Читать книгу John Bull, Junior: or, French as She is Traduced - O'Rell Max - Страница 5

I Make the Acquaintance of Public School Boys. – "When I Was a Little Boy." – An Awful Moment. – A Simple Theory. – I Score a Success.

I am not quite sure that the best qualification for a school-master is to have been a very good boy.

I never had great admiration for very good boys. I always suspected, when they were too good, that there was something wrong.

When I was at school, and my master would go in for the recitation of the litany of all the qualities and virtues he possessed when a boy – how good, how dutiful, how obedient, how industrious he was – I would stare at him, and think to myself: How glad that man must be he is no longer a boy!

"No, my dear little fellows, your master was just like you when he was mamma's little boy. He shirked his work whenever he could; he used to romp and tear his clothes if he had a chance, and was far from being too good for this world; and if he was not all that, well, I am only sorry for him, that's all."

I believe that the man who thoroughly knows all the resources of the mischievous little army he has to fight and rule is better qualified and prepared for the struggle.

We have in French an old proverb that says: "It's no use trying to teach an old monkey how to make faces."

The best testimonial in favor of a school-master is that the boys should be able to say of him: "It's no use trying this or that with him; he always knows what we are up to."

How is he to know what his pupils are "up to" if he has not himself been "up to" the same tricks and games?

The base of all strategy is the perfect knowledge of all the roads of the country in which you wage war.

To be well up in all the ways and tricks of boys is to be aware of all the moves of the enemy.

It is an awful moment when, for the first time, you take your seat in front of forty pairs of bright eyes that are fixed upon you, and seem to say:

"Well, what shall it be? Do you think you can keep us in order, or are we going to let you have a lively time of it?"

All depends on this terrible moment. Your life will be one of comfort, and even happiness, or one of utter wretchedness.

Strike the first blow and win, or you will soon learn that if you do not get the better of the lively crew they will surely get the better of you.

I was prepared for the baptism of fire.

I even had a little theory that had once obtained for me the good graces of a head-master.

This gentleman informed me that the poor fellow I was going to replace had shot himself in despair of being ever able to keep his boys in order, and he asked me what I thought of it.

"Well," I unhesitatingly answered, "I would have shot the boys."

"Right!" he exclaimed; "you are my man."

If, as I strongly suspected from certain early reminiscences, to have been a mischievous boy was a qualification for being a good school-master, I thought I ought to make a splendid one.

The result of my first interview with British boys was that we understood each other perfectly. We were to make a happy family. That was settled in a minute by a few glances at each other.