Our prop. school days are certainly the worst days of our lives. We may or may not be misled by the statement, rammed down the throats of long-suffering schoolboys, that our "school days are the happiest days in our lives." Hesitatingly we believe this state~ ment, while we are still at school, though in our innermost hearts we doubt its truth. believe it for the same reason that we believe everything else that we are told at our prep. schools—because we have no choice but believe it. We believe all the "facts" set down in our history books, cunningly twisted around to make the other country appear in. the wrong every time—why? Because we have no other school books wherein we may earn history from more angles than one. So most of us amble through our prep. school days deceiving ourselves into believing that they are the "best days of our lives." The best days of our lives—cooped up in an area the size of a school building and' its playing fields, kept under regimented discipline, our cating strictly regulated, enforced exercises, ever under the sway of a dictatorial headmaster, which means living ever under the threat of having to bend over ignominiously, avd receive six of the best with the amiable dictator's cane.
It was even so at a school in Sussex, where 1 spent seven long and desolate years. This school, many sympathizers may discover, corresponds to the institutions of learning! where they spent their youthful days before launching out into the larger life afforded by @ more advanced school. For masters we had an irate cleric, a man of "stern disciplinary methods," heading the brilliant throng; bringing up the rear were five frustrated individuals, excluding a mademaiselle from gay Paris who eloped with one of the aforesaid, all of whom were unmarried, and, until the excitement of the elopement, seemed never likely to become married. Although we never realized it at the time, all their violent tempers and all their] "disciplinary" methods were perhaps but the} outcome of frustration in their own lives—and) they took it out of us young wretches, who unfortunately did not understand the true] situation, and could not have complained even if we had. Within this ideally happy] environment, without any means of escape, we were Li for a good two-thirds of ly eft that we found out how really happy we! were to be rid of this environment—an environment for which our fond parents were paying upwards of £150 a year, We lived simply at our prep. school. We ud one ex each per weok—on Sundays, If we did not have an emg, we had half a fried sausage instead—perfect fare for "healthy youngsters." Any astas provided further to] this generous quota were charged extra to} the £150 per year which our harassed parents were already paying. The school prospectus told quite a different story. "Fresh tone from our own farm are supplied daily! {to the dent bows." was what it conveyed. The] reet of the food was not exactly anything to} write home about. either. We tonk it for] mrantod after a time—it was only years! afterwards, when we wondered just why our] first alma mater had seen fit to feed younesters on a starvation diet, and an ill-cooked tone at that, that we even imagined that] things could be different. Then there were the school buildings, It was. of course, an honour to he housed in an old Enalish country' mansion, but we did not quite like the idea! of Tone. cold corridors. completely devoid of heating arrangements of any kind oven in the months of winter. We did not think of voicing our objections, of course. Afler a) time we took them for granted too:
For our £150 per year. then, we received education facilities from six frustrated people. We were fed on scanty food, ill-cooked. We were housed in a decrepit building. lacking] the ordinary comforts of civilization, We were somewhat akin (o a totalitarian' state. We could not leave without the most special permission. The word of the dictator was Jaw. and there was no appeal from it. Our reading was strictly censored, The dictator's educational methods were the right ones, his methods of housing and feeding his pleasant little flock were entirely the correct ones, he Jooked after all the pocket money, all the Aittle comforts such as sweets and chocolates. (smoking was of the very devil at our school), which were dealt out to us once a week, no} one allowed to have more than four pennyworth, and altogether our whole lives were placed in his hands to be shapen according to his particular idea of how they ought to be shapen. Unfortunately, we only woke up to the defects of our dear old alma mater] long after we had left her kindly shadow, and had not the heart to rain curses on her shameless old head. When the damage was! done, we -woke' up to the fact that] we were too young, too utterly ignorant, to be able to find'a single fault in the] manner in which our lives were being] handled We obediently went to chapel every day, and twice on Sundays, whether we were} religiously inclined or not, We had no} alternative. We obediently donned strange Mttle uniforms and marched around the village armed -with wooden rifles, much to} the unconcealed amusement of the local lads, who lived a much freer life than we ever] dreamed of. We suffered from the usual set} of taboos, and accepted quite meekly the rule] that there were certain subjects which little boys should not discuss. Only in later years} did we realize how inherently mistaken. that} doctrine of "taboos" was. But our friendly Aletator- Laid down these "taboos," and we were good little boys, and saw that the taboos} were tabooed.
We were quite willing to live up to the principle that "little boys should be seen and not heard." We had never heard of the doctrine of "freedom of self-expression," and would not have known what it meant] even if we had. We did not know that little boys over in America were brought up under! 'a system diametrically opposed to our own. Our system was one of almost complete suppression, stifling of initiative, strict discipline. and a code which always ensured that the] "bumptious" boy, which later we discovered to be one who had rather more individuality and contempt for our absurd conventions} than the rest, was thoroughly and completely squashed. So long as we conformed to the system which was laid down by that kindly, dictator, we were ensured of a continual series of "goods" on our end of term reports. Later, we came to the conclusion that that system must die, might even be dead already, but we were called "good" for meekly conforming to it. Emerging from the prep. school at the tender age of 18 or 14, we were supposed to be well on our way towards] becoming dominating personalities, all set for finishing our schooling with flying colours. and then dashing into the professions and rising ike bubbles to the top. If we were] Tucky in our parents' choice of a school to} follow on the "prep." we might unlearn many of the mistaken notions we acquired in those strange establishments of learning.
It is an interesting game to sit back and think of alt the things you would have liked to tell your prep. school headmaster were wrong with his school while you were pupil under his wing. Yes, it is an amusing] ame, but that is about all. Tt is too late] now.' When you were one vf his pupils, any suggestions or criticisms would have been considered tantamount to an armed insurrection against the power ruling the totally tarian state, Planted in a prep. school, you have to stay there, unless you have enough individuality to run away. And while you are there, you, as a youth of nine or ten summers, are not likely to think up posers] for your benevolent headmaster to answer.
Whether you Wke it or not, you fo through the dull curriculum, very restricted in its! econo. which the average prep. school offers. No revolutionary methods of education here —or there were not in the writer's experience Just the same system which has been in use sine Charles Dickens emancipated the youthful schoolboy and the principle of]
me for more is encouraged just about as much in many modern prep. schools as it was in Dickens' time. Vainly do we look] heele on our prep. selion! days and attempt] tu find in them the haoplest days of our lives.
Rather to the contrary, we found that life] really haean when we took the school bus!
"own the school drive for the last time, saw! the fine old country mansion. with its' cor-meated tron appendages well hidden in the! hackeround, vanishing slowly into the dis-fence. and with whoops of pure Joy sped. through the school gates which we swore there and then never to gree again with ur presence.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.