degrees broke up into small sets and
parties, and lost the strong feeling of fellowship which he set so much
store by, and with it much of the prowess in games and the lead in all
school matters which he had done so much to keep up.

In no place in the world has individual character more weight than at
a public school. Remember this, I beseech you, all you boys who are
getting into the upper forms. Now is the time in all your lives,
probably, when you may have more wide influence for good or evil on the
society you live in than you ever can have again. Quit yourselves like
men, then; speak up, and strike out if necessary, for whatsoever
is true, and manly, and lovely, and of good report; never try to be
popular, but only to do your duty and help others to do theirs, and you
may leave the tone of feeling in the school higher than you found it,
and so be doing good which no living soul can measure to generations of
your countrymen yet unborn. For boys follow one another in herds like
sheep, for good or evil; they hate thinking, and have rarely any settled
principles. Every school, indeed, has its own traditionary standard of
right and wrong, which cannot be transgressed with impunity, marking
certain things as low and blackguard, and certain others as lawful and
right. This standard is ever varying, though it changes only slowly and
little by little; and, subject only to such standard, it is the leading
boys for the time being who give the tone to all the rest, and make
the School either a noble institution for the training of Christian
Englishmen, or a place where a young boy will get more evil than he
would if he were turned out to make his way in London streets, or
anything between these two extremes.

The change for the worse in the School-house, however, didn't press very
heavily on our youngsters for some time. They were in a good bedroom,
where slept the only prepostor left who was able to keep thorough order,
and their study was in his passage. So, though they were fagged more or
less, and occasionally kicked or cuffed by the bullies, they were, on
the whole, well off; and the fresh, brave school-life, so full of games,
adventures, and good-fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious
at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousand-fold their
troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage
of the big boys in the house. It wasn't till some year or so after the
events recorded