Read Online R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield by To Serve Them All My Days - Free Book Online

does an unqualified man get in the choice of texts?'
    'Depends on the man. You? I wouldn't pull on the bit unless I thought you were rushing your fences. You're a bit inclined to. Not that that's unusual in a chap your age. What kind of history were you taught as a boy?'
    'Strings of dates and battles. The Treaty of Troyes and the War of Jenkins' Ear.'
    'Ah, that fellow Jenkins. I always thought that was a bit of liberty, passing his ear around Parliament like the plate at church. Still, it worked. They had their war, didn't they?'
    It was always difficult to decide whether or not there was a coded message in Herries's puckish good-humoured talk and this time David decided to put it to the test. 'I think we should have different text-books for different ages,' he said. 'The subject needs to be introduced with colour – Alfred's cakes, Bruce's spider and so on, but it ought to progress from there without getting dull.'
    'What's your prescription?'
    'To catch the interest in Lower School with the legends, move on to a more solid diet in Middle School, and then use half the periods for free discussion in the Fifth and Sixth. Especially the Fifth, when they're coming up to School Certificate and Matric. Discussion promotes original thought, doesn't it? And I believe most examiners like originality, even when it reads like heresy.'
    'Something in that. Maybe you'd like to work out a syllabus for next term. After all, you'll have more latitude then. I'll get someone else to take the Lower School in English. It won't be Howarth, of course. He likes his subject too much to reach down. Maybe one of the new chaps, there are a couple coming. Why the frown, P.J.?'
    'If it's all the same to you, sir, I'd like to continue English with the Second and Third. I know I'll have to start reading for my own degree, but I can manage. The fact is… well, it might sound absurd, but those extra periods have helped. Helped me, I mean. In rediscovering Gray, Cowper, Tennyson and Goldsmith, and those excerpts from some of my old favourites, like Silas Marner and Westward Ho! . The mugging up enabled me to get things into a better focus.'
    'Well,' Herries said slowly, 'that sounds encouraging. If Gray's “Elegy” still has relevance to you after all you experienced out there, then the sooner the young come to it the better.' He relit his pipe and over the flaring match David saw he was smiling. He went on, 'The jungle drum tells me you occasionallyfeed them something more up-to-date than Mr Gray. Is it true you read the Sixth a poem by that chap Sassoon?'
    'Yes, it's true. They're going out there, some of them. It seemed to me that someone ought to do something to counteract all the rubbish these chaps print,' and he indicated the newspaper he had laid aside.
    'What was it, exactly?'
    'It was a poem called “Memorial Tablet", that Sassoon published this year. I've got a copy of his later poems. Some of them are strong stuff but they have more relevance to what's actually occurring in Flanders than all the leading articles I've read on the war. I… er… I could lend you a copy, Headmaster.'
    'I'd be obliged,' Herries said, without irony. 'I like to keep up to date. Well, then, my compliments to your mother, and we'll expect you back a day or so before term begins.'
    'Yes, sir. Thank you.'
    They got up by mutual consent and went down the slope towards the nearest of the outbuildings, but when they drew level with the fives court Herries said, 'I suppose you're aware of your nickname by now?' and David, suspecting it would be 'Bolshie', said he had certain suspicions but had thought it best not to pursue them.
    'Oh, it's an amiable one,' Herries said, 'not like some of them. It stems from your… consultative methods in class.' He stopped, taking his pipe from his mouth and extending his hand. 'Well, goodbye, “Pow-Wow". Have a good holiday!' and he wandered off towards the piggeries. David remained standing by the fives court for a moment, thinking,