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228 OTHER WORK [CHAP. XVI
ments must be Jeaps in the dark or at best in the twilight ;
but for work which involves responsibility and co-operation
with others I would sooner rely on a shrewd, lcving
mother's account of the training of the candidate's childhood
than on any subsequent data whatsoever.
Until recently the practice of English essay writing
was neglected in the Public Schools. It is by no means
an easy accomplishment to teach, and, moreover, in a
prize competition the determining of the winner is singularly
difficult. Before the War I set at Eton as a subject
for the prize a discussion of Norman Angell's book The
Great IUusion. The ability or plausibility of that work
quite "bowled over" the twenty-eight senior boys who,
competed-more than double the average number. My
gifted literary relation John Bailey most kindly undertook
to read and recommend the winner. In about three
weeks he Wrote saying he then understood why schoolmasters
were often grumblers. He had found the work
exceedingly heavy and the verdict beyond anything
dubious. But the compensation lay in the interesting
discovery that every single writer was strongly pacific in
tone. This ought to be noticed, as telling against the
fears of some good people lest our Cadet Corps and rille
ranges, etc., are breeding a bellicose spirit among the
young. They are doing nothing of the kind. Similarly
the Eton Beagles have been going ·on merrily during the
fifty years when there has been a marked diminution of,
cruelty to animals amoD.g boys. These are facts; and
after all, facts are stubborn things.
. .
The best schoolboy essay l ever read was on the su):>ject,
of Human Thoughtlessness. The writer consumed about'
four good-sized pages in exposing the numerous disasters in!
social life which might have been prevented by a little j
prudence. The fifth page was only half-filled, and I could I
not guess how the critic of human affairs was going to wind I
up-the most difficult demand to be made on any essayj
writer. His ending was something in this fashion: " Butl