THE PEDAGOGUE AT PLAY.
The Pedagogue at Play. By G. M. A. Hewett. (George Allen. 6s.)—We regret to have to say that Mr. Hewett's new book is a great disappointment. We read his "Open-Air Boy" with pleasure, but all that the present work has done is to cause us to recollect its forerunner: another reminder that certain authors are always in danger of breaking down when they write about themselves. Mr. Hewett describes a series of holidays of the usual kind—in Norway, in Ireland, in Switzerland, in Scotland, fishing, boating, ski-ing, playing golf—and his subject-matter is pleasant enough ; but the first person singular has been too much for him, and he riots in high-spirited trivialities and undisciplined digression until our patience is exhausted and our nerves are jarred. Here is a passage, from the second page, referring to three other schoolmasters with whom Mr. Hewett shoots :— " I don't think that the others would care to read my views on the straightness of their shooting, any more than I should care to read their views on mine. We all of us miss at times. You must be content with that confession. We are a harmonious quartette for schoolmasters. If you had the honour of an invi- tation to make our fifth gun—there isn't room for five, but one of us would walk behind the beaters—you might think our language to one another impolite. That is only reaction, and done on principle. We have to be so very civil and measured in our daily utterances (you mayn't call even a boy ` blooming fool '), that it is part of the treat to give fairly free vent to our feelings when an easy shot is missed by our next-door gun, or when he brutally massacres a nice easy shot which would have made a fine sporting one for ourselves, or when he thinks our brown gaiters to be a rabbit, and we are only just in time to urge the truth upon him. Mind you! you are not to picture us as a clisoraerly rabble, firing promiscuously like a lot of farmers turned into cover at the end of the season, as a treat, to shoot rabbits and dogs and one another. I did once take part in such a shoot, but I only stayed a very short half-hour, and was lucky to escape even after that short baptism of fire. No, my friend."
And so on (there are forty more lines before the paragraph is ended). Should pedagogues write like this ? We think not. It is a great pity, because Mr. Hewett really enjoys life, and he has had some agreeable experiences; but his book has yet to be,—this is but the rough material from which to shape it.
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