Page:The Education of the Conscience.djvu/9

Rh of which we may say, as it is said in the Bible, that "as iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend ."

I shall pass quickly by other things which a school does, other mighty powers which it wields, to train its sons, and draw out of them all that is in them to be drawn out; such, for instance, as its esprit de corps, that sense of membership in a great institution, with a history and a future and a reputation to be maintained, which has no small power to put life into both work and play: or that standard of honour and of manners, of what is courteous or upright or honourable in society, which puts a public school-boy so far on his way towards being a true and high-toned gentleman. Truly a public schoolboy, and those of us who have been public schoolboys, have much for which to say grace and give thanks, in the fact of having belonged to places so well fitted, so carefully by the experience and growth of years and centuries and the care of wise and earnest men elaborated, to fit the young for their work in life.

But now beside all that I have spoken of in the school, besides the bodily training and the teaching of the mind, there is a great deal else,—there is its Christian purpose, its chapel services: among its masters it has clergymen: out of its time something is taken to prepare you for Confirmation, to teach you the Bible, to collect you here for worship. What can we say for this? Is this right? Will this meet the same test, the test namely of providing that, and only that, which makes human nature grow as it should grow to be what it should be? If so it must be