Читать книгу Lost Voices of the Edwardians: 1901–1910 in Their Own Words - Max Arthur, Max Arthur - Страница 91

The Jesuits ran Stoneyhurst College in Preston and the Catholic College for Boys in Winkley Square was staffed by the same Jesuits as the College. These Jesuits were very much inclined to use the leather strap they called a ferula like the devil.

In my first two or three forms at the college I did very well academically. Each week we had a card which we took to our parents, which had four designations on it – the first was excellent, the next good, the next fair, and poor. In the first three forms I always had excellent – excellent on conduct and application. And I always got sixpence from my father for that. When I moved into the senior college there was one particular Jesuit priest, Father Ellison, and he was a devil with the ferula. On one particular occasion I had a lot of homework, I was given a lot of irregular verbs to parse – horrible things. I did my best, but Father Ellison hit me so hard and hurt me so badly that I refused to go back to school. My father more or less acquiesced, and my education was ruined. Although I was instinctively a studious person, that ruined my education. Nowadays, Father Ellison would have been jailed for what he did to us. If I'd had my way, I would have gone to the local Church of England grammar school where there was no ferula, but religious intolerance was fairly rampant, and I wouldn't have been allowed. After that incident I stayed at home and no one came in to teach me. I was fourteen when I left school.