
 and supines, or those eccentrics in -/w? Do 
 you really think you are going to ennoble 
 and modernise the classics by skipping 
 through half a dozen wretched bastard Greek 
 romances written by a worthless people in a 
 worthless period, or by entertaining the lads 
 with the cheerful heresies of the early Christian 
 Fathers? Do you say keep the old system? 
 Look at the result of your time-honoured 
 plan. One scholar (that is to say, one natur- 
 ally intelligent person whose intelligence you 
 have perverted to a useless end) to a hundred 
 wastrels (that is to say, a hundred ordinary 
 young men whose brains you have fuddled 
 for ever). And your one scholar, I grant 
 you, may be a fine man — but wherein lies his 
 salvation? In being something more than a 
 scholar — ^in his self-education; in the music, 
 art, or poetry he loves, in his appreciation of 
 the passions and desires that sway the actual 
 world. Can he even be a fine scholar if he 
 comprehends not these things ? Is a man 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 25 
 
 who votes Tory because he is a don fit to 
 understand Tacitus, or a man who has never 
 travelled over the earth fit to enjoy the 
 Odyssey ? Shall we give Catullus to a passion- 
 less pedant, Ovid to a man who has never 
 known Love's kiss ? Even I, who have only 
 read the classics in translations, have a better 
 opinion of them than that. 
 
 I don't want to substitute science as being 
 in any way a real or complete training for 
 the young. My humble task is to teach the 
 boys a few facts about the real world which 
 may help them to earn their living, and 
 I hate all rainbow theories of education. 
 Teach a boy, I say, to read and write and 
 add up sums; then teach him his trade, and 
 if you want a wider and a nobler upbringing 
 for him, turn him loose into a good library 
 for so many hours a day and let him learn 
 what he likes. 
 
 Edwinson {peevishly). Scholars can earn 
 their living sometimes, and a fact in Latin 
 grammar is as much a fact as a fact in 
 physics. 
 
 Smith. Come, brother Edwinson, I don't 
 think you really mean that. You are argu- 
 ing in a vicious circle if you maintain that a 
 
26 THE GRECIANS 
 
 classical education is a practical one because 
 your pupils may subsequently become classi- 
 cal teachers. You know of the tribe which 
 existed by taking in each other's washing. 
 You are well enough aware that the moment 
 the dead languages cease to be required in 
 State or University examinations which lead 
 to emolument the whole fabric of classical 
 education instantly disappears, and the 
 scholars who now secure for themselves snug 
 and comfortable berths would then be wander- 
 ing up and down the land like disembodied 
 spirits. A few might still be needed for 
 museums and libraries, or to teach the sons of 
 some old-fashioned American millionaire ; but 
 the rest would die of hunger or take to break- 
 ing stones. 
 
 Now I gather that you are, both of you — 
 even Edwinson — rather disappointed in our 
 English middle -class education. Do you 
 then think that nothing could be done to 
 reform our public schools ? 
 
 Hqfman. I think they are in such a state 
 that reform is impossible, and that they 
 ought to be utterly destroyed for ever. 
 There is better work done in the dirtiest board 
 school or technical training college in a day 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 27 
 
 than we do in a week, and the public school 
 is really such a loathsome place 
 
 Smith. You seem to be quite bitter about 
 it, Hofman. In what way do you mean 
 that a public school is loathsome ? 
 
 Hofman. Why, were you never at one of 
 those great institutions which make England 
 what it is, and have made Balham and 
 Bethnal Green what they are? Have you 
 never witnessed the weary conflict between 
 plodding dull ushers and stolid boys? Are 
 you unaware of our finely organised system 
 of compulsory cricket and compulsory vice? 
 From the first of these evils a boy can only 
 escape by being consumptive, from the second 
 only by becoming a moral prig. Do you not 
 know how the monotonous hours are only 
 varied by epidemics, whether of chicken-pox, 
 religion, silkworm-keeping, or Sandow exer- 
 cises ? Do you not know the hell that awaits 
 all boys who think for themselves, who have 
 any moral courage, who dare to look beyond 
 the horizon of the damned routine, who 
 shirk games, or who shirk looking at games ? 
 
 Smith. What you say has its truth. But to 
 me it appears still worse that after this public- 
 school life a boy should pass on to Oxford 
 
28 THE GRECIANS 
 
 and Cambridge, where instead of entering on 
 a new life he will merely continue in his 
 former ways. If it meant influence to be a 
 ■good cricketer at school, why so it does in 
 college; if chapel was compulsory at school, 
 so it is in college; if independence meant 
 unpopularity at school, so it does in most 
 colleges. No new society arises to entertain 
 the mind, no women enable him to under- 
 stand the proportion of things in this world; 
 no freedom of town life, no rousing interest 
 in art or politics, will ever encroach on the 
 monotony of a protracted schoolboy exist- 
 ence, wherein smoking, drinking, and cards 
 are only occasionally restrained by authority. 
 
 Edwinson. I am surprised that Hofman 
 should thus depreciate school life and that 
 you, sir, should be so dissatisfied with the 
 university. Consider how ninety-nine out of 
 a hundred boys love their school, how they 
 revel in school life, how they weep to leave it, 
 and how they love to return and visit their 
 old friends and masters. As for college — 
 my days at Oxford were the only good days 
 of my life, even though I never played 
 cricket and football. 
 
 Smith. Do you not consider what a terrible 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 29 
 
 imputation it is against a school if even the 
 hundredth boy (unless he be a confirmed 
 hypochondriac) be not happy? If you feed 
 boys weU, let them play with each other, and 
 give them a reasonable amount of liberty, it 
 is very hard to make them miserable. And 
 in the generous days of youth who would not 
 be sentimental about leaving friends and 
 associations? But what Hofman says is 
 that the best boys are the most unhappy — 
 and I believe that, except possibly at Eton 
 and Winchester, this is literally what happens. 
 The new raw athletic mushroom public school 
 is not a very pleasant place. 
 
 Edwinson. But surely the Spartan element 
 in our great schools is very fine. To rough it 
 a little makes a boy independent and manly, 
 A little bumping about (Here Edwin- 
 son stopped, having caught an unpleasantly 
 hostile expression in the eye of Harold Smith.) 
 Of course, all that is a little trite (he added 
 lamely). 
 
 Smith. Yes, Edwinson, that's just it. A 
 little bumping about will soon cure a boy of 
 holding any ideas that displease his fellows, 
 a little ridicule will soon cure Jones minor of 
 reading Gibbon when he ought to be out in 
 
30 THE GRECIANS 
 
 the rain watching the house hockey match, 
 a really hard thrashing will soon dispel young 
 Robinson's religious doubts. Oh, yes, we 
 will embitter the seven years of life which 
 should be the happiest, so as to give a boy 
 more grit and pluck in after years. It seems 
 we run a risk, Edwinson, and draw our bow 
 at a venture. Does the nervous, high-strung 
 youth become a thick-skinned Briton at the 
 end of our Spartan training? I have not 
 observed it: heresy of heresies, I do not 
 really desire it. But I do very much fear 
 that a boy of original mind may become 
 permanently embittered and peevish under 
 our present system and never acquire that 
 strength and cheerfulness which underlies 
 true genius. Our Spartan ideal is produc- 
 tive of minor poets, of most unmanly people 
 who, claiming sanity and reserve, are ashamed 
 instead of proud of what they think or feel or 
 know; and I am so eccentric as not to be 
 entirely pleased with that other notable 
 product of our Lacedaemonian tendencies — 
 the hulking and vainglorious captain of the 
 school eleven, whom I picture from memory 
 standing crop in hand surrounded by his 
 toadies and parasites, the terror and admira- 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 31 
 
 tion of the young. Spartan system — why, 
 the fellow has never been kicked since his 
 very first term, when he made such a fine 
 score in the Junior House Match. Edwin- 
 son, if the boys in your school are not happy, 
 burn it down. 
 
 But there is a yet further question. Have 
 you done your best for their happiness in the 
 days of manhood, O pedagogue? For with 
 that you are most intimately concerned. 
 
 Hqfman. Have you then revealed your 
 secret. Smith? Is that your ideal education 
 which produces the happy man ? 
 
 Smith. Negatively, yes. That sounds cryp- 
 tic: but I mean that whatever else we may 
 strive after we fail if we do not help our 
 pupils to be happy. In an uncertain world 
 I take this as a postulate. But tell me, 
 Hofman, since happiness is after all as diffi- 
 cult a word to explain precisely as goodness, 
 the type of the man that you would desire 
 to produce with the aid of education. 
 
 Hofman {with animation shining through his 
 spectacles). I think education can do little to 
 produce the type of man I want. I look for 
 a man of power, an Overman, if you are not 
 weary of the word. At any rate a man 
 
32 THE GRECIANS 
 
 unflinchingly honest in his thoughts and in 
 the expression of his thoughts, unswayed by 
 prejudice and convention, natural and strong 
 in his desires and passions. A man who can 
 pierce the riddle of this rather aimless exist- 
 ence and lead mankind to new triumphs 
 and new glory. 
 
 Smith. And you, Edwinson, perhaps do not 
 entirely participate in Hof man's ideal ? 
 
 Edwinson. Indeed, no: he has expressed 
 himself innocently enough, but I know he 
 wants to turn aU the nicest people into 
 labour leaders. I confess I prefer the gentle- 
 man, if he will forgive me using a word he 
 hates. I believe we have a duty to intimate 
 society as well as to the state; and I believe 
 that people with charming manners make 
 life much more tolerable for their friends 
 than unpleasant socialistic people. 
 
 Hofman. That is to say, gentlemen please 
 other gentlemen. 
 
 Edwinson. It is more than that. I have 
 known many a boy whose head was perfectly 
 empty, yet who had such a way with him that 
 everybody liked him from the head-master 
 to the bootblack. But — be quiet, Hofman ! — 
 far be it from me to suggest that it is the 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 33 
 
 business of a school to produce gentlemen. 
 In a school to which gentlemen are sent the 
 aim must be first that the blatancy of vul- 
 garians should be toned down by association 
 with boys of a more refined nature; secondly 
 to produce in those who are gentlemen by 
 birth a refinement, not only of manner and 
 deportment, but also of language, taste, and 
 thought — to produce not mere gentlemen, 
 but that type of great gentleman whom we 
 caU a gentleman and a scholar. 
 
 Smith {after a -pause). Truth is dull, and I 
 fear aU I have to say is that both these ideals 
 are excellent, and that they should and can 
 be easily combined. But forgive me for 
 remarking that they are ideals of admiration 
 and not of thought. Both of you really 
 want to produce men who shaU be like 
 yourselves. 
 
 Hofman. Or rather like our ideal selves. 
 The men we might have been had we been 
 blessed with opportunity. 
 
 Smith. WeU, then, you' want to produce, 
 
 perhaps, persons whom you would like to 
 
 have as friends. But shall we not consider 
 
 whether it would be possible to establish our 
 
 discussion on a surer basis, and try to dis- 
 
 c 
 
34 THE GRECIANS 
 
 cover, not perhaps what the ideal man is, 
 but at least what our ideal of a man is ? We 
 can at all events eliminate the elements which 
 displease one or other of us. And if we do 
 come to some more or less definite agreement 
 on the subject, we shall hope that there may- 
 be many other sensible people in the wide 
 world who would concur with our conclu- 
 sions if they were here with us to-night. 
 
 We have already laid down one postulate, 
 that we do not want to train our people to be 
 miserable. We wiU lay down another, that 
 we are not going to train our boys as candi- 
 dates for any one of the various official 
 paradises occupied by members of the rival 
 sects. Is then the ideal of happiness enough ? 
 For if any one were to object that to train 
 people to be happy would be to train them 
 to be unpleasant, selfish, useless, and ignorant, 
 we should reply that their notions of plea- 
 sure are ridiculous and limited. Happiness 
 then 
 
 Edwinson. But surely you admire the noble 
 ideas and fine morality, the devotion to work 
 and duty, which have stamped the best men 
 in the human race? and surely you do not 
 believe that good men have acted merely 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 35 
 
 because they would be happier in doing 
 good? Even if such were really the case, it 
 would be too horrible to believe, even as it is 
 too horrible to believe that death is the end 
 of all things, or that this universe has no 
 aim. 
 
 Hofman. As usual, Edwinson, you take up 
 that miserable Peer Gynt attitude — " Let us 
 think of the things that are pleasant, and 
 forget those that hurt " — and you send our 
 pupils, as he sent his mother, headlong through 
 the gate of death with ancient folk-tales and 
 sweet, lying harmonies in their ears. What, 
 do you yearn, O sentimental idealist, to set 
 up the dusty old virtues on their feet again, 
 and to clap on the statue of Truth the shabby 
 rags of dying religions and the enormous fig- 
 leaf of respectability? Let us make men 
 who can realise themselves: for I weary of 
 your heroes of the drawing-room and the 
 popular stage; I am sick of the cant of 
 devotion to one's duty, one's country, and 
 one's only girl. 
 
 Smith. But do you think that happiness 
 will come from this self-realisation of yours ? 
 
 Hofman. What matter? We want men of 
 power. The world is getting sick and rotten. 
 
36 THE GRECIANS 
 
 We want some men who are free and brave. 
 Where are the heroes who trampled us down 
 in the gorgeous youth of the world ? 
 
 Smith. Your views do not differ materially 
 from those of Edwinson, you know. 
 
 (Hofman- had for some moments been pacing 
 the room in his excitement, and he now 
 brought himself up to within a foot of the 
 table on which Smith is sitting, and shouted, 
 "What?") 
 
 Smith. Don't realise your voice like that, 
 Hofman, or I shall fall off the table. My 
 point is this. Both of you approve of virtue. 
 But while Edwinson considers many quali- 
 ties to be virtues, you only approve of 
 Strength and Truthfulness, and I think your 
 Overman wiU have to give up many things 
 that mortals enjoy, such as Friendship and 
 Love. 
 
 Hofman. But a man may be realising him- 
 self in friendship and love. 
 
 Smith. Not if self-realisation means any- 
 thing at all. I can understand how a man 
 in pursuit of the ideals of power and self- 
 realisation may consider it advisable to 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 37 
 
 understand his fellow-men and converse with 
 them, but it is an obvious truth that friend- 
 ship, love, and affection are bound to imply 
 a subordination of oneself to others. More- 
 over, if life in a civilised state is to be toler- 
 able, it entails considerable suppression of 
 the natural man. But perhaps you would 
 say that we realise ourselves by fitting our- 
 selves to circumstances. I confess the term 
 " self-realisation " seems to me to be a little 
 vague. 
 At all events, neither of you, I fear, seem 
 to take kindly to my notion of educating 
 people so that they may be happy. Now, 
 Edwinson, what people would you consider 
 to be most happy ? 
 
