Our Great Public Schools: No. VIII. - Stonyhurst
Our Great Public Schools: No. VIII. - Stonyhurst is an article published in The Bystander on 21 july 1909.
Stonyhurst
Stonyhurst is a school of proud memories, grand associations that bring a flush to the cheek of the ardent alumnus. It stands on the south slope of Longridge Fell, in Lancashire. Through the valley at its feet runs the singularly beautiful river Ribble and its tributary, the Hodder. The school was founded on French soil in 1592 to provide education for English Catholic boys who, in the day of Elizabeth, could not be educated in their own faith in their own country. It flourished from the first, though bills of high treason were returned against parents who sent their children there. Occasionally the boys were captured in the journeys across the Channel, and thrown into prison. (What a glorious adventure for a schoolboy 0 Many distinguished men came out of the school in those French days. Among those of minor distinction were Fr. John Gage, who introduced the fruit into England named after him, the Greengage, and the first man who was so bold as to translate Shakespeare into French. He perpetrated the notorious tradition of "Love's Last Shift" as "La derniere chemise de l'amour."
Driven from the Continent in 1794, the school found a refuge in its present home, and its history in the past 115 years is a simple story of splendid success. It is impossible, in this article, to give any idea of the palatial buildings that sprang up around the old mansion. To the museum, the observatory (a meteoro-logical station under the Board of Trade), the libraries, the pictures, (Rubens, Murillo, Barroccio, Guido, Caracci, Raphael, Titian), etc., I have no space to refer. Rather must I hint at the atmosphere of the school and its educational methods. Stonyhurst is a classical school. There 'is an air of Latinity over everything. The two leaders in each class are known as the Roman and Carthaginian Imperators. They pick up "sides" (O, truly British craft !) each term and work against each other for marks. The side scoring most marks in a term earns a " do," which is a feast of everything sweet and indigestible likely to appeal to the schoolboy palate. There are no such things as forms at Stonyhurst. The classes are named Rhetoric, Poetry, Syntax, Grammar, Rudiments, Figures, and Elements. Some of these are split into two. Thus there are a 1st Figures and a 2nd Figures. (By the way, there's no one so cheeky as a Figuritian.) The first three classes are known as the Higher Line, or 1st Playroom, and the remainder as the Lower Line. The latter is divided into 2nd and 3rd Playrooms. Above all is the Philosophy Class, an assembly of gorgeous beings, who are allowed to smoke, shoot, keep horses and dogs. Corporal punishment is administered with a "ferula," a weapon like a large razor-strop, and known as the "tolly." "Twice-nine" is supposed to be the largest number of strokes that may be administered at a time. (I once had twice-twelve.) The usual order is a dozen. What most public schools call "speech days" are known as "Academies" at Stonyhurst. They consist of orchestral music, excerpts from Latin, Greek, and French plays, and any amount of "explicabits, pronuntiabits and disserets." I think of those programmes when I visit a London musical comedy. Almost an extravagant amount of the year's time is devoted to athletics. For many, many years Stonyhurst had its own game of football. It was played in the vast playgrounds on hard, gravel soil. Each game — there were generally three in progress at a time — employed about eighty players. The ball was very small and diabolically hard. But I cannot bear to write of this truly glorious game. The authorities have now abandoned it, and the school, of course, has gone to the "demnition bow-wows." Association football is now the great winter pastime, encouraged by a system of class leagues. "Fives" is not played. "Handball" is its substitute, a game for the leathern-handed. The Philosophers play golf and rackets, and there are magnificent grass and concrete lawn-tennis courts for the whole school. Athletic sports are held annually, and the fine covered playground, the Ambulacrum, found most useful for the O.T.C.'s shooting practice on wet days, should be mentioned. Cricket I have left to the last. It is, perhaps, the most popular game at the school. The Higher and Lower Line ovals on a summer afternoon are a pretty sight. In the distance, silhouetted against the blue sky, are the old eagle towers of the college. Suddenly comes the musical boom of a great bell. It is the Angelus. Every game automatically stops. Every sound is hushed. Every cap is removed. Every white-clad athlete stands with bent head till the last stroke. It is a very impressive and beautiful sight. Among statesmen, diplomatists, and politicians who have graduated at the College, one may mention the late Richard Lalor Shiel, Sir Thomas Wyse, Richard More O'Ferrall, Sir Francis Wild, Sir Charles Clifford, the Hon. Charles Langdale, Sir Rowland Blennerhassett, and Sir Nicholas O'Connor. The late Cardinal Vaughan and Father Bernard Vaughan were educated here, also the present Archbishop of Glasgow. Interesting contemporaries whose names appear on the Stonyhurst rolls are Sir A. Conan Doyle, Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, Mr. Justice Walton, Mr. Alfred Austin, the Poet Laureate, Mr. Paul Woodroffe, and Mr. Bernard Partridge. To the Army, Stonyhurst has given the distinguished Sir Charles Chichester, Sir Henry Clifford, V.C., Sir Montagu Gerard, Colonel Kenna, V.C., and Captain Costello, V.C. But it is proudest of the late Charles Waterton, greatest of English naturalists.
B. M. H.
