f
questioning his uncle, for whose views he had a great respect. John
Berrisford was always willing to talk after his third glass of port and
he welcomed Martin's questions.

"Of course you know," he said, "that though I'm a revolutionary in
politics and economics, I'm a sound Tory about institutions and the
things that matter, like beef and beer. So I believe in the Public
Schools and the Universities, not because they're good, but because
they _are_. Everything that is, must be an expression of human nature,
and, being rather an optimist, I think it has some good in it. Anyhow,
we can't take human nature and twist it about, as social reformers want
to do. The people who cry out for Censors of Art seem to imagine that
Art makes public opinion. It may do so now and then, but it's much
more important to realise that public opinion makes current art. Art
is the emergence of what people are feeling and thinking, and our
schools, like our art, must be an expression of the national self."

"But the national self," said Martin, "is pretty stiff."

"That is true, but it doesn't matter. My idea is that, being
Englishmen, we ought to make the best of it. Smash international
capitalism, which is hellish, and stick to any good things England can
give. Of course if you like to turn your destructive criticism on our
school system you can knock it to pieces in a minute, just as you can
knock out Socialism, or the Co-operative Commonwealth, or any other
sensible proposition. A half-educated person can criticise anything;
it takes a man to appreciate.

"No, it's no use battering the Public Schools. They are there, so
let's make the best of them. They may not teach very much, but men
learn to behave reasonably and not to get on one another's nerves.
Tell me: if you had to live on a desert island for six months with one
other man, would you take a chap with ideas who had been co-educated or
privately educated and generally fad-educated or an unintellectual but
reasonable man from Elfrey, a person you could always rely on, if it
was only to be dull?"

Martin wanted the Elfreyan.

"Well, that says a lot for the schools. You can't smash them until you
have smashed the British Character: of course that would be a capital
thing to do, but it's a stiff proposal, and while we are waiting let's
make the best of it. I quite expect that at times you must have been
sick to death of Elfrey, but didn't you like it on the whole?"