 (Edwinson rose slowly and went to the 
 window. Below on the opposite side of the 
 street a little crowd was waiting patiently 
 and cheerfully for the doors of a cinemato- 
 graph show to open. He pointed to the 
 young workmen thronging down there with 
 their wives on their arms and children dan- 
 gling at their coats, and said:) 
 
 Edwinson. Those people, if they have good 
 
38 THE GRECIANS 
 
 health and no aspirations, are probably as 
 happy as any one in the world. Prosperous 
 City men verging on middle age are, I expect, 
 quite happy also. It is reserved for the 
 sensitive men, for those whose fibre is 
 weakened by learning and culture, to feel 
 most deeply the misery of the world. It is 
 education that makes a Leopardi bitter or 
 drives a Baudelaire mad. 
 
 Smith. To look at you and hear you speak, 
 Edwinson, I should hardly believe that you 
 had led a happy life. Yet do you really wish 
 that your lot had been different? Do you 
 yearn for the life of those poor men below? 
 Would you really be content to plough fields 
 or push barrows ? 
 
 Edwinson. No. Although in moments of 
 depression I yearn for the happy, thoughtless 
 existence of the ignorant, I would not really 
 abandon my little knowledge: it is too 
 precious to me, and I would not barter it 
 against animal happiness. In knowledge, as 
 in civilisation, the further we advance the 
 greater are our joys, the deeper our sorrows: 
 but we cannot retreat. 
 
 Smith. I am glad to hear you say so. Your 
 words will help me to explain the type I 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 39 
 
 desire to form, and they give me some hope 
 that you will not hopelessly dissent from the 
 views I am now going to express. 
 
 Edmnson. Now let all profane tongues be 
 silent, and let us hear and dispute the de- 
 scription of an ideal man. 
 
 Smith. First, I admit that the term happy 
 man embraces but little of our idea of a good 
 man, of the man whom we would admire 
 and love to own as a friend. Yet happiness 
 (I would remark in passing), even of the 
 lowest type, is something of a social virtue: 
 it is pervasive and infectious, and therefore 
 in a certain sense altruistic. I think we 
 should most of us take more delight in the 
 friendship of Rabelais than in that of Leo- 
 pardi or Baudelaire — although, by the way, 
 it was not only sensibility and intelligence 
 but also incessant ill-health that made those 
 two great men unhappy. Granted that we 
 want our pupils to be cheerful, we must fit 
 them for their station in life: we must train 
 their physical health with the greatest care, 
 and we must enable them to perform the 
 ordinary social duties of their station and to 
 earn a comfortable livelihood. 
 
 And yet we know well that some of the boys 
 
40 THE GRECIANS 
 
 whom we are going to teach will not be con- 
 tented with this even while they are young. 
 Man entertains fantastic, inexplicable desires 
 after things profitless — after truth, know- 
 ledge, and beauty viewed as ends in them- 
 selves. Some even yearn for absolute 
 Chastity or absolute Holiness. These latter 
 two desires are spiritual, not mental; excep- 
 tional, not rational: and since it has so often 
 been observed that holy men have an anti- 
 pathy to the use of human reason, we cannot 
 undertake to train our boys in holiness — for 
 our business is with thought. To my mind 
 a passion for beautiful things is the posses- 
 sion of the wise and thoughtful; or at least 
 is only of value to the intelligent: I cannot 
 now argue this philosophy : I can only appeal 
 to the vivid and trained understanding of 
 those men who have loved the beautiful. 
 Therefore, since our concern is with mental 
 aspirations, and since we must accept it as 
 a fact that men do long to understand the 
 problems of reason, to master the details of 
 science, and to appreciate beautiful things, 
 and that we in fact admire and love the men 
 who hold these strange desires — ^we will lay 
 down that a fuller education be given in our 
 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 41 
 
 schools to those who are fitted to receive it. 
 Our scholars who taste of the bitter-sweet 
 fruit of this tree of knowledge will be made 
 both more happy and more miserable. But 
 observe, though we educate them for the 
 sake of that greater happiness to which they 
 wiU attain, yet we are not deluded into 
 thinking that the young man who is athirst 
 for knowledge is athirst for happiness. Some 
 happiness it may give him, but that is only 
 by the way. Foolish and irritating are those 
 who contend, " This man gives his money to 
 the poor because it is his form of pleasure; 
 my form of pleasure is to expend it on the 
 race-course: there is no moral difference 
 between us ! " If a man prefers to be 
 generous, it is just this preference of his that 
 makes us call him a good man: and we call 
 him good not really in accordance with any 
 fixed moral code, but from the nature of our- 
 selves, which is to admire strong will, strong 
 intellect, and strong love in our fellow-men. 
 
 Hojman. But supposing some people, as 
 some do, admire Charles Peace the burglar 
 extremely, and others think him an outrageous 
 scoundrel ? 
 
 Smith. The difference here and in all cases 
 
42 THE GRECIANS 
 
 is not one of the natural faculties of admira- 
 tion, but of analysis of the case. One man 
 admires in Peace his strength of will, his 
 intellect, his energy; another detests his 
 lack of love. To admire energy and to hate 
 cruelty is universal. But are you now agreed 
 that the formation of some such type as I 
 have described is a worthy aim for education ? 
 
 Edwinson. You have made clear to me ideas 
 that I felt for myself, but could not clearly 
 define or express. 
 
 Hofman. And I am most marvellously per- 
 suaded. 
 
 After this the conversation became much 
 less serious, and I grieve to state that Hofman 
 began to feel a strange inclination to dance 
 and sing. So they wore him out by taking 
 him a very long walk round the city: and 
 then Smith left them, but not without a 
 solemn promise that he would meet them 
 early on the morrow. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PHYSICAL TRAIJSfING 
 
 Harold Smith met the two schoolmasters, 
 as arranged, comparatively early the next 
 morning at a cafe. He found them ruefully 
 consuming thin coffee and thick rolls, and 
 pining for the fleshpots and teapots of 
 England. He laughed at their dejected 
 countenances and gleefully produced from 
 his pocket a fine pot of jam, which he good- 
 naturedly shared with the forlorn travellers. 
 The little party became most amicable, and 
 as it was a fine fresh morning they resolved 
 to make an expedition into the country. 
 Their plans grew gradually more extensive 
 and ambitious, till finally they decided to 
 quit Bologna with no baggage but knapsacks, 
 and to return thither only after some days 
 of pedestrian exploration beyond the Apen- 
 nines. They therefore took the train for a 
 few miles so as to get on the foot of the 
 mountains, alighted at an insignificant station 
 45 
 
46 THE GRECIANS 
 
 on the line to Florence and walked along 
 the pass as far as Bagni di Poretta, where 
 they took rooms for the night and dined 
 handsomely. Over coffee and cigars Hofman 
 became expansive, and glowed as ruddy as 
 his beard with delight. " What a day, what 
 a walk! " he cried; " I feel quite young 
 again. Smith, you're making new men . of 
 us poor schoolmasters. I wish you didn't 
 walk at such a pace though. I should never 
 have thought you were such an athlete to 
 look at you." 
 
 Edwinson. It has been a fine excursion 
 indeed. Enough exercise to make us com- 
 fortably tired, not enough to exhaust or take 
 away the appetite. I'm feeling wide awake: 
 if you people are willing, let's go on talking 
 about education. 
 
 Hofman. I should love to if it doesn't bore 
 Smith, for I want to hear more wisdom from 
 the mouth of that wise young man. It 
 strikes me as odd, you know, Edwinson, that 
 at school we never said a word either to each 
 other or to any one else about the general 
 principles and aims of education. We used, 
 of course, to get quite excited about new or 
 peculiar methods of pumping in knowledge, 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 47 
 
 but we never really considered where — ^well, 
 where 
 
 Smith, Where you were going to drive to 
 when you'd got the tyres tight — if I may 
 adopt your own cheery metaphorical style, 
 Hofman ? 
 
 Edzvinson. And whither shall we drive to- 
 night, charioteer ? 
 
 Smith. Straight on. In the distance our 
 road may be obscure, but we shall have no 
 immediate difficulty in finding our way. 
 For we are at least certain of to-night's 
 destination. Physical training we must dis- 
 cuss: and here all sane men are with us in 
 our efforts to discover how to preserve, main- 
 tain, and encourage health in our pupils. 
 However, since we are not doctors, we must, 
 I fear, confine ourselves to generalities. 
 
 Now health, I think, should be, they say, 
 not merely a harmony after the Platonic 
 style, but positive and exuberant 
 
 Edzvinson. Won't that tend to some rather 
 depressing forms of heartiness ? I don't like 
 people who slap one on the back and poke 
 one in the ribs. 
 
 Smith. I don't much mind the type, especi- 
 ally among boys. It only means that the 
 
48 THE GRECIANS 
 
 intellect of your hearty man is not as well 
 trained as his body, or that the aggressor 
 has not enough natural outlet for the exercise 
 of his vivid animal strength. Or it may be 
 that he has not learnt manners. And the 
 hearty only offend those who are feeling 
 weak and depressed. In this mountain air, 
 my dear Edwinson, you are getting quite 
 hearty yourself, and I confidently expect to 
 see you playing leap-frog with Hofman to- 
 morrow afl the way down to Pistoia. 
 
 Hofman {with an air of raising the tone of the 
 conversation and, suggesting a good, theory for 
 contentious debate^. All schools should be on 
 heights. It is curious that altitude should 
 not only invigorate the body but elevate the 
 mind. 
 
 Smith. Height is not very necessary, Hof- 
 man, and has become a mania with some 
 people who seem to imagine that the Spartans 
 exposed their babies on the peak of Taygetus 
 in order to improve their health. Pure air 
 is what a school needs, but this pure air is of 
 little use unless we breathe it aU night long. 
 All our boys will sleep in the open air, with 
 just enough shelter to protect them from rain. 
 Colds will be a thing of the past: the 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 49 
 
 " general health. " of the school will improve 
 beyond belief: and not a school in England 
 has the courage to do it. 
 
 Let us now build our beautiful school on 
 the hills of imagination, and let us build it 
 on the south coast of England. For I have 
 a great faith in sunshine and sea. 
 
 Kofman. Down in Hampshire there is a 
 little village beside a great warm bay which 
 I loved best of all places when I was a boy. 
 Eastward a long wonderful spit of hard and 
 shell-strewn sand divides the bay from the 
 all-but-lake of a harbour; westward rise 
 white cliffs through which the tunnelling 
 agents of the world have delved unknown 
 and secret caves, or carved striding hollow 
 rocks such as Turner drew in his Polyphemus, 
 islanded out to sea. On land you have a 
 little level strip near the sea for playing fields 
 and a little shaven down on which to build 
 the school in all its pride; and near by are 
 moors, yellow in spring and red in autumn, to 
 keep our fancies young. 
 
 Smith. I know your unnamed bay and its 
 gentle scenery. Let us build there the school 
 of our dreams, and one day perhaps we will 
 
so THE GRECIANS 
 
 build on that shaven down a school in sub- 
 stance and reality. For dreams have been 
 realised before now, my friend: even school- 
 masters' dreams. Or have you never heard 
 of La Giocosa and the fair name of that great 
 humanist, Vittorino da Feltre, and how he 
 taught his Mantuans the rhythm of body 
 and mind, and was loved by them as few 
 schoolmasters have been loved before or 
 since those bright Renaissance days ? Yet 
 even in our imaginations and schemes let us 
 be honourably fearless, bold and practical, 
 and imagine not, like the bad poet, a golden 
 and misty dream, but like the good poet, a 
 strong and stirring reality. And since we 
 must construct the shape before we infuse 
 the spirit, let us first consider our portals and 
 windows. In what style shall our architect 
 build ? 
 
 Edwinson. Shall he build in splendid Gothic, 
 to match our old schools and cathedrals of 
 England ? 
 
 Smith. I hope not. Revived Gothic has 
 produced no single good building in England, 
 nor are Ul-lighted vaults suitable for a 
 school. We will have nothing to do with 
 renewals of old styles; we will not build 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 51 
 
 after the Greek fashion, or the Grseco-Roman, 
 or the Full Roman, or Byzantine, or the 
 Moorish, or the Perpendicular, or the Jaco- 
 bean, or the Gothic, or the Ruskin-Gothic. 
 Our style must be as new as our school. We 
 will not oblige ourselves to build in stone 
 because stone is symbolic, nor in brick 
 because brick is so lowly and Hebraic. We 
 shall build for comfort and utility, and obtain 
 our beauty not from the added ornamenta- 
 tion of an antique style, but from the prin- 
 ciples of symmetry and design. Indeed, I 
 imagine we shall build our school after the 
 American manner with iron and reinforced 
 concrete. Of aU methods of construction 
 this is the strongest, for the San Francisco 
 earthquake itself could not shake down the 
 tallest and slimmest buildings wrought of 
 this material. Therefore we shall build our 
 school with straight and simple harmonious 
 lines; and in so doing we may perhaps be 
 advancing into a new architectural style, 
 some day to be reckoned great and in its 
 turn worthy of imitation. 
 Edwinson. I feel it would be very horrible 
 to copy anything American, and the idea of 
 this shed arrangement of yours chills me. 
 
52 THE GRECIANS 
 
 Won't it look rather like a powder magazine, 
 with its great bare white walls ? 
 
 Smith. Who said we were going to have 
 bare white walls ? The delight and joy of my 
 building wiU be in fresco and statuary, not in 
 pointed windows, muUions, and leaded panes. 
 On the outside the school shall be a blaze of 
 colours — and if frescoes fade even in the 
 South of England so much the better for 
 the artists of future generations, who will 
 have to come and paint us new ones. Why, 
 we will get the greatest pointillist artist alive 
 to do our frescoes, for those sunlight effects 
 of his that can never be seen at a proper 
 distance in galleries will be grand in the open 
 air. But it would be out of place to consider 
 these details now: we must attack the 
 problem of health and waiving romance, 
 consider our building from the sanitary point 
 of view. That simplicity of construction 
 which we have chosen will surely go far to 
 solve the problems of hygiene. Easy venti- 
 lation, no corners for dirt, central heating, 
 mechanical dust extraction, desks arranged 
 so that the light comes over the boys' left 
 shoulders, electric light with shaded globes, 
 no carpets, mouldings, fire-grates, but a few 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 53 
 
 easily beaten mats and running water in 
 every bedroom, these things will be obvious 
 necessities to so modern an architect as ours 
 and we need say no more about them. We 
 must have also a sanatorium under the direct 
 management of a resident doctor. Strange 
 it is, though, that any school which has the 
 impertinence to ask over a hundred pounds a 
 year for training and keeping boys as boarders 
 should be destitute of these advantages. 
 
 Hofman. But we have not yet entered 
 directly into the subject of physical training. 
 Is there really any necessity to do so ? I 
 should have thought that we overdo it if 
 anything in our English schools. 
 
