Not always did Sanderson carry things off with an equal dignity. His temperament¹ was choleric², and ever and again his smouldering indignation at the obstinate³ folly⁴ and jealousy⁵ that hampered⁶ his work blazed out violently. Dignified⁷ silence is impossible as a permanent pose for a teacher whose duty is to express and direct. Sanderson's business was to get ideas into resisting heads; he was not a born orator⁸ but a confused, abundant speaker, and he had to scold, to thrust strange sayings at them, to force their inattention, to beat down an answering ridicule⁹. He was often simply and sincerely wrathful with them, and in his early years he thrashed a great deal. He thrashed hard and clumsily in a white-heat of passion—'a hail of swishing strokes that seemed almost to envelop¹⁰ one.' A newspaper or copybook at the normal centre of infliction¹¹ availed but little. Cuts fell everywhere on back or legs or fingers. He had been sorely tried, he had been overtried. It was a sort of heartbreak of blows.  
[Pg 41]
 
The boys argued mightily¹² about these unorthodox swishings. It was all a part of Sanderson being a strange creature and not in the tradition. It was lucky no one was ever injured. But they found something in their own unregenerate natures that made them understand and sympathise with this eager, thwarted¹³ stranger and his thunderstorms of anger. Generally he was a genial¹⁴ person, and that, too, they recognised. It is manifest quite early in the story that Sanderson interested his boys as his predecessor¹⁵ had never done. They discussed his motives¹⁶, his strange sayings, his peculiar¹⁷ locutions with accumulating curiosity. Two sorts of schoolmasters boys respect: those who are completely dignified and opaque¹⁸ to them, and those who are transparent¹⁹ enough to show honesty at the core. Sanderson was transparently²⁰ honest. If he was not pompously²¹ dignified he was also extraordinarily²² free from vanity; and if he thrust work and toil²³ upon his boys it was at any rate not to spare himself that he did so. And he won them also by his wonderful teaching. In the early days he did a lot of the science teaching himself; later on the school grew too big for him to do any of this.[Pg 42] All the old boys I have been able to consult agree that his class instruction was magnificent.
 
Every year in the history of Sanderson's headmastership shows a growing understanding between the boys and himself. 'Beans,' they called him, but every year it was less and less necessary to 'Give 'm Beans,' as the vulgar say. The tale of storms and thrashings dwindles²⁴ until it vanishes from the story. In the last decade of his rule there was hardly any corporal punishment at all. The whole school as time went on grew into a humorous affectionate appreciation²⁵ of his genius. It was a sunny, humorous school when I knew it; there was little harshness and no dark corners. No boy had been expelled for a long time.