Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

In a blink of an eye, a year has passed.When Philip went to the Royal College, the old pedants still held their ground; and in spite of all their efforts, there was a great deal of change in the school.To tell the truth, their secret obstinacy was not at all easier to deal with because they apparently echoed the new boss's ideas.Now, the French class for the lower grades is still taught by the grade teacher, but another teacher has been hired in the school. While teaching the French class for the upper grades, he also teaches German for those students who don't like to learn Greek.The new teacher had obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from Heidelberg University and had taught in a French middle school for three years.The school also invited a mathematics teacher to teach mathematics more systematically, but in the past it was always believed that there was no need to go to great lengths.Both new teachers were unconsecrated scribes.It was a veritable revolution, so when the two men first came to teach at the school, senior teachers looked sideways at them as unreliable.The school built a laboratory and set up military training courses.The teachers are talking about it: the school has completely changed!God only knows what new tricks are going on in Mr. Perkins' scrambled head!The Royal Public School is the same as other public schools in that the school building is small and can only accept two hundred boarders at most, and the school is squeezed on the edge of the cathedral and cannot be expanded any further; The teachers' dormitory was almost entirely occupied by the priests of the cathedral, and there was no way to find a vacant space for the expansion of the school building.Mr. Perkins, however, conceived a plan which, if carried out, would be sufficient to double the size of the existing school.He wanted to attract kids from London.He thought it would be beneficial to expose London boys to Kent lads, and to sharpen some of the obscure country wits here.

"It's quite contrary to the old tradition of our school," said "Sigh Chang," after hearing Mr. Perkins's proposal. "We've always taken great precautions against the children of London, lest they spoil our school." "Hey, that's bullshit!" In the past, no one had ever called him nonsense in front of this old master, and he planned to retort and retaliate, so he might as well point out things like cloth clothes and pants in his words, and poke his old bottom.But while he was brooding and searching his brains, the unscrupulous Mr. Perkins spoke to him again:

"That house on the church grounds—as long as you're married I'll try to get the vicarage to add two more stories to it, and we can use those rooms as dormitories and studies, and your wife can take care of them." you." The elderly pastor gasped.marry?What are you doing?Already fifty-seven years old.How can anyone be married at the age of fifty-seven?It's unlikely that you will come to build a nest again at this age.He doesn't want to get married at all.If he had to choose between getting married and living in the country, he would rather retire.All he wants now is for his wife to spend his old age in peace.

"I never thought of getting married," he muttered. Mr. Perkins looked at the other man with those dark, smoky eyes which, if they flickered mischievously, poor Mr. Sighing would never have noticed. "What a pity! Can't you do me a favor and just get married and settle down? That way, I can speak better when I propose to renovate and heighten your house before the meeting between the senior pastor and pastor." One of Mr. Perkins's most unpopular innovations, however, was his new rule of alternating classes with other teachers at irregular intervals.He said it very politely, asking the other party for a convenience, but in fact this convenience must be provided.Such an approach, according to Mr. "Tar" , aka Mr. Turner, was dishonorable on both sides.Often Mr. Perkins, without warning, would suddenly say to one of the teachers as soon as morning service was over:

"Please help me take sixth grade class at eleven o'clock this morning. I don't know how you would like it? Let's go to another class, okay?" Teachers don't know if the practice has been adopted in other schools, but it is certainly unprecedented here in Canterbury.As far as the effect of the class is concerned, it is also inexplicable.Mr. Turner was the first to bear the brunt. He disclosed the news to the students in the class in advance, saying that today's Latin class would be taught by the principal. Set aside a quarter of an hour beforehand to explain to the students sentence by sentence a paragraph of Levi's article that was required to be learned that day, lest they be stunned and make a fool of themselves.However, when he returned to the class and saw Mr. Perkins' grading record, he was not surprised: the two top students in his class seemed to be unsatisfactory, while the other students who were always average Got full marks.He asked him what happened to Eldridge, the brightest boy in his class, and the boy replied sullenly:

