line can dispel. It's not what
people do to you, but what they mean, that hurts."

"I don't understand."

"Physical pain doesn't hurt--at least not what I call hurt--if a man
hits you by accident or play. But just a little tap, when you know it
comes from hatred, is too terrible. Boys do hate each other: I remember
it, and see it again. They can make strong isolated friendships, but of
general good-fellowship they haven't a notion."

"All I know is there's very little bullying here."

"You see, the notion of good-fellowship develops late: you can just see
its beginning here among the prefects: up at Cambridge it flourishes
amazingly. That's why I pity people who don't go up to Cambridge: not
because a University is smart, but because those are the magic years,
and--with luck--you see up there what you couldn't see before and mayn't
ever see again.

"Aren't these the magic years?" the lady demanded.

He laughed and hit at her. "I'm getting somewhat involved. But hear me,
O Agnes, for I am practical. I approve of our public schools. Long may
they, flourish. But I do not approve of the boarding-house system. It
isn't an inevitable adjunct--"

"Good gracious me!" she shrieked. "Have you gone mad?"

"Silence, madam. Don't betray me to Herbert, or I'll give us the sack.
But seriously, what is the good of, throwing boys so much together?
Isn't it building their lives on a wrong basis? They don't understand
each other. I wish they did, but they don't. They don't realize that
human beings are simply marvellous. When they do, the whole of life
changes, and you get the true thing. But don't pretend you've got it
before you have. Patriotism and esprit de corps are all very well, but
masters a little forget that they must grow from sentiment. They cannot
create one. Cannot-cannot--cannot. I never cared a straw for England
until I cared for Englishmen, and boys can't love the school when they
hate each other. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now conclude my address.
And most of it is copied out of Mr. Ansell."

The truth is, he was suddenly ashamed. He had been carried away on the
flood of his old emotions. Cambridge and all that it meant had stood
before him passionately clear, and beside it stood his mother and the
sweet family life which nurses up a boy until he can salute his equals.
He was ashamed, for he remembered his new resolution--to work without
criticizing, to throw himself vigorously into the machine, not to mind