BOYS OF THE DAY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1137, 23 August 1913, Page 4

BOYS OF THE DAY.

(.“punch.”)

[The Daily Mail recently reported a horrible occurrence; a ten-year-old boy saved up his money and ran away TO school.]

The Headmaster rose to his feet and glared down the long schoolroom. ‘‘Silence ! If I bear a single bov repeating a Greek paradigm I will make an example of him. I must hear that clock tick before I proceed. I had hoped, in recognition of Cogger’s success at Oxford—nine wickets ior fourteen runs—to have given you an extra half-work-day, but unfortunately my black list for the week is an exceedingly long one. The moral tone of the school is deplorably low. For example, we have Slimmer, a filth form boy —stand up, Slimmer, so that your schoolfellows may behold an unhealthy specimen of youthful depravity—well, yesterday I found Slimmer had absconded from his duties on the cricket field, and was concealed in a classroom, furtively reading a Greek play, (A. murmur of horror.; You may well be surprised. I have tried gentle means with Slimmer. An hour’s extra play-time proved useless. The compulsory whole holiday I gave him last week was cot a sufficient warning. Now there remains nothing but severe physical chastisement. (A. short but painful interval). And I warn you, Slimmer, if you do not amend your ways, I have further penalties in store for you. The very next time you neglect your sports you shall be sent home for your holidays a monthf before the time. (Slimmer bursts into tears and promises reformation.)

“Now, I have a serious complaint to make about certain boys in the Fourth Modern. They are allowed pocket-money by their kindly parents. Instead of spending it, as their parents intended, at what I believe is known in common parlance as the tuckshop, I find that they have been wasting their mouey on an anti-tobacco society and a home for reformed convicts. They have proved themselves unworthy of their financial trust. In future the Fourth Modern will accompany their form-master to the tuckshop. He will spend their money for them on succulent comestibles, and see that every article is consumed forthwith on the premises.

“I have now a painful case of a Lower School boy to deal with. Higgles Minor, stand up in your place. Only this morning I detected Higgles in tears. On enquiring whether his county had been beaten or whether he suffered from some slight indisposition, he admitted to me that he was crying because it was only two months to the holidays. I will maintain a

bright and cheerful spirit in this school even if I have to flog every boy in it. You, Miggles, uuworthy scion of honoured parents, you weep, do you, because you have to return to the progenitors who guarded your infancy. I will drive away those unhallowed tears. (Short interval, during which hallowed tears are substituted.)

"And I have one more remark to make which concerns the general moral tone ot the school rather than that of individuals. Passing behind the wall of the cricket field yesterday on my way to take my customary constitutional, I overheard several of you conversing. I need not say that I did not deliberately listen. Involuntarily the sounds impressed themselves on my auditory organs. I heard myself spoken ot as ‘the dear Doctor,’ and ‘our revered Headmaster.’ One group of you was discussing German theories of the authorship of the Homeric poems. Another group was deep in the question of the urgency of the vote for feminine householders. I passed on, and in mental retrospect looked back to the palmy days of our school, when boys alluded to me in private as ‘Old Konk’—in reference, I believe, to my nasal organ—wheu the conversations I overheard dealt with the serious things of life, the average of C. B. Fry or the records of Aston Villa, I feel pained, deeply pained, to think that present-day boys are not maintaining the high traditions of Dulham School. If this continues, I give you fair and ample warning that the school has ceased to fulfil its useful educational functions, and shall advise the Governors that it be incontinently closed. You may well weep —but the future rests entirely with yourself.”