he great mounds or "barrows" that abound in Ireland; inside
there was a sort of crypt in which chiefs were buried. The
monoliths were constructed, as doubtless the Pyramids also were,
by rolling the great stones up an inclined bank of earth
previously built up.

Throughout 1914 Paul was the mainstay of the magazine. The May number
contains from his pen exhaustive reports of two house matches
(football), a shrewd commentary on the Junior School Cup matches, and
a long report of a lecture. For the July number he wrote ten pages of
cricket reports, and an account of the swimming competition. He was
also responsible for the finances of the magazine, continuing to act
as secretary and treasurer. All this time he was preparing for his
Oxford scholarship. If he owed much to Dulwich, the College also owed
something to him. No boy ever worked harder for it, or consecrated
himself with more entire devotion to its welfare.

CHAPTER VI

PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE WAR

_Now all the youth of England are on fire._
SHAKESPEARE: "HENRY V."

To _The Alleynian_ for October, 1914, Paul contributed an editorial
article on the War that had then begun to rage in its destructive
fury. Taking the view that "this war had to come sooner or later," he
wrote:

When one nation has a world-wide Empire embracing a fifth of the
globe, founded on principles of absolute liberty for all whom it
contains, and when another, built up by the force of
circumstances on a basis of military despotism, also aspires to a
different sort of world-power, and challenges the first nation,
whose principles it abhors as much as its own are abhorred--in
these circumstances it is hopeless to talk of reconciliation till
one or the other is down. Actually, Germany's monstrous conduct
in violating the neutrality of a small, industrious and
inoffensive Power--a neutrality to which, be it marked, Germany
was as much a partner as England or France--has put her
hopelessly in the wrong with the civilised world. But that does
not alter the fact that the War is primarily one for political
existence. Either the despotism of Potsdam or the constitutional
government of Westminster must survive. We, more even than Russia
or France, are fighting for our very existence.

Things are, indeed, very favourable to us and to our Allies.