Upon hearing what was proposed to be done in preparing me for the examination, he assured us that it would be impossible for me to qualify by February, even if I went to the best cram-school at Woolwich; but to have a tutor twice a week would be useless. He impressed on my father the necessity for getting my examination postponed till February twelvemonth – the last date that my age would admit of – and recommended that I should at once be sent to Mr Hostler, the best cram-school at Woolwich, who would prepare me if any one could.
The high opinion which my father entertained of Howard caused him not only to listen to, but to act on, this advice; and it was decided that on the Monday week following my father was to start with me for Woolwich, and leave me in charge of Mr Hostler, to be prepared for the Royal Engineers, and for the examination on the February twelvemonth from that date.
Chapter Three
A Cram-School at Woolwich Forty Years Ago
In the days to which this tale refers, railways did not exist; it was therefore by the Salisbury coach that I travelled with my father to London. I will pass over my wonder and surprise at the size and crowds of London, and of the scenes that presented themselves to me as I for the first time drove through the metropolis. Steam-vessels were then novelties, and it was by a steam-vessel that we journeyed from London Bridge to Woolwich, and were deposited in the lower part of that dirty town, from whence a cab conveyed us to the school-house of Mr Hostler at the early hour of eleven a.m. As, from what I was able to gather at the time, Mr Hostler’s was a fair specimen of the Woolwich cram-schools forty years ago, this establishment and the life I led there will be somewhat fully described. After long years of roughing it in various parts of the world, the early impressions of that school are fresh in my memory. Coming as I did to that school, fresh from a quiet country home, where I had led the quietest of lives – where a slap from my aunt was the greatest evil that ever happened to me – where politeness and consideration for others was instilled into me by my father as the essential attribute of a gentleman – I was ill-prepared for Mr Hostler’s school, where a somewhat different tone prevailed.
On arriving at Mr Hostler’s, we were shown into a comfortably-furnished but small room, and were informed that Mr Hostler would come very soon. After about five minutes the door opened, and a short, broad, dark man entered. His eyes were dark and piercing, and his aquiline nose gave him, to my mind, the appearance of a hawk. Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “How do you do, Mr Shepard? Lucky to get a nomination for your boy, and lucky I’ve got room for him. Another day and you’d have been too late.” Mr Hostler turned his hawk-like eyes on me and said, “You don’t look well: are you ill?”
“No, thank you; I’m a little tired – that’s all.”
“He’s for the Academy?” said Mr Hostler to my father.
“Yes, for the Royal Engineers.”
“Ah! you must work hard, and we’ll make something of you here, you may depend. I think, Mr Shepard, I’d better take him at once, and show him in the school. ‘Go to harness at once’ is my motto.”
Before I had quite realised my position, I had bid my father good-bye, had cast a longing look after him, and felt a choking feeling in my throat, and a sensation of utter loneliness came over me as I knew I was alone, without a friend near.
Mr Hostler took a long look at me, and then, in quite a different tone to that in which he had spoken to my father, said, —
“Come along, youngster. You are like a young bear, I see; all your trouble’s to come. You’ve a lot before you, I can tell you.”
I followed Mr Hostler out of the room, down about half-a-dozen steps, and into a courtyard, where I heard a noise of voices making so great a din that it was impossible to distinguish the words. These sounds came from a long building on the left, to which Mr Hostler led me. He opened a door and pushed me in before him, when I saw one of the most extraordinary sights that I had ever witnessed.
In the room were a number of tables, at which were sitting about fifty boys in about five rows. The majority of these boys were swinging backwards and forwards, like pendulums the wrong end uppermost; others had their hands pressed over their ears, and their heads bent down over a book; the whole of them were repeating words or sentences, portions of which only were audible amidst the deafening din.
In after years, when I have stood at night near a tropical swamp, and have listened to the deafening noise of a thousand bull-frogs, I have always had recalled to me my first visit to the schoolroom of Mr Hostler’s cram-school at Woolwich.
Upon our entering the schoolroom several boys looked up from their books, and the noise for an instant decreased; then, from the far end of the room, a shrill voice exclaimed, “Because the triangle ABC is similar to the triangle DEF, therefore the side AB is to the side DE.” Then a chorus of voices drowned the first voice, and again the uproar proceeded.
“Stop a minute, boys!” said Mr Hostler in a loud voice. “Here’s a new boy – Shepard’s his name. He’s going into the Royal Engineers. I say, Beck, you look out, or he’ll beat you!”
As this speech was made to the whole school, I made a bow – such a one as my father had taught me to make to a lady. A titter ran round the various tables as I did so, and I distinctly saw one boy make a grimace at me.
