SCHOOLBOY ETHICS
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—The Headmaster of Lancing's indictment of the modem schoolboy, based, I suppose, upon long experience, is not encouraging to parents who, in the face of financial difficulty, hope to send their sons to a public school. Perhaps, therefore, you will allow me to point to one indisputable fact which, I think, suggests that Mr. Blakiston's opinion, that the average schoolboy to-day compares very unfavourably with his prede- cessor of thirty years ago, should not be accepted without hesitation.
In the cloisters of Lancing chapel the names of more than 150 "old boys" are graven upon the walls, as the names of those whom all ought to hold in honour : yet to all appearance, those "old boys" were just ordinary lads, much like their successors at the present day. But in 1914 they were suddenly confronted with stern reality, and at once they "became men, putting away childish things " ; and indeed often discharged the full duty of manhood before they reached man's estate.
Schoolboy ethics are not the highest imaginable, quoniam dociles imitandis Turpibus et pravis onine,s sumus, but on the whole, I believe that they improve. The degeneracy of the young is often denounced by preachers and others, but it should never be forgotten that Youth was magnificently vindicated in the course of the great War.—! am, Sir, &c., Eastbourne.
WALTER CRICK.
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