 Smith. Our system of games — and, consider- 
 ing all things, what a splended system it is! 
 — is quite unique. Do not laugh at me, 
 Hofman, I mean something more than a 
 platitude. Nowhere abroad, unless we count 
 America, can it be paralleled. On the whole, 
 it makes for the happiness of boys. Com- 
 pare the merry and confident aspect of our 
 English youth with the miserable, pinched, 
 prematurely earnest appearance of con- 
 tinental children. Think of the lives of 
 German schoolboys, embittered by the deadly 
 
54 THE GRECIANS 
 
 gymnastics, the huge classes, the incessant 
 cram, the perpetual and ruinous horror of 
 the final examination. Think of the ghastly 
 statistics of child suicide in Prussia. Is it 
 not this appalling system that is making the 
 modern German so different a man from. the 
 old — is making him the great brutalising force 
 of the world? How glorious is England in 
 comparison! Perhaps indeed our discussion 
 is futUe: did all public schools give such a 
 mental education as the most intelligent 
 boys receive at Winchester and Eton, it 
 would seem rash and Utopian to expect stiU 
 finer things of English education, for the 
 physical part of it is so invariably excellent. 
 But still, if there be little room for improve- 
 ment, so much the easier to fill up the space. 
 And after aU, our system of games and 
 sports has become very perverted. 
 
 My great objection is that we have so little 
 variety in our games. Cricket, for instance, 
 is usually the sole diversion of a boy's summer 
 term, except in the case of the three or four 
 schools which practice rowing. There is no 
 better game (we have heard this perhaps a 
 little too often) for encouraging -adroitness 
 of hand and quickness of eye; but it is of no 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 55 
 
 more use in the formation of bodily vigour 
 and beauty than any other outdoor, not 
 sedentary, occupation. Now cricket is a 
 pastime which only the proficient can possibly 
 enjoy: that is to say, it is a game fit for about 
 half the school. What happens to the other 
 boys in the long summer afternoons ? Are 
 they allowed to take such exercise as they 
 please, to walk, bicycle, or play tennis ? Very 
 rarely. Is there any school in Britain where 
 boys are taught those two superb, manly, and 
 most British exercises — the riding of a horse 
 and the sailing of a ship ? Is then the only 
 reasonable alternative enforced ? Are the 
 boys who dislike cricket and are incompetent 
 at it taught the game with special care, and 
 helped to take their part by diligent indivi- 
 dual instruction, like boys who are backward 
 in their work ? No, not anywhere in the 
 kingdom. What happens in most large 
 schools is that there are special games made 
 up of athletic dullards who are set three 
 times a week or more to play out amongst 
 each other the weariest, the most melancholy 
 of farces, captained by some unathletic, in- 
 effectual .classical scholar. For five hours the 
 diverting sport continues, interrupted by a 
 
S6 THE GRECIANS 
 
 roll call which ensures that no reprobate shall 
 have shirked this noble duty for a little aim- 
 less wandering among woods and hills. Only 
 too well do these incompetent and despicable 
 boys (none of them I am sure of the stuff 
 which has made England what she is) know 
 the emptiness of waiting, the interminable 
 dullness of fielding, the too brief joy of bat- 
 ting. Thus trained to perceive the inner 
 charm of cricket, what a welcome change, 
 what an instructive education, to spend from 
 time to time a whole sun-bright afternoon 
 watching, by compulsion, school matches. 
 
 The trouble in England is that we have 
 never taken games seriously enough. We 
 look upon them as a spectacle or show on a 
 level with the music hall and the variety 
 entertainment. How else could we endure 
 the existence of professionals ? In true sport 
 no professionalism could ever be admitted: 
 but as the thing is a show, why the profes- 
 sionals make it a better show. Let us have 
 professionals to instruct our boys and to roU 
 the pitch: for what other reason an intelli- 
 gent English sportsman should desire their 
 existence I cannot tell. 
 
 If we really consider the matter, we have 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 57 
 
 never treated athletics as a vital part of our 
 national physical training. We are always 
 intent upon the show games. We forget 
 that it is infinitely more important that boys 
 should enjoy themselves in some healthy way 
 really suited to their natures than that they 
 should become adepts in cricket or football. 
 
 Hofman. Cricket and similar games do, I 
 suppose, train character, and there is a 
 legend that they train boys in unselfishness, 
 although I have not particularly remarked 
 that school athletes are of a sweet, unselfish, 
 retiring disposition. But I must say I do 
 not consider cricket an ideal way of spend- 
 ing the afternoon even for the proficient 
 cricketers. It is played in the open air, but 
 it is not part of the outdoor life as I under- 
 stand it. 
 
 Smith. What do you mean by the outdoor 
 life? 
 
 Hofman. I suppose I am thinking of my 
 favourite pupils who spend the afternoon 
 with me exploring old quarries in the search 
 of fossils, or grubbing in ditches for rare 
 plants, or tracking birds and beasts with 
 infinite stealth to their lairs, not to destroy 
 but to observe. I look at them, tired, 
 
58 THE GRECIANS 
 
 healthy, happy, and voracious, returning 
 from a long tramp. Would that afternoon 
 have been better spent even in the most 
 brilliant cricket? The fact is, it's so much 
 less trouble to make all boys play one game 
 and stick to one occupation. I rather think 
 it's a neglect of duty on the part of their 
 teachers. 
 
 Smith. You are right as far as you go, Hof- 
 man. I think it is clear that we must have 
 more variety in our games and occupations. 
 Even pure athletics, such as running and 
 swimming, are rather neglected: there are a 
 thousand other games little played in schools 
 yet not contemptible and not unsuitable for 
 boys — fives, golf, tennis, lacrosse. What boy 
 even learns to punt, or is seriously taught to 
 drive a motor? Edwinson will doubtlessly 
 tell us that football and especially cricket are 
 very beautiful, picturesque games, very tradi- 
 tional and fine. But we are concerned with 
 English physique, which is more important 
 than English cricket, and to improve this 
 physique we must subject our weak or ill- 
 formed boys to special training. Men who 
 play cricket well may be round-shouldered, 
 men who row well may over-develop them- 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 59 
 
 selves on one side, and, according to a well- 
 substantiated legend, if they row too well 
 they die young. Gymnasts tend to assimi- 
 late to the Eugene Sandow type, to become 
 of dwarfed and monstrous appearance, with 
 exaggerated muscles standing out in knobs 
 all over their bodies. Rather, then, my 
 dear Edwinson, we will revert to the jj^riSev 
 dyav of your beloved Greeks: we will be 
 mindful of the types of Polycleitus. To do 
 this we must give a special, not a general, 
 gymnastic training: we must take our 
 athletics more seriously, and spend more 
 trouble over them. We will not permit boys 
 to stand in platoons and swing bars up and 
 down; we will not be delighted to watch 
 them promiscuously scrambling over the 
 horse and up the ladder; we will not let 
 them grow into short and hideous gymnasts, 
 but we will, with the aid of medical wisdom 
 and specialised gymnastics, cure round 
 shoulders, narrow chests, and spindle arms: 
 and I think we shall be rewarded for our 
 pains. 
 
 Hofman. Would you not teach them also 
 something about the laws of health and the 
 structure of the human body ? 
 
6o THE GRECIANS 
 
 Smith. The older boys and those who are 
 going to be doctors or artists may learn all 
 they like. How to bandage a wound, how 
 to save life, what to take for a cold every one 
 should know. But we must be very careful, 
 or we may give them that little knowledge 
 which is so dangerous; they will either not 
 say when they are ill and try to cure them- 
 selves, or whenever they have a pain in the 
 back they will come trembling to us and 
 announce that they have Bright's disease. 
 
 Hofman. Then about hours of work, holi- 
 days, and so forth, are you contented with 
 the present-day system? I think it is an 
 important question. 
 
 Smith. There seems little to suggest. There 
 should be far less preparation of work in 
 evenings, far more direct plunging into a 
 new subject in class. There should never be 
 any work before breakfast at all, but boys 
 might get up earlier than they usually do — 
 at about 6.30 in summer, bathe, and have 
 breakfast at once; while in winter they need 
 not rise till about 8 o'clock. The youngest 
 boys, however, ought not to get up as early 
 as suggested in summer or their day will be 
 too long. There should be two half-holidays 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 6i 
 
 a week in the winter terms with a short and 
 interesting hour's work in the late afternoon, 
 but three full half-holidays a week in 
 summer; and every opportunity should be 
 given to boys for spending their Sundays in 
 excursions over the country side, for the 
 attendant evils of these excursions — the irate 
 farmer whose horse has been ridden round a 
 field, the boy with the catapult, the boy who 
 goes into a public house to be grand and 
 drinks a mug of beer, and the dog who sur- 
 reptitiously buys Black Dog cigarettes — are 
 not very terrible after all, and the attendant 
 advantages are too great to be missed. 
 
 Hofman. We shall not, I hope, maintain 
 discipline with the rod ? 
 
 Smith. We shall, Hofman. There is, I 
 admit, a certain peril of the flagellant vices. 
 But we must run so inconsiderable a risk for 
 the sake of considerable advantages. At any 
 rate we shall not lend ourselves, to the vulgar 
 opinion of those sentimentalists who consider 
 it degrading to endure physical pain, and 
 laying a practically obscene stress on the 
 torments of physical discomfort pathetically 
 invite us to use moral suasion. Punishment 
 is absolutely necessary in a large school. It 
 
62 THE GRECIANS 
 
 must be proportionable to the offence, and 
 the only two possible punishments that are 
 so proportionable are detention and caning. 
 In the hours of detention we should insist 
 that a boy be occupied in some form of 
 hard but profitable work: malicious penalties, 
 such as the assignment of " lines," we shall 
 esteem beneath us. Boys would usually 
 themselves prefer to be dealt with quickly 
 and summarily, and it is very possible we 
 shall give them the choice of treatment when 
 we can. Most head-masters nowadays are 
 extremely careful not to touch particularly 
 delicate and nervous boys, and the days 
 when floggings in school were a real and 
 serious evil ceased with the death of that 
 head-master, often called great, who made 
 his school famous as the place " where they 
 flogged the boys so." When we punish boys 
 we shall, I fear, have to lecture them a little; 
 they must be aware of our displeasure, parti- 
 cularly if the offence is of a mean or under- 
 hand kind; they must be clearly shown that 
 they have done the sort of thing the best 
 boys do not do. On the other hand, if they 
 are caught smoking, or arraigned for juvenile 
 clamour, we will not weep over the enormity 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 63 
 
 of the offence, but deal with, it succinctly. I 
 may be wrong in this : to tell you the truth, 
 I consider the sentimentalist more poisonous 
 than the flagellant. 
 
 Edwinson. We have perhaps left the most 
 difficult problem untouched. 
 
 Smith {cheerfully). Oh, the sex problem: there 
 is no difficulty about that. Or if there is 
 it lies in the sentimental obtuseness of the 
 public. Wells has settled the matter for ever 
 by suggesting a book on the subject; and 
 such a book every boy in the school shall 
 possess. It must contain the exact truth 
 without exaggerating dangers or threatening 
 hell. It must clearly state that the popular 
 prejudices are against certain things, without 
 agreeing or disagreeing with those prejudices. 
 It will clearly add that, for the school's sake, 
 any immorality discovered will be severely 
 and corporally punished. We can avoid in 
 our open-air system as well as in any other 
 those pernicious partitioned dormitories, 
 which so obviously foster vice. We shall not 
 expel boys; and we shall not, like the con- 
 ventional head-master, pretend to faint with 
 horror when we discover others acting as we 
 might perhaps with a little temptation have 
 
64 THE GRECIANS 
 
 acted ourselves, had we ever been members 
 of so monastic an establishment as a public 
 school. 
 
 Edwinson. The chapel is perhaps a help. 
 
 Smith. Emotional purity in the young is to 
 my mind an insidious form of indecency. It 
 is laying too much stress on things. The 
 normal boy troubles as little about the matter 
 as possible: and he is perfectly and entirely 
 right. 
 
 So saying Smith seemed to think he had 
 exhausted the question, for he changed the 
 subject a little abruptly and began to criti- 
 cise the poetry of Browning. 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TECHNICAL TRAINING 
 
 The three friends were at Pistoia. 
 
 They had arrived a little after noon, and 
 had spent an hour or two already in observa- 
 tion, and were entranced that this little town 
 should be a treasure mine of beauty, and 
 contain more fair and noble creations than 
 three English counties. For in it are many 
 large churches of white marble striped with 
 black, fascinating the curious. And there is 
 a pleasant Duomo and a noble baptistery. 
 And a superb pulpit by him of Pisa who first 
 learnt from unearthed Greek marbles that 
 even stone men may move and be divine. 
 And very old curious reliefs by Gruamons 
 and Adodat, who did not know this. And, 
 above all, there is the finest work of the Delia 
 Robbias, that frieze on the Ospedale, where 
 in bright-coloured relief are sweetly repre- 
 sented the seven Works of Mercy. Thus it 
 was that, possessed by that peace and large- 
 67 
 
68 THE GRECIANS 
 
 ness of the spirit that comes to those who 
 have lovingly contemplated works of beauty 
 and structures of delight, they sat down in the 
 evening in a little cafe in a side street and, 
 just as the last rays of sunset were leaning 
 across the plain to kiss the Apennines, 
 earnestly re-opened their discussion. 
 
 Hofmati. As far as I can remember what 
 you said at Bologna, we must now deal with 
 technical training, that is, with instruction 
 given in order to enable our boys to earn 
 their livings. It seems we must either give 
 a few general ideas or enter into a mass of 
 detail and suggest what is necessary for each 
 profession or trade. 
 
 Edwinson. Trade? I presumed we were 
 reforming the ordinary English public school. 
 Are we going to reform board-school educa- 
 tion as well ? 
 
 Smith. We cannot talk about a select school 
 while we are considering ideals of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Edwinson. But we cannot under any con- 
 ceivable circumstances educate together our 
 diplomats and our shoeblacks. 
 
 Smith. Which would be injured most if we 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING 69 
 
 did, I wonder: our diplomats or our shoe- 
 blacks ? 
 
 Edzoinson. It would only vulgarise our diplo- 
 mats and make our shoeblacks discontented. 
 
 Smith. Then you consider that discontent 
 in a shoeblack is not divine, and that the 
 quality of a gentleman is skin deep ? Never 
 mind, Edwinson. You believe in aristocracy, 
 and so do I. You hate vulgarity of manners; 
 I dislike it also, but not as much as I dislike 
 vulgarity of mind. If I do not hold your 
 belief in the British aristocracy of to-day it is 
 because I find that most of them, except 
 those few who are actively engaged in state 
 service, are both vacuous and vulgar. You 
 may know them better than I do, but, as far 
 as I can judge, their views on art and life are 
 as vulgar as their taste in amusement and 
 their attitudes in motor cars. Our philo- 
 sophers and artists find little of the encourage- 
 ment from them which they would have 
 infallibly obtained two hundred years ago: 
 they have been forced to take sides with 
 democracy. Some day perhaps our men of 
 sense and wisdom wiU form a party to them- 
 selves and wrest the reins of government 
 from demagogues and quacks. But you 
 
70 THE GRECIANS 
 
 know well enough that our best and most 
 venerable public schools contain numbers of 
 boys whose grandfathers were, shall we say, 
 shoeblacks, and that some of these boys are 
 tolerable and some the reverse, because some 
 have minds and some have not. It is educa- 
 tion that refines and mental quiescence that 
 degrades. We will have no deformed natures 
 in our school; but we will teach all who are 
 capable of receiving instruction how to talk 
 pleasant English and to behave prettily. 
 Phonetics will help us. And any poor boy 
 of mean birth who shows himself worthy of 
 the higher education shall receive it. We 
 will make a scheme to help them out of the 
 school funds, partly by giving scholarships, 
 partly by lending them money to be repaid 
 when they are in secure positions, earning a 
 fair income. If a duke's son, on the other 
 hand, shows himself incapable of learning 
 manners, he shall either learn the trade for 
 which he is fitted or leave us. 
 
