ase of the average boy that has to
be considered, and for the average boy, insouciant, healthy-minded,
boisterous, there is probably little doubt that the barrack-life of
school has its value. Probably too for Hugh himself, though it did not
in any way develop his intellect or his temperament, it had a real
value. It taught him a certain self-reliance; it showed him that what
was disagreeable was not necessarily intolerable. What Hugh needed to
make him effective was a certain touch of the world, a certain
hardness, which his home life did not tend to develop. And thus this
bleak and uncheered episode of life gave him a superficial
ordinariness, and taught him the need of conventional compliance with
the ways of the mysterious, uninteresting world.

III

The Public School--Friendships--The Opening Heart--The Mould--The Last
Morning

The change was accomplished, and Hugh went to a public school. In
later life, conscious as he became of the strain and significance of
personal relations with others, he used to wonder at the careless
indifference with which he had entered the big place which was to be
his home for several years, and was to leave so deep a mark upon him.
In his mature life, in the case of the official positions he was
afterwards to hold, unimportant though they were, the thought of his
relations to those with whom he was to work, the necessity of adapting
himself to their temperaments, of establishing terms of intercourse
with them, used to weigh on his mind for many days before the work
began. But here, he reflected, where life was lived on so much closer
terms, when the words and deeds, the feelings and fancies of the boys,
among whom he was to live, were of the deepest and most vital
importance, he entered upon the new life, dull and careless, without
interest or excitement, simply going because he was sent, just dumbly
desirous of ease and tranquillity. He had been elected on to the
foundation of an ancient school, and the surroundings of the new place
did indeed vaguely affect him with a sort of solemn pleasure. The
quaint mediaeval chambers; the cloisters, with their dark and
mysterious doorways; the hall, with its high timbered roof and stained
glass; the huge Tudor chapel, with its pure white soaring lines; the
great organ, the rich stall-work, and the beautiful fields with their
great elms--all this gave him a dim delight. He was taken to school by
his father, who was full of af