I pass to a third, and from the social point
of view even more damaging, slogan, namely "The Old School Tie." I admit that there exists a type of person who has never in after life been able to recapture the sense of importance which he enjoyed when at school, and that these types wander like ghosts through the cloisters of their old school days being no more than a burden to the earth. Yet it is not in derision of the perpetual "old boy" that the phrase is used today. It is used to deride those standards of conduct which are associated with the word "gentleman." There is no reason to suppose that these standards are not admired and prac- tised by the whole nation ; yet if, by the thoughtless or mali- cious employment of this phrase, these virtues become either obscured or vilified, or identified with a particular class, then indeed the whole nation will suffer serious loss. We are not a clever people ; we are not specially industrious or un- selfish; but we have evolved certain codes of behaviour which other nations have been unable to evolve in the same quality or to the same degree. I should regret it if the in- genuity of the music-hall comedian were to shake our confidence in the validity of these important values.
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