OPERATION OF VIRILE SENTIMENT 157 



with this case and others which I could mention before 

 us, Dr. Cobbett's plea that the " street arab " only 

 *' needs a good environment and the influence of 

 decent people " to make him a desirable citizen, 

 falls hopelessly to the ground. In the light of facts 

 it is untenable ; the voice of tradition has long since 

 condemned it. 



But University College School does not stand 

 alone in its experience. I have made enquiries of 

 teachers at Grammar and other Secondary Schools, 

 and from all my informants come the same report, 

 variously expressed. I am informed that these boys 

 have no idea of the use of freedom and never learn 

 its meaning. The average fee-paying boy of the 

 Secondary School may be allowed his freedom and 

 will not turn it into licence. That is not the case 

 with the boys sent up at an early age from the Elemen- 

 tary Schools. They need to be continually super- 

 vised. They are a constant menace to the morale 

 and morality of the School. They are incapable of 

 appreciating the beauties of literature, and some of 

 the finest passages in the English Classics are 

 parodied in ribald and revolting language. Even 

 Tennyson's " Charge of the Light Brigade " has not 

 escaped their prurient minds, and I was once shown 

 by a Secondary School teacher a most repulsive 

 parody upon it. The boy who wrote it was caught 

 reading it out to the whole class of fee-paying students 

 at that school. This is not an accident due to 

 carelessness, for it occurred in a Secondary School 

 where even undue care is taken to assimilate the 