 Edwinson. I am afraid the dukes will not 
 send their sons to us. 
 
 Smith. Then we will hope to have the sons 
 of north country artisans: the class has 
 begun to think independently and to delight 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING 71 
 
 in reading, and they are the best class of 
 men in England. But to return to our 
 technical training. Not only is it impossible 
 to talk about separate trade details, but also 
 impossible to build the small town which we 
 would require if we were going to teach a 
 number of trades. A boy will have to leave 
 school early if he wants to specialise in book- 
 binding or horse training. So we will talk 
 first of all of those things which will be useful 
 to all boys throughout life, and beginning 
 at the beginning we must consider reading 
 and writing. We must teach them spelling 
 rationally and by derivation 
 
 Edwinson. But if they know no Latin ? 
 
 Smith. A boy can learn that medius means 
 middle without spending years at Cicero and 
 Horace. You can tell a boy that the word 
 we pronounce fewsha is connected with the 
 German for a fox even if he hasn't read and 
 could not read the second part of Faust. 
 And I don't much mind about spelling when 
 all is said and done: it is matter of a special 
 faculty of observation, and a man may be a 
 splendid engineer and write " parallel " with 
 an " 1 " too few. That boys ought to learn to 
 read beautifully is a fact so obvious that it 
 
72 THE GRECIANS 
 
 has been universally forgotten: our young 
 men are a tribe of mumblers. But it is about 
 writing that I have very definite suggestions 
 to make. I am convinced of the futility of 
 copy-books, double-lined paper, and aU other 
 aids to calligraphy. I am persuaded that it 
 is absurd to worry about the writing of a 
 child of ten : I am also persuaded that it is 
 very important to worry about the writing 
 of a boy of fifteen. To teach beauty of 
 writing is perhaps impossible; the beauty of 
 a writing lies in its character, and nothing 
 is more revolting than a copper -plate fist. 
 But we can teach legibility, and even speed. 
 
 Then we should consider arithmetic. But, 
 Hofman, you know more about that than I do. 
 
 Hofman. I think I can point out to you a 
 serious mistake which modern educationalists 
 make. They want little boys to be so intelli- 
 gent. They yearn to show them the reason 
 of things. They would like them to work 
 out for themselves the theory of subtraction, 
 and they revel in a horribly complicated system 
 of shortened division. It is so much easier 
 for a small boy to learn things by rule. Let 
 the problems of numbers come when he has 
 learnt his tables, and can add up money. 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING 73 
 
 and has mastered the fair twin systems of 
 fractions. 
 
 Smith. Yes, Hofman, and do you think 
 we need worry them with any but the 
 most important of our horrible weights and 
 measures ? Might we not keep hidden from 
 them the mysteries of pecks, scruples, and 
 bushels till they come actually to need them, 
 and abolish discount sums, stock and share 
 sums, compound interest sums till the days 
 when they have more than fourpence a week 
 to spend on speculation. Shall we not tire 
 of papering rectangular rooms with square 
 windows ? But since we are going to have 
 workshops they will be able to take a prac- 
 tical interest in many of these things. The 
 measuring of the wood and the calculation 
 of its price will not in our school be left to 
 the carpenter, and the misfits of home-made 
 cupboard doors will give them sound lessons 
 in practical geometry. 
 
 Edzvinson. We have now mentioned read- 
 ing, writing, and arithmetic. Will our hope- 
 lessly stupid people, our bricklayers and 
 bootblacks, need anything more ? 
 
 Smith. In the ideal state, as I conceive it, 
 they would not. The government would 
 
74 THE GRECIANS 
 
 ensure that these limited individuals should 
 live in comfort and cleanliness, and be paid 
 in proportion to the simplicity of their occu- 
 pations. In an ideal country, if any of them 
 in after years found his intellect developing, 
 and began to read books in our free libraries, 
 he could at any time take the state examina- 
 tion and, by passing it, become entitled to a 
 more profitable and less humdrum occupation. 
 Hofntan. If schools like ours were established 
 all over this ideal England, and if you were to 
 give all boys a real chance, unskilled labour 
 would become very dear. 
 Smith. Then we shall have to invent more 
 machines to take the place of unskilled labour, 
 my dear Hofman. But we do not live in an 
 ideal England, but in a country where the 
 stupidest boys may be the heirs to fortunes, 
 for all we know, and where they aU will 
 certainly be entitled to votes. Let us then 
 consider what might be done under existing 
 circumstances. I think our plan wiU be this. 
 We will wait tiU the boys are fifteen years old, 
 and then we will take those who are deriving 
 no benefit from their more advanced classes 
 which they attend and put them in a class 
 together, where we must endeavour to teach 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING 75 
 
 them, if we can, the elementary rules of argu- 
 ment, and even show them that they need 
 not believe a thing because it is printed and 
 published. We shall perhaps be able to do 
 this by means of examples of vicious argu- 
 ment and petitiones frincifii cuUed from the 
 daily papers. Also they ought to know a 
 little of the inner working of political events 
 during the last twenty years, and we will 
 read to them the best stories of English 
 history to make them proud of their country. 
 Also, if we are cynical, we will teach them 
 the doctrines of Carlyle to make them proud 
 of their work. And if a Plato arises to turn 
 political economy into something at once 
 simple and profound, we will teach them 
 that. We shall fail perhaps to make any 
 impression on these unfortunates, but we 
 shall not have been guilty of neglect. 
 
 Hofman. But the difficulty is that we cannot 
 really divide our school up into sheep and 
 goats, or wise and foolish, even by examina- 
 tion. We are going to have in our school 
 boys of a hundred different grades of intelli- 
 gence, a hundred different aptitudes. 
 
 Smith. And we shall have to grade our 
 instruction accordingly. Our guardians, our 
 
^e THE GRECIANS 
 
 brilliant boys, our ^vXaKes, will learn every- 
 thing they can. But obviously our doctors 
 will have more of the instruction we give to 
 our <^v\a.Kf.<i- than our bakers or butchers. 
 All that is a mere matter of detail. 
 
 Hofman. Ah, had you ever been a school- 
 master, Smith, you would not prattle so 
 merrily about matters of detail. We have 
 not yet said a word about the higher educa- 
 tion: but look at the mess in which we are 
 already involved. Boys who are going to be 
 bootblacks wiU be attending the bottom 
 class in political economy; boys in the top 
 class of political economy will be attending 
 the lowest class in bootblacking. It seems 
 your rule is simply this, that we are going to 
 teach everybody everything they can learn. 
 
 Smith. Not such a bad ideal either, Hofman, 
 but the picture you draw is perverse and un- 
 just. However, I think it would be better 
 to put a little order into the apparent chaos 
 in this way. We are going to draw a sharp 
 dividing line in our table of school hours. 
 The morning will be spent entirely in teach- 
 ing boys things that will help them to earn 
 their money. The morning will be devoted 
 to workshops, bookkeeping, shorthand, all 
 
TECHNICAL TRAINING tj 
 
 work of any sort that is done with the object 
 of passing examinations, not excluding that 
 specialised training in writing Greek and 
 Latin poetry which enables a man to gain 
 scholarships and earn his living as a don. Of 
 course it will be hard to arrange, for boys 
 may be going to earn money in a thousand 
 different ways; but we have pointed out that 
 very few of the more specialised sorts of 
 technical training can be given in school. 
 It comes to little more than saying that the 
 ordinary school work done on the scientific 
 or modern side of an up-to-date school day 
 will be compressed into the morning, with 
 the huge advantage that we are neither going 
 to worry our scientist with Greek irregular 
 verbs nor our architects with chemistry 
 from the moment when the boy or his parents 
 or we ourselves, judging from the boy's pre- 
 ferences and character, have decided what 
 profession he is to follow. Before the age of 
 fifteen, by which time he ought to have made 
 up his mind, a boy will be given his chance 
 of working at various studies and occupations 
 to test his capacity or preference. 
 The afternoon we shall employ in real 
 education — but Florence is the place where 
 
78 THE GRECIANS 
 
 we will talk of that, nor could I imagine a 
 better scene for so high a discussion. 
 
 Edwinson. It is a pity we cannot connect 
 Pistoia too with our technical training, since 
 Florence will be so suitable, and we con- 
 nected Bologna with the inaugural discus- 
 sion and the mountain heights with physical 
 accomplishments. 
 
 Smith. Well, Pistoia used to be a great 
 manufacturing town in the old days. It was 
 the birthplace of pistols : hence its name. 
 
 Hofman. See Baedeker. 
 
THE GRECIANS OR TRUE 
 EDUCATION 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE GRECIANS OR TRUE EDUCATION 
 
 The melodious name of Florence calls up 
 such delightful and extravagant memories 
 that many wayfarers who have the love of 
 books and pictures in their souls have been 
 disappointed with the austere appearance of 
 the city, with her narrow yet straight and 
 gloomy streets, her huge rectangular palaces, 
 her vast and unsatisfying cathedral. But if 
 on a summer afternoon a man should ascend, 
 as our friends ascended, the hill of Fiesole he 
 would see from that famous eminence the 
 City of Flowers wonderfully set among her 
 gardens and villas, and he would appreciate 
 that tremendous dome which rises high above 
 the plain of Arno, like some fabled antique 
 omphalos of the world, and he might cry, 
 perverting to himself that gentle ballad of 
 old.— 
 
 Where will you bury me ? In Saint Mary of the Flower. 
 Wherewith will you cover me ? With violets and roses. 
 8l F 
 
82 THE GRECIANS 
 
 They sat on the terrace of a little inn gazing 
 at the prospect in the glorious light of after- 
 noon, for they had already stretched forth 
 their hands over the dainties and eaten and 
 drunk in abundance. It had been arranged 
 that they should not discuss what Smith 
 called true education, but that he should 
 write down for them his thoughts on the 
 subject in connected form. And this he 
 had done. 
 
 " Do let us hear you read now, Harold," 
 said Edwinson. 
 
 The young man took a sheaf of paper out 
 of his pocket and quietly began. 
 
 " I require that those who listen to my 
 words should hold one faith with me. They 
 must believe with me in the value of human 
 reason; they must love beautiful things and 
 consider them important; they must be 
 enthusiastic for their feUow-men. They must 
 believe that it is possible to learn, and even 
 that it is possible to teach. Otherwise my 
 words win be vain and convey neither mean- 
 ing nor persuasion. 
 
 " I have to realise that I have little new to 
 say. I, like Plato, desire to create </>uA.aK£s, 
 If we really understand that golden book of 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 83 
 
 the Republic, such a type of the classic in 
 its form, so strangely modern in its theory,- 
 so simple and so subtle, we shall perhaps 
 think that no more need be said, and that 
 by close following of its precepts we may be 
 able to create <f>vX.aK€i in modern England. 
 We must realise that in attacking poetry as 
 a means of education Plato is merely attack- 
 ing under a decent veil the popular religion 
 of which Homer was the Bible; we must be 
 perpetually on the watch for Plato's quiet 
 humour: and then the Republic becomes for 
 us in practical matters a wise and attrac- 
 tive guide. Yet we have to adapt Plato's 
 theories to the modern world, and that is 
 what I shall now attempt: forgive me, then, 
 if I become dull, prosaic, and detailed in my 
 ardour for common sense. I have not pre- 
 pared a surprise for you; I am not going to 
 expound any startling or novel theory; I am 
 not going to suggest a short cut to perfection, 
 but I am going to trace out in detail a course 
 of education which I hope will appeal to the 
 thoughtful as possible, desirable, and suffi- 
 cient. 
 
 " I must suppose, moreover, for my pur- 
 poses, that the school which is to rise on that 
 
84 THE GRECIANS 
 
 bright English bay of ours will somewhat 
 partake of the nature of a university. I 
 must have at least five years of a boy's in- 
 telligent life. For the education I intend to 
 give to those who are fit to receive it (whom 
 I intend henceforward to call Grecians, 
 borrowing a delightful term from the tradi- 
 tions of Christ's Hospital) is very universal 
 and very difficult. Keeping clear before me 
 all the danger I run of turning my pupils 
 into dilettanti, I am going to teach them to 
 be as far as possible universal in their com- 
 prehension and admiration of the mysteries 
 and beauties of life. Our Grecians when 
 they leave us will have seen, as it were from a 
 height suddenly, the whole world of know- 
 ledge stretching out in rich plains and un- 
 traversed seas. 
 
 " Let me at this point lay down very clearly 
 who these Grecians of mine will be. I intend 
 education to be given in the complete form 
 which I am going to describe to those boys 
 in the school who have the best and most 
 refined intelligence. In an ideal state these 
 boys would not have to earn their living: 
 they would automatically become rulers of 
 the state, or else be subsidised to live in 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 85 
 
 leisure as artists or critics. In our actual 
 England we can give this complete education 
 only to the sons of the rich, and to those few 
 boys which our school funds enable us to 
 support, not only here, but afterwards. To 
 give a boy this complete education we must 
 keep him till he is at least twenty-one. In 
 England of the present day he would find 
 himself at that age well prepared to take, 
 after another year's special work, such an 
 examination as that admitting to the Indian 
 Civil Service. I mention this because it may 
 show that some parents might risk leaving 
 their sons with us to receive a useless and 
 fine education and yet hope that boys so 
 educated might subsequently earn their 
 livings even in the existing state of society. 
 But the whole virtue and beauty of true 
 education must depend on its absolute isola- 
 tion from the prying influence of the state or 
 university. I do not mean by this that we 
 shall object to examinations as such, but 
 will have nothing to do with examinations 
 which lead us out of our chosen path. Our 
 only examinations will be the school exami- 
 nations. By examining boys and by no 
 other method shaU we admit them to our 
 
86 THE GRECIANS 
 
 select company; by examining we will assign 
 to them their rank in the school. I have 
 little patience with those who abuse exami- 
 nations. An examiner may be stupid and 
 set worthless papers; but provided the 
 papers be well set, examination is the sole 
 adequate test of a boy's capacity. For we 
 have no sympathy with Cecil Rhodes, nor 
 with the cheerful, popular, and chiefly 
 ignorant crowds who come to Oxford under 
 his fantastic testament: we do not like this 
 democratic selection of the prize favourites: 
 we pin our faith to a written and evident 
 intellectual superiority. We mistrust the boy 
 who is said to be ' very good at work really, 
 but no use at exams.' Such a boy is either 
 so morally deficient that he cannot rise to a 
 crisis and concentrate his energy and ideas — 
 and far be it from me to admit such a one to 
 be a Grecian — or else it rneans that he is 
 incapable of literary composition or self- 
 expression; or else that his thoughts and 
 facts are so confused that he cannot write 
 them down. There is a great deal wrong with 
 boys who fail at examinations. Further- 
 more, I believe in prizes; I refuse to expect 
 the young, however intelligent they may be, 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 87 
 
 and however delightful they may find their 
 studies, to show that single-hearted devotion 
 to work which we demand of the research 
 scholar or the specialist. 
 
