The Henson Journals

[114]

15th Sunday after Trinity, September 12th, 1920.

[The sea was astonishingly still, and we passed a better night than we had dared allow ourselves to expect. Nevertheless we felt but little inclined to get up, & kept our cabin until the afternoon.

Then we went on deck, & even adventured dinner!]

The passengers include a tall young Swede with a student's cap, & a pretty lady–student of Upsala. Driven by the mutual magnetism of youth & good looks this two were soon inseparable companions. The rest of the company were nowise specially interesting. A big man gave me his card with his name, William Olsson, Stockholm. He desired to be commended to the archbishop of Upsala, who, he said, was a particular friend of his. [He said that he was bent on establishing in Sweden a school of the English public school type, & that with this purpose he was seeking to arrange an interchange of boys for a period. I am not so greatly impressed with the success of the English public school as to judge it worthy of exportation to other countries. It is, perhaps, the principle citadel of the English "caste system", that is of the sharp division of classes which lies at the root of our failure to unify the nation. This is a heavy price to pay for the excellent individual qualities which the public school boy posseses, & which have been gloriously displayed during the war. Even here, however, much evil is mingled with the good. Intellectual originality is almost destroyed, and a lop–sided morality is inculcated. The best, and also the worst, implications of the singular term, "gentleman" are bound up with the public school. Herein I speak as one who observes from without, not unsympathetically but also with an incomplete understanding.]

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