“Here, Monk,” said Mr Hostler; “you take Shepard; set him his Euclid, and see what he knows in Swat.”
The person addressed was a hard-featured man, with a surly look about him, who, handing me a book, said, —
“What do you know?”
“No Euclid,” I replied.
“Don’t know any Euclid? Why, how old are you?”
“Nearly fifteen,” I replied.
“Oh I nearly fifteen and don’t know any Euclid! and you’re going to be an engineer?”
“Yes,” I replied; “I’m going to be an engineer.”
“Don’t you wish you may get it?” said Mr Monk. “Now learn these definitions,” he continued, “and let’s see what you can do.”
The book now placed before me was the mysterious Euclid, my first acquaintance with which I was now to make. I looked at the first sentence under the definitions, and thought I had never seen a more extraordinary statement than that there made, —
“A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude.”
I read this over two or three times, but each time I read it and thought over it the statement seemed more and more curious. On looking further down the page, I saw that “a line was length without breadth,” which seemed to me quite a mistake; for, however thin a line might appear to the naked eye, yet I knew, from my experience with the microscope in connexion with natural history, that the thinnest spider’s web always showed some breadth when it was looked at through a microscope. It occurred to me that, amidst the noise and confusion that went on in this school, it was possible that the fact of looking at a line through a microscope had never been thought of by any one; and as I felt quite certain that it was impossible that a line could exist without breadth, I determined to point this out to Mr Monk.
Watching for an opportunity to catch his eye, I half rose from my seat as I saw him looking at me. He immediately came to where I was sitting, and said, —
“What’s the matter? You’ve only your definitions to learn; can’t you understand them?”
“Not quite,” I said; “but I think this about a line having no breadth is wrong; for, however thin a line may appear, it looks thick if you bring a microscope to see it through.”
As soon as I commenced speaking to Mr Monk, the boys at the table ceased their sing-song noise and listened to what I was saying. There was a look of astonishment in their faces as I spoke, which quickly changed to a broad grin when they heard what I said; and when Mr Monk said in a sarcastic tone, “Oh, you’ve found that Euclid’s wrong, eh? and that we are all a pack of fools? Now, you just learn three more definitions for your cheek, you young puppy?” the boys actually roared with laughter.
“You want a lot taken out of you, I can see,” continued Monk, “and I’ll pretty soon do it; so mind what you’re at.”
I don’t know whether surprise or anger predominated in my mind at the result of my first attempt to show I thought on what I learnt, as well as attempted to learn it by rote. Such downright rudeness I had never before experienced, and I could scarcely believe that the boys around me were the sons of gentlemen, although I had been told by Howard that Hostler’s was a first-class school, where none but gentlemen’s sons were admitted.
I blushed scarlet at the remark made to me, and felt inclined to explain my meaning, but somehow the words would not come, and I therefore gazed steadily at the pages of my book, wondering how it was I seemed so different from other boys. Whilst thus meditating, I raised my eyes to the boy opposite me; he was a cross-looking, sturdy boy, about my own age, and was occupied, as were the rest, in swinging backwards and forwards, whilst he repeated, in a loud tone, “A is to B as B is to C,” etc.
When this boy saw me looking at him, he made a face at me, and said, “Don’t look at me!” As, however, I continued looking at him, he suddenly lowered himself, so that his head only appeared above the table, and, before I suspected what he was doing, I received a tremendous kick on the shins. The noise the boy made caused Mr Monk to look up just in time to see me throw my book at the boy’s head. So quick had been my assailant in recovering himself and resuming his proper position, that, when Mr Monk looked round, the only thing he saw was my Euclid flying across the table at the boy’s head.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Mr Monk, “you’re a nice young fellow; what are you at?”
“He kicked me on the shins,” I exclaimed.
“Didn’t do anything of the kind,” said the boy, whose name was Fraser.
“Didn’t you kick Shepard?”
“No; I stooped under the table to pick up my handkerchief, and he then shied his book at me,” said Fraser, with a bare-faced effrontery that startled me.
“You come out here, Shepard,” said Monk, who seemed not to have got over my remark about the line; “we’ll soon stop your larks.”
I got up from my seat, feeling that I had been most unjustly treated, and that a lie had been told against me; but, not knowing how I could get myself righted, I was puzzling my brain how I should make Mr Monk know what had really occurred, when I received a couple of blows from him on the head that almost stunned me.
