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There was a blind belief is unspecific and lacks a sense of agency, but this agency is certainly not lacking in the pupils quoted in Horae Mushrianae. Of course those in authority over them had the last word - usually - but the conversations quoted above suggest that pedagogic authority was subject to negotiation. Here the age of the pupils is crucial: these are adolescents on the edge of manhood, whom Morshead's idiosyncrasy will have encouraged to spread their own wings, especially as they were becoming interested in politics.

Page, the sixth-form classical master at Charterhouse. Beerbohm's notes which refer to £my friend Professor Mayor' play on the authority of J. E. B. 8 The parallel with the reference to, Morshead as 'the G[reat] Translator]' is obvious: the status of a teacher as author of published works is deployed in his pupils' interaction with him in school. And there are other parallels, notably in Page's verbal mannerisms. 9 The excerpts above come from classical lessons. How large a part did these play in the total classroom experience of Junior Division Sixth Book?

The authority of the teacher is clearly a central issue in these scenes. It is asserted by Morshead with the help of standