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136 ETON AGAIN, AND HOLIDAYS, 1882-1890 [c!L!.P. x
tion of young English masters for foreigners, and I fancy
when Warre became Headmaster and began the practice
of visiting divisions, it was a revelation to the multitude
to hear French fairly spoken by an indisputably virile
Englishman.•
Similarly the tone of the rank-and-file of the school
towards industry in school work was profoundly modified.
Only among the sections of society where ancestral bar- .
barism seems for a time by some inner necessity to emerge
and hold sway was industry treated as a stigma. Pres- ·
sure from the homes began to tell. The idlest elass in
the school, who yet had aspirations towards the Army,
had been formed into an Army class where " work " was
conceived of almost entirely as cramming for examinations,
and success was gauged not by any flickerings of interest
in learning as such, but solely by the number of" passes."
No subject of study outside the prescribed list was looked
at or mentioned. I well remember when, for a subject
for ethical or ecclesiastical discussion among the younger
masters on Sunday evenings, the suggestion was Religious
Teaching in the Army Class, it was meant and received as
a good-humoured joke. As far as I know, the training
of Army boys in every other Public School was exactly'
of this character. Nor is it at all certain that anything
better could have been done with the youths in question.
Some few years before this time I heard the future Archbishop
Temple utter his .opinion that Eton was the best
school in the world. On my expressing gratification he
explained: "What I mean is, you have a lot of boys there(
with whom nobody could p9ssibly do anything whatever;
and you manage them somehow." There was a characteristic
absence of gush in the sentiment so delivered, but .
. .
1 About 1900 I heard a very creditable rendering of a chorus in a pl!M.
English accent {very ral'8 in Hertfordsbire) by Grammar School boys.
The master's explanation was that" long wrestling with the French accent
bad given the young British tongues eontrol over the vowel sound9. Thill·
ia worth knowing. Whether increasad familiarity with eaoh other's
Jangnage will bridge the gulf between us and our neighbours may be
doubted. But it mu.ei be triad.