which I never did before; so now you must have it
all together; and I hope you may remember some of it."

There is one point which has been made by several of the Reviewers who
have noticed this book, and it is one which, as I am writing a Preface,
I cannot pass over. They have stated that the Rugby undergraduates they
remember at the Universities were "a solemn array," "boys turned into
men before their time," "a semi-political, semi-sacerdotal fraternity,"
&c., giving the idea that Arnold turned out a set of young square-toes,
who wore long-fingered black gloves and talked with a snuffle. I can
only say that their acquaintance must have been limited and exceptional.
For I am sure that every one who has had anything like large or
continuous knowledge of boys brought up at Rugby from the times of which
this book treats down to this day, will bear me out in saying, that the
mark by which you may know them, is, their genial and hearty freshness
and youthfulness of character. They lose nothing of the boy that is
worth keeping, but build up the man upon it. This is their _differentia_
as Rugby boys; and if they never had it, or have lost it, it must be,
not because they were at Rugby, but in spite of their having been there;
the stronger it is in them the more deeply you may be sure have they
drunk of the spirit of their school.

But this boyishness in the highest sense is not incompatible with
seriousness,--or earnestness, if you like the word better.[B] Quite the
contrary. And I can well believe that casual observers, who have never
been intimate with Rugby boys of the true stamp, but have met them only
in the every-day society of the Universities, at wines,
breakfast-parties, and the like, may have seen a good deal more of the
serious or earnest side of their characters than of any other. For the
more the boy was alive in them the less will they have been able to
conceal their thoughts, or their opinion of what was taking place under
their noses; and if the greater part of that didn't square with their
notions of what was right, very likely they showed pretty clearly that
it did not, at whatever risk of being taken for young prigs. They may be
open to the charge of having old heads on young shoulders; I think they
are, and always were, as long as I can remember; but so long as they
have young hearts to keep head and shoulders in order, I, for one, must
think this only a gain.

And what gave Rugby boys this character, a