Briefings Escaping Classics Robin Hirsch (1956-61) describes the twists and turns before gaining his History scholarship at Oxford.
Charles Marius Constantine Hendtlass (Classics Department 1939-66) was a thin wisp of a man, with a high noodling tenor and glasses. He was named after two noble Romans: the general, Gaius Marius, who in the year 101 BC was elected consul for a fifth time, hailed as “the saviour of his country” and honoured with a triumph; and the Emperor Constantine the Great who, more than four hundred years later, moved the seat of the Empire from Rome to Byzantium, changed its name to Constantinople, and made Christianity the official religion of the Empire.
CMC Hendtlass taught Classics at St Paul’s. He also taught fencing, which in the pantheon of sports at St Paul’s where rugby stood at the acme, occupied the same dismal latitude as chess. He lived with his widowed mother and his sister, Elizabeth Victoria Boadicea Hendtlass. When I arrived at St Paul’s, a raw and nervous thirteen year old, in my black and white cap, my black tie, my black blazer with white badge, my first pair of long grey flannel trousers and my first shirt with an awkward detachable collar, Mr Hendtlass was made my tutor, which meant that he would advise me (and my parents) on my future academic career. In my second year, when I moved from V alpha to VI alpha, he also became my form master. It was here, in VI alpha, before I turned fourteen, before I faced the Great Barrier Reef called O levels, that the critical question of my academic future had to be addressed.
So when, one Monday afternoon in Tutorial, Mr Hendtlass called me up to his desk and enquired as to what I thought I might be specialising in once I had crossed the Great Barrier Reef and I said English, it was the wrong answer. First of all, it was not possible to specialise in English – one could take it only as a subsidiary to History. And second, the School strongly advised that I study Classics. In the course of that year, when I demurred, and when my parents were consulted on the matter, it was made clear that I could of course specialise in whatever I wanted, provided that my parents agreed, but that equally my scholarship to the School could of course be taken away. As far as my father was concerned my desire to study English was the desire
of a dilettante. I spoke it already, didn’t I? And, so far as he could tell, without an accent. “Latein und Griechisch sind wenigstens important, since you refuse to study anything praktisch.” So, the following year, I found myself in the Lower VIII with all the whiz kids from the Remove, watching in awe as they tossed off a dozen elegant Greek hexameters for breakfast and then sat around cracking jokes in Latin. By the end of the first term I had demonstrated, I thought conclusively, my utter inadequacy as a Classicist. I was in despair. None of my friends from VI alpha had moved with me into the Lower VIII Mr Hendtlass and my parents had conspired to send me to Siberia. I knew nobody. I was a dullard. Nobody wanted to know me. I felt utterly alone.
St Paul’s, like most of the great schools of England, measured its prestige in the number of boys it managed to get into Oxford and Cambridge, and in particular the number of boys who managed to win scholarships. Since there were many nineteenth century endowments at the Universities which offered scholarships in Classics and far fewer which offered scholarships in anything else, pressure began to be exerted early on those boys who, four or five years hence, might bring glory on the School, to specialise in Classics. Science labs at the West Kensington School
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