fancy such prominence
being given to the fact. The next extract was still more pointed.

"Sixth Form Debating Society.

"The usual meeting of the Sixth Form Debating Society was held last
week, the Doctor in the chair. A sprinkling of lads from the Fifth, in
their Sunday coats and collars, was present, by kind permission. The
subject for discussion was, `That the present Sixth is degenerate.' In
the absence of any member of the Sixth to open the discussion, Master
Bramble, captain of the Tadpoles, kindly undertook the task. He had no
hesitation in asserting that the Sixth were degenerate. They had fallen
off in cricket since he could remember, and in intellect, he was sorry
to say, the falling oil was still worse. If they would take his advice,
they would avoid the playground during the present season, and by all
means withdraw their candidate for the Nightingale Scholarship, as he
was certain to be beaten by boys in a lower form. As to behaviour, he
could point to virtuous behaviour among the Tadpoles, quite equal to
that of the monitors. He didn't wish to ask questions, but would like
to know what they all found so attractive in Maltby. Then, too, they
all oiled their hair. No previous Sixth had ever been guilty of this
effeminacy, or of wearing lavender kid gloves on Sundays. He repeated,
`What were we coming to?'"

"Mr R-g-h opened in the negative. He denied all the charges made by
the young gentleman who had last spoken. He undertook to get up an
eleven to beat any eleven the Tadpoles could put into the field; and as
to intellect, why, didn't the Tadpoles, some of them, get their sums
done by the Sixth? Besides, even if their intellect was weak, couldn't
they use cribs? He didn't use them himself, but he knew one or two who
did. He didn't understand the objection to the hair-oil; he used it to
make the hair sit down on his head. [Raleigh, it should be said, had a
most irrepressible bunch of curls on his head.] He wore kid gloves on
Sunday because he had had a pair given him by his great-aunt Jane Ann.
He maintained the Sixth was not degenerate.

"Mr L-m-n followed on the same side. He thought it the greatest
liberty of any one to discuss the Sixth. He was a Sixth Form fellow,
and a monitor, and if he wasn't looked up to he ought to be, and he
intended to be. He was in the cricket eleven, and he was intellectual--
very, very much so. He was going in for the Nightingale Scholarship,
and had