"Mr. Perkins didn't ask us to explain the text at all. He asked me what I knew about General Gordon." Mr. Turner looked at Eldridge in amazement.The children obviously felt wronged, and he couldn't help empathizing with the children's daring to speak out.Nor did he see how General Gordon had anything to do with Levy.Then he mustered up the courage to inquire about it. "You asked Eldridge what he knew about General Gordon, and you really confused him," he said to the headmaster with a forced smile. Mr. Perkins laughed heartily. "I saw that they had learned the land laws of Keith Glahus, so I wondered if they knew anything about land disputes in Ireland. Who knows what they know about Ireland, as long as Dublin is on the Liffey. .So I asked them again if they had heard of General Gordon."

Then, the terrible fact was revealed to the public: the new boss turned out to be a "common sense junkie."He doubted the usefulness of the current subject examinations, which students memorized by rote to meet them.His emphasis is on common sense. As time passed month by month, "Chang Sigh" became more and more worried.He tried to dispel the idea that Mr. Perkins would force him to fix a wedding date; besides, he resented his superior's attitude to the classics.There can be no doubt that Mr. Perkins is an accomplished scholar, busy at present with a perfectly orthodox treatise--a treatise on the genealogy of Latin literature; It's like talking about some kind of insignificant entertainment like marbles, as if it's just a topic for fun after dinner and doesn't need to be taken seriously.Speaking of Mr. "Water Gun", the teacher in the middle class of the third grade, his temper is getting worse every day.

When Philip entered the Royal College, he was placed in his class.The Reverend Mr. B. B. Gordon did not seem to be of the temperament to be a teacher: impatient and irascible.Coupled with the fact that no one has cared about his teaching for a long time, and he only comes into contact with young students, he can do whatever he wants, and his self-control has long been lost.When he started class, he often started with a tantrum and ended with a rage.He is neither tall nor short, stout, with short, reddish-yellow hair that has begun to be stained with hoarfrost, and a short, hard mustache on his lips.This man was unattractive, with a pair of small blue eyes on his big face, and his face was flushed, but when he got angry, he immediately turned into a liver color, and he was easily angry.The nails on his hands are often bitten and bitten, and even the flesh can't be covered: as long as any student trembles when explaining the text, he will be angry from the heart, sitting on the edge of the podium and shaking, biting his nails hard at the same time .The scandal about his abuse of students has been widely circulated among teachers and students, and some of them are inevitably exaggerated.There was an incident two years ago that caused a sensation in the school.It is said that a parent of a student often threatened to sue in court because the old master picked up a book and slapped a child named Walters so hard that his hearing was seriously affected and he had to drop out of school.The boy's father lives in Canterbury, and there was outrage in some parts of the city, and the story was reported in the local newspaper.However, Mr. Walters is only a mere brewer after all, so the sympathy for him is also subtly discounted.As for the rest of the children in the class, even though they hated the old master, they still sided with the teacher on this matter out of their own clearest considerations, not only expressing indignation at the outside world's involvement in school affairs, Walters' younger brother who made things difficult for him to stay in school.Mr. Gordon, however, was nearly thrown into the country for the rest of his life, and never dared to beat a student again.The teachers then lost the right to hit the students' palms, and the "water gun" can no longer use the pointer to whip the podium to vent his anger. Now, at most, he just grabs the students by the shoulders and fucks him hard twice.But for mischievous or stubborn children, they still have to punish them, let them stand there with one arm hanging in the air for ten minutes to half an hour, and scolding students is still as open as before .

For a naturally timid student like Philip, there is probably no worse teacher than "Squirt Gun".At last Philip was more daring at the Royal College than when he first saw Mr. Watson.He knew a lot of the kids here, old classmates from prep.He didn't feel like a kid anymore, and he realized instinctively that the more classmates around him, the less conspicuous his disability would be.On the first day, however, Mr. Gordon struck him with terror; the master could tell at a glance which pupils were afraid of him, and seemed to dislike them particularly for that alone.In the past, Philip always listened to the teacher's lectures with great interest, but now every time he goes to class, he is terrified, and the time feels like years.When the teacher asked questions, he Ning Ye sat in a daze without making a sound, for fear of answering wrongly and being scolded by the teacher; every time it was his turn to stand up and explain the text, he was always trembling, his face was pale, as if he was seriously ill of.He also has a happy time, and that is when Mr. Perkins comes to substitute.For this common-sense headmaster, Philip was quite fond of him, and he dabbled in all kinds of strange books for adults to read.It often happened to Mr. Perkins in class that the questions he asked went round among the students, and no one could answer them, and finally left Philip to answer them.Mr. Perkins smiled at Philip--a smile which delighted Philip--and said:

