The Days Before Yesterday

days"-Novel religious observances-Harrow-"John Smith of Harrow"-"Tommy" Steele-"Tosher"-An ingenious punishment-John Farmer-His methods-The birth of a famous song-Harrow school songs-"Ducker"-

because foolish parents seem to think it rather an amusing trait in their offspring. Now, the boy at Chittenden's who allowed his mind to wander, and did not concentrate, promptly made the acquaintance of the "spatter," a broad leathern strap; and the spatter hurt exceedingly, as I can testify from many personal experiences of it. On the whole, then, even the most careless boy found it to his advantage to concentrate. This clever teacher knew how quickly young brains tire, so he never devoted more than a quarter of an hour to each subject, but during that quarter of an hour he demanded, and got, the full attention of his pupils. The result was that everything absorbed remained permanently. If I enlarge at some length on Mr. Chittenden's methods, it is because the subject of education is of such vital importance, and the mere fact that the much-advertised system to which I have alluded has attained such success, would seem to indicate that many people are aware that they share that curious disability in the intellectual equipment of the average Englishman to which I have referred; for unless they had habitually only half-listened, half-read, half-understood, there could be no need for their undergoing a course of instruction late in life. Surely it is more sensible to check this peculiarly English tendency to mental laziness quite early in life, as Mr. Chittenden did with

ay this belated tribute to the memory of a very skilful teacher, and a

tary French to convalescent soldiers in a big hospital. No one ever had a more cheery and good-tempered lot of pupils than I had

Billy, H

k, Jack, H

t me this time, sir." Then I had an inspiration. Feigning to take up a telephone-receiver, and to speak down it, I begged for "Willconk, One, O, double-six, please." Twenty blithesome wounded Tommies at once went through an elaborate pantomime of unhooking receivers, and asked anxiously for "Willconk-One, O, double-six, miss, please. No, miss, I didn't say, 'City, six, eight, five, four'; I said 'Willco

y merry convalescents began shouting gleefully, "Oon," "Doo," "Troy," "Catta," "Sink," etc.; but the French numerals stuck in their heads. Never did any one

arked back to the "thirties" and "forties," and she endeavoured to reconstitute the dress of little boys at that period. She ordered for me a velvet tunic for Sunday wear, of the sort seen in old prints, and a velvet cap with a peak and tassel, such as young England wore in William IV.'s days. S

boys produced their high hats, which I found were worn even by little fellows of eight; I had nothing but my terrible tasselled velvet cap, the sight of which provoked even louder jeers than the tunic had done. We marched to church two and two, in old-fashioned style in a "crocodile," but not a boy in the school would walk beside me in my absurd garments, so a very forlorn little fellow trotted to church alone behind the usher, acutely conscious of the very grotesque figur

fought as a private in the Belgian army at the Battle of Waterloo. He had once been imprudent enough to admit that he and some Belgian friends of his had...how shall we put it?...absented themselves from the battlefield without the permission of their superiors, and had hurriedly returned to Brussels, being doubtless fatigued by their exertions. His little tormentors never let him forget this. When we thought that we had done enough French for the day, a shrill young voice would pipe out, "Now, Moosoo, please tell us how you and all the Belgians ran away from the Battle of Waterloo."

idge, where he was certain to do equally well. From having this Admirable Crichton perpetually held up to us as an example, we grew rather tired of his name, much as the Athenians wearied at constantly hearing Aristides described as "the just." At length we heard that the pattern-boy would spend two days at Hoddesdon on his way back to Cambridge. We were all very anxious to see him. As Mr. Chittenden confidently predicted that he would one day become

enden's who made names for themselves. The rest of us were content to plod along

excuse for avoiding any ablutions whatever. We rose at six, winter and summer, and were in school by half-past six. The windows of the school-room were kept open, whilst the only heating came from a microscopic stove jealously guarded by a huge iron stockade to prevent the boys from approaching it. For breakfast we were never given anything but porridge and bread and butter. We had an excellent dinner at one o'clock, but nothing for tea but bread and butter again, never cake or jam. It will