“That’s what you want,” said Monk, “to set you to rights! Now go and stand on that stool till you’ve learnt your Euclid, and if you fail you’ll get three cuts as sure as your name’s Shepard. We don’t stand any tricks here, you see; you’ve to learn what discipline is.”
I find it difficult to make the reader fully comprehend my feelings at that time. Up to the age of ten years Aunt Emma had been very free in boxing my ears, and keeping me in what she called “order,” but during the past five years I had been treated more like a young man than as a boy. The companionship with my father had given me an old feeling, and I thought more as a man thinks than as a boy does. With such ideas as to my age, it was a great blow to my pride to find myself treated like a child, to be kicked by a boy smaller than myself, and then to have my ears boxed because I retaliated. I tried hard to command myself, but after a brief struggle I fairly cried like a child.
I was now the object of attention to every boy in the school. Each boy took his quiet look and grin at me whenever he could take his eyes from his Euclid without being seen by Mr Monk, and this continued till the clock struck the hour, when Mr Monk shouted, “Close books! Come up, Jones and Hunt!”
Two boys left their seats and went to the master, who took their books from them and inquired, “What proposition?”
“Eighth of the second,” said Jones.
“Go on, then,” said the master; and away went Jones, repeating like a parrot a number of lines about A to B, etc. I listened to this because it was not only all new to me, but because I fancied that very shortly I should follow probably the course of this boy. Jones went on without a stop till he had finished his proposition, when, with a look of delight, he left the room. The boy called Hunt now commenced his proposition, but before he had gone over a dozen lines he began to hesitate, then to stop altogether, and finally burst out crying. My first idea was that his heart was very much in his work, and that his pride was hurt at having failed in his lesson; but I was soon to be undeceived in this respect. Hunt was sent into a corner of the room, where he sat looking the picture of misery, and another boy was called upon by the master to say his Euclid. About fifteen boys were allotted to Mr Monk, and out of these three remained in school, having “failed,” as it was termed. As the last boy was sent into the corner Mr Hostler came into the room, looking particularly smiling and active. He carried in his hand a short black stick, which I afterwards learned was whalebone. Seeing me standing on a stool he said, “Hullo! in trouble already? Ah! I thought you were not as quiet as you looked. What’s he been doing, Mr Monk?”
I listened with astonishment at the statement of my offences. First I had tried to show off before the boys by trying to chaff the master by saying if he looked with a microscope at a line it would show Euclid was wrong; then I suddenly took a dislike to a boy and threw a book at his head.
Mr Hostler listened to this account very quietly, and then turning to me said, “Now look here; I’ve done a great favour to your friends by letting you come here. There’s lots would have given a fifty-pound note to get their sons into my establishment. Now, I’m a good mind to pack you off to-day, but I’ll give you another trial, so you just look out.”
I was trying to say something in my defence, but the words hung fire and would not come out, and it was, perhaps, as well I did not say anything, for it would not have been attended to, as Mr Hostler was now inquiring about the boys who had failed.
“So you have failed again, Hunt,” said Mr Hostler. “Here, you come up, then, and take your three.”
Hunt left his seat and commenced crying, whilst he blew on and then rubbed his hand in what appeared to me a most singular manner. The reason for this latter proceeding I was soon to learn, for as he came near Mr Hostler he held out his hand as though to show he had nothing in it – the fingers quite straight and the palm horizontal. Mr Hostler took his whalebone stick in his right hand, made one or two feints, and then delivered a smart blow on the boy’s hand. The sound of this blow indicated its severity, but the contortions of the boy also showed that there was no mistake as to the punishment intended.
“Out with it again?” said Mr Hostler, who now seemed in his element, and who jumped about and flourished his whalebone as if he were riding a race. “Two more. Ah! no shirking. There, that doesn’t count.” These remarks were uttered as he made an up-cut on the knuckles of the boy, who dropped his hand to avoid the full force of the expected blow.
“There, you got that!” exclaimed Hostler, as he delivered a smart cut full on the fingers of Hunt’s hands, and elicited a cry of pain as the boy trembled with nervousness and agony.
“Now for the last!” said Hostler. “Quick about it! There you are! Now don’t you fail again!”
Hunt passed me on his way out of the room, and I saw on his hand two blue-looking streaks, that were swollen as though a hot iron had been passed over them. He was crying, but seemed to think less of his pain than I fancied he would. The other boys that had failed were had up by Hostler in the same manner, and each treated to three cuts on the hand with the whalebone.
“Now, Shepard,” said Hostler, “let’s hear you your definitions. Come along sharp, sir; don’t lounge like that?” Hostler here caught me by the shoulder, and shouting “Come up – hi! hi!” shook me almost out of my clothes.