"Okay, Carey, please tell everyone!" Philip's good score on this occasion added to Mr. Gordon's grievances.One day, when it was Philip's turn to do translation exercises, the old master sat there, staring at Philip viciously, and biting his thumb angrily.He's on fire!Philip began to whisper softly. "Stop mumbling!" the teacher yelled. Philip's throat seemed to be blocked by something foreign. "Go on! Go on! Go on!" He screamed three times in succession, louder each time, and it scared Philip away from everything he had learned, and Philip just stared at the pages in a daze.Mr. Gordon gasped.

"If you don't understand, why don't you explain it? Do you understand it? Did you listen to the last time the text was explained? Why didn't you open your mouth? Say it, you idiot! Say it!" The old master grasped the arm of the chair and held on tightly, as if afraid that he might throw himself at Philip.The students all know that in the past he used to choke the students by their necks and almost strangled the students half to death before letting go.Mr. Gordon's face was now dark and terrible, with the veins on his brow.He's gone nuts. Philip had understood all the text the day before, but he could not remember anything now. "I don't understand," he said breathlessly. "How can you not understand? Well, let's explain word for word, whether you are pretending or not, you will find out in a moment." Philip stood silent, ashen-faced, trembling slightly, with his head drooping almost touching his book.The old master's nostrils were whistling, almost like snoring. "The Headmaster says you're smart, I don't know how he sees that. Common sense!" He laughed wildly. "I don't understand why they put you in this class. Stupid!" He admired the word very much, and repeated it several times in a row. "Idiot! Idiot! A big lame idiot!" After venting in this way, Mr. Gordon finally calmed down a bit.He saw Philip flush suddenly.He sent Philip to fetch the book.Philip put down the "Caesar's Chronicles" in his hand and walked out of the classroom without a sound.The record book is a pad with a light black cover, which is specially used to record the escapades of naughty students.A student whose name appears three times in the notebook will be whipped.Philip went to the headmaster's residence and knocked on the door of his study.Mr. Perkins was sitting at the table. "Sir, may I have the journal?" "There it is," Mr. Perkins said casually, nodding toward the place where the note-book was placed. "What did you do that you shouldn't have done?" "I don't know, sir." Mr. Perkins glanced at Philip, but said nothing, and went on with his business.Philip picked up his notebook and left the study.A few minutes later Philip returned the notebook. "Let me have a look," said the principal. "Oh, Mr. Gordon put your name in the roster, and said you were insolent. What's the matter?" "I don't know, sir. Mr. Gordon says I'm a crippled fool." Mr. Perkins glanced again at Philip, wondering if there was any sarcasm in the boy's answer, but he was pale with shock, and terrified and pained in his eyes.Mr. Perkins stood up, put down his roster, and picked up some photographs. "A friend of mine sent me some pictures of places in Athens this morning," he said casually. "Look, this is the Acropolis." He explained to Philip the monuments in the photographs.After he said this, the ruins on the screen suddenly became vivid.He also pointed out to Philip the amphitheater of Dionysus, explained how the audience was seated according to rank at that time, and told from which side the audience could look far enough to see the blue Aegean Sea.Then, he suddenly changed the subject: "I remember when I used to be in Mr. Gordon's class, he used to call me the gypsy at the counter." Philip was so absorbed in the pictures that he had not had time to grasp the meaning of the remark when Mr. Perkins produced another picture of Salamis, and with his finger--the tip of the fingernail was still There is a black border -- click to show him the lineup deployment of the Greek and Persian warships.