 " How, then, shall we select those boys who 
 are to be given this most full education? 
 Entirely from those who are most proficient 
 in the afternoon work. What I am going to 
 discuss now is the education that the highest 
 form in the school wiU receive. Boys who 
 arrive at this high standard will be, where 
 possible, exempt from the technical training 
 accorded to others: they will devote morn- 
 ing and afternoon to the culture of the mind. 
 Now all boys in the school will be compelled 
 to take part in this afternoon work, be they 
 stupid or clever, old or young. The more 
 intelligent they are the more their profession 
 will have to suit itself to their education. 
 But we have not thought it worth while to 
 do more than suggest, by references here and 
 there, what the afternoon education will 
 mean in early years. And if I have confused 
 the ideal and real at times I think I may be 
 excused, for it is in reality quite easy to 
 perceive how far my ideal could be followed 
 at the present day. But to make quite 
 
88 THE GRECIANS 
 
 clear what I actually intend I will trace the 
 ordinary careers of Auberon, Arthur, Jack, 
 Montague, Peter and Tom. 
 
 " Auberon is the son of a rich nobleman 
 who has every faith in a humane education. 
 He does not require his boy to prepare for 
 any examinations, as he can get him a diplo- 
 matic or other post if the boy demands one. 
 Auberon arrives at school between the ages 
 of ten and twelve, knowing how to read, 
 write and add. As he is under no necessity 
 of learning a trade, or fitting himself for a 
 professional examination, he spends the morn- 
 ing hours attending lessons in the Latin and 
 French languages, which are being given to 
 those boys who have to take examinations 
 in the subject. He shines in the afternoon 
 classes: he has a passion for reading plays, 
 and is never weary of observing pictures. 
 In after years he soon passes the examina- 
 tion which admits him into our Grecians, 
 and follows their course of education, which 
 will shortly be described, staying with us to 
 the age of twenty-one. 
 
 " Arthur is little less gifted by nature than 
 Auberon, but his father cannot support him 
 in after life, and the school is not yet rich 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 89 
 
 enough to do so. He is allowed to attend all 
 sorts of classes in the morning: at the age 
 of fourteen he finds he prefers science to 
 languages, and determines to become a 
 doctor. At the same time he is admitted 
 as a Grecian. He must still continue under 
 the old system and work at science in the 
 morning and receive his general education in 
 the afternoon. It is obvious we can only 
 teach him some of the things we teach to 
 Auberon, so we choose for him the lightest 
 and most amusing parts of general education, 
 encourage him to read English and French, 
 and to listen to music, of which he is very 
 fond; and he accompanies us on those ex- 
 cursions into pure reason the nature of which 
 we will hereafter explain; but we do not 
 worry him with such difficult subjects as 
 Latin and Greek. We hope he wiU be no 
 worse a doctor and no less happy a man for 
 having once taken interest in things quite 
 outside his profession. 
 
 " Jack's parents are very poor indeed; as 
 a matter of fact they are grocers in a small 
 way, living at Kensal Rise. Yet Jack also 
 is one of our most charming and intelligent 
 boys. We have given him a scholarship at 
 
90 THE GRECIANS 
 
 school, but we cannot, unfortunately, support 
 him throughout life. We must assign him 
 a profession, and we choose for him the pro- 
 fession of classical scholarship as being one 
 of those in which a man may continue the 
 pursuit of pure learning. He will obviously 
 profit by the same Latin and Greek classes 
 which Auberon and his fortunate companions 
 attend in the mornings (these classes will be 
 in the mornings, I say, for the sake of the 
 many people like Arthur who are spending 
 the morning in the professional work and 
 have no time to spend on such a difficult 
 subject as classical learning, but are ready 
 to join their fellow Grecians in the afternoon). 
 But Jack will not be with Auberon for more 
 than the one morning hour which he devotes 
 to classics. Instead of sharing his lectures 
 on European history and art, he will be 
 working at the writing of Greek and Latin 
 compositions and unravelling the mysteries 
 of classical philology and grammar. We 
 never let him cram for his scholarship, yet 
 he obtains it, which is very surprising. 
 
 " Montague is like Auberon, the son of a 
 rich nobleman, but he has inherited from his 
 family an almost ineradicable stupidity. He 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 91 
 
 brightens up a little, however, when we talk 
 to him about railway engines and motor 
 boats. We frankly teU the duke that we 
 cannot give his son a good general education 
 because he is incapable of profiting by it, 
 but that we could turn him into a tolerable 
 engineer. The angry peer takes his son away 
 from us and sends him to Eton to learn the 
 Latin genders after writing an indignant 
 letter to The Times about our old English 
 traditions and the value of gentlemen. 
 Montague subsequently enters Parliament 
 and becomes a prominent high churchman. 
 
 "Peter's father is a decayed tradesman; 
 and as Peter is not a very brilliant boy, and 
 never becomes a Grecian, all he can hope for, 
 unless we help him, is to become a decayed 
 tradesman in his turn. Peter, however, is 
 quite good at mathematics and longs to 
 be a surveyor. If we can, we help him to 
 become one, on the understanding that he 
 will repay us in future days when he is earn- 
 ing a good income. Though we have made 
 no contract with him, contracts with minors 
 being invalid, Peter has old-fashioned notions 
 about what is honourable, and repays us as 
 soon as he is able. 
 
92 THE GRECIANS 
 
 " Tom's father, never a rich man, dies, 
 leaving nothing for Tom, who is a hopeless 
 donkey. We do not cut Tom adrift, but 
 procure for him a position on a ranch where 
 his athletic prowess will stand him in good 
 stead. Poor Tom! 
 
 " Having now suggested by these many 
 examples more clearly, I think, than I could 
 have done by pages of rules and explanations 
 the sort of way in which various boys wiU be 
 treated in our school, I will now pass on 
 directly to explain that course of education 
 which Auberon will follow and which will 
 occupy both his mornings and his afternoons 
 as soon as he has (perhaps at the age of 
 fifteen) passed the examination which admits 
 him a Grecian. 
 
 " In doing so I shall refer from time to time 
 to the beginnings of this education — to the 
 sort of study which occupied Auberon's after- 
 noons before he became a Grecian; but on 
 the whole I think I may leave the details of 
 his early education in the humanities to 
 common sense. 
 
 " The first point I want to emphasise is that 
 we intend to assign various importance to 
 the various branches of knowledge, of which 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 93 
 
 I hold some to be of far greater value than 
 others. 
 
 " First and above all things our guardians 
 must be philosophers. The world needs men 
 who think clearly, who consider facts in their 
 just proportion to the universe, who are not 
 carried away by winds of doctrine, who can 
 laugh the laugh of knowledge at epoch- 
 making thoughts from Buda - Pesth or at 
 scientific excursions into Christian apolo- 
 getics. 
 
 " Yet I do not think it will be necessary to 
 weary any boy who has not a special love of 
 philosophy with the details of the history of 
 thought, or of the hundred systems of a 
 hundred philosophers. Certain books indeed 
 he must peruse to sharpen his critical facul- 
 ties. But instead of worrying him with the 
 monads of Leibniz or with the premature 
 and cryptic utterances of Thales and Hera- 
 clitus, instead of expecting him to grasp 
 the curious theories of Avicenna, Hutchinson, 
 and Hobbes, we will teach him Plato, Aris- 
 totle, Kant, and some modern philosophies, 
 not that he may believe, but that he may 
 ponder; and at evening in the shady garden 
 overlooking the sea the Grecians wiU as- 
 
94 THE GRECIANS 
 
 semble round their Socrates for earnest dis- 
 cussion. This will be no neo- pagan revival, 
 but a real continuation of the work attempted 
 in the Academy of Athens. Moreover, we 
 will permit all manner of men to come and 
 talk to our boys, since thus only can we 
 prepare them for a life in the course of which 
 they will hear so many conflicting doctrines. 
 Pragmatists shall address them with urgent 
 persuasion on their lips; parsons shall work 
 on their tender emotions and threaten them 
 with the wrath of God; veiled mystics of 
 the East shall expound the Sufic ecstasy or 
 the Buddhist Nirvana, or exhibit the results 
 of that antique process, salvation through 
 starvation, to their shuddering gaze. Are 
 not our pupils (jivkaKt^^ Are they not 
 Grecians ? In the evening we wiU discuss 
 quietly together the Pragmatist, the Parson, 
 and the Hindu. 
 
 " But I am afraid a loud outcry wiU rise up 
 against us from the virtuous of this world. 
 ' What about their morals ? You are sap- 
 ping their morals, unholy corrupters of youth! 
 You deserve the' hemlock. Insist on a 
 religion for them, insist at least on the Kan- 
 tian categorical imperative, unless you desire 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 95 
 
 your boys to re-enact the worst crimes of the 
 house of Borgia.' 
 
 " But having a little moral shame ourselves 
 we do not teach them creeds in which we do 
 not believe in order to save ourselves trouble; 
 and we refuse in our talks on philosophy 
 to leave the categorical imperative uncriti- 
 tised. We teach our boys to think about 
 ethical problems, and a person not religiously 
 inclined might even think it was more moral 
 to think deeply about morality, and to take 
 some trouble to form an individual code of 
 ethics, than to take the whole matter on trust 
 from parents or priests. And the result of 
 our boldness will perhaps not be so very 
 dreadful. Intelligent young men (as far as 
 my university experience goes) are seldom 
 bestial or outrageous in their desires, and, 
 curious to relate, I have known hundreds of 
 delightful people who have lived the most 
 refined, elegant, and humane lives without 
 the aid of religion or even of ethics. 
 
 " But the pure philosopher is not a sufficient 
 ideal. We may find, we often do find, that 
 such a man is wanting in several respects. 
 In resolution, in power of command, in ability 
 to deal with a crisis he may fail : but we must 
 
96 THE GRECIANS 
 
 confess that no mental education can form 
 these high qualities. For them we must look 
 to a boy's natural endowments, and perhaps 
 to the physical training he receives; and to 
 test them we must consider his influence with 
 others. But we may also find a pure philo- 
 sopher very deficient in his appreciation of 
 the joy of life: and education can do some- 
 thing for him here. For the joy of life is not 
 to be understood by the reading of Norwegian 
 drama, but is the heritage of those who have 
 unlocked the secret door that leads into the 
 garden of the senses. 
 
 " Hateful to me are those ignorant and 
 thoughtless people who say that taste has 
 no rules and that art cannot be taught: 
 never did a more pernicious heresy flourish. 
 It is quite true that we cannot inspire the 
 blind with a passion for Rembrandt, or cause 
 the mentally deranged to read Shakespeare 
 with delight. But one can always take an 
 intelligent boy (I speak from experience) and 
 teach him first of aU the history of art; and 
 in the next place one can teach him to read, 
 look, or listen with observation and intelli- 
 gence. During this time, while he is acquir- 
 ing what we may call artistic experience, he 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 97 
 
 will have become vaguely appreciative. Now 
 and only now is the time to instruct him in 
 the principles of aesthetic law. For such law 
 exists: it is not a mere matter of individual 
 taste whether Velazquez be a better artist 
 than Marcus Stone or not; or Milton greater 
 than Keble and Vaughan. Velazquez is a 
 better artist than Mr. Stone. The law is a 
 complicated law, of course, but to consider 
 its principles will be helpful; and it is re- 
 freshing for those who are bewildered by the 
 disagreement of aesthetic experts to note that 
 the greater knowledge those experts have, the 
 more striking is their agreement in matters 
 of appreciation. 
 
 " The three great arts I would place in this 
 order of educational importance — literature, 
 representation, music. I know there are 
 some who consider music to be the purest 
 and best of arts, because it requires for its 
 comprehension no external intellectual effort, 
 but makes a direct appeal to the emotions. 
 The justice of this contention depends on our 
 ideal of an art: that music has less educa- 
 tional importance than the two other sister 
 arts becomes obvious if we admit the 
 contention of those who make this lofty 
 
98 THE GRECIANS 
 
 claim for music. For the understanding of 
 a picture we require our previous observation 
 of tangible objects, perhaps an appreciation 
 of the value and expression of human 
 emotions, certainly a subtle sympathy with 
 a period of the world's art, life, and manners. 
 But it is literature which appeals especially 
 to educators as being always a criticism of 
 life, however incomplete we may feel that 
 definition to be: through reading literature 
 we enhance our delight in life. 
 
 " We must therefore give our boys the most 
 complete literary training possible, not often 
 worrying them by examinations and com- 
 mentaries, nor ever dreaming to make them 
 acquainted with all the great books of the 
 world before the age of twenty-one. Instead 
 we shall permit them to read in a pleasant 
 library, and give them advice or organise 
 competitions in special subjects from time 
 to time. I see no reason why Grecians or 
 any other boys should ever be allowed to 
 read perfectly worthless tales of adventure 
 and magazine stuff, except to find therein 
 examples of bad style and stupidity. This I 
 suggest in no puritan spirit, with the idea 
 that tales of pure delight or adventure are in 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 99 
 
 themselves evil, but because England has 
 produced Anthony Hope, Maurice Hewlett, 
 Gilbert Chesterton among her minor writers 
 of romance, not to mention those truly great 
 narrators of splendid and exciting tales — 
 Stevenson, Kipling, and Conrad, Of poetry 
 also our boys must read the best. We will 
 not give even our youngest boys inferior or 
 so-called patriotic poetry to read, out of the 
 false conception that such despicable stuff is 
 specially suitable to a childish understanding. 
 Yet though we will keep away from them 
 the ' May Queen,' ' Casablanca,' and the 
 ' Battle of the Baltic,' we will certainly en- 
 liven the interest of the young in - verse by 
 giving them to read such good stories as 
 ' Sohrab and Rustum,' ' Enid and Geraint,' 
 or the ' White Ship.' We shall teach them, 
 moreover, that there are other beauties in 
 poetry beyond inetrical swing, and neither 
 in reading English nor in reading classical 
 verse shall boys, once the metre is mastered, 
 ever be allowed to read to the obvious tramp 
 of metre in a boarding-school sing-song 
 style. It is so easy to make them read with 
 more application of the refinements of poetic 
 stress. Nor shall we fall into the opposite 
 
loo THE GRECIANS 
 
 error and let them imagine, like our great 
 actors, that blank verse should be read like 
 prose. But they shall read with dignity, 
 slowly, with realisation of the beauty of each 
 word, and of how in verse each word has its 
 value, not only of sense, but of sound and as- 
 sociation; they shall pause at the end of the 
 lines and mark the metre subtly and not 
 grossly: and all this may be taught to the 
 wise. 
 
