Paperweight by Stephen Fry

Author:Stephen Fry
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-16T13:00:00+00:00

to remember that. In the same way, when the Old Man finally goes, it will be my turn to be head. That is why I cannot allow you to marry Jane. Still, if you wait around for twenty years, I might just let you do some merit-adding. If you've been good. You never know.

BROOKSHAW turns to address the audience.

For those of you ladies and gentlemen here tonight who do not know Chartham Park School, I suppose I ought to explain to you precisely the nature of merit-adding. What is it? How does it work? Is it efficient? Its origins he deep in the soul of the Chartham Ethic, an ethic method not spun by some politico-educational theorist at the LSE, not gleaned mindlessly from some scholastic tract, but an ethic method learned from years of understanding the average English boy. The average English boy is, at bottom, open, generous and malleable. Mould that material at the right time and you've created a man who will serve his friends, his country and his God in the manner that they have always been served by Englishmen, with integrity, decency, respect, truth. How then do we at Chartham realise the potential of all this formless, but malleable, material that is sent to us? Well, the Chartham method is, not surprisingly, governed by the age-old principles of reward and punishment. The qualities that you recognise in the Chartham boy who goes on to stock the finest schools in the kingdom, are qualities achieved by means of the three basic incentives and three basic - urn - disincentives, which form the backbone of the Chartham System.

BROOKSHAW goes to the board and writes as shown in Figure i.

Firstly, we have the Merit.

He divides the blackboard neatly into two columns. He places a tick in the LIH column and a cross in the RIH. He writes *M Merit' under the tick.

Then there is the Demerit. (He writes 'DM Demerit' under the 'X') The Merit is worth 5 points and the Demerit -5. (Writes '=5' and '=-5' respectively) The Merit is given for a helpful act, a good piece of work or an able performance on the games field. The Demerit is given for an unsocial act, a poor piece of work or a moronic performance on the games field. Three Demerits in one day disqualifies the boy concerned from tuck in that week.

In the nght hand column BROOKSHAW writes '3DMS = tuck off for one week.' The V of tuck is lower case and ambivalent; it could easily be taken for an 'f.

A higher unit of currency is the Plus. This is worth ten points (writes in the LIH column: [See Fig. 1] '+ Plus = ioy) or, in the case of the Minus, minus ten points, (writes in the RIH column: '— Minus = —id*) The Plus is awarded for excellent behaviour, excellent work, or excellent games playing. Three Pluses in one day qualify the recipient for an extra ten pence worth of tuck on Tuck Day.

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