The Fall of Doctor Onslow Read Online Free

It used to be only four, but recently he had replaced the two school half-years of tradition with the three terms more appropriate to a railway age; the boys had been glad of this change, but they wished he had decided he need now examine them only once a term.
    Dr Onslow adjusted the folds of his gown, brushed his cuff, and smiled faintly at the anxious faces below him. Some of the boys were not looking at him, they were hiding their eyes. He glanced swiftly round the room to see that all in this familiar scene was as it should be. Across from him the boys of the other two forms were conning their books in the grey light from the windows, waiting for their turn: he was satisfied, and turned his eyes once more to those in front of him.
    The boys were not all of an age. They were placed in school solely according to their academic competence, and so the Shell form contained a large number of fourteen year olds, some bright and diligent children of twelve and thirteen, a few boys in their middle teens, and one young man nearly old enough to shave. They all wore blue coats, but their trousers and waistcoats were not uniform. In spite of this Dr Onslow found it difficult to tell them apart. He paid the minimum of attention to boys below the Sixth, whom he taught in person. Only the intelligent ever reached the Sixth, and except insofar as he was responsible for their morals, he was not interested in those who were not intelligent.
    Brains bought power and privilege at Charton. It was not to boys of strong character that Dr Onslow deputed a part of his authority over the juniors, but to those who had succeeded in their lessons, some of whom were no more than fifteen. Dr Arnold had operated the same system, and Dr Onslow, who had been three years under him in the Sixth at Rugby, believed in its surpassing excellence.
    ‘Shall we begin?’ he said. Catching the eye of one of the older boys, he went on: ‘What is your name?’
    ‘Young, sir.’
    ‘Well Young, you are supposed to have mastered the first few paragraphs of the seventh book of the Aeneid. Repeat them, if you please.’
    His choosing an older boy first of all showed that he was not in his best mood. When feeling genial, he liked to give the younger ones a chance to demonstrate their cleverness; when feeling less amiable, he chose the fools well on intoadolescence, and abused them with a coolly scornful tongue for their mistakes.
    ‘ Tu quoque litoribus nostris ,’ said Young slowly and carefully as he got to his feet, ‘Aeneia nutrix, aeternam moriens famam, Caieta, dedisti; et nunc servat honos – sedem tuus, ossaque nomen Hesperia in magna, si qua est ea gloria – um – um – signat.
    ‘ At pius exsequiis Aeneas – rite solutis, aggere compasito, composito …’
    Onslow sat still as an owl, listening to the hesitations. He did not even drum his fingers on the wooden arm of his chair; that was not his way. Presently he interrupted the boy, and said:
    ‘Very well, now construe.’
    Young, who had wound himself up like a musical box, uttered three more words before the sense of Onslow’s order penetrated his mind. He paused for a while, breathing deeply, then began again:
    ‘ Tu quoque , you – thou also, litoribus nostris , to our coasts, Aeneia nutrix, Aeneas’s nurse, aeternam moriens famam, eternal fame by death have given …’ He struggled on for one more sentence, then was stopped. Onslow said softly:
    ‘Your crib must have been a very bad one if it could not do a little more for your construction of an English sentence. At your age you ought to be able not merely to make a literal translation, but to render the Latin in tolerable prose. I need scarcely add that your literal translation ought to be accurate. Shores, not coasts, in the first line! Or perhaps you disagree, and think that is rather a matter of style? I am sure you know best.’ Onslow’s quiet sarcasms were dreaded by his pupils.
    The boy muttered: ‘Sir, I didn’t use a crib.’