 " We will train our Grecians in the percep- 
 tion of different styles by giving them exer- 
 cises to write in the varying styles of our 
 English authors. We expect boys to write 
 mock Cicero and Tacitus; why, in the 
 name of common sense, can they not write 
 mock Gibbon or Carlyle? Nor do I think 
 for a minute that these exercises will hinder 
 any from forming in later years an original 
 style, but rather the reverse should happen, 
 for boys so instructed wiU very clearly under- 
 stand before they leave us that style is at- 
 tained by scrupulous care and individuality 
 of expression. In the same way we shall 
 write English, not Greek or Latin, poetry, 
 and, strange to say, we shall take these com- 
 positions more and not less seriously than 
 
TRUE EDUCATION loi 
 
 the classical verse is taken now. We shall 
 not give a prize once a year for some absurd 
 heroics on a set theme, but we shall very 
 diligently teach the art of verse, initiating 
 our boys by setting them to write verse trans- 
 lations from poems in other tongues. Our 
 criticism will be ruthless: we shall point out 
 vulgarity of idea, insufficiency of thought, 
 staleness of metaphor, harshness of sound. 
 We shall not necessarily produce great poets 
 by this training, but we shall certainly pro- 
 duce young men who love poetry and (what 
 is rarer still) who understand it. The artist 
 may have an incomplete understanding of 
 poetry; but only the artist can have a com- 
 plete understanding of it. 
 
 "It is here that we must consider which 
 dead or living tongues our guardians must 
 know, for we shall consider at present the 
 learning of a language merely as a means of 
 reading a new literature. Latin and Greek 
 are inevitable both from the intrinsic merit of 
 their literature and from the force of the 
 historical tradition which Edwinson once so 
 fluently pointed out. But our teaching of 
 these languages will be revolutionary except 
 in the case of those boys who are taking them 
 
102 THE GRECIANS 
 
 as part of their technical training in order to 
 win university scholarships. There will be 
 no writing, and certainly (if Dr. Rouse will 
 forgive us) no speaking, of Latin and Greek. 
 We shall let such portions of the grammar 
 as are not very important (genders and the 
 parts of Latin verbs) be rather learnt in the 
 course of reading than laboriously committed 
 to memory. We shall read very quickly in 
 class, and confine ourselves to works which 
 are either good in themselves, historically 
 interesting, or influential on subsequent 
 thought. We shall divert the young with 
 Homer, easiest of great poets, with Lucian's 
 Vera Historia, with a few legends of old Rome 
 from Livy, and with fairy tales from 
 Apuleius. We will not weary even Grecians 
 with Thucydides when he talks about dreary 
 expeditions into ^tolia; but all Grecians 
 shall read the fate of the Sicilian expedition 
 and learn by heart the speech of Pericles. 
 Into Demosthenes we wiU only dip; of 
 Sophocles and Euripides we will select the 
 finest plays and read them, as well as the 
 iEschylean trilogy, more than once. Hero- 
 dotus we shall read through lightly, as is 
 fitting, and we shall take parts in the plays of 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 103 
 
 Aristophanes in merry congress; of Plato we 
 shall never weary, for he is good for the soul. 
 Nor shall we presume to forget Theocritus 
 and the lyric fragments, or those unfading 
 roses of the Anthology which teU how roses 
 fade. And only for the very young shall we 
 bowdlerise anything, since we are dealing, not 
 with urchins, but with the select and chosen 
 few. , 
 
 " In Latin we will trouble no reasonable soul 
 with Plautus and Terence, or with more of 
 Cicero than is needed to grasp the excellent 
 style of that second-rate intellect. Of Ovid 
 too, who is only interesting when immoral, 
 we shall read, for the style's sake, some of the 
 duller portions. To the claims of those death- 
 less school-books, the Mneid of Virgil, the 
 Odes of Horace, and the Satires of Juvenal, 
 we shall submit, for their fame is deserved; 
 Lucretius and Catullus are too obvious to 
 mention; TibuUus is a sleepy fellow; and 
 from Propertius we select. Tacitus teUs us 
 much history and is pleasant to read, nor are 
 the letters of Pliny the Younger disagreeable ; 
 but Caesar I would abandon to the historical 
 specialist and Livy I would read in haste. 
 Of Apuleius only one book is essentially 
 
I04 THE GRECIANS 
 
 disagreeable: the rest is charming, and too 
 long neglected. 
 
 " Now the total bulk of aU that I have 
 commended as readable in these two languages 
 is not very large, and could easily be stowed 
 away into some twenty weU-printed volumes. 
 As soon as the preliminaries are mastered we 
 shall read through the classics for three hours 
 a week for three years. No boy except the 
 specialist shall begin Latin or Greek till he is 
 fifteen years old: this will ensure, I think, 
 that 'he does not waste about five years in 
 learning grammar, but attacking a not very 
 difficult subject at a riper age, will master it 
 within a quarter of the time it would have 
 taken him had he, after the usual school 
 fashion, begun Latin at the age of nine and 
 Greek at the age of eleven. He should there- 
 fore be ready at the age of sixteen for our 
 three years' classical course, and though we 
 shall not spend anything like as much time 
 over the classics as do other schools which 
 are still hampered by the Renaissance and 
 scholastic traditions, and by external exami- 
 nations, I believe our boys wiU love the 
 classics more and obtain a fuller understand- 
 ing of the classical spirit than those to whom 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 105 
 
 Latin and Greek are a ceaseless drudgery 
 and evil. I believe they will learn, no less 
 than others have learnt, from these time- 
 honoured studies that calm and even fervour 
 of mind, that sane and serene love of beauti- 
 ful things, that freedom from religious bigotry 
 and extravagance which marks the writings 
 of the Greeks, and that seriousness, decorum, 
 and strength, that sense of arrangement and 
 justice which marks the writings and still 
 more the history of the Romans. 
 
 " We have now to consider in how many 
 modern European tongues we are going to 
 give universal instruction, not forgetting 
 that our Grecians are going to have so much 
 time to themselves, so many hours when 
 they are simply to go into the library and 
 read, that it will be easy for us to encourage 
 and help any boy of linguistic ability who, 
 discontented with what we can teach him, 
 desires to enrich his knowledge of those 
 languages he learns in school, or to attempt 
 some rarer and more exciting tongue — 
 Spanish, Swedish, Russian, or even Persian, 
 fired perhaps by the eloquence of some 
 literary specialist, whom we have invited to 
 lecture at the school, and his translated 
 
io6 THE GRECIANS 
 
 extracts. But I may surprise some if I say at 
 the outset that I cannot consider that there 
 is any but the slightest educational value in 
 the actual acquisition of a modern language, 
 in learning to speak it, read it, or write it, 
 apart from the serious study of the litera- 
 ture, history, and traditions of a foreign 
 people. Any German clerk, as Hofman re- 
 marked when he so briefly dismissed those 
 who suggested that a good modern language 
 education was a fine practical thing, any 
 cosmopolitan or Swiss innkeeper, any half- 
 breed dragoman can gabble six or seven 
 tongues, and sometimes gabble them cor- 
 rectly; and the dreariest lady student from 
 Russia can speak beautiful French and pass- 
 able German, and yet not have in her head 
 a single Russian, not to speak of a German or 
 French, idea. 
 
 " Nevertheless, very fine is the spirit of the 
 true linguist, which I admit to be a very 
 different thing from the mere spirit of literary 
 curiosity which desires to learn just enough 
 of a language to read some favourite or 
 famous author in the original. The true 
 linguist revels in fantastic grammars where 
 the verbs open out in the middle to make 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 107 
 
 themselves passive or negative, and numerals 
 agree with, singular masculine nouns in the 
 genitive feminine plural. He delights in 
 learning and in reproducing curious scripts 
 whose mysterious systems of dots, segmented 
 circles, or paintbrush strokes have charmed 
 his eye. He revels in making obscure noises 
 foreign to the English ear, and in planning 
 out euphonic changes and philological laws. 
 If we have a boy filled with this spirit among 
 our Grecians we shall be delighted, we shall 
 provide him with all manner of grammars 
 and dictionaries, and persuade his parents to 
 send him abroad for the summer holidays to 
 perfect himself. 
 
 " But we shall not have the time nor the 
 inclination to devote such special attention 
 to the three languages, French, German, and 
 Italian, which we hope to teach regularly to 
 all our Grecians. We shall learn to translate 
 from these languages, and to pronounce them 
 fairly correctly when we read them aloud. 
 To attain this pronunciation we shall most 
 certainly not employ the ridiculously com- 
 plicated script of the International Phonetic 
 Association, realising as we do that the only 
 European language for the learning of which 
 
io8 THE GRECIANS 
 
 the employment of a phonetic script is neces- 
 sary is English : French, German, and Italian, 
 at all events, are pronounced almost entirely 
 as they are written. What is the use, sense, 
 or wisdom of having a sign like a broken hoop 
 to represent the final o of Italian, and there- 
 fore forcing the miserable boys to learn two 
 methods of writing every time they learn a 
 language, when it is so extremely easy to 
 tell him that the final Italian o is often 
 sounded like the English o in not? The re- 
 finements of pronunciation can be learnt at 
 any time by any one who has a good ear, and 
 who already knows the language pretty well, 
 by a few months' stay in a foreign country: 
 and a boy can go abroad, after all, at any 
 period of his life. I admit that to attain this 
 final perfection a knowledge of phonetic laws 
 and the use of plaster casts of throats and 
 larynxes may be recommended, but these 
 devices are indescribably pernicious when 
 employed in the instruction of beginners. 
 They are the conceited invention of modern 
 science, which, in its desire that we should 
 scorn useless knowledge and become practical, 
 would have us spend six years in acquiring 
 a fine French accent in England, without 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 109 
 
 leaving us time to read a word of Moliere. 
 In the early stages of instruction in French 
 I admit that the use of such an entirely 
 rational and immediately comprehended 
 script as that invented for the Faculte of 
 Grenoble may be attended with profit, con- 
 structed as it is for the French language 
 alone instead of being a complicated scientific 
 universal affair which one can fit on to Czech 
 and Turkish. This script from Grenoble 
 clearly shows how words should be run 
 together in reading French sentences, and 
 how the accent and pause must come after 
 groups of words pronounced without a break : 
 yet it can be learnt in ten minutes. Next I 
 admit that the teacher must be a master of 
 French sound: I do not think it, however, at 
 all advisable that he should be a Frenchman, 
 although we may at all times call in a native 
 to read to us or talk with us. An English- 
 man who with toil has acquired a fine French 
 accent knows the difficulties with which the 
 English boy has to contend so much better; 
 he only will understand English as weU as 
 French phonetics; he will be able to explain 
 that and e are diphthongs in English without 
 getting into a towering rage at the stupidity 
 
no THE GRECIANS 
 
 and perverseness of the English boy, and if 
 he is wise he will appeal to the boys to re- 
 member how a Frenchman talks Englishm- 
 an obvious way of getting boys to be in- 
 terested in the pronunciation of French, yet 
 which seems never to have occurred to any 
 teachers. 
 
 We shall hardly attempt to teach boys to 
 talk or write these languages unless they are 
 especially interested in so doing; and if they 
 are, we shall only teach them to talk and 
 write French. This may displease some, but 
 there are obvious reasons for our decision. 
 Firstly, to learn a language so as to be able 
 to go abroad and ask for a ticket at the 
 station and a- drink at the cafe is obviously 
 part of technical training and not worthy the 
 attention of serious educationalists. Secondly, 
 an intelligent boy, if he wants to talk, must 
 go to France, where in a family he will learn 
 more in a week than we could teach him in 
 a year. The true educational value of talk- 
 ing a language consists in getting the ear 
 attuned to subtle, new, and delicate sounds, 
 and this we preserve by emphasising the 
 necessity of reading it aloud. 
 
 " We shall perhaps then spend a little time 
 
TRUE EDUCATION in 
 
 in French conversation, viewing it not as an 
 end, but as a means towards eradicating that 
 awkward shyness which some of the most 
 pleasant and intelligent young Englishmen 
 feel at opening their mouths before foreigners. 
 But how much better it would be if we could 
 send them abroad for a month a year to talk 
 with French, German, and Italian boys, to 
 view the beauties and delights of foreign 
 towns, foreign institutions and foreign man- 
 ners, if we could arrange for them to 
 have some one better than the usual dreary 
 pasteur or fjarrer to talk with, and to hear 
 lectures by the most famous foreign teachers. 
 If we were rich enough or powerful enough to 
 institute this wanderjahr system for our 
 boys, our training in modern languages 
 would then become one of the most important 
 and fascinating parts of their education. 
 
 " But if we cannot do this, we can initiate 
 them into these three great literatures, and 
 we can teach them to read foreign books, not 
 at the rate of a page an hour, but swiftly and 
 with pleasure. You may perhaps be a little 
 surprised if I tell you on what part of French 
 literature we shall lay greatest stress. For 
 we shall not read very much French lyric 
 
112 THE GRECIANS 
 
 poetry: admirable as it is, its educational 
 value is not very large to those who have read 
 classical and English lyric verse. We shall 
 follow consistently our plan of giving boys a 
 pleasant introduction to subjects in which 
 they may specialise afterwards if they will, 
 and we wUl make no attempt to get them to 
 read through aU that is important in French 
 lyrical verse, or indeed in any other branch 
 of literature. Perhaps we shall do well if 
 we confine ourselves to the Oxford Book of 
 French Verse : it is a tolerable anthology, 
 not much superior in anything but length 
 to that admirable sixpenny Cent Meilleurs 
 Pokmes, and woefuUy inferior to that splendid 
 collection, the Oxford Book of English Verse. 
 If we consider further what French lyric 
 author a boy would do well to read through, 
 I can think of none better than Leconte de 
 Lisle: there is no more suitable book for 
 boys in French than his clear and powerfiil 
 Poemes Barbares. 
 
