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A VAIN
REGRET.
To turn for a moment
from reminiscence to reflection. As I have indicated, in my
time a change was just beginning, or just threatening to
begin, as regards the Madras as a boys' school of a national
rather than a local character. That change progressed
rapidly in the concluding decades of the century. I do not
make any reference to the recent history of the school, or
the work now carried on, which I believe to be admirable.
But undoubtedly there was a loss of prestige of the Madras
and of St Andrews as an educational centre for boys from all
parts of Scotland and from beyond Scotland. Oddly enough,
education for girls of the same class has run precisely a
converse course at St Andrews. In my day at St Andrews,
girls' education, such as it was, was purely a local
concern. Now St Andrews is the great educational centre in
Scotland for girls, other than those in the locality, and
its fame as such has travelled far beyond
Scotland.
My generation have
nearly all passed away, so it does not now much matter. But
as regards that generation of old Madras boys, the change
that set in and rapidly advanced was a handicap so far as
tradition and esprit de corps were concerned. A Fettesian,
or a Lorettonian, or an Academical, remains such all his
life. The old boys, as far as sunderance will permit, remain
a community; the old school is the centre and rallying
point, and they take, many of them, an interest in what
concerns it. I am sorry to admit that it was somewhat
different as regards the Madras. In the 'eighties or
'nineties of last century, if one happened to meet an old
schoolfellow of the 'seventies who knew anything about
contemporary St Andrews, and mentioned to him the Madras, he
shrugged his shoulders, and if he did not use the language
of the distressed Hebrew woman, his purport was the same :
"Ichabod. The glory is departed."
All this, however, so
far as I am concerned, has to do with the past, with the
Madras of 1900 as contrasted with the Madras of 1870. The
past is beyond recall. The present is with us. The future is
before us. So, looking back through a long vista of years
and marking that once familiar pile behind the ruin of
Blackfriars Chapel, I murmur "Floreat."
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