of the same thing in the Bible. The story of Jacob deceiving Isaac, and pretending to be Esau in order to secure a blessing is not related with disapprobation. Jacob does not forfeit his blessing when his deceit is discovered. The whole incident is regarded rather as a master-stroke of cunning and inventiveness. Esau is angry not because Jacob has employed such trickery, but because he has succeeded in supplanting him.

I remember, as a boy at Eton, seeing a scene which left a deep impression on me. There was a big unpleasant unscrupulous boy of great physical strength, who was a noted football player. He was extremely unpopular in the school, because he was rude, sulky, and overbearing, and still more because he took unfair advantages in games. There was a hotly contested house-match, in which he tried again and again to evade rules, while he was for ever appealing to the umpires against violations of rule by the opposite side. His own house was ultimately victorious, but feeling ran very high indeed, because it was thought that the victory was unfairly won. The crowd of boys who had been watching the match drifted away in a state of great exasperation, and finally collected in front of the house of the unpopular player, hissed and hooted him. He took very little notice of the demonstration and walked in, when there arose a babel of howls. He turned round and came out again, facing the crowd. I can see him now, all splashed and muddy, with his shirt open at the neck. He was pale, ugly, and sinister; but he surveyed us all with entire effrontery, drew out a pince-nez, being very short-sighted, and then looked calmly round as if surprised. I have certainly never seen such an exhibition of courage in my life. He knew that he had not a single friend present, and he did not know that he would not be maltreated—there were indications of a rush being made. He did not look in the least picturesque; he was ugly, scowling, offensive. But he did not care a rap, and if he had been attacked, he would have defended himself with a will. It did not occur to me then, nor did it, I think, occur to anyone else, what an amazing bit of physical and moral courage it was. No one, then or after, had the slightest feeling of admiration for his pluck. "Did you ever see such a brute as P— looked?" was the only sort of comment made.

This just serves to illustrate my point, that boys have no real discernment for what is courageous. What they admire is a certain grace and spirit, and the hero is not one who constrains himself to do an unpopular thing from a sense of duty, not even the boy who, being unpopular like P—, does a satanically brave thing. Boys have no admiration for the boy who defies them; what they like to see is the defiance of a common foe. They admire gallant, modest, spirited, picturesque behaviour, not the dull and faithful obedience to the sense of right.

Of course things have altered for the better. Masters are no longer stern, severe, abrupt, formidable, unreasonable. They know that many a boy, who would be inclined on the whole to tell the truth, can easily be frightened into telling a lie; but they have not yet contrived to put the sense of honour among boys in the right proportion. Such stories as that of George Washington—when the children were asked who had cut down the apple-tree, and he rose and said, "Sir, I cannot tell a lie; it was I who did it with my little hatchet"—do not really take the imagination of boys captive. How constantly did worthy preachers at Eton tell the story of how Bishop Selwyn, as a boy, rose and left the room at a boat-supper because an improper song was sung! That anecdote was regarded with undisguised amusement, and it was simply thought to be a piece of priggishness. I cannot imagine that any boy ever heard the story and went away with a glowing desire to do likewise. The incident really belongs to the domain of manners rather than to that of morals.

The truth is really that boys at school have a code which resembles that of the old chivalry. The hero may be sensual, unscrupulous, cruel, selfish, indifferent to the welfare of others. But if he bears himself gallantly, if he has a charm of look and manner, if he is a deft performer in the prescribed athletics, he is the object of profound and devoted admiration. It is really physical courage, skill, prowess, personal attractiveness which is envied and praised. A dull, heavy, painstaking, conscientious boy with a sturdy sense of duty may be respected, but he is not followed; while the imaginative, sensitive, nervous, highly-strung boy, who may have the finest qualities of all within him, is apt to be the most despised. Such a boy is often no good at games, because public performance disconcerts him; he cannot make a ready answer, he has no aplomb, no cheek, no smartness; and he is consequently thought very little of.

To what extent this sort of instinctive preference can be altered, I do not know; it certainly cannot be altered by sermons, and still less by edicts. Old Dr. Keate said, when he was addressing the school on the subject of fighting, "I must say that I like to see a boy return a blow!" It seems, if one considers it, to be a curious ideal to start life with, considering how little opportunity civilisation now gives for returning blows! Boys in fact are still educated under a system which seems to anticipate a combative and disturbed sort of life to follow, in which strength and agility, violence and physical activity, will have a value. Yet, as a matter of fact, such things have very little substantial value in an ordinary citizen's life at all, except in so far as they play their part in the elaborate cult of athletic exercises, with which we beguile the instinct which craves for manual toil. All the races, and games, and athletics cultivated so assiduously at school seem now to have very little aim in view. It is not important for ordinary life to be able to run a hundred yards, or even three miles, faster than another man; the judgment, the quickness of eye, the strength and swiftness of muscle needed to make a man a good batsman were all well enough in days when a man's life might afterwards depend on his use of sword and battle-axe. But now it only enables him to play games rather longer than other people, and to a certain extent ministers to bodily health, although the statistics of rowing would seem clearly to prove that it is a pursuit which is rather more apt to damage the vitality of strong boys than to increase the vitality of weak ones.

So, if we look facts fairly in the face, we see that much of the training of school life, especially in the direction of athletics, is really little more than the maintenance of a thoughtless old tradition, and that it is all directed to increase our admiration of prowess and grace and gallantry, rather than to fortify us in usefulness and manual skill and soundness of body. A boy at school may be a skilful carver or carpenter; he may have a real gift for engineering or mechanics; he may even be a good rider, a first-rate fisherman, an excellent shot. He may have good intellectual abilities, a strong memory, a power of expression; he may be a sound mathematician, a competent scientist; he may have all sorts of excellent moral qualities, be reliable, accurate, truthful, punctual, duty-loving; he may in fact be equipped for life and citizenship, able to play his part sturdily and manfully, and to do the world good service; but yet he may never win the smallest recognition or admiration in his school-days, while all the glory and honour and credit is still reserved for the graceful, attractive, high-spirited athlete, who may have nothing else in the background.

That is certainly the ideal of the boy, and the disconcerting thing is that it is also the ideal, practically if not theoretically, of the parent and the schoolmaster. The school still reserves all its best gifts, its sunshine and smiles, for the knightly and the skilful; it rewards all the qualities that are their own reward. Why, if it wishes to get the right scale adopted, does it not reward