Lost Diaries. Baring Maurice
my first experience of school life, is not very hopeful.
October 10. – The routine of the life here seems to me more and more meaningless. The work is to me child's play; and indeed chiefly consists in checking the inaccuracies of the ushers. They show no gratitude to me – indeed, sometimes the reverse of gratitude.
One day, in the English class, one of the ushers grossly misquoted Pope. He said, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I held up my hand and asked if the line was not rather "A little learning is a dangerous thing," adding that Pope would scarcely have thought a little knowledge to be dangerous, since all knowledge is valuable. The usher tried to evade the point by a joke, which betrayed gross theological ignorance. He said: "All Popes are not infallible."
One of the boys brought into school a foolish toy – a gutta-percha snake that contracts under pressure and expands when released, with a whistling screech.
Jonas Pike, who is the most ignorant as well as the most ill-mannered of all the boys, suggested that the snake should be put into the French master's locker, in which he keeps the exercises for the week. The key of the locker is left in charge of the top boy of the class, who, I say it in all modesty, is myself. Presently another boy, Hudson by name, asked me for the key. I gave it to him, and he handed it to Pike, who inserted the snake in the locker. When the French master opened the locker the snake flew in his face. He asked me if I had had any hand in the matter. I answered that I had not touched the snake. He asked me if I had opened the locker; I, of course, said "No." Questioned further as to how the snake could have got there, I admitted having lent the key to Hudson, ignorant of any ulterior purpose. In spite of this I was obliged, in company with Pike and Hudson, to copy out some entirely old-fashioned and meaningless exercises in syntax.
October 13. – A pretty little episode happened at home to-day. The gardener's boy asked me if he might try his new axe on the old cherry-tree, which I have often vainly urged mother to cut down. I said, "By all means." It appears that he misunderstood me and cut down the tree. My mother was about to send him away, but I went straight to her and said I would take the entire responsibility for the loss of the tree on myself, as I had always openly advocated its removal and that the gardener's boy was well aware of my views on the subject. My mother was so much touched at my straightforwardness that she gave me some candy, a refreshment to which I am still partial. Would that the ushers at school could share her fine discrimination, her sound judgment, and her appreciation of character.
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