School's Out,

Otago Witness, Issue 1911, 6 July 1888, Page 37

School's Out,

Reader, do you ever pause and contemplate that particular and peculiar phase of human nature developed by the existent schoolboy when released from study and discipline — when " school is out," and he is on his way home. Ordinary humanity, when released from the toils of the day, is prone to seek rest and relaxation; The boy scorns all such effeminate ideas. He is composed of but three parts — legs, arms and yell, and the yell is the biggest part of him. His legs and arms have been kept in irksome compulsory quietude all day, and must now be exercised. His voice has been seething and swelling in him for hours, and now must have vent.

As soon as he is clear 'of the Bchool-steps, »he stops, and deliberately yells a yell that is ear-splitting, but which has no more object, meaning, or direction than the midnight vociferation of a dog, and yet it appears at a full run, while his arms fly about like the scintillations of a windmill. He is no respecter of persons, and is utterly indifferent as to whether he runs down a smaller boy, spins an aged, citizen three times round, or smashes a girl's" hat over her eyes in his headlong career.

Nervous ladies hug the sides of the houses as he rushes by in a drove, like a whirlwind, and screams like a steam whistle. " Mercy on us 1 If that boy was only mine,* I'd " But just then her own boy flies past, falls over, bounces up, kicks at another boy, and is chased aero is the street and round the corner before she can e-etthe "You Robert!" with which she intends to annihilate him out of her astonished throat. '

There is but one 'thing that has the slightest soothing effect on the boy when he is on the way home from school. He can see his father farther than Professor Proctor can see a new star^vith a telescope, and the moment that parent dawns upon his vision he becomes as proper, as a model letter- writer, and the neatly-modulated voicVwith whsch he wheedles the author of his being out of a penny on the spot^ is a lesson for the future

ambitions savings bank ,and , railway directors. ' " '-", The amount of racing, jumping, pulling, hafiling, and bowling that a schoolboy can concentrate into a transit of 100 yds ia positively astonishing, and the preternatural coolness and quietude witli "which he *take* bis red face and panting breath into the kitchen, and aslrs if supper isn't ready, is a hitman conundrum ch&t calls fox unqualified admiration.