Word: etonisms
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Having small boys provide this kind of service to school seniors is a long tradition in British public schools. It has been a practice for three centuries at Eton, which counts among its old boys (i.e., alumni) 18 of Britain's Prime Ministers, including William Pitt the Elder and Anthony Eden, and a pride of literary lions, including Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Orwell. In their day, these illustrious personages, like all new boys, were on call to serve tea, run errands, and polish boots of top seniors. Eton was founded in 1440 by Henry VI, but fagging...
...after a mere 200 years of controversy, during which fagging has been stoutly defended by most old boys and criticized by sensitive souls like Poet Shelley and others as "brutal and degrading," Eton has decided to drop fagging. The practice will be banned as of July, when the current school term ends. The decision was taken by outgoing Headmaster Michael McCrum, 55, who explains: "I am not in favor of self-indulgence of this sort...
During his ten years as headmaster McCrum nudged ten of Eton's 25 independent houses into giving up fagging voluntarily. But the rest refused. Among pupils and old boys, fagging remains popular. Indeed, ex-fags point to benefits from fagging. "You learn how to command by learning how to obey," says one Old Etonian. Beyond that, a good senior, or "fag master," helps new boys find their way around the complex campus and sometimes becomes a lifelong friend. Recalls Sir John Hogg, 62, chairman of the Old Etonian Association: "I had an extraordinarily good fellow...
Reclining in an easy chair and sipping tea prepared by his fag, an Eton senior, 18, recalls: "I didn't exactly enjoy being a fag myself, but thanks to some Library boys who threw their eggs in my direction when I didn't cook them properly, I know all about poached eggs." Still, the practice must go at Eton, as it has already elsewhere in Britain. Says Old Etonian Lord Redcliffe-Maud: "It's a source of misunderstanding by outsiders, who regard fagging as a brutal form of slavery. It's nothing like that of course...
...next ten years were spent in exile in England. At a Sussex boarding school he was taunted for his social lapses and called a liar by classmates who refused to believe his tales of Africa and the Middle East. All through Eton and Oxford, Thesiger dreamed of returning to the scenes of his childhood. A break came in 1930 when Emperor Haile Selassie invited him to attend his coronation in Addis Ababa. After ten days of festivities, the impatient guest slipped off on his first caravan. It took him through the unadministered territory of the Danakil, "Slender figures in short...