there was some fine carving on the staircase. The house, with a splendid avenue of limes leading up to it, stood in a large old-world garden, where vast cedar trees

looks upon it as something infinitely remote, affecting other people but not himself. Then when the first gap in the home occurs, all the child's little world tumbles to pieces, and he wonders how the birds have the h

the Litany were repeated. I think that we were all convinced that these were regularly appointed festivals of the Church of England. I know that I was, and I spent hours hunting fruitlessly through my Prayer Book to find some allusion to them. I found Sundays after Epiphany, Sundays in Lent, and Sundays after Trinity, but not one word could I discover, to my amazement, either about "Cock-hat Sunday" or "Spit-in-the-pew Sunday." What can have been the origin of this singular custom I cannot say. When I, in my turn, became head-boy, I fixed "The Three Sundays" early in May. It so happened that year that the Thursday after "Cock-hat Sunday" was Ascension Day, when we also went to church, but, it being a week-day, we wore our school caps in

ge, and went, as my elder brothers, my father, a

hair, and the kindest eyes I have ever seen in a human face; he was meticulously clean and neat in his dress. "John," as he was invariably called, on one occasion met a poorly clad beggar shivering in the street on a cold day, and at once stripped off his own overcoat and insisted on the beggar taking it. John never bought another overcoat, but wrapped

's boys took high places; but he took "pupil-room" in my house, and helped my tutor generally, so I saw

e in the habit of presenting flowers to their masters. For all his apparent simplicity, John was not easy to "score off." I have known Fifth-form boys bring a particularly difficult passage of Herodotus to John in "pupil-room," knowing that he was not a great Greek scholar. John, after glancing at the passage, would say, "Laddie, you splendid fellows in the Upper Fifth know so much; I am but a humble and very ignorant old man. This passage is beyond my attainments. Go to your tutor, my child. He will doubtless make it all clear to you; and pray accept my apologies for being unable to help you," and the Fi

editary enemy triumphed, and his reason left him, hundreds of his old pupils wished to subscribe, and to surround John for the remainder of his life with all the comforts that could be given him in his afflicted condition. It was very characteristic of John to refuse this offer, and to go of his own

etually carrying, winter and summer, rain or sunshine, a gigantic bright blue umbrella. He had these umbrellas specially made for him; they were enormous, the sort of umbrellas Mrs. Gamp must have brought with her when her professio

s exponents, for in most military marches the solo in the "trio" falls to the euphonium, though I fancy that I evoked the most horrible sounds from my big brass instrument. To play a brass instrument with any degree of precision, it is first necessary to acquire a "lip"-that is to say, the centre of the lip covered by the mouthpiece must harden and thicken before "open notes" can be sounded accurately. To "get a lip" quickly, I always carried my mouthpiece in my pocket, and blew noiselessly into it perpetually, even in school. Tosher had noticed this. One day my algebra paper was even worse than usual. With the best intentions in the world to master this intricate branch of knowledge, algebra conveyed nothing whatever to my brain. To state that A + b = xy, seemed to me the assertion

hese songs, and they form a most potent bond of union between Harrovians of all ages, for their wo

melody at his command, always tuneful, sometimes almost inspired. In addition to the published songs, he was continually throwing off musical settings to topical verse, written for some special occasion. These were invariably bright and catchy,

