The tea-tables made their
appearance under the elms, where one was welcomed and waited upon
by cheerful matrons and neat maidservants, and delightfully zealous
and inefficient boys. One had but to express a preference to have
half-a-dozen plates pressed upon one by smiling Ganymedes. If
schools cannot alter character, they certainly can communicate to
our cheerful English boys the most delightful manners in the world,
so unembarrassed, courteous, easy, graceful, without the least
touch of exaggeration or self-consciousness. I suppose one has
insular prejudices, for we are certainly not looked upon as models
of courtesy or consideration by our Continental neighbours. I
suppose we reserve our best for ourselves. I expressed a wish to
look at some of the new buildings, and a young gentleman of
prepossessing exterior became my unaffected cicerone. He was not
one who dealt in adjectives; his highest epithet of praise was
"pretty decent," but one detected an honest and unquestioning pride
in the place for all that.
Perhaps the best point of all about these schools of ours, is that
the aspect of the place and the tone of the dwellers in it does not
vary appreciably on days of festival and on working days.
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