When ive Old Fogeys ivere Boys, 211 



Shute, V.O., an ardent Wykehamite, said at the 'Wykehamist 

 dinner some few years back in the presence of Wardens, 

 Masters, Judges, and Bishops. The general was returning 

 thanks for the army, and claimed Winchester as his first 

 teacher in military matters, as he was there grounded in 

 punctuality, discipline, and obedien'3e ; and he added, almost 

 in these words : '^ And if you would think less of the 

 competitive examinations for the army, and let us have your 

 strong, idle football-players and cricketers who cannot learn 

 much Latin and Greek, and send them to us at seventeen 

 years old, any good colonel or adjutant will either make 

 good soldiers of them in twelve months, or return them on 

 your hands, Queen's hard bargains." General Shute was quite 

 right; for out of the idle division of my day, many 

 left their bones in the Crimea, India, and other foreign 

 countries, and many, fortunately, are either good and 

 gallant soldiers or useful in other walks of life, and would 

 be very handy now to bring Shere Ali (whom for the con- 

 venience of memory has been christened Mr. Shire Lane) 

 out of Cabul. How much twaddle have we not heard at 

 school dinners about ^' our gallant brothers who sleep in 

 the Crimea and India," not spoken by men who rode in the 

 six hundred, or who relieved Lucknow, but by after-dinner 

 table-thumpers, who are the very men who support the 

 head masters in their hobby of keeping out manly back- 

 ward boys who want teaching, and to whom the school 

 discipline would be advantageous — and who used to b3 

 the material from which ''our gallant brothers" came — 

 in favour of competitive examinationers, who come in vvitli 

 a supply of grammar ready laid on and thereby save the 

 masters a deal of trouble. 



The late Lord Herbert, when Mr. Sidney Herbert, Secre- 

 tary at War, said, in the House of Commons, that the 

 qualifications for a staff-officer were: 1. Knowledge of 

 P— 2 