 " We shall omit Erckmann - Chatrian's 
 Waterloo and the good but second-rate 
 Colomba from our course, and no more dream 
 of giving young boys Corneille and Racine 
 than we would dream of trying to interest a 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 113 
 
 Frenchman in English by presenting him 
 with Paradise Lost. At first we shall read 
 such diverting and interesting books as Le 
 Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Les Irois Mousque- 
 taires, Le Crime de Silvestre Bonnard, and 
 certain selected short stories. But it is the 
 great French novelists who should be most 
 esteemed by those who are training boys 
 over seventeen years of age to face a world 
 far less pleasant than our school. Only 
 Hardy and Meredith among our so delightful 
 English writers can ever impress the awaken- 
 ing mind so deeply with the tragic realities 
 and possibilities of existence as do Pire Goriot, 
 Charles Bovary, Une Vie, and Pierre et Jean, 
 books in which the ugliness of life is faced 
 and the psychology of passion analysed, yet 
 written at the inspiration of an ideal which 
 is the more impressive because it is unconscious 
 and full of the sense that a good deed is 
 worth doing for its own sake, even if it be 
 unromantic and unknown. To be recom- 
 mended too are the quiet, humorous, thought- 
 ful books of Anatole France, that gentleman 
 socialist, whose graceful and bitter laughter 
 reviles a world gone mad, a world which it 
 
114 THE GRECIANS 
 
 is our fond dream to better by producing 
 some half dozen young men a year who are 
 fit to face it. 
 " We shall not need so much German as 
 French, for the language is far harder and 
 the literature, the importance of which is 
 only a hundred years old, far less important. 
 I shall be contented if we read in school the 
 first part of Faust, the songs of Heine, part 
 of Benzmann's Collection oj Modern German 
 Lyrics. In reading German Jean Paul, 
 Sudermann, and Nietzsche should not be 
 neglected, for Nietzsche has an influence 
 which all thoughtful men should understand, 
 however much they may hate him, and a 
 style second to none in German. Freytag 
 and GrUlparzer and other pompous triflers 
 we shall neglect; but we shall remember 
 that Heine wrote prose hardly inferior to his 
 verse. We must attach, however, far more 
 importance to the language of the Germans 
 than their purely literary achievements could 
 warrant. All boys who are interested in 
 science, art, or archaeology will soon find 
 out that they must be able to read the bar- 
 barous prose of fhis most educated and 
 learned people, since in every branch of pure 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 115 
 
 learning the Germans have produced some 
 master work, some ' epoch-making ' treatise. 
 
 " Italian we shall reinvest with the honour 
 and importance which it has so unjustly lost 
 since the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 In the days of Peacock no gentleman with 
 any pretension of culture could afford to dis- 
 pense with a smattering of this delightful 
 tongue, whose literature we now imagine to 
 be represented by Dante, Petrarch, and the 
 Promessi Sposi of Manzoni. It is sad to 
 think that there are now not a hundred 
 living Englishmen who know and enjoy the 
 calm and classic humour of Ariosto, or who 
 care anything for the countless masters of 
 early Italian lyrical verse, which Eugenia 
 Levi has collected in her two fascinating 
 volumes. Yet no classical scholar can be 
 excused for not taking the trouble to learn 
 to read this easiest of languages, when a 
 fortnight's work will enable him to read any 
 average Italian prose with fluency and enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 " Our boys shall know a great deal of Dante, 
 a little of Petrarch, the two great collections 
 of Italian verse to whict we have referred, 
 besides a little anthology by Carducci, which 
 
ii6 THE GRECIANS 
 
 extends to the nineteenth century; nor shall 
 they neglect to read the splendid Barbarous 
 Odes of Carducci himself, which, based on 
 the Horatian metres, form so brave a protest 
 against the natural deficiency of a tongue 
 wherein rhymes are too easy and compres- 
 sion too hard. Several of the tales of Boc- 
 caccio, even some of Bandello and Masuccio 
 claim consideration, for they do not aU con- 
 sist, as some imagine, of indecent ribaldry, 
 but are fuU of pathos, humour, and most 
 cunning psychological observation; and why 
 neglect the Cortigiano ? Our playwrights 
 shall be Goldoni and D'Annunzio: perhaps 
 not the D'Annunzio of the terrible Citta 
 Morta, but certainly the D'Annunzio of 
 Francesca da Rimini. For are we not the 
 heirs of the Italian Renaissance, and shall we 
 continue to neglect a literature not inferior 
 to the French and far greater than the 
 German, a literature which in the present 
 age has produced at least two immortal 
 names ? Least of all can we dream of so 
 doing after gazing at the masterpieces of 
 Italian painting. Would it not be well to 
 know what these great men read, thought, 
 and wrote? Have we forgotten that Italy 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 117 
 
 is also the first, and will perhaps be the last, 
 home of the purest and most noble music ? 
 To understand the spirit of the greatest 
 artistic country the world has ever known, 
 greater in my opinion than Greece herself by 
 virtue of Leonardo and Michelangelo, not 
 to mention Scarlatti and Pergolesi, is surely 
 the direct duty of any one who desires to 
 enjoy all that life can offer, and to assist 
 others to share his delight. 
 
 " We must now consider the arts of repre- 
 sentation, instruction in which will be such a 
 peculiar and delightful feature of our school. 
 We must adopt in teaching this subject 
 methods similar to those we adopted for 
 teaching poetry. I mean that we must not 
 begin by laying down aesthetic laws, but 
 by considering art historically. Numerous 
 photographs, reproductions and casts must 
 adorn our buildings or fill our portfolios. 
 We must show magic-lantern slides, and we 
 must take our boys to visit the great galleries 
 at London and Hampton Court; and in this 
 way we must form, as far as residents in 
 England can do so, the basis of artistic ex- 
 perience. We shaU have three direct ways of 
 training our boys; they must notice things 
 
ii8 THE GRECIANS 
 
 in pictures, they must regard nature from an 
 artistic point of view, and they must attempt 
 to represent things for themselves. How- 
 ever clumsy their efforts be, every boy must 
 draw and paint for at least three hours a 
 weelc, not copying absurd patterns, but in- 
 venting for himself or imitating nature. Our 
 object in this our practice of art, as in prac- 
 tice of poetry, will not be to train up artists 
 — though who knows whether some young 
 Velazquez will not suddenly discover his 
 powers in this way ? — but to enable boys 
 to appreciate art, technically and soundly. 
 Those who would be artists or architects 
 must have special morning training for their 
 professions. At aU events we will have no 
 sonneteering about art in the windbag style 
 of John Addington Symonds, no vain talk 
 of the grandeur, sweet loveliness, invincible 
 truth, and tragic terror of pictures. We 
 shall study rather to ensure a minute trained 
 observation into shades of style and varia- 
 tions of detail; for only in this way can we 
 teach boys not naturally artists to perceive 
 every portion of a picture and not its subject 
 alone. We shall also — and this wUl be a 
 most important part of our pictorial educa- 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 119 
 
 tion — take bad and popular modern works — 
 Luke Filde's " Doctor " or Dicksee's picture 
 of the knight impressed by the crucifix — as 
 examples of inferior art, and point out in 
 these either the defects of drawing and colour 
 or the complete inanity and vulgarity of 
 idea. 
 
 " The introduction of this artistic education 
 I consider the most revolutionary, the most 
 important, of new proposals. It may interest 
 you to know that I was for some time both 
 at Oxford and Cambridge. I must have 
 known some three hundred undergraduates, 
 most of whom were considered or considered 
 themselves to be the most intelligent young 
 Englishmen of the day. Yet I do not re- 
 member more than four or five of them who 
 could have told a Signorelli from a Tifian, or 
 who have ever heard the name of Pisanello. 
 To possess any knowledge of art was con- 
 sidered by my otherwise intelligent friends 
 to be something rather extraordinary and 
 priggish. Perhaps indeed the character of 
 an undergraduate art lover would be bound 
 to suffer in so philistine an atmosphere. Yet 
 there is no happier man than he who loves 
 painted things, for the whole realm of nature 
 
I20 THE GRECIANS 
 
 becomes exalted in his eyes: he looks at the 
 world and imagines great pictures in his 
 soul, he looks at great pictures and begins 
 to realise the unspeakable beauty of the 
 world. And what is Greece to those who do 
 not love the sweet spring of her vases and 
 the immortal strength of her statuary ? How 
 can men appreciate the great life of the 
 modern world without knowing something 
 of Manet, Pisarro, Whistler, and all those 
 once obscure heroes who, despite penury and 
 starvation, imprisoned the wonders of bright 
 light on painted canvas ? A few Japanese 
 prints, or Persian miniatures, or Indian 
 bronzes, are these not the only things that 
 can suggest to us who cannot read those 
 literatures or voyage to those lands the 
 marvels of each racial individuality? Yet 
 in our public schools, where still so much 
 of the true humane education lingers, the 
 artistic life is entrusted to some ill-paid peda- 
 gogue who has drawn a little at the Slade 
 School, and is usually considered to be rather 
 inferior in intellectual ability and social stand- 
 ing to the other members of the staff. It is 
 perhaps the worst mistake in English public- 
 school life, for even those boys who learn 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 121 
 
 drawing and excel in it will never get any 
 real encouragement or help. 
 
 " I confess that my enthusiasm for music 
 is not so great as my enthusiasm for the arts 
 of representation. I have known only too 
 many good musicians, especially those who 
 were simply good performers, who outside 
 this one specialised atmosphere were not 
 only stupid, but exhibited the most appalling 
 mental vulgarity. I do not view with favour 
 perpetual toil on iron-frame pianos ; I should 
 like to leave the performance of instrumental 
 music solely to those who show their love and 
 capability — and musical genius is always re- 
 vealed early in life. But every boy as soon 
 as his voice is set or before it breaks might 
 learn to read music and to sing in part; and 
 one could have at least once a fortnight a 
 concert for the hearing of which some boys 
 would have been prepared by giving them the 
 scores to read and explaining the modulations 
 and subtleties of the tune. This is never done : 
 the consequence is intelligent boys who have 
 not exceptional gifts usually prefer the vilest 
 musical comedy to Mozart. It is not they 
 are deaf to sounds as a rule, but simply that 
 they have no conception of the aim and 
 structure of classical music. 
 
122 THE GRECIANS 
 
 " We have considered the education we 
 intend to give in philology and fine arts. We 
 must still examine whether we are to teach 
 history, mathematics, and science. 
 
 " We shall have little difficulty in settling 
 the place of history in our routine. No study 
 seems more specious as a substitute for liberal 
 education in the arts; yet it is dangerous to 
 view it too seriously or give it too much im- 
 portance. History is a fascinating tale which 
 should be read only in the works of a great 
 prose writer who is capable of doing it justice; 
 but it is a story with so little of moral or of 
 meaning, a story which may well make us 
 discontented sceptics and cause us to despair of 
 the progress of mankind. For philosophies of 
 history have not succeeded: not even Hegel 
 could thread together the promiscuous events 
 of the world's life into a connected whole. 
 
 " We say this, however, only as a warning 
 to those who are too enthusiastic, or who 
 imagine that the study of the historical 
 method has a supreme value in education. 
 It is obvious that our Grecians must have 
 such acquaintance with history, and especially 
 with modern history, as will enable them to 
 understand the political life of the present 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 123 
 
 and the artistic life of the past. It is obvious 
 that it will be good for them to read, not in 
 class perhaps, but to themselves, such noble 
 books as Gibbon, Mommsen, Italy and her 
 Invaders, or Fyffe's History of Modern Europe ; 
 obvious that since they have to read Hero- 
 dotus, Thucydides and Tacitus, we shall 
 teach them in reference to these authors 
 some of the latest results of historical re- 
 search. Yet we need seldom insist on their 
 learning dates and sketching out the plans of 
 battles, nor shall we fatigue them with the 
 history of the dull periods of the world. But 
 in their last year at school those young men 
 of twenty who are likely to be directly in- 
 terested in the government of our country 
 must specialise in modern history, in state 
 theory, and in the science of economics. 
 
 " But we shall find history most useful as a 
 pleasant and instructive afternoon diversion 
 for those not very intelligent boys who are 
 working to enter a trade or profession; it is 
 perhaps the simplest and most obvious method 
 of inducing an ordinary mind to be interested 
 in an extraneous world, for the very reason 
 that it is too shallow a subject to have a prime 
 importance in the higher education. 
 
124 THE GRECIANS 
 
 " I would suggest that our Grecians be com- 
 pelled to learn sufficient mathematics to 
 prevent their being put to shame in the 
 affairs of life, and no more, unless they 
 specially desire it. That a training in pure 
 mathematics has an educational value I 
 readily admit: it is beneficial if a boy be 
 clever enough to apply mathematical prin- 
 ciples to argument and discussion. But 
 neither is it necessary to become an abstruse 
 or advanced mathematician in order to be 
 able to apply the elementary mathematical 
 law, nor do boys who are trained in philo- 
 sophical thought need to acquire the prin- 
 ciples of logic by such circuitous means. 
 
 " Of the teaching of elementary arithmetic 
 and geometry to the ordinary or young boy 
 we have already dealt with Hof man's aid; 
 and I am thankful to say that there are 
 distinct signs that our educationalists are 
 weary of stocks, discount, and wall-paper- 
 ing. We have suggested that the younger 
 boys will delight in working out the problems 
 of simple geometry for themselves when they 
 measure, buy, and design their wood con- 
 structions in the workshop. We hope that 
 our Grecians will perpetuate a love for manual 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 125 
 
 craft of this kind : that they will long to con- 
 struct ambitious models, to design furniture 
 worthy of their artistic training, to paper 
 their own rooms, and bind their own books. 
 For not even the physical exercise which 
 compels them to measure themselves in that 
 athletic prowess for which a boy always has 
 been and always will be most admired by his 
 fellows will have a more salutary effect than 
 the patient toil of saw and plane in keeping 
 them from priggishness and from any form 
 of dreamy intellectual superiority. Shall 
 we let those whom we are training to be 
 rulers be so stupid or haughty that they 
 will have to sit still in cushioned seats 
 while a hired mechanic repairs the incorri- 
 gible car ? 
 
 " These remarks refer to applied science as 
 much as to applied mathematics. But we 
 must return a moment to the study of pure 
 mathematical theory. We must hope to find 
 a wonderful teacher who will suggest the 
 mystery and charm of numbers to his pupils 
 without perhaps directly saying a word about 
 that mystery and charm; who will recognise 
 that even among Grecians not one boy in a 
 hundred is likely to become a great mathe- 
 
126 THE GRECIANS 
 
 matician, and will therefore make no attempt 
 to weary his class by forcing them to work 
 out innumerable examples, but rather hope 
 to interest them in the delight he himself 
 takes in mathematical problems by select- 
 ing the most fascinating and important 
 examples of mathematical method. 
 
 " Natural science must now be our most 
 difficult consideration. Science is an exact- 
 ing mistress, and if I decide that we shall 
 not insist on our Grecians penetrating its 
 glorious secrets let no one think that I say 
 this in a spirit of hostility or contempt, least 
 of all while I sit here in view of Florence 
 and remember that her triumphs of art are 
 triumphs not of a mere vague aesthetic 
 delight, but of inquisitive, patient, universal 
 research into the nature of things and into 
 the hidden laws of the world. By scientific 
 study Uccelli learnt the joys of perspective, 
 Signorelli some — alas, not all! — of the secrets 
 of anatomy, Brunelleschi the architectural 
 principle which enabled him to construct 
 that huge and splendid dome that stands so 
 quiet and impressive in the last hours of this 
 far-shadowing afternoon. 
 
