Kipps | Page 4

service were glanced at
in an ambiguous sentence. There was something vague in the
prospectus about 'examinational successes' -- though Woodrow, of
course, disapproved of 'cram' -- and a declaration that the curriculum
included 'art,' 'modern foreign languages,' and 'a sound technical and
scientific training.' Then came insistence upon the 'moral well-being' of
the pupils, and an emphatic boast of the excellence of the religious
instruction, 'so often neglected nowadays even in schools of wide

repute.' 'That's bound to fetch 'em,' Mr. Woodrow had remarked when
he drew up the prospectus. And in conjunction with the mortar-boards
it certainly did. Attention was directed to the 'motherly' care of Mrs.
Woodrow, in reality a small, partially effaced woman with a plaintive
face and a mind above cookery, and the prospectus concluded with a
phrase intentionally vague, 'Fare unrestricted, and our own milk and
produce.'
The memories Kipps carried from that school into afterlife were set in
an atmosphere of stuffiness and mental muddle, and included countless
pictures of sitting on creaking forms, bored and idle; of blot licking and
the taste of ink; of torn books with covers that set one's teeth on edge;
of the slimy surface of the laboured slates; of furtive marble-playing,
whispered story-telling, and of pinches, blows, and a thousand such
petty annoyances being perpetually 'passed on' according to the custom
of the place; of standing up in class and being hit suddenly and
unreasonably for imaginary misbehaviour; of Mr. Woodrow's raving
days, when a scarcely sane injustice prevailed; of the cold vacuity of
the hour of preparation before the bread-and-butter breakfast; and of
horrible headaches and queer, unprecedented internal feelings, resulting
from Mrs. Woodrow's motherly rather than intelligent cookery. There
were dreary walks when the boys marched two by two, all dressed in
the mortar-board caps that so impressed the widowed mothers; there
were dismal half-holidays when the weather was wet, and the spirit of
evil temper and evil imagination had the pent boys to work its will on;
there were unfair, dishonourable fights, and miserable defeats and
victories; there was bullying and being bullied. A coward boy Kipps
particularly afflicted, until at last he was goaded to revolt by incessant
persecution, and smote Kipps to tolerance with whirling fists. There
were memories of sleeping three in a bed; of the dense, leathery smell
of the school-room when one returned thither after ten minutes' play; of
a playground of mud and incidental sharp flints. And there was much
furtive foul language.
'Our Sundays are our happiest days,' was one of Woodrow's formulae
with the inquiring parent, but Kipps was not called in evidence. They
were to him terrible gaps of inanity, no work, no play, a dreary expanse

of time with the mystery of church twice and plum-duff once in the
middle. The afternoon was given up to furtive relaxations, among
which 'Torture Chamber' games with the less agreeable weaker boys
figured. It was from the difference between this day and common days
that Kipps derived his first definite conceptions of the nature of God
and Heaven. His instinct was to evade any closer acquaintance as long
as he could.
The solid work varied, according to the prevailing mood of Mr.
Woodrow. Sometimes that was a despondent lethargy, copy-books
were distributed or sums were 'set,' or the great mystery of
book-keeping was declared in being, and beneath these superficial
activities lengthy conversations and interminable guessing games with
marbles went on, while Mr. Woodrow sat inanimate at his desk,
heedless of school affairs, staring in front of him at unseen things. At
times his face was utterly inane; at times it had an expression of
stagnant amazement, as if he saw before his eyes with pitiless clearness
the dishonour and mischief of his being...
At other times the F.S.Sc., roused himself to action, and would stand up
a wavering class and teach it, goading it with bitter mockery and blows
through a chapter of Ahn's 'First French Course'; or, 'France and the
French,' or a dialogue about a traveller's washing or the parts of an
opera house. His own knowledge of French had been obtained years
ago in another English private school, and he had refreshed it by
occasional weeks of loafing and mean adventure in Dieppe. He would
sometimes in their lessons hit upon some reminiscence of these brighter
days, and then he would laugh inexplicably and repeat French phrases
of an unfamiliar type.
Among the commoner exercises he prescribed the learning of long
passages of poetry from a 'Potry Book,' which he would delegate an
elder boy to 'hear' and there was reading aloud from the Holy Bible,
verse by verse -- it was none of your 'godless' schools! -- so that you
counted the verses up to your turn and then gave yourself to
conversation; and