Young Men I Have Met
by J. M. Barrie
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: Originally serialised in the Young Man Magazine between January and November 1890, Young Men I Have Met is Barrie’s humorous take on a variety of types.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Originally serialised in the Young Man Magazine between January and November 1890, Young Men I Have Met is Barrie’s humorous take on a variety of types.
Episode Four – The Student
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘became of the Admirable Hide?’
I had met an old college friend Hyphen Brown, (so we called him because he used to sign his name G.Gregory-Brown) and, of course, we began at once on our undergraduate days. Where was Dash, and was it true that Blank the lovable was dead, and doubtless the Admirable Hide wore a professor’s gown by this time?
What a brilliant career was Hide’s. Students (in my experience) are not always so called because they study. Technically, you are a student when you have paid your matriculation fee. This satisfied some of us. But from the first, Hide came to our northern college to work, and work he did, until fingers were pointed at him as the man who had as many medals as Hyphen Brown had terriers. I can picture him still in his first year, a short, not very gainly figure, with an ink-bottle in his hand, who sat on bench four (fifth man from the end) and said ‘sh-sh’ when anybody laughed. In the streets he read as he walked. He seldom listened if you talked to him. Soon a blank look would come over his face, his lips would move, and you would know that his spirit was far away in, say, the paulo-post future.
A fellow student once asked Hide what he thought of Lord Randolph Churchill.
‘I never heard of him,’ said Hide. ‘Is he a modern?’
Yet, if a prize had been offered for knowing all about Lord Randolph Churchill, Hide would have carried it. Whatever marks were to be got he stood highest. He would be prime minister today if the post were open to competitive examination.
Carlyle was a student at this same University, but he had not nearly so distinguished a career as the Admirable Hide. An enquiry into the list of books taken by him out of the college library, revealed the fact that Carlyle had read comparatively little save old English plays and novels. If anyone is equally curious about the books read by Hide, he will find that the lightest of them was ‘The Metaphysics of Ethics’.
‘Novels!’ Hide could make nothing of them.
‘Why don’t you have debates about really eminent men?’ he asked of an undergraduate, who had been reading a debating society essay on Tennyson. Next year, however, Hide had the English Literature Class, and there was a prize for a study of Tennyson. Result: ‘Hide, 100 marks.’ No wonder we respected Hide, and predicted a magnificent future for him.
Hide took nearly every obtainable medal in the four years. It was, however, noticed of him that when he had left a class, his interest in the subject ended.
‘I have been re-reading Horace lately,’ we might say to him.
‘Why it’s a sheer waste of time,’ he would answer.
This was because he was now in Logic and Mathematics. When he had carried the medals in these subjects, he washed his mind of them, and proceeded to prepare for the medals in Greek and Philosophy.
‘And will you never read Horace again?’ he might be asked.
‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether I go in for the Horace scholarship.’
Those of us who were, perhaps, jealous of Hide, or tired of hearing that he had got a hundred marks again, began to say that a month after he had left the class of, say, Physics, all he knew about Physics was that he had taken the medal in it.
When Hide graduated, he was announced to have had the most brilliant record of any student for two decades. The papers had a paragraph about him, and said that his country was proud of Hide.
‘Such a distinguished graduate has the world at his feet.’ For years after he left college, the professors held him up as an example to all young students. As for the rest of us, we were excused for not being medallists, because Hide had been in our classes. We looked forward to what Hide would do in future, as men who would be able to say ‘we used to know him.’
But I am forgetting Hyphen Brown and my meeting with him in the Strand yesterday.
‘Oh, Hide,’ he said, in answer to my question, ‘Hide went out to try his luck in Australia. He could get nothing to do here, you know.’
So there seems to have been something wrong, after all, with Hide’s successful system of study.
‘And what,’ I asked, ‘became of the Admirable Hide?’
I had met an old college friend Hyphen Brown, (so we called him because he used to sign his name G.Gregory-Brown) and, of course, we began at once on our undergraduate days. Where was Dash, and was it true that Blank the lovable was dead, and doubtless the Admirable Hide wore a professor’s gown by this time?
What a brilliant career was Hide’s. Students (in my experience) are not always so called because they study. Technically, you are a student when you have paid your matriculation fee. This satisfied some of us. But from the first, Hide came to our northern college to work, and work he did, until fingers were pointed at him as the man who had as many medals as Hyphen Brown had terriers. I can picture him still in his first year, a short, not very gainly figure, with an ink-bottle in his hand, who sat on bench four (fifth man from the end) and said ‘sh-sh’ when anybody laughed. In the streets he read as he walked. He seldom listened if you talked to him. Soon a blank look would come over his face, his lips would move, and you would know that his spirit was far away in, say, the paulo-post future.
A fellow student once asked Hide what he thought of Lord Randolph Churchill.
‘I never heard of him,’ said Hide. ‘Is he a modern?’
Yet, if a prize had been offered for knowing all about Lord Randolph Churchill, Hide would have carried it. Whatever marks were to be got he stood highest. He would be prime minister today if the post were open to competitive examination.
Carlyle was a student at this same University, but he had not nearly so distinguished a career as the Admirable Hide. An enquiry into the list of books taken by him out of the college library, revealed the fact that Carlyle had read comparatively little save old English plays and novels. If anyone is equally curious about the books read by Hide, he will find that the lightest of them was ‘The Metaphysics of Ethics’.
‘Novels!’ Hide could make nothing of them.
‘Why don’t you have debates about really eminent men?’ he asked of an undergraduate, who had been reading a debating society essay on Tennyson. Next year, however, Hide had the English Literature Class, and there was a prize for a study of Tennyson. Result: ‘Hide, 100 marks.’ No wonder we respected Hide, and predicted a magnificent future for him.
Hide took nearly every obtainable medal in the four years. It was, however, noticed of him that when he had left a class, his interest in the subject ended.
‘I have been re-reading Horace lately,’ we might say to him.
‘Why it’s a sheer waste of time,’ he would answer.
This was because he was now in Logic and Mathematics. When he had carried the medals in these subjects, he washed his mind of them, and proceeded to prepare for the medals in Greek and Philosophy.
‘And will you never read Horace again?’ he might be asked.
‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether I go in for the Horace scholarship.’
Those of us who were, perhaps, jealous of Hide, or tired of hearing that he had got a hundred marks again, began to say that a month after he had left the class of, say, Physics, all he knew about Physics was that he had taken the medal in it.
When Hide graduated, he was announced to have had the most brilliant record of any student for two decades. The papers had a paragraph about him, and said that his country was proud of Hide.
‘Such a distinguished graduate has the world at his feet.’ For years after he left college, the professors held him up as an example to all young students. As for the rest of us, we were excused for not being medallists, because Hide had been in our classes. We looked forward to what Hide would do in future, as men who would be able to say ‘we used to know him.’
But I am forgetting Hyphen Brown and my meeting with him in the Strand yesterday.
‘Oh, Hide,’ he said, in answer to my question, ‘Hide went out to try his luck in Australia. He could get nothing to do here, you know.’
So there seems to have been something wrong, after all, with Hide’s successful system of study.
About the Author
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) is of course best known for his play Peter Pan. As well as being a dramatist, he was famous in his own day for fiction. A graduate of Edinburgh University, he cut his teeth in journalism in Nottingham and London. Find out more about him at the unco online bookstore.