[To cm Herm or TIM " Spccrrroa."]
but,—I do not think that the ordinary "Old Buy" will look upon The Loom of Youth as a completely accurate description of Public School life. The picture drawn of the athletic master ever bellowing forth his own superior athletic record, and finally kicking a boy for slacking in a school match, seems to me to be no grotesque as to be incredible. But the war has given us a picture of the pleasanter side of the Public School "in fact." Quite recently there appeared in one of the evening papers a pathetic little paragraph which tells how in 1914 384 boys, the representative marksmen of 43 of our leading Public; Schools, competed for the Ashburton Shield at Bialey. Three years after, of those 984 boys 88 have given their lives and 79 have been wounded in their country's cause. To-day every school is in mourning for her sons. To-day every schoolboy, past and present, is proud of his own school's "Roll of Honour." It does not seem quite the best time to choose to throw stones at a system, whatever its faults may be, that has produced so splendid a record.—I am, Sir, Ac.,
Previous page
