Part 2 - My school days - School work recalled
As I have said, there were eighty boys divided into 4 classes,
under two masters, in one room. This physical condition no doubt
had to influence ordinary classroom procedure for any one class was
impossible without disturbing the other three, and so we were
subject to few restrictions, left to our own devices. Those who
liked reading could read; those who preferred writing indulged in
unbelievable feats of plain and ornamental penmanship in “Piece
books” for the ultimate edification of the Mercers Company. My
particular preference was “writing papers”. You were given a
subject by Jimmy or, subject to his approval, you could suggest
one, several days were allowed to “swat up” then one wrote a
“paper”. The big idea was to make one read. Not many books were
available but I had untold wealth in two volumes of Chambers
Encyclopaedia and so any subject under any letter up to but not
including M was easy, but one was allowed to bring a book to school
to read and, most surprisingly, to copy out an article verbatim.
Jimmy’s view was, “if one reads something, parts of it at least
will stick in one’s fat head.” I must have spent days, nay weeks,
reading and copying articles, sometimes venturing on paraphrasing,
or composing a paper based on several related articles in the
Encyclopaedia, providing their initial letter was from A to L and
it is surprising what a lot of interesting things come in that
category.
Another feature of the school was the “chores”. These, which
included daily sweeping and dusting, fire lighting and window
cleaning, were all performed by a rota of four selected boys, not
as a penalty as I found most people think, but as a special
privilege for good conduct and diligence. On the least deviation in
conduct, or in performance of the chores such as failing to light
and maintain a good fire, or not dusting desks properly, one was
turned out of the “chores rota” and another boy from the waiting
list put on. Looking back. I sometimes think that this chores rota
was one of the most unusual features of an unusual school,
considering that most of the duties had to be performed before or
after school hours, that there was always keen competition to get
on this rota, and the high standard of conduct and performance
necessary to keep on it. The only reward was a rare word of
approbation from Jimmy.
I think I can be said to have done fairly well at school as I
reached the top class when 12 years old and in the natural course
of things I was entitled to another two years. Alternatively,
having reached top class, I could leave at any time. Fortunately
for me, my dear old parents and Jimmy reached a compromise; I was
allowed to stay on as a “part-timer”. This was a concession granted
when the economic condition of the parents warranted it, if the boy
really wanted to stay at school – well I really did want to - and
seeing that I was the oldest of eight, and my father earning £1 per
week as carman for the old LB&SC Railways[1], we were rather hard up. And so I had two
glorious years, sometimes at school as a boy, sometimes at work as
a man. I am of the opinion that many boys would be better for a
similar experience. Of course, irregular attendance would upset
class work, but we had but little of that in the usual sense of the
term. To a great extent, we “seniors” of 13 plus steered our own
course. To waste time, to fool about were capital offences not to
be tolerated, and Jimmy had an uncanny sense of knowing if we were
working or not. This is not the place to deal with my part time
work, though some of that was not without interest.
In April 1887 it was announced that, in commemoration of Queen
Victoria’s Jubilee, a special prize would be given by the Mercers
Company for a “paper” on a subject of each competitor’s choice and
subject to the approval of the master. There was no stipulation as
to length but there must be no verbatim copying in this case and we
had a month to do it in. I had some difficulty in choosing a
subject. Finally, being all lit up with the coming Jubilee, I
sought to prove in my paper (its title I forget) “that a Queen was
preferable to a King.” Jimmy passed the subject and I set to work
reading relevant matter in my half encyclopaedia. My plan, if such
it could be called, was to pick our some “good” queens and place
them alongside an equal number of “bad” kings. Alas, time failed me
before I had done with my queens. I started off with Boadicea, then
a Saxon queen whose name I forget but I know the first initial of
her name was in the first dozen letters of the alphabet, but when I
came to Elizabeth I really let myself rip. Not only had the good Mr
Chambers been fairly expansive, but I loved my subject. I expect I
got as near to verbatim copying as possible without detection, but
I read and re-read not only the article on Elizabeth but the
Armada, Burghley, Cecil, Essex, Lord Howard of Effingham, Drake,
Frobisher, Bristol Adventurers, Catholic disabilities. I could not
work in Raleigh much for obvious reasons but I found a rare plum in
the article on Dissolution of Monasteries and subsequent poverty
among country folk which brought forth the first Poor Laws. And of
course, as the poets and madrigal writers had sung the praises of
the Virgin Queen, so did I.
I then, having dealt pretty fully with Bess, looked at Catherine of
Aragon, Catherine the Great and Catherine of Modena, but none of
these seemed to support my thesis. I didn’t much care for Queer
Charlotte, Adelaide or Caroline, so jumped straight to Victoria.
That of course was easy; not only were newspapers full of the dear
old Queen, but I managed to borrow two books on the subject, one on
the expansion of the Empire on which the Sun never sets, and the
other on missionary work abroad. And so, warming to my subject, I
verily believe I wrote sheets of the utterest slush, finally
asserting that as Elizabeth was a virgin, so no doubt were both
Boadicea and Victoria, and that was why men loved them, men always
love virgins and so on. This was a pretty bad slip. Jimmy had not
waded through the lot and sent it up to Mercers. They apparently
did read it and put red rings and “?” round my dissertation on
virgins. But they awarded me the Jubilee Prize, a book and a
Waterbury watch. Jimmy called me to his desk during my last week at
the school, asked me how I came such a flop about Victoria being a
virgin, how did I account for her many children? I replied, “I
don’t see that has anything to do with it. What about the Virgin
Mary?” At this Jimmy smiled and said, rather sadly I thought,
“Well, this is no matter for a May morning. We will talk this out
presently.” But, to my regret, we never did, for I left school in
June 1887 aged 14! Rather to my regret as I liked school.
Fortunately, Jimmy had pumped into me the vital difference between
instructors and educators. Of the former he had a poor opinion; of
the latter, it is a matter for you and you alone – all a
schoolmaster can do is possibly prepare you to educate
yourself!
- [1] London Bridge (Southwark side), Brighton and South-Coast
Railway.
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