Farmer often selected me to try one of his new compositions at "house-singing," where the boys formed an exceedingly critical audience. Either the new song was approved of, or it was received in chilling silence. Farmer in moments of excitement perspired more than any human being I have ever seen. Goin

on, when afar

ose who are s

ing hymn-like, something grand, and now I've found it. Listen!" and Farmer played me that majestic, stately melody which has since been heard in every country and in every corner of the globe, where

might have selected me to sing "Forty years on" for the very first time. As it wa

choir, and he circulated the quaintest little notes amongst us, telling us how he wished the Psalms sung. "Psalm 136, quite

anaged to touch some subtle chord of sympathy that makes them very dear to those who heard them in their youth. After Farmer left Harrow for Oxford, his successor, Eaton Faning, wo

for boys. They are fine and virile, with underlying sentiment, yet free from the

ht-our long

ther, frien

in quick

pass and

and

he c

pass and

! Here, s

ay-and o

ce is ring

n to brave

swer, 'We

what

or

swer, 'We

! Here, s

m for the roll-call. These lines, for me, embody all

otatoes extended right up to the terrace wall. But beyond this prosaic display of kitchen-stuff, in summer-time an unbroken sea of green extended to the horizon, dotted with such splendid oaks as only a heavy clay soil can produce. London, instead of being ten miles off, might have been a hund

e great elms, a splashing fountain at one end, its far extremity gay with lawns and flower-beds. I can conceive of nothing more typical of the exuberant joie-de-vivre of youth than the sight of Ducker on a warm summer evening when the place is ringing with the shouts and laughter of some four hundred boys, all naked as when they were born, swimming, diving, ducking each other, spla

effervesc

shes in t

ater seems

ulses and

e reason why, as a b

gly abandoned cricket for steeplechase riding, at which he distinguished himself until politics ousted steeplechase riding. After some years, politics gave place to golf and music, which were in their turn supplanted by photography. He then tried writing a few novels, and very successful some of them were, until it finally dawned on him that his real vocation in life was

SE OF VE

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ho depreciates h

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of our happi

latter are like a District Railway train, going perpetually round and round the same Inner

t verse of "Forty years on" has a tend

on, growing o

wind, as in

, and rheumati

p you that once

h they always seem to imagine that they themselves have retained all their pristine vigour, and have successfully resisted every assault of Time's battering-ram. The particular sentiment described in German as "Schadenfreude," "pleasure over another's troubles" (how characteristic it is that there should be no equivalent in

thers should run a hundred yards race in the street then and there. Accordingly, a nephew of mine paced one hundred yards in Montagu Street, Portman Square, and stood immovable as winning-post. The Chairman of the British South African Chartered Company, the Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway Company, and the Secretary of State for India took up their positions in the street and started. The Chairman of the Great Eastern romped home. We are all of us creatures of our environment, and we may become unconsciously coloured by that environment; as the Gr

the Viceroy. Dr. Mahaffy, though a fine bowler, was the worst runner I have ever seen. He waddled and paddled slowly over the ground like a duck, with his feet turned outwards, exactly as that uninteresting fowl moves. My father frequently rallied Dr. Mahaffy on his defective locomotive powers, and finally challenged him to a two hundred yards race. My father being sixty-four years old, and Dr. Mahaffy only th

a gardener, two foremen-mechanics, and four farmers, but only achieved second place, and that at the price of a sprained tendon, so possibly the "feeble of foot" of the song

brother Claud, myself, the late Lord Bradford, and my brother-in-law the late Lord Mount Edgcumbe, welcomed this indisputable proposition warmly-nay, enthusiastically. The Etonians who were there, Sir Augustus Paget, then British Ambassador in Rome, the late Lord Northampton, and others, contravened her Majesty's obviously true statement with great heat, quite oblivious of the fact that it is opposed to all etiquette to contradict a Crowned Head. The dispute engendered considerable heat

e returning to the starting-point at the conclusion of a long race. The externals remain unchanged. Outwardly, the New Schools, the Chapel, the Vaughan Library, and the Head-Master's House all we

days in the dis

air, in the ra

school, with a pile of books hugged under the left arm, and the intervening half-century wiped out. But, as they would put it in Ireland, these lucky, fresh-faced youn

may come as th

heart wi

ought of

t you came, so