In many other respects the school-work was idiotically useless and bad, a great part of it having seemingly been devised to entail a maximum of drudgery with a minimum of useful information. Above all, it lacked elasticity, little or no effort being made to encourage a boy in any particular subject for which he exhibited aptitude.
Some features of the curriculum might have been modelled upon the ancient Chinese system. What could have been more ridiculous than to make boys who could scarcely construe a simple sentence attempt to turn out Latin verse? It would have been far better to teach greater Eton--that is, the mass of more or less ignorant dunces--how to write a good letter in their own language, or driven into their brains some knowledge of modern geography, yet nothing of the sort was ever attempted.
The writing of Latin verse was one of the most time-honoured Eton traditions which had to be undertaken by every boy who emerged from the Lower Forms of the school, and every week a copy of verses was set by the masters who took the divisions of the Fifth Form. These verses had to be done by the boys as best they could, being submitted for correction to the tutors, who got the verses into shape, eliminating “false quantities” and all other mistakes, in the course of which operation they themselves often composed a good deal of Latin poetry. The revised copy was then returned to the boy, who wrote a “fair copy” out of school, and afterwards showed up both copies to the Division Master. The strain on the tutors was at times great, and unscrupulous boys, with the additional help of a clever friend, would sometimes go through the whole of their Eton career without in the least understanding anything at all about verse-writing.
Such a state of affairs exerted a demoralising effect upon the minds of earnest, well-meaning boys, who gradually came to see that certain features of their education were entirely futile. Besides this, owing to the general tone of the school, a large part of which regarded school-work as being merely a sort of useless way of wasting time, their estimation of the value of effort of all kind lessened, whilst the conviction was forced upon them that no particular _kudos_ was to be gained by conscientious study, which they came to look upon as the peculiar appanage of “Tugs” and “Saps.”