the back of the vaulting horse, as far apart, or as near together, as you liked, and then spring over between them without lifting either, even for half an inch. Of course none but long-armed boys could do it at all; but there were enough of these for a large entry. Very soon, however, one after another fell out, either for touching with their feet, or shifting a hand during the vault; and George and a very active boy, a great friend of ours in after years, Charles Mansfield by name, were left alone. They two went on springing over the horse, without the least touch of foot or shifting of hand, until it was at last voted by acclamation that they should divide the great plate of grapes, apples, and sponge cakes, which stood ready for the winner.
But I must not tell you so much of all his successes in athletic games. These things are made too much of nowadays, until the training and competitions for them outrun all rational bounds. What I want to show you is, that while he was far more distinguished in these than any of you are at all likely to be (or indeed, as things stand, than I for one should wish you to be), he never neglected the real purpose of a schoolboy’s life for them, as you will see from some of his early letters from Rugby to which school we went in February 1834, when he was only twelve years old. These are all addressed to his father and mother, and generally end, “Please consider this for grandmama as well as for yourselves.” No boy was ever more thoughtful of every one who had any possible claim upon him. Here is almost the first of them.
“Rugby, April 25th, 1834.
“My dear Papa and Mama,
“I received your letter to-day. I have got a little cough now, but it is getting better every day. Tom is quite well. I now generally keep among the four first of my form, and I find that by application you are enabled to do yourself greater credit than if you trust yourself to the assistance of books or that of other boys. There are two boys besides myself who always do our work together, and we always take three-quarters of an hour out of school, besides three-quarters which is allowed us in school, to prepare our work. The work of our form is the Eumenides of Æschylus, Homer, Virgil, Horace, and Cicero’s Epistles. The half year is divided into two quarters, one of which is for classics mostly, and the other for history. The books for the next quarter are Arrian’s Expedition of Alexander, and Paterculus’s History of Rome, and Mackintosh’s English History. For Composition we do Greek Iambics and Latin Verse, which is generally taken from some English author, and we translate it into Latin. We also do English and Latin themes once a week. The Easter business is just over; there were three speech days, the rehearsal (or first day), the day on which the poor people are allowed to come, and the grand day. On the grand day the day was very fine, and there was a very large assembly of people. The speeches and prize compositions and poems were—
Sixth Form.
Lake.[1]—Latin essay: Bellum civile Mariannum.
Lake.—Latin verse: Phœnicia.
Clough.[2]—English essay: The English language.
Clough.—English verse: Close of eighteenth century.
Arnold.[3]—Greek verse: The murder of Becket.
Fifth Form Essay.
Jacson.—On the Sources of Pleasure.
Emeris.—Speech of Canning at Lisbon.
Simpkin.—Conclusion of Warren Hastings’ trial.
“The speeches began at one o’clock; they were ended at three, and about 200 went to dine at the ‘Spread Eagle.’ Here Dr. Arnold gained a complete triumph over Litchfield and Boughton Leigh, who wanted to prevent his health being drunk on account of his politics, or their private malice. I have not much more to say now. Give my love to cousins, uncle, grandmama, and everybody.
“I remain, your affectionate Son,
“G. E. Hughes.”
[1] Now Dean of Durham.
[2] A. H. Clough, the poet.
[3] The Rev. C. Arnold, of Rugby.
He writes home of everything, in these first years, except of what he knew would only give pain, and be quite useless—the exceedingly rough side of school life as it then existed. A small boy might be, and very frequently was, fagged for every moment of his play hours day after day; and there was a good deal of a bad kind of bullying. But these things he took as a matter of course, making the best of what was inevitable. He used often afterwards to declare, that the boys of that generation made the best fields at cricket he had ever seen, and to set it down to the unmerciful amount of fagging they had to go through. Escape out of bounds before you were caught by a sixth form boy, was the only remedy; and, once out of bounds, there was the river for amusement, and the railway, upon which large gangs of navigators had just been put to work. George became a skilful fisherman, and a most interested watcher of the earthworks, and duly chronicles how he has caught a big eel in one letter; in another, how “the railway is going on very fast: they have nearly filled up one valley, and carried it over a stream;” in a third how “Mr. Wombwell’s show of wild beasts has come in, I believe the finest in England,” and including “four elephants, a black tiger and tigress, and two lions, one of which was the famous Wallace who fought the dogs.”
Before the end of the second year he had got through three forms, and was nearly the head of the fags, and anxious to try his hand for the single scholarship, which was then offered at Rugby for boys under fourteen. As there was only one, of course the competition was a very severe one. But his first letter of that year contains a passage too characteristic to pass over. So I must leave the scholarship for a moment. We, with other boys who lived in Berkshire and Hampshire, were often obliged to post, or hire a coach to ourselves, as there was only one regular coach a day on those cross-country roads. We used to make up parties accordingly, and appoint one boy to manage the whole business, who had rather a hard time of it, while all the rest enjoyed themselves in the most uproarious manner. George was soon selected as the victim, and bearer of the common purse; and his conscientious struggles with postboys and hostlers, landlords and waiters, cost him, I am sure, more pain and anxiety than all the scholarship examinations he ever went in for. Thus he writes in February 1836, to tell of our safe arrival, and then goes on:—
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