“I’ll wake you up, I will. You’ve been asleep all your life,” he continued. “Now then, go on: – A point – ”
“A point,” I said, “is – a point is part of magnitude.”
“I’ll parts of magnitude you!” said Hostler. “You’ve been an hour doing nothing. You ought to have three cuts, but I’ll let you off as it’s the first time; but you stop in till you know this.”
I now found myself the only boy in the school, where all was as quiet as before it had been noisy. I sat for some minutes as though in a dream. Was all this real? I asked myself, and had I to go through such scenes for a year before I became an engineer officer, or even a cadet? The feeling of loneliness was mixed with utter surprise and astonishment that there should be such a place as this school in England, and that the course here adopted should be found necessary, in order that boys should become learned enough for officers.
My thoughts wandered from the schoolroom. I was in the shady paths of the grand old forest, where I had passed my early life, and I compared my present condition with that which it would have been had I remained at home. I thought of Howard, and wondered whether he as a boy had passed through such an ordeal as this school offered; and as I believed it possible he had done so, I began to learn a lesson which only those learn who have themselves had to win their way to excellence by hard work and by surmounting difficulties. This essential lesson is one that too many never learn. When we are witnesses of skill in anything, too many forget that this skill is the result of long thought, labour and perseverance. We too often fail to recollect the hours of wearying labour that have been devoted to the acquirement of those qualifications which, when seen in the results, are much admired. The mathematician or geometrician who attains to eminence must have devoted many years’ labour to these subjects, whilst the artist, musician or writer must also have laboured many weary years before he attained even to mediocrity. Even those who excel in games of skill, such as chess, draughts, whist, billiards, cricket, or rackets, must be men who think deeply, and reason on what they see others do, as well as on what they do themselves. When, then, we see excellence in anything, those who have themselves arrived at excellence appreciate skill in others, because ever before them is the idea of the hard work and hard thought that most have been gone through before proficiency could be reached. Those, however, who never have worked to any purpose, who have idled all their lives and failed to attain even mediocrity in anything, usually fail to appreciate in others excellence or skill, and when, after long perseverance and thought, any successful results have been won, idlers not unfrequently term such a result “good luck.” When I had seen Howard, and had been impressed by his apparent knowledge and skill on all subjects, I was ambitious at once of being like him. In my ignorance I fancied that just as I grew taller by no thought or trouble, so I might become an officer like him by merely allowing time to work out its course. That I should have to labour, to work my brain in a manner I had never before even dreamed of, had never occurred to me. Now, however, I began to realise the fact that I was a dunce, and that my brain was feeble merely from want of use, and that I was not capable of competing with other boys of my own age, because their brains had been active and used when mine had been merely idle. I was like a horse suddenly taken up from grass, and worked with one that had been thoroughly trained for many months. My brain was flabby and feeble, without that vigour which is requisite for any mental labour. I could feel a presentiment that there was even a greater exposure of my ignorance coming than had yet taken place. Under the most favourable circumstances of quiet which I enjoyed at home, a long-division sum always took me some time, and, though I was supposed to know as far as fractions in arithmetic, yet I was very shaky in a rule-of-three sum, and I knew that, hustled as I was at Hostler’s, I should breakdown at what perhaps I might accomplish if left quietly to myself. I found that it was downright exhaustive work to remember the definitions before me. I knew them for a minute, then they left me, and as I realised my state I buried my head in my hands, and felt overcome with despair.
Suddenly the door opened, and Hostler appeared and said, “Now, Shepard, do you know your definitions?”
“No, sir,” I replied; “it is very hard for me to learn them.”
I expected him to take me out for my three cuts, but instead of this he sat down beside me and said, “Now, look here; you’ve got to learn how to learn. I see you’re been a spoiled child – your mother’s pet, I suppose – and have never worked at all, only just fudged on. Now you begin really, and of course it’s all new to you. Now just listen to me.”
“Please, sir,” I said, “my mother died when I was a baby, and I never was what you call spoiled by her.”
“Ah, well, I’m very sorry I said that, but of course I didn’t know it; never mind, now try and follow me. A point is that which has no parts and no magnitude – that means, that it’s only an imaginary spot, without any size about it. Do you understand that?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“Then a line is length without breadth – that is, if I draw an imaginary line from here to the moon, that line has length, but it has no breadth. Now think over these, and learn them again to-morrow, and you may go out and join the other boys in the playground.”
It was quite a relief to me to have this conversation with Mr Hostler, for I felt that I could learn after a time, though at first I experienced all the difficulties of novelty in everything I attempted.