undesirable ways of life were more a matter of choice than of coercion.  It was, in fact, far more a mirror of the larger world than any other school I have ever heard of; and I know of no school story which gives any impression of a life so curiously free as it all was.  There was none of that electrical circulation of the news of events and incident that is held to be characteristic of school life.  One used to hear long after or not at all, of things which had happened.  There were rumours, there was gossip; but I cannot imagine any place where a boy of solitary or retiring character might be so entirely unaware of anything that was going on.  It was a highly individualistic place; and if one conformed to superficial traditions, it was possible to lead, as I certainly did, a very quiet and secluded sort of life, reading, rambling about, talking endlessly and eagerly to a few chosen friends, quite unconscious that anything was being done for one, socially or educationally, entirely unmolested, as long as one was good-natured and easy-going.

It was therefore a good school for a boy with any toughness of mind or originality; but it tended in the case of normal and unreflective boys to develop a conventional type; good-mannered, sensible, with plenty of savoir faire, but with a wrong set of values.  It made boys over-estimate athletics, despise intellectual things, worship social success.  It gave them the wrong sort of tolerance, by which I mean the tolerance that excuses moral lapses, but that also thinks contemptuously of ideas and mental originality.  The idols of the place were good-humoured, modest, orderly athletes.  The masters made friends with them because a good mutual understanding conduced to discipline, and they were, moreover, pleasant and cheerful companions.  But boys of character and force, unless they were also athletic, were apt to be overlooked.  The theory of government was not to interfere, and there was an absence of enthusiasm and inspiration.  The headmaster was Dr. Hornby, afterwards provost, a courteous, handsome, dignified gentleman, a fine preacher, and one of the most charming public speakers I have ever heard.  We respected and admired him, but he knew little of his masters, and never made his personal influence, which might have been great, felt among the boys.  He was a man of matchless modesty and refinement; he never fulminated or lectured; I never heard an irritable word fall from his lips; but on the other hand he never appealed to us, or asked our help, or spoke eagerly or indignantly about any event or tendency.  He hated evil, but closed his eyes to it, and preferred to think that it was not there.  There were masters who in their own houses and forms displayed more vivid qualities; but the whole tone of the place was against anything emotional or passionate or uplifting; the ideal that soaked into the mind was one of temperate, orderly, well-mannered athleticism.