The masters were not disliked for finding out the infractions of
rules, if only such infractions were patent and obvious. A master
who looked too closely into things, who practised any sort of
espionage, who tried to extort confession, was disapproved of as a
menace, and it was convenient to label him a sneak and a spy, and
to say that he did not play the game fair. But all this was a mere
tradition. Boys do not reflect much, or look into the reasons of
things. It does not occur to them to credit masters with the motive
of wishing to protect them against themselves, to minimise
temptation, to shelter them from undesirable influences; that
perhaps dawns on the minds of sensible and high-minded prefects,
but the ordinary boy just regards the master as an opposing power,
whom he hoodwinks if he can.
And then the boyish ideal of courage is a very incomplete one. He
does not recognise it as courage if a sensitive, conscientious, and
right-minded boy risks unpopularity by telling a master of some
evil practice which is spreading in a school.
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