But it was not only at football that Baden-Powell spent his time in the playground, although it was only in football that he shone. Into every game he threw himself with zest and earnestness, playing hard for his side, and finding himself always regarded by his opponents as an enemy to be treated with respect. That he continued to play cricket, racquets, and fives, although not a great success, is characteristic of his devotion to sports, and his habit of doing what is the right thing to do. Then he was a faithful and lively contributor to the school magazine, added his lusty young voice to the chapel choir, and was for ever seeking out excuses for getting up theatricals. Of one of his performances at the end of the Long Quarter in 1872 it is interesting to note that the Era of that time remarked that it was "full of vivacity and mischief." He was always a great success as an old woman, and we shall see that in later days he played a woman's part with huge success in far Afghanistan. At one of these school entertainments big brother Warington was present, and he laughingly recalls how the vast audience of shiny-faced boys broke into a great roar of delight directly B.-P. appeared in the wings—before he had uttered a word or made a grimace. Dr. Haig-Brown and the other masters who remember B.-P. like to recall scenes of this kind, and it is no disparagement of Ste's other sterling qualities that they seem to have been more impressed by his excellent fooling than by any other of his good qualities. It is the greater tribute to his genius for acting.
Lombardi & Co., Photographers, 27, Sloane Street, S.W.
Rev. William Haig-Brown, LL.D.ToList
So long as the world lasts, I suppose, the intelligent boy who works hard at school will play the clown's part in popular fiction. Tom Sawyer is the kind of youth we like to see given the chief part in a novel, while George Washington, we are all agreed, is fit target for our lofty scorn. But how few of the people we love to read about in the airy realm of fiction, or the still airier realm of history, really possess our hearts? Think over the heroes in novels who would be drawn in with both hands to the fireside did they step out from between covers and present themselves at our front door in flesh as solid as the oak itself. And the good boy in fiction is anathema. Shakespeare himself believed that
Love goes towards love, as schoolboys from their books;
and the man is regarded almost as un-English who would have the world believe that there are British boys for whom the acquisition of knowledge has almost the same attraction as for their heroes in fiction has the acquisition of somebody's apples, or the tormenting of helpless animals.
The fault is not with the world but with the silly writers of goody-goody stories, who have so emasculated and effeminated the boy who works hard and holds his head high that it is now well-nigh impossible to hear of such an one in real life without instantly setting him down as an intolerable prig. These writers have committed the greatest crime against their creations that authors can commit—they have made them non-human. If the stories about George Washington had narrated how on one occasion he laughed uproariously, or how he once ate too many mince-pies, he might have escaped the lamentable and unjust reputation which seems likely to be his fate for another æon or two. That boys can be good and human everybody knows, and the man who loves Tom Sawyer and sneers at Eric would be the first to flog and abuse his son if he bore a closer resemblance to the former than to the latter.
Baden-Powell as a boy was delightful. A grin always hovered about his face, and the Spirit of Fun herself looked out of his sharp, brown eyes. He was for ever making "the other chaps" roar; keeping a football field on the giggle; sending a concert-audience into fits. But he was just the sort of schoolboy of whom there would be no incidents to record. Men who knew him and lived with him in those days remember him, perhaps, more distinctly than any other boy of their time, and at the merest mention of his name their eyes twinkle with delight. "Oh, old Bathing Towel. George! what a funny beggar he was. Remember him? I should think I did. Stories about him? Well, I don't remember any just now, but dear old Bathing Towel——!" and off they go into another roar of laughter. All they can tell you is how he used to act and recite, and play all manner of musical instruments, or, if you drag them away from the stage, how he used to rend the air with his terrible war-whoop at the critical moment in a football match.
But although this is how it strikes a contemporary, Baden-Powell was in deadly earnest when it was a matter of books and ink-pots. He might be the funny man of the school, but he was also one of the most brilliant. He gave his masters the impression of a boy who really delighted in getting on; who was really keen about mastering a difficult subject. His vivacity and freshness, his energy and vigour, helped him to take pleasure in work which to another boy, less physically blessed, would have been an irksome toil; but though his body may have projected him some distance upon his way, it was his soul that really carried him triumphantly through. The spirit of Baden-Powell in those days was what it is now—supremely intent upon beating down obstacles in his path, and resolute to do well whatever the moment's duty might be. So the boy who was setting a football field on the roar at one moment, at the next would be sitting with fixed eyes and knit brows, "hashing" at Latin verses, as serious as a leader-writer hurling his bolts at the European Powers.
The master who best remembers B.-P. is Mr. Girdlestone, in whose house our hero spent four years of his school-days. Looking back over the past Mr. Girdlestone finds that what impressed him most in B.-P. during his school-days was the boy's manner with his elders. He was reserved, very reserved, and he never had any one close chum at school; but apparently he was quite free of shyness, as he would approach his masters without any trace of that timidity which too often marks the commerce of boy with master. On an afternoon's walk, for instance, B.-P. would not be found among the boys, but side by side deep in conversation with his master. And these conversations, I find, convinced his gubernators that he was very much above the average cut of boy in intelligence; not (Heaven forbid!) that he made parade of his little knowledge, but rather that he was eager to get information in really useful subjects from his superiors, and not above boldly declaring his eagerness. In those days Dr. Haig-Brown had a great reputation for sternness, and it is said that even the masters would sometimes quail when they entered his presence; but B.-P. was perfectly at his ease and entirely self-possessed even in approaching the presence of the great Doctor. He was never bashful in addressing a master on new schemes for the benefit of the school, and it was solely owing to his application to Mr. Girdlestone that Charterhouse first started its string orchestra, which is now one of the best boys' bands in the kingdom. Music, it seems, was one of his chief delights at school, he played the violin really well; but while he loved that king of instruments, he would stoop to baser, and oft delight his contemporaries, holding them entranced, by spirited performances on the mouth organ and the ocarina.
With no close friend Baden-Powell was a boy without an enemy, and his popularity may be seen in many ways. Although, for instance, he was not successful in athletics, he was a regular member of the Sports Committee, and worked with intense enthusiasm for the success of Sports-Day. And, another instance; as a memento of their favourite, the butler of B.-P.'s house and his wife saved a part of the dress he wore in his last theatrical performance. When the news came of the relief of Ladysmith this garment was drawn forth from the back of a drawer and used as a flag of rejoicing, and as I write it is being jealously guarded to be hung out from the school windows when the little boy who wore it is delivered from his glorious prison of Mafeking.