said Dally, and Keith thought he
would sink through the floor. His mind was quite made up never to ask
permission to answer another question again, but that same afternoon,
during the lesson in Swedish history, Dally dropped all questioning and
asked Keith to explain to the class the main factors leading up to the
Wars of Reformation--which Keith spent twenty minutes in doing while all
the rest of the class had to sit still listening to him.

IV

Keith could not remain isolated to the same extent as in the earlier
schools. Inevitable community sprang from similarity of sex and age
alone. In the same direction worked the system of teaching which called
for the united attention of the entire class during every moment of the
lesson. It was impossible to form a part of the class without being in
contact with all its other members. The boy who read aloud or answered a
question became subjected to the criticism or admiration of all the
rest. Rivalry in any field of study was just as likely to arise between
two boys at different ends of the room as between those sitting side by
side. The spirit of Dally tended to assist this fusion of personalities
in every way, and the boy who kept apart was sure sooner or later to run
foul of his good-humoured but well-aimed sallies. His attitude implied
no tyranny, and he strove for no deadening conformity. On the contrary,
he always spoke of a strongly marked individuality as the object of all
education, but he tried to develop it by fearless contact with others
rather than by jealous withdrawal.

Keith for the first time found himself part of a society, and he liked
it because the teacher's insistence on scholarly achievement as the only
standard of comparison gave him a chance to hold his own among a group
of boys, most of whom counted themselves his superiors in every other
respect. He was small and poor, of humble origin, without influential
connections, without worldly advantages of any kind, but when mind was
pitched against mind, he felt second to none--except in mathematics,
where he could compete neither with Davidson, the Jewish banker's son
who was _primus_, or with that gawky, cumbersome Anderson whose dullness
in every other respect always kept him near the bottom of the class. For
this reason Keith differed from most of the others by liking school
better during the lessons than at any other time.

There were games in the schoolyard during the pauses, and some of these