 " Yet science brooks no rival in her house : 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 127 
 
 he who would follow her must abandon other 
 joys and spend long hours with her alone. 
 To suggest to our Grecians the charms and 
 delights of science will be our duty, but 
 those who would set about to perfect them- 
 selves therein must do so in after years. 
 But I will at all events give no countenance 
 to the foolish and vulgar hostility with which 
 so-called classical men too often treat science 
 and her followers, though one can easily explain 
 to them their foolish error. They see that 
 the youth of England, with its puritan hatred 
 of the useless and beautiful, strong in its all- 
 pervading and plebeian common sense, has 
 devoted itself to natural science with barbaric 
 vigour. Also they have observed with dis- 
 gust that even the oldest and firmest estab- 
 lished homes of classical learning cannot 
 entirely resist the clamour for a more profit- 
 able and vital course of instruction, that 
 many of their pupils have abandoned the 
 dissection of Latin periods for the dissection 
 of flowers and corpses. Therefore it is that 
 so many second-rate and a few first-rate but 
 Harrow classical scholars have raised this 
 most vulgar outcry against the vulgarity of 
 science, not perceiving that they are confus- 
 
128 THE GRECIANS 
 
 ing science with a section of her followers. 
 Was Leonardo vulgar ? 
 
 " Natural science unaccompanied by other 
 studies is a poor training for the mind, though 
 I can conceive it to be a far better one than 
 these arid pedants could possibly give with 
 their syntax and paradigms. Scientific men 
 are so often headstrong in their own conceit: 
 they are fond of laying down the law on 
 subjects they have not attempted to master; 
 and some of them, like Nordau, have the im- 
 pertinence to pose as authorities on morality, 
 aesthetics, and religion. The opinions and 
 arguments of scientific men seldom rise above 
 the level of a childish materialism which any 
 serious philosopher could disprove in two 
 minutes: they are utterly incapable of clear 
 thought, yet imagine that philosophers must 
 be muddle-headed because they are not per- 
 suaded by their "common-sense" arguments. 
 Furthermore, they are either neglectful or 
 contemptuous of most artistic life, though they 
 are often fine musicians. A refined man, I 
 admit, will never become vulgarised by 
 science, but it seems very clear that science 
 can never refine the vulgar. 
 
 " I do not think, then, that my Grecians 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 129 
 
 will be expected to do more than attend two 
 weekly lectures delivered in non-technical 
 language on scientific laws. The enthusiasts 
 may work as much as they want : we shall pro- 
 vide laboratories, and specially encourage 
 perhaps some of the less difficult branches of 
 scientific study. I do not think, moreover, 
 that our school museum will contain such a 
 collection of riff-raff as may usually be found 
 in those primitive establishments — bowls from 
 Palestine, a pipe from Russia, specimens of 
 Swiss pottery and Indian shells, a cork model 
 of the Coliseum, twenty ill-stuffed birds under 
 glass, and a photograph of the moon. We 
 wUl attempt rather to give our museum a 
 real and systematic interest, not crowding it 
 with ethnological specimens unless we can 
 afford a magnificent number, but rather 
 priding ourselves on our neat and systematic 
 collection of local flora and fauna. 
 
 " We have now considered the higher educa- 
 tion. A word remains to be said on some 
 few miscellaneous points. 
 
 " We have not mentioned the education of 
 women. I do not think either the advan- 
 tages or the dangers of co-educational schools 
 are very great. The presence of girls cer- 
 
I30 THE GRECIANS 
 
 tainly tends to prevent a boy from inclining 
 to certain perversions, but it cannot be 
 doubted that there is a grandeur and 
 beauty about our monastic schools which 
 the presence of women would destroy; 
 and if one observes those who have been 
 brought up in co-educational schools one is 
 very apt to find them over-sentimental or 
 otherwise eccentric. I think the girls reap 
 practically aU the benefit. 
 
 " I would rather women were educated by 
 themselves, but I fear the inferiority of the 
 female schoolmistress and indeed of the 
 female mind is so great that they wUl never 
 be educated as our Grecians are. For the 
 ideal education for a woman would be exactly 
 the education we give our Grecians — ^with a 
 most special and most severe stress laid on 
 philosophy and on free thought, in order to 
 eradicate the sentimental viciousness of the 
 sex; and women must learn above all to read 
 their books unexpurgated without losing the 
 modesty of youth — ^yet this it seems a boy 
 can do often, and a woman never. Have 
 we not seen that greatest of girls' schools in 
 the west of England? Have we not re- 
 marked its sumptuous buildings, pseudo- 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 131 
 
 antique, asymmetrical, gaudily tricked out 
 in the most execrable taste? Have we not 
 seen girls who have never heard of Augustus 
 or Velazquez and could not see through a 
 leading article, plodding through Beowulf, 
 learning by heart their German grammar, 
 acting before admiring friends such master- 
 pieces of English literature as Charles Kings- 
 ley's Saint's Tragedy, and amusing them- 
 selves with chip carving ? Did not that truly 
 great woman who achieved so much in the 
 emancipation of her sex from a tradition 
 which permitted them to study little but 
 singing and deportment write down that 
 Latin was dangerous for girls to read, and 
 commend the bracing effect of Hebrew and 
 German poetry (Schiller's Glocke, forsooth, or 
 the Faust seduction scene, I wonder ?) ? It is 
 a pity, for where will our Grecians find women 
 fit to be their life companions and friends ? 
 
 " I might in this place make a brief obser- 
 vation with regard to day schools. There is 
 only one argument that can be adduced in 
 favour of day schools. They do not tend, 
 like our great public schools, to create a mono- 
 tonous type. Such an education as we 
 should give would destroy the argument. 
 
132 THE GRECIANS 
 
 To my mind the great curse of day schools is 
 that boys should live perpetually with their 
 parents. Only one parent in a thousand is fit 
 to manage an intelligent boy. A boy may be 
 buUied in school: it will be nothing to the 
 way in which he will be buUied at home if he 
 is ever so little exceptional, ever so little in- 
 clined to disagree with the parental outlook. 
 Then, again, if he is punished at a day school 
 it is immediately known at home; every 
 little punishment is a punishment twice over. 
 It is a horrible system, this ceaseless double 
 supervision. 
 
 " I speak thus strongly not because I wish 
 to break down family ties, but because I 
 earnestly wish to preserve them. The boy 
 who loves his parents rightly will be sad to 
 leave them, rejoiced to find them again after 
 many days. Their influence is deeper, finer, 
 more pathetic when transmitted through 
 loving letters and accepted in loving replies. 
 The individual parent who, being human, 
 must have foibles, is sunk in the ideal parent, 
 the loving watcher over the destiny of his 
 far-off child. Every honest man, recalling 
 his own school days, will agree with me in this. 
 
 " Another point. If you think, as perhaps 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 133 
 
 you do, that our education attempts too 
 much, remember what we have cancelled 
 from the ordinary sixth-form routine. Nearly 
 all the preparation which occupies two hours 
 every night is gone. All translation can be 
 done very well unseen. Three hours a week 
 for classics, three for drawing, an evening a 
 week each for a philosophical discussion, a 
 lecture in literature, a lecture in science or 
 mathematics. Three hours each for reading 
 the four great modern literatures; and three 
 for the practice of English prose and verse. 
 An hour for history, an hour, a day in the 
 library. Twenty-eight hours a week, exclud- 
 ing evenings. There is room to fill up what 
 I have forgotten! 
 
 " We should next briefly consider the posi- 
 tion our Grecians will occupy in school affairs. 
 They will all be monitors, and no other 
 boys, however successful athletically, however 
 superior in character, will be given the honour. 
 It is the tribute we shall pay in our school to 
 intellectual pre-eminence, and only those who 
 have been to a school which was ruled by the 
 heroes of its Rugby football team can realise 
 how admirable was the system which Arnold 
 suggested. They will have the power of 
 
134 THE GRECIANS 
 
 punishing other boys by giving them deten- 
 tion; the actual punishment will be inflicted 
 in this way under the supervision of the 
 masters: there will be no physical appeal 
 against their authority. In a school of about 
 five hundred boys we may hope for thirty 
 Grecians. They wUl have a common room, 
 will alone have private studies, will be 
 allowed when they are over seventeen to 
 smoke and drink wine in moderation, for it 
 win be our policy to encourage them in self- 
 restraint, not to put temptation out of the 
 way. The rest of the school will not be 
 divided into houses. That is a pernicious 
 system by which a boy only sees some thirty 
 of his fellows, and cannot get away from the 
 aggressiveness of those school-fellows whom 
 he dislikes. We shall send our Grecians to 
 keep order throughout the school and in the 
 dormitories (which are to be open and not 
 partitioned), and we hope in this way to test 
 and prove their powers of government. Few 
 realise or remember that it is much harder 
 for the unpopular boy to manage his fellows 
 than for an unpopular ministry to manage 
 the State: no one is more relentless, in- 
 genious, persistent in hatred, than the school- 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 135 
 
 boy who dislikes and despises those who are 
 set over him. Our Grecians will be allowed 
 to play games or not as they please, but we 
 must insist that the captain of games in the 
 school be a Grecian himself. 
 
 " I discussed with some impatience, if you 
 remember, those who desired us to give in- 
 struction in morals. But that was not be- 
 cause we do not care about the morals of our 
 Grecians, but because my imaginary objectors 
 desired me to be immoral enough to tell them 
 lies. But not even a yiwalov i^ciJSos will be 
 admitted to defile the education of our Gre- 
 cians, though I am afraid we may have to 
 talk dogmatically to the rest of the school. 
 The greatest moral influence that the Grecians 
 can possibly receive must be their own tradi- 
 tion and public feeling, and the example of 
 great books and the deep friendship and 
 respect they feel for those high-principled 
 men whom we hope to find to teach them. 
 We win not say to boys who are reading 
 Plato, 'God wrote down in a book that you 
 must not lie, therefore you wiU go to hell if 
 you do so.' We will not say to them that 
 happiness in this earth belongs to the moral. 
 But we will say to them, ' The school, your 
 
136 THE GRECIANS 
 
 kind mother and gentle guardian, hates the 
 vulgar and sensual life, and detests that 
 which is mean and false: hoc disce aut dis- 
 cede? And though we wUl not be as ruthless 
 as some are to the natural faults of the head- 
 strong, generous, and warm-blooded youth, 
 yet if we consider a Grecian, however intel- 
 ligent, to be ineradicably coarse, dishonest, 
 or mean, he shall not remain in our society. 
 
 " And the last and most important of our 
 considerations is the schoolmaster. Yet, 
 strange as it may seem at first, I do not 
 despair of finding ardent, learned, and ad- 
 mirable young men at our universities who 
 would far rather teach than become dons or 
 Indian magistrates if we gave them a salary 
 worth the name, assured them a pension, and 
 treated them with honour. Too often the 
 modern schoolmaster has to take up his 
 profession because there is nothing better 
 for him to do; he is consequently and with 
 some justice supposed to be a man not clever 
 enough to obtain a fellowship or not ener- 
 getic enough to enter the state service; he is 
 a social outcast or a social failure; he ranks 
 with the curate: he is an iU-dressed, ill- 
 shaved nonentity. Our masters will be at 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 137 
 
 first men carefully chosen for their charm 
 and intelligence, and not merely according to 
 the results of their university work; later, 
 the best of our old boys will rejoice to return 
 to us and help us. Masters in La Giocosa 
 are not treated as subordinates, but as 
 honourable friends of the head-master. They 
 live with him, dine with him nightly, and 
 fare with the best. They are men who do 
 not imagine their education is complete; they 
 are a band of older Grecians. They need 
 not be mewed up within school walls for 
 three-quarters of the year, but must have all 
 the society they can find, every chance of 
 visiting London, every opportunity of con- 
 versing with specialists who come to lecture, 
 and the wise men and travellers who come 
 to visit. 
 
 " I think, strange to say, we shall find it 
 easy to find those who will adequately teach 
 our earnest and gentle-mannered Grecians. 
 Shall we give less honour to those who do 
 the ceaseless drudgery and rough work of 
 the school, who help the infants to write, and 
 read, and add, or try to drive the foolish 
 through accidence and syntax? Shall we 
 not rather let our chief masters do this difii- 
 
138 THE GRECIANS 
 
 cult, elementary, noble work in turn, and 
 not attempt to maintain a staff of less clever, 
 less refined and serious men for this the 
 hardest portion of the school work ? 
 
 " And the choice of masters and the success 
 of the whole school must depend on one man, 
 the grave and learned senior who is to be our 
 head. Alas, that we cannot recall Vittorino 
 from his grave ! Yet if we could, what princes 
 would send their sons to La Giocosa in these 
 iron days ? Who appreciates the humani- 
 ties now apart from the picturesque dignity 
 that hangs about them still? Who cares for 
 any real thought about education? Who 
 dares to make an ideal? Some listen to the 
 conceited, lying scientist who writes pedantic 
 treatises on habit, brain - formation and 
 memory, and veils his tired platitudes in the 
 ugliest of technical terms — and here they 
 fondly imagine lies the secret of success. 
 Some are willing to let our old beautiful 
 schools rot away tUl they become hotels 
 where the newly-rich may consort with the 
 mattoid nobleman; in foolish calm they await 
 the time when a relentlessly progressive age 
 wUl hurl them aside in disgust. Never do 
 they attempt a reform which is to make them 
 
TRUE EDUCATION 139 
 
 liker their true selves; but they cringe to 
 public examinations and public feeling, and 
 make each unworthy concession either with 
 Ul-grace or a puerile flourish of trumpets. 
 
 " But we will re-found La Giocosa, and build 
 it anew in England beside the sea that 
 typifies our race. And if I have made no 
 single direct reference to patriotism, let me 
 say this now. Patriotism is not taught by 
 bad poetry and bad literature, by rifle clubs, 
 or Union Jacks, or essays on Tariff Reform. 
 La Giocosa will give England men of intelli- 
 gence, fit to govern her, and not private 
 soldiers fit to be shot down for her in some 
 financial war. And in training Grecians La 
 Giocosa has fulfilled her duty to England. 
 Ours shaU be no ideal school for the ideal 
 youth, but a place where hard work is done, 
 and where boys are toilfuUy prepared for the 
 difficulties of a modern world; yet where too 
 we shall train many to understand and love 
 the sweet pleasures of the senses. We even 
 hope that a few of our scholars wiU be among 
 the great. Now, my friends, our long and 
 toilsome journey is over: and it is evening." 
 
 Evening indeed had come and the cool 
 
140 THE GRECIANS 
 
 hours of the day, but those two who listened 
 to the unadorned words of this strange youth 
 heard and understood the earnestness in his 
 voice; and as they gazed at him while he lay 
 there on the grass refolding his sheaf of 
 papers, they thought of his gentle voice and 
 eager words, and he seemed to them to be 
 none other than one of his own Grecians, 
 strayed from some Elysian school where 
 Socrates and Vittorino teach and all the 
 young lords of that shadow-world listen and 
 admire. And whether their journey with 
 him was ended, whether they would return 
 to England to the old and weary toil 
 streng'thened by this secret and beautiful 
 ideal, or whether they would not rather join 
 him and rebuild La Giocosa to the sound of 
 music in an Atlantean isle, in that swift 
 minute of wonder they could hardly tell. 
 
 THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH 
 
!h, 
 
 ' 'l".|l 
 
 
 
 iiiiiiii