ind of barrack life the boys lead. Does he
expect me to march into the boy's home, and request that the boy may
black his own boots and carry up the coals!

The truth is that the man has no real policy; he sees the boy's
deficiencies, and liberates his mind by requesting me, as if I were a
kind of tradesman, to see that they are corrected.

Of course the temptation is to write the man an acrimonious letter, and
to point out the idiotic character of his suggestions. But that is
worse than useless.

What I have done is to write and say that I have received his kind and
sensible letter, that he has laid his finger on the exact difficulties,
and that naturally I am anxious to put them straight. I then added that
his own recollection of his school-days will show that one cannot help
a boy in athletic or social matters beyond a certain point, that one
can only see that a boy has a fair chance, and is not overlooked, but
that other boys would not tolerate (and I know that he does not mean to
suggest this) that a boy should be included in a team for which he is
unfit, simply in order that his social life should be encouraged. I
then point out that as to discipline there is no lack of it here; and
that it is only at home that he is spoilt; and that I hope he will use
his influence, in a region where I cannot do more than make
suggestions, to minimise the evil.

The man will approve of the letter; he will think me sensible and
himself extraordinarily wise.

Does that seem to you to be cynical? I don't think it is. The man is
sincerely anxious for the boy's welfare, just as I am, and we had
better agree than disagree. The fault of his letter is that it is
stupid, and that it is offensive. The former quality I can forgive, and
the latter is only stupidity in another form. He thinks in his own mind
that if I am paid to educate the boy I ought to be glad of advice, that
I ought to be grateful to have things that I am not likely to detect
for myself pointed out by an enlightened and benevolent man.

Meanwhile I shall proceed to treat the boy on my own theory. I don't
expect him to play games; I don't think that it is, humanly speaking,
possible to expect a sensitive, frail boy to continue to play a game in
which he only makes himself ridiculous and contemptible from first to
last. Of course if a boy who is incapable of success in athletics does
go on playing games perseveringly and good-humouredly, he gets a
splendid training,