There were two other French masters besides M. Hua—M. Roublot and M. Banck. M. Banck was sublimely strict, but M. Roublot was easygoing, good-natured, but lacking in authority. During his lesson we used to read the newspapers and write our letters, but we liked him too much to rag. We used to bring in all our occupations for the week, and stacks of writing-paper. One day when this was happening, and every boy was pleasantly but busily engaged in some occupation of his own, who should walk in but the Headmaster, Dr. Warre. The newspapers and the writing-paper and envelopes disappeared as by magic, and M. Roublot at once put on the safest boy to construe. Dr. Warre, who had grasped the situation, told us that our conduct was disgraceful.
He often made sudden visits to divisions, and stood up by the master’s desk while the work went on. These visits were always alarming, and one day, when he had just gone out of the room, one of the boys said: “Lord, how that man makes me sweat!” But there was one other French master who was not French, but far more formidable than all the rest, and this was Mr. Frank Tarver. Mr. Tarver was a perfect French scholar, and when he explained what the word bock meant, and said: “When you go to a café in Paris you sit down and say, ‘Garçon, un bock,’ ” one felt that one had before one a perfect man of the world. But sometimes there were no bounds to his anger, especially if he found that one had not looked out words in the dictionary, or if one translated encore by again. One day I remember his being in such a passion that he took a drawer from his desk and flung it on the ground. It is a great thing to be able to do this effectually. The boys quaked. Most of us liked him very much all the same; but to some he was a terror.
Mathematical lessons were always a difficulty in my case. I should never have passed Trials in mathematics had it not been for Euclid, which counted together with arithmetic and algebra. Fortunately I could do Euclid without difficulty, so I always got enough marks in that subject to make up for getting none at all in the two other branches of the science.
Every week we had a task called an extra-work to do out of school, which was meant to represent an hour’s work of mathematics, and consisted of sums in arithmetic and algebra. It generally took me more than an hour, and I never managed to get a sum right. When we used to get into hopeless arrears with our work, and everything was in an inextricable tangle, there was always one solution, and that was to stay out; but to be excused lessons one had to go to bed, and for that it was necessary to catch cold. But just an ordinary attack of Friday fever was enough to stay out. We complained of a bad headache and incipient insomnia, and Miss Copeman let us stay out at once, thinking it might be the beginning of measles, and we sat in her sitting-room reading a novel till the crisis was over.
At the slightest sign of a real streaming cold my tutor used to pack us off to bed and keep us there till it was gone, and we were allowed bound volumes of the Illustrated London News from the boys’ library, and my tutor would lend us books from his own library.
Each boy in a division had to be prepostor for the division for a week at a time in turn. With the prepostor’s book one marked in the boys who were absent, either from school or chapel. One had a list of the boys’ names at the end of the book and ticked them off as they walked into chapel. This sounds a simple thing to do, but as the boys used to come in at the last minute and all together, and one had to take up the book to a master before chapel began, I found it flustering to a degree, and never knew if I had marked everyone in or not. I had to go to the Headmaster once for losing the prepostor’s book, and he said I had played fast and loose with a position of grave responsibility, and gave me three exercises of Bradley’s Prose to write out.
After the summer half I was in Arthur Benson’s division. We read passages from the Odyssey, Virgil, and Horace’s Odes, the Second Book, and for the first time I enjoyed some Latin. I thought Horace’s Odes delightful. Arthur Benson used to make us draw pictures illustrating episodes in Greek history, and he would stick them up on the wall if they were good. One of the subjects suggested was the bridge of boats that Xerxes threw across the sea, and I remember drawing a magnificent picture, with the hills of the Chersonese in the background, copied from some illustrations of the Crimean War, and a realistic flat bridge made of planks placed on broad punts. He was delighted with the picture and put it up at once, and sometimes he used to take older boys to see it.
There was not much religious instruction at Eton. We construed the Greek Testament on Monday mornings, but this was a Greek lesson like any other; and Sunday was made hideous by an exercise called Sunday Questions, which had to be done on that day, and which we always put off doing to the last possible moment. These were questions on historical points in the Old Testament, and entailed finding out the answers from some such book as Maclear’s Old Testament History, and writing four large sheets of MSS. The questions were sometimes puzzling, and we used to consult Miss Copeman, and sometimes, as a last resort, my tutor, who used to say: “I can’t think what Mr. Benson”—or whoever it might be—“can mean.” I have still got a copy of Sunday Questions done at Eton. In this set we were told to give the probable dates showing the duration of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and what was going on in any other countries. Another question is: “Why was Pharaoh Necho against Judah? How did he treat their successive kings?” And the last question (there were several others) was: “Distinguish carefully between Jehoiakim and Jehoiakin.” I seem to have answered these questions rather evasively, but I got seven marks out of ten.
Besides this, boys got their religion from the sermons in Chapel, of which they were highly critical. They enjoyed a good preacher, and some of the masters and guests were good preachers, but the boys were merciless critics of a bad or ludicrous preacher, and there were many of these. One of the masters preached symbolic sermons about the meaning of the Four Beasts. Another used to begin his sermons by saying: “The story of the Prodigal Son is too well known to repeat. We all know how⸺” and then elaborately retell what was supposed to be too well known to tell at all. Before boys were confirmed they received special tuition on religious and moral topics from their tutor, but I missed it by having measles. So I was confirmed in the holidays, and just before my confirmation it struck my mother that I was singularly unprepared, so she sent me to see my Uncle Henry Ponsonby’s brother, who was a clergyman. We called him Uncle Fred; his sister had married one of my uncles. He had a great sense of humour, and was rather shy. He was also extremely High Church. When I arrived with a note from my mother, in which he was asked to examine me in theology, he was embarrassed, and he said: “Well, I will ask you your catechism, What is your name, N. or M.?” And then he laughed and said, “I think that will do.” When I told my mother this, she sent me to another clergyman who did talk, but confined the conversation to moral generalities, and said no word about the catechism. So I may say I had no religious instruction at school during all my school-time, for which I have always been profoundly grateful.
Music lessons became a difficulty and a stumbling-block as time went on. I had organ lessons, and they were, of course, given out of school, and these lessons and the necessary practice took up a lot of one’s spare time, besides having to give way to work. Mr. Joseph Barnby, the organist and the head of the music masters, said: “Your parents pay for your music lessons just as they pay for your Latin lessons, and so you ought to take just as much trouble about them.” This was quite true, but the other masters did not see the matter in the same light. They couldn’t be expected to take music lessons seriously, and said that music must in all cases always give way to work.
The result was one scamped one’s practice and shirked one’s music lesson on every possible opportunity. Matters came to such a pitch that I was sent