John Bull's Schooldays
Never Smell a College Spoon
By LORD ATTLEE Iwas at Haileybury during the last five years of Queen Victoria's reign. The school buildings had originally belonged to the old East India Company's College and the traditional link with India endured. I myself occupied the study once that of John Lawrence. Of the 500 boys all but eighty were housed in long dormitories divided into wooden compartments containing forty or fifty. Except for those in the two 'out' Houses, Houses consisted only of the dormitory and one claSsroom. in all things else—dining-room, studies, etc.—boys were mingled. One was there- fore less tied to the exclusive society of one's own House than in most schools. This gave the school a distinctive character. Another was the wide geographical area from which boys came. Every county in England and most of those in Scotland and Ireland had their representatives, while many came from overseas.
Perhaps this helped to give it the strong im- perialist flavour which obtained in my time. Many boys were sons of Army officers or parsons. The dome of the chapel rose above the big quad- rangle and eight masters were clergy, so that godliness was well looked after. The provision for cleanliness came a bad second. There were only two baths between eighty-four boys. Obviously the Victorian bath-night obtained, except for pre- fects who also had the privilege of the bath after games, while the rest had to make do with basins or tins called toepans.
. . tlw most profound . . . Still more primitive were the sanitary arrange- ments. In fact, conditions were fairly hard : half the school had nowhere to live save in their form-rooms, with the master's desk an oasis of comparative comfort among the sloping desks and hard forms. Food was very bad when I first came. Bread and butter had to be rein- forced by jam, etc., from home. Utensils were washed by a broom in a large tub of water (hence the saying, 'Never smell a college spoon'). Everyone in studies and form-rooms alike cooked meals for themselves on Saturday and Sunday .evenings. In the studies enormous meals were consumed : porridge, bacon, eggs, sausages, muffins and oceans of tea. I have found the domestic training learnt there of great utility in the conditions of today. Unfortunately, we did not wash up, make beds or clean our shoes, accomp- lishments now essential in a married man.
Games worship was at its height. Without some proficiency a boy was a nobody. Members of the cricket eleven and rugger fifteen were as gods. The curriculum for the classical side was still mainly grinding at Latin and Greek. I never mastered these, but rose to the Sixth by my English subjects, history, geography, literature, etc. French we regarded as an interval in serious work. So, I imagine, did the masters. One of them pronounced moins to rhyme with coins; another, keen on military history, rhymed franc- tireur with blank hirer. But we had an exception- ally good history teacher who even gave us some insight into events subsequent to the Battle of Waterloo. I recall his saying, 'Rash would be the man who would say that if Francis Joseph were to die there would not be a European war.' Another master used to run a Shakespeare read- ing society to which I belonged, and I owe him a debt of gratitude. There were also societies for natural science, antiquarianism, literature, etc. We were not wholly philistine.
Imperialism was then at its apogee with the Diamond Jubilee and the Boer War. Almost all of us were strongly imperialist. Our ideals were very largely those of duty to the nation and ser- vice in the Army or somewhere overseas. The 'White man's burden' Was a congenial theme,. We knew little of the governance of Britain, but much about the Colonial Empire. I remember a few years after I had left coming to talk about the boys' club in Stepney which the school supported' telling the masters that they imagined that they were training.ehe ruling class, but that they taught them nothing about economics, government ett politics. Whereupon one old master said, 'Yes' but you see we know nothing about these things ourselves.' He was probably right. Many of the masters of those days had little experience 0 anything outside the schools and the universities where they had been, and were apparently not interested outside the school where they served.
Generally speaking, it was not until one reached the Sixth Form that one encountered ideas and could stray from the orthodox. There has, 1 thied'' been a vast change since my time in my old school and others. Masters have mostly heeli, widened in mind by service in war, while I find in modern boys a great deal more knowledge and appreciation of foreign and domestic rob' lems than in those of my time. Although at school there was a good deal of conformity to accepted ideas, yet there Were people who did not get drilled into the prevail' ing pattern. I recall an enterprising boy who We'll to France and practised his future profession 05 a journalist by attending the Dreyfus trial. 14e used to annoy his form master by writing his notes in shorthand. Another boy ran a revivalist mission on his own in a neighbouring village 1111111 raided by the philistines. Nothing is more nits. leading than school reputations. I recall one h°Y who was expelled, but lived to become a bish013/4 another, who was known as the timid sheep, '0 the MC, the DSO and two brevets in the first year of the First World War. A boy whose literati efforts, we thought, were confined to writing 011,d a hundred lines, and who was a noted boxer, di well as a novelist; while a mischievous little heY became a venerated saint. A boy too delicate to play games became an intrepid explorer. My criticism of the system obtaining in ail time was that there was very little attempt to encourage the particular bent of a boy. LYttlet°, the Headmaster, an interesting character, 0°"4 5, very little into contact with the ordinary h°)„ He confined his interest to the Upper Sixth. 1'; housemaster was a scientist. He knew that I !tit a voracious reader and fond of literature, 'he he never suggested what I should read. All for did was to ask me to take House library him because I had read all the books. was more than commonly interested in hlstord Had I been guided in reading I might have enu4 up as a blameless history don. It may have beee different in other Houses, but I cannot soy that I was , ever much influenced by master.
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One other feature of the school must be len ; tioned, the volunteer corps of which I Was a member; first as a junior, drilling 5.5'11°10 Snider rifle—possibly left over from the Crilli` s t War; later in the corps proper. I earned 111Y Or IPP
A
pay doing a fortnight's camp during the to War. We were very proud of our corps, bee the when Lord Wantage presented a bugle Or s most efficient corps, we won it for three yea A running and it became our property.
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