BILLY BUNTER AND CO.

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22337, 26 February 1938, Page 20

BILLY BUNTER AND CO.

Schoolboys Who Do Not Grow Up

(hI'ELIAI.LV VIUTTEK FOB THE PRESS,)

|By Ti. G. C. McNAB.'J

Time marches on, but it adds no inch lo the stature, no word to the vocabulary, of Tom Merry, Arthur Augustus D'Arcy, Fatty Wynn, Levi-i-on, "the cad of the Shell," and Buck Finn, the American junior, and all the other "fellahs" and "wottahs" of St. Jim's. Time marches on, but it has not removed a grain of starch from the Eton collars or the slightest from the japes of the chums oC Greyi'riars, Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent, Bulstrode "the bully of the Remove," the Nabob of Bhanipur, and. richest of all, I-'.jJly Bunter, as fond of tarts in 1938 as he was in 1908. The historian of the chums of Greyfriars is Frank Richards, who publishes weekly the doings of his heroes in the Magnet Library. The chronicles of St. James's are compiled by Martin Clifford for the Gem Library. There is no rivalry, merely an ample co-operation, between the two biographers. They write as they did in 1908, and perhaps earlier, for all I know. Not one jot or tittle of characterisation is varied, language and clothing are the same, not even a master has moved on. Perhaps Messrs Clifford and Richards have been replaced by their grandsons, their namesakes; perhaps there never was a Mr Clifford or a Mr Richards and the name is only a synonym for author, or perhaps a syndicate is at work. Be that as it may, as the policeman said, custom has not staled the writers' zeal nor age withered their infinite lack of variety. But no sneers should be offered to periodicals, published every Wednesday at 2d. whose influence has always been wholesome, whose standards have always been literate and more—periodicals which have probably done more than any person or other agency to establish in the minds of British boys and girls (New Zealand girls buy Gem and Magnet as freely as boys) a very clear conception of the English public school. At some points the conception may be mistaken, the japes too much emphasised, the characters unusually well differentiated. It is true that very little hard work is done (perhaps that is why the chums have remained in the same class for more than 30 years), and the classroom is mentioned only as the setting of hilarity or hors'ejplay. It is true that each term is enlivened by a major crime or sensation. But, by and large, you could do worse than send your son to Greyfriars or St. Jim's. Let it.be repeated that millions of young people in the British Empire, themselves educated in an efficient but humdrum manner by the State, regret they are not members of an English} public school which they conceive as another Greyfriars.or St. James's.' ''■•' •-' : , ; ..:.- , Dried, Flowers of Speech The language; of the schoolboys is antiquated. "Groogh! on the beastly ball!" ''Go and. eat coke!" "Hard cheese!" These pieces of strong language have not recently been used by schoolboys; no harm would be done if they were, as the American and home-grown variants that have replaced them are usually less pleasant. Much play is made with distortions of speech. The lads of the foreign academy address one another as "French peastly pounder" and "Fat Sherman rottair." The head prefect will descend no nearer to abuse than to call his delinquents "young rascals:" Sometimes a little dignity graces the speech of these relentless speakers of slang, and Bob Cherry will say, "On reflection, I think I may safely leave it in your hand?," Bunter, the fat boy, comes nearest to downright shearing when he cries, as he does several times in every instalment, "Hellup! Murder! Help!". It, appears to be funny to listen.to sufferers from catarrh. "I can'd. helb gadging gold, you fadded!"

Value for 2d

Only in this respect are the boys growing up; they are more susceptible to chills, and they are very carefully tended. Tom Merry and Co plav football in the rain and are sniffling and sneezing before they leave the field, so that a prefect presents them to their housemaster with the introduction, "The ypung duffers have been playing football, sir, and I fetched them in." Commending his efficient underling, the master sends all the boys to bed with hotwater bottles. At the , other seminary. Billy Banter's associates, alarmed by the cold he has contracted through his monthly ducking, club together "to ged rid of by cold by feeding it." More tarts, of course.

Moral Tone

I am inclined to belieye that girls are rather more conspicuous than they were 30 years ago. D'Axcy preoccupied with his "cjobbah" and "toppah," was often twitted about Cousin Ethel, who was a pleasant, frank girl. To-day a pretty girl in her teens is engaged as a nurse in the school sanatorium. If the relations between boys, and girls are treated with obvious tact, they are also treated sensibly and not prudishly. This young nurse was one who helped to supply the term's sensation. The headmaster, evidently a very gullible man,, engaged as science master a Mr Packington. Mr Packington was a cracksman who owed his appointment to forged testimonials. He prepared the way for the young nurse, one of his gang, tn rifle a housemaster's safe, alleged to contain many valuables, to rteal •D'Arcy's watch, known to be worth • 25 guineas, and to pick up what she could from "the many rich boys who • had plenty Of money." Again the headmaster seems to have been slaok in his supervision. Needless to say, the plot was frustrated—by a boy who had once been a pickpocket, but was now very much reformed. "Talbot," .says Merry, "you'd starve before you ; would steal." "You're right there," is the roily. "I've seen the light now. I could not let my benefactor be robbed." This ex-pickpocket is only one of the interesting boys who attend this school. There are "a waif from a London slum." representatives of almost every Dominion and many foreigners; indeed the company is quite cosmopolitan. Although all are now virtuous except the bully and the cad, the latter being an inveterate cigarette-smoker, there have been troubles in the past. "Langton of the Sixth, as straight a fellow as eyer breathed," once, no doubt 20 years ago, "got into a scrape with a bookmaker." This i 3 not surprising, as the boys have much freedom, stand their bicveles outside a public-house, and walk in without a th-oufitit." But crime., serious or triv-

ial, cannot long survive at Greyfriars, and the bully's three satellites are conveniently named to arouse the suspicions of the righteous, and Skinner, Snoop, and Stott lead a miserably skulking existence.

No wonder, then, that readers of the Gem and Magnet would be glad to be enrolled at Greyfriars or St. Jim's. One's schoolfellows would be an interesting lot, there would be daily fun and a weekly sensation to prevent boredom, discipline would be genial and not obtrusive, there would not be a great deal of work to do, one's friends would all have large tuck-boxes filled with the choicest foods, and there would be exciting football matches (Soccer) to be seen on most afternoons. So far as I recollect, I may be wrong, no cricket is played at these schools; football is played all the year round. But admitting all these imperfections, if they are imperfections, a great deal remains for which the two schools and their members may be praised. The life is healthy and open, goodness is taught without sermons or priggishness, and, above ail, the system is entirely democratic. Generally, these tales are far more plausible and lifelike than more famous school stories, nearly every one of which is marred by being unbalanced or biased. Consider the bitterness of "The Shadow of the Chapel," the hectic sensationalism of "The Loom of Youth," the priggishness of one, the facetiousness of another. Messrs Clifford and Richards at least seem to know that most schoolboys tend to be objective, and are happiest thus. This page may not be the place to publish a testimonial to the Gem and Magnet, and these periodicals have delighted and informed many generations of schoolboys and schoolgirls and need no commendation. They are evidently institutions. However, in days when there are so many powerful educational agencies outside the educational system, agencies probably more powerful than the school and of unknown influence, in days when the experience and knowledge of the young are so different from the knowledge and experience of the old, in days when the old find it harder to understand how and why and what the young desire and believe, it is certainly not discouraging to find that the chums of Greyfriars are not antipathetic to the schoolboys of 1938. The old writers of boys' books barely hold their own. Henty and Manville Fenn are almost forgotten, E. S, Ellis is still read a little, and R. M. Ballantyne survives best of all. In weekly papers there is keener competition. Not only are there innumerable technical publications about wireless, motor-cars, aeroplanes, and popular science, but there are the floods of wretched American magazines whose mere covers must be an excitement tc youth. That the Gem and the Magnet still hold up their heads amid such a violent or attractive company is creditable as well to modern boys as to Martin Clifford and to Frank Richards. May they flourish!