SCHOOLDAY LETTER WRITING 369 



anxious we are to know of your surroundings wherever 

 you go who are your friends, who you talk to, play with, 

 ride with, work with all such matters even down to your 

 servants, dogs and cats brings you home to us, and all 

 about your Regimental duties instructs and pleases me. . . . 

 Have you time for reading ? or educating yourself for the 

 higher grades of your profession ? 



A secondary object of the correspondence was to train the 

 boy to write a good letter, with something in it. Like almost 

 everything else, this he believed to be in essence a matter 

 of attention the questions asked broached subjects which 

 in any case it was well for the boy to reflect on, and might 

 suggest others of his own finding. A letter worth the name 

 must be more than the empty screed such as too often boy- 

 nature is content with. One indeed is branded as * such a very 

 empty one that it did not deserve an answer/ though it, did 

 get a long reply ; but the note of praise also is sounded, and 

 once, when the correspondence is enlivened with passages of 

 colloquial Latin, after a holiday study of OllendorfFs hand- 

 book, the * Cub ' should have had no difficulty in interpreting 

 the ' Dilectissime Scymne Epistola tua me delectat, quod 

 non jejuna est, sed notitiarum plena.' 



Latin perhaps was not an alluring subject, but it must not 

 be neglected, for ' whatever scientific line in life you enter 

 upon, it comes into every examination. ... If you go in 

 for Botany, you must be able to write Latin easily and read 

 it even when difficult, and only practice will enable you to 

 do this.' Indeed he reminds the schoolboy that the minimum 

 in any subject demanded by school hours is not of much 

 worth when it comes to choosing a profession. 



With school successes he is pleased ; with school disap- 

 pointments he sympathises from his own old experience. For 

 these his consolation is not perhaps novel, but is clear and 

 sensible ; they teach patience, and should brace us up never 

 to fall behind the place attained. At least there is the con- 

 sciousness of doing one's best. ' You do not forget,' he asks 

 once, ' the " talent de bien faire " ? ' He never pretended, as 

 some pretend, that after-success has no relation to a school 



