THE SCHOOLMASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

HUMAN MEMORIES. FORTY YEARS AT BRADFIELD. Schoolmasters can be very Miman at times —although somo of us, looking back, may bo inclined to doubt it! When Dr. Temple was at llugby he once overheard one boy say to another: "I say, I've entered for the Confirmation Stakes." In a moment he had turned and rasped out: "Well, you're scratched nowl " Mr. Thomas Steele tells this little story in his " Musing of an Old Schoolmaster." These delightful musings originally appeared in the " Chronicle " of Bradford College, where Mr. Steele was a master for over forty years. They will touch a chord in the heart of everyone who reniembens his school days.

"A. Low is a Bounder." Some of the Bradfield masters must have been as human as Temple was. (Although it would be difficult to compete with a man who, when told that the old elms in the Close were dangerous for boys to climb, went out in the dusk and climbed every one of them himself.) There wae Mr. Low, for instance, who came to Bradfield ill the same year as that remarkable " Plead," Dr. Gray. Mr. Low was stern but just. Mr. Steele remembers going with him one afternoon into the classroom by the gateway, and catching a small boy hi the act of chalking up on the blackboard: "A Low is a Bounder," and I shall never forget Mr. Low's whimsical, ead smile. But he only put his hand on the imp's shoulder and said: "My clear boy, your private opinion of me does not matter at all, but vou must really not post it up in public in this way. *»on't you think you and I had better rub it out together?"] Which they did—and there the matter ended.

Brutal—But Thorough. Then there was Mr. B. Watkins (known as " Muck " —his own favourite epithet), who had been at I'ugby with Temple. His methods with boys were apt I to bo brutal—but they were thorough. ' Onco he caught a boy fooling about in ' Preparation. He left the dais and went 1 over to the culprit's dc«k: — ! Then he said very affably: "What is your name, boy? ,1 '" Chilton-L'oliat, sah," said the grinner, emphasising tho " sah " to a Prep, bubbling with delight. "Well," said Watkins, giving him a ■ swinging right-hander, " this k> for your Chilton"; and then, v.ith a truly Carnera left, "here's for your Foliat! " Brutal! Oh, yes; only don't forget, the • boy aeked for it. In Self-defence. Mr. Steele has dug up some amusing facts from the old Bnidlield Punishment ■ Book. It seems that the noises that the boys made in echool were scientifically oracled by one master, thus, "humming" got fifty lines, "grunting" a hundred; •and the heinous crimes of "idling" and ("cunning" were settled \-y "the whole I of fiuir" and " twice finir," respectively! : But the best punishment story of all conies from America. A mother wrote, to a headmaster that she hoped her boy [ would not be disciplined too much at school, because, she added, "We have 1 never punished him at home, except in • self-defence"! Most of us have known boys like that!