c boarding schools. His view seems to overlook or
disregard that large class of persons who have no marked natural
aptitude for teaching, but are capable of being, by special
instruction and supervised practice, kneaded and moulded into better
teachers than they would otherwise have grown to be. He felt so
strongly that no one ought to teach without having a real gift and
fondness for teaching that he thought such difference as training
could make insignificant in comparison with the inborn talent. Perhaps
he generalised too boldly from himself, for he had an enjoyment of his
work, and a conscientiousness in always putting the very best of
himself into it--how much was conscientiousness and how much was
enjoyment, no one could tell--as well as a quickness and vivacity
which no study of methods could have improved. As one of his most
eminent colleagues,[54] who was also his life-long friend, observes:
"The humdrum and routine which must form so large a part of a
teacher's life were never humdrum or routine to him, for he put the
whole of his abounding energies into his work, and round its driest
details there played and flickered, as with a lambent flame, his
joyous spirit, finding expression now perhaps in a striking parallel,
now in a startling paradox, now in a touch of humour, and once again
in a note of pathos."

The personal influence he exerted on the boys who lived in his House
was quite as remarkable as his "form-teaching." Stoicism and honour
were the qualities it was mainly directed to form. Every boy was
expected to show manliness and endurance, and to utter no complaint.
Where physical health was concerned he was indulgent; his House was
the first which gave the boys meat at breakfast in addition to tea
with bread and butter. But otherwise the discipline was Spartan,
though not more Spartan than that he prescribed to himself, and the
House was trained to scorn the slightest approach to luxury.
Arm-chairs were forbidden except to sixth-form boys. A pupil relates
that when Bowen found he was in the habit of taking two hot baths a
week the transgression was reproved with the words: "Oh boy, that's
like the later Romans, boy." His maxims were: "Take sweet and bitter
as sweet and bitter come" and "Always play the game." He never
preached to the boys or lectured them; and if he had to convey a
reproof, conveyed it in a single sentence. But he dwelt upon honour as
the foundation of character, and made every boy fe