"We may distinguish," said a schoolmaster, "three types of loyalty:

Devotion to a person, a king, say, or a chief. "Devotion to an institution, be it a country or a school.

"Devotion to an idea.

"This last is the largest, the finest, the most generous kind of loyalty, and has the additional merit of including the other kinds. It is the largest, because nothing else has the size, the range of an idea; finest, because it is one of the fine issues to which only fine spirits can be touched; most generous, because only unselfish men can cherish affection for ideas."

Let me speak first of the loyalty to a person, partly because it is the least great of the three kinds, partly because it is the first step, the first lesson that we learn in devotion.

In saying that it is the least great, I know that it has a greatness of its own which is admirable. In schools it is one of the first lessons learnt, and rightly so; but it is often curiously one-sided, it is given and received between members of the rank and file, but often it is not extended from the rank and file to the officers in full measure.

It has been said to me, more than once, that the average boy is not entirely loyal to his prefects, his housemaster, to all in authority, until he is himself placed in a position of authority. "If 'tis true, 'tis true 'tis pity; and pity 'tis 'tis true." Possibly a lack of imagination may be the cause of this, for every one of you here will one day (not here perhaps, but certainly somewhere, later) be in a position of authority, and when that day comes you can

hardly expect, or demand, or deserve, that which you were not ready to give. There can be no fine flower if there has been no previous growth.

Stand by your friend, but see that in doing so you are not standing between him and the light. Stand by your friend, but remember that you owe an equal loyalty to those below you, and complete this by a real faithfulness to those in authority.

"What do you think of your Colonel?" said an officer of one regiment to an officer of another regiment. "I think," came the answer, "that he is my Colonel." Quixotic, you say; perhaps, but a fine spirit.

In speaking of the second loyalty, I take for granted the love of country, just as I took for granted loyalty to King, but I would have you see in Doyle's lines

"He only knows that not through him

Shall England suffer shame,"

a standard which is going to guide you here as well as afterwards.

The life of a school cannot be private, and a large part of our life is, or ought to be, the life of the school. And the citizen of no mean city must not do less than generous justice to his city in his conception of life.

"Be sure that not through you

Shall this school suffer shame."

And in your devotion to your school there should be no inconsistency, no warped outlook. Let me mention an instance. If a boy steals your money, you are apt to think your whole duty is to the community. If he steals your purity, you are

apt to think your whole duty is to the boy. I need not tell you that there is a twofold duty, I need not tell you which, in each case, is the greater, nor need I tell you how you can best meet each difficult case without a suspicion of a loss of honour. You know.

Do not let the test of your loyalty to your school be merely, "I do none of these things." Let it go deeper-Ask yourselves if you see them done and give no sign.

Do you find yourself the possessor of two codes, for school and camp, for term and holidays? If so, take it as a danger signal. One of the two codes must be less high, and therefore to be discarded as lacking in faithfulness.

And the greatest devotion of the three, the devotion to an idea. Be loyal to the idea that your body and mind are a sacred trust, desecrate or deprave neither. See to it that you are loyal to the idea of good taste. Do not let anything you say or do lower this standard of good taste. Good taste should be a second conscience.

Be staunch to the idea of efficiency of discipline. Be of the fine spirits who are touched to great issues. Be discontented until you can count yourself worthy to be one of the aristocracy of character. Be of the unselfish, for they cherish affection for ideas.

Let the greatest loyalty be yours, the loyalty to the spirit of the greatest idea the world has known, the teaching of Christ. Men will tell you that the Sermon on the Mount is a beautiful idea, but unpractical. Do not believe these, but follow those who not only wish to put Christ's teaching into

practice in their lives, but actually do so. Without this there is no loyalty to your Maker.

Every member of the aristocracy of character is in quest of the same eternal idea, whether they call it Order, or Beauty, or Truth. God Himself is absolute Order, absolute Beauty, absolute Truth, and it is only in entire loyalty to Him that the quest can be crowned with success.

XIX

PRIDE

(March 5th, 1914)

"Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and

limb,

Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure.

Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him." We read the pages of history with interest. Survivors tell us of siege and shipwreck, eyewitnesses write of war and famine and earthquake, and more than often the pictures they call up are dim and distant; and then comes a poet who touches us with his shaft of golden sound and kindles our imagination, and we see things in their thrilling reality.

The reader of Tennyson's "Defence of Lucknow' feels that he is crouching behind the Residency's battered walls, in a heat like the mouth of hell, in an infinite torment of flies. In a half-dream there is wafted to him the thought of the breezes of May blowing over English fields, a momentary solace of hope followed by the gnawing despair of the knowledge of death facing all on every side; and then comes renewed strength and courage, readiness to endure in the remembrance that the failure of one may be the doom of all.

It is the message of the three lines that I have quoted of which I wish to speak.