NO MORE FAGGING 79 



round the quadrangle used to show, but there was a 

 conservative shrinking from any subject of education 

 that savoured of novelty. Even modern languages were 

 regarded by most of us with contempt, and the teachers 

 of them were treated with scant respect. 



There were eight boarding-houses viz. the School 

 House, Arnold's, Burrows', Bowden Smith's, Jex-Blake's, 

 Hutchinson's, Moberly's and Wilson's. 



The House supper at the end of that first term dwells in 

 my mind, for some of our seeming demigods were leaving, 

 one of them being Ingham, son of the well-known police 

 magistrate. He had obtained that year the first of the 

 five exhibitions given by the school, and he went to 

 Christ Church. What I thought of these departures is 

 shown by the following extract from a letter written at 

 the beginning of the next term : 



Venables and Ingham have left for College, which weakens our 

 house considerably at football. I don't suppose we shall be 

 nearly the best this half. 



I remember catching sight of Ingham a good many 

 years later, and he was by no means so gigantic and 

 Herculean as one imagined him at the early period. 

 By the end of the term it had been settled that I was 

 to go next term into the Upper School, and this ended 

 my personal experience as a fag. 



