this. You say that personality is a stubborn thing. It is indeed. I
find myself reflecting and considering how much one's character
really changes as life goes on; in reading this diary of fourteen
years ago, though I have altered in some superficial respects, I
was confronted with my unalterable self. I have acquired certain
aptitudes; I have learnt, for instance, to understand boys better,
to sympathise with them, to put myself in their place, to manage
them. I don't think I could enunciate my technique, such as it is.
If a young master, just entering upon the work of a boarding-house,
asked my advice, I could utter several maxims which he would
believe (and rightly) to be the flattest and most obvious truisms;
but the value of them to me is that they are deduced from
experience, and not stated as assumptions. The whole secret lies in
the combination of them, the application of them to a particular
case; it is not that one sees a thing differently, but that one
knows instinctively the sort of thing to say, the kind of line to
pursue, the kind of statement that appeals to a boy as sensible and
memorable, the sort of precautions to take, the delicate adjustment
of principles to a particular case, and so forth. It is, I suppose,
something like the skill of an artist; he does not see nature more
clearly, if indeed as clearly, as he did when he began, but he
knows better what kind of stroke and what kind of tint will best
produce the effect which he wishes to record. Of course both artist
and schoolmaster get mannerised; and I should be inclined to say in
the latter case that a schoolmaster's success (in the best sense)
depends almost entirely upon his being able to arrive at sound
principles and at the same time to avoid mannerism in applying
them. For instance, it is of no use to hold up for a boy's
consideration a principle which is quite outside his horizon; what
one has to do is to try and give him a principle which is just a