Yet the renegade author had said little more, although in different language, than was revealed by the headmaster:

然而，笔者叛徒说的多一点，虽然在不同的语言，这位作者还说：

Mind you, I am not attacking the Public School system. I believe in its enormous value, above all in the sense of duty and the loyalty and the law-abidingness which it inculcates. But it cannot escape the dangers attendant upon any system of discipline, the dangers of submitting to mere routine, of adopting ready-made sentiments at second-hand, of a slavish, or perhaps I should rather say a sheepish, want of independence of character.

听好，我不是要攻击公学体制，我认同它的大价值，尤其是它主张的责任、忠诚和服从。但是，它无法避免任何体制都会面临的危险，那就是会导致守旧、奴性和盲从，或者说，泯灭了独立的人格。

'The system cannot escape these dangers, ' he continued, 'but we individuals … can overcome them if we set the right way about it.' It was, however, very difficult for individuals to go against the grain of a total organisation. As Nowell Smith said, 'of all societies very few are so definite and easily understood as a school like this … we all here live under a common life, under a common discipline. Our life is organised with great thoroughness, and the organisation is directed to a definite aim. …' And the headmaster further observed that 'schoolboys, however much originality they may possess as individuals, are in their conduct to the highest degree conventional.' Nowell Smith was not a small-minded man and somehow managed to reconcile this system of education with his love of Wordsworth's poetry, of which he was an editor. Within the classicist there beat a romantic heart, and one which perhaps troubled him.

「这种体制，无法避免这些」，他继续说，「但如果我们每个人……采取正确的态度，就可以克服它们。」然而对于个人来说，想要克服体制带来的东西，是非常艰难的。正如史密斯校长说：「这样的学校里的人，要比社会上的人们更加清楚……我们都活在一套普遍的纪律当中，我们的生活，已经全都被规定好了，指向一个明确的目标……」他更进一步地认为，「无论学生个体具备什么样的独创性，实际上都是在向着高层次的纪律前进。」史密斯并不是个目光短浅的人，他热爱华兹华斯的诗，是一位富有浪漫色彩的古典主义者，但他不知怎么，就向教育体制妥协了，也许他自己的内心也备受煎熬。