that they have occupied the ground for a number of years or generations. The long existence of a custom, its tradition, should make us consider its merits all the more carefully; and where doubt about these merits exists, we should be slow to disturb it. But when once all doubt has been removed, and it has been proved bad, let us hear no further defence of it.

Should we hesitate to close a polluted well within the walls of an ancient ruin, from which the country people were still drawing water and poison, because for centuries the monks and abbots of old had drawn sweet water from it? And so it is with the tuck-shop. In the days when boys at school got scanty and poor food, it was doubtless of service-it supplied a real want. But those days have gone, and it is, in its present condition, a source of injury to the robustness and health of the boys. So let it either disappear altogether, or at least be so managed as to do as little mischief as possible.

But it is often supposed that there may be much difficulty in inducing the boys of a school to part other than half sullenly with the old customs of the school, even though they are known to be injurious.

It is cer

I entirely object to such a supposition. tainly true that boys are, as a rule, conservative in their instincts. But I believe that the hesitation which overcomes many a strong schoolmaster, when he is brought face to face with the question of reforming or removing

an anciently established abuse at an old Public School, is not more unworthy of himself than it is unfair to the boys, whose conservative inertia he regards it as so difficult to overcome.

The case seems to me to stand thus. If it can once be clearly proved to a body of boys that there is a great principle underlying the subject which is brought before them, and that real mischief of a serious kind is being done to the school by the existence of some custom or other, then I am quite certain that an overwhelming majority of the influential boys, who of course lead the fashion, will be entirely on our side in their hearty reception of the most radical reform, or actual removal of the custom, howsoever ancient it may be, howsoever bound up with the tradition of the school. But, where no great principle is involved, and where the removal of an abuse would only imply the removal of an inconvenience, then, but then only, a boy will be found obstinately tenacious of the traditional custom.

Let me give an example of each of these cases. As an illustration of the willingness on the part of schoolboys to sacrifice tradition, wherever they have come to see that a great principle is involved, I shall instance the introduction of the reform in the matter of exercise, detailed in chapter ii., pages 32-34.

It must be borne in mind that, though the school from which my illustration is drawn was young, and might therefore seem to have had no traditions of its

own, it nevertheless had been started definitely on the lines of the great English Public Schools, and had therefore inherited their traditions. Further, its members did feel that it had traditions, to which, as will be seen presently, they could cling only too obstinately. But as a matter of fact, these particular boys, in this particular instance to which I refer, were most unfavourably situated for carrying out any reform. The prefect system had only quite recently been established in the school, and these particular prefects were only a portion of the whole body, and would have therefore to do that which boys specially shrink from doing-place themselves, in a matter involving open departure from the external usages of the place, in a separate position to that occupied by the rest of the school. Probably only an experienced and observant schoolmaster will be able completely to appreciate the hesitation that boys in such a position would feel in taking such a step. Moreover, by adopting this reform they were bringing a very considerable amount of trouble upon themselves. For not only did they undertake to adopt new habits, which would mean the surrender of a good deal of personal comfort and ease, but they also undertook to see that the rest of the house did the same.

And how was it that they were enabled to play such a part-to fling away tradition, and sacrifice self-indulgence and ease? Because they came to see that a great principle was at stake. This, and this alone, induced

them both to set aside that which is so dear to a schoolboy-tradition-and to forget themselves.

But that they did cling with schoolboy superstition to their traditions, though so lately established, and that they did fight for them to the last, where there seemed to them to be no great principle at stake, the following instance will prove.

Very early in the history of the school we had adopted certain school colours, which the experience of years made some of us see to be a mistake. We proved to the satisfaction of ourselves, and to that of most of the leading boys, that it would be better to adopt fresh colours; but though they were actually almost established, a fresh hullabaloo was raised, headed by some of the "old boys," and the old colours, with almost nothing to say for them except that they had been worn for a few years, are there still, and will be, I suppose, while the school lasts. Here the proposed reform was resisted obstinately, because it was felt that there was involved no great principle.

I have dwelt upon all this at some length, because I do believe that one of the greatest, if not actually the greatest, of all hindrances in the way of reforms of the most beneficial kind, is this bugbear of tradition, and the entirely false and unfair judgment constantly passed upon boys, with reference to their supposed unwillingness to sacrifice tradition to a great principle. But it is not so. The truth rather is, that it is we who are

wrong in not appealing to the highest portion of a boy's nature-his capacity for self-sacrifice and in regarding him as an obstinate and blind worshipper of the great goddess Tradition. Has it ever occurred to us schoolmasters to ask whether perhaps it may not be we who are mainly responsible for the enthronement of her, or at least for maintaining her in possession of her throne?

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