THE HEALTH OF OUR BOYS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I have read with great interest your article in the Spectator of November 12th on "The Health of our Boys," and I think you have correctly divined the causes of most of the defects on which you comment. Will you permit me to add a few words on the two most prominent causes which you mention,—viz. (1) excessive driving at preparatory schools, and (2) injudicious, if not insufficient, food at schools generally', (1) Some time ago I witnessed a cricket-match on a certain public-school ground played between its junior boys and the members of a neighbouring preparatory school The young visitors arrived accompanied by two masters, who remained on the ground during the whole course of the game. Both were greatly excited, applauding enthusiastically every suc- cess, and gnashing their teeth at every failure of their infant champions. It was quite painful to me to notice how this excitement reacted on the boys : they were in a date of extreme nervous tension during the whole afternoon, and must have gone home quite exhausted in body and mind. The same competitive strain goes on in school. The more promising boys are stimulated to the utmost to win entrance scholarships at the public schools; and even the duller rank- and-file are engaged in as fierce a struggle to qualify for admission. The effect of this constant strain on body and mind is, I believe, most injurious morally, as well as physically and intellectually. Excellence for its own sake is lost sight of in a frantic effort to pile up inter-scholastic successes of al} kinds, which are duly advertised, proudly commented on in the Preparatory School Magazine, and generally glorified, all from the pot-hunter's point of view. At no time in a child's school career is he suffered to develop normally, and to feel a natural joy in such development. (2) As complaints of the quantity and quality of the food at our public schools are so numerous, I suppose they cannot all be unreasonable or unfounded; and one is tempted to ask why such an obvious wrong should be sanctioned by a body of men who certainly are not stingy, but, as a rule, remarkably liberal. A personal knowledge of not a few of our most eminent Head-Masters during the last quarter of a century has convinced me that they were, or are, themselves in many instances quite indifferent to the quality of what they eat and drink. They regard food as fuel, and stoke up as rapidly as possible without selecting their coals. I could illustrate this by many amusing examples, if I might mention names, but one good story I must tell, because it exemplifies my pro- position so aptly. In a certain well-known public school the quality of the beer supplied to the boys had sunk so low that a monitors' meeting was convened, and it was resolved that two glasses of beer should be reserved and shown to the Head-Master on the conclusion of dinner. It 80 happened that on the day when the two glasses were set aside the Head- faster did not appear at dinner, so the servant was instructed to place them on the mantelpiece in the dining hall, and there they remained for nearly twenty-four hours. At last the opportunity came, and the two leading monitors followed the Head-Master to the dining hall to make their protest. Now that energetic gentleman had just come in from a long walk, and espying the two glasses of beer on the mantelshelf, he went up to them, and draining first the one and then the ether, remarked, with a smack of the lips, "Delicious beer "! Needless to add, that protest collapsed. Another reason may perhaps be found in the reluctance of firsterate cooks to enter the service of schools. "They have always been accustomed rt0 gentlemen's families," and no amount of wages or argument will induce them to break their custom, or to regard school- masters as gentlemen. Lastly, the carving at our public schools is lamentably bad, and food which would be excellent If well cooked is spoilt and wasted by a radical ignorance of the structor's art.—I am, Sir, &C., HERBERT MILLINGTON.
The School House, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, Nov. 14th.
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