Preface

From the days of “Tom Brown at Rugby” to his more modern brothers, the American “New Senior at Andover,” and the French “Straight On,” stories of boy school life have gone on multiplying and still the tale is not all told. Every school has its slightly different atmosphere, and calls for its different historian. For that reason, I offer this picture of life at Flemming Hall.

Though Irving Wilde and the doctor may not be portraits, still the school life of each one of us has known one or more similar teachers, from whom we have gained the inspiration to do broader, truer work, inspiration which, although unconsciously received, perhaps unconsciously given, has yet left its stamp upon all our later work in life.

It is to the courtesy of one such teacher that I owe the Harrow song with which my story closes. So far as I know, it has never been in print, on this side of the Atlantic. My preface, too, would be incomplete without an expression of my indebtedness to the boy friend who criticised my athletics, and above all to the kindness of the artist, Mr. Clephane, whose thorough and practical knowledge of cadet life has been invaluable to me.

It is to be hoped that I have done no harm to the cause of Yale athletics, in making use of the incident of Captain “Phil” Allen’s daring leap, during the Yale-Atalanta race, in May, eighteen hundred and ninety. I can claim no originality in the climax of my regatta; it is the mere telling of an historical fact.

If, in spite of my long list of assistants, my boy readers can find a single line of my story which shall bring me into closer touch with them, I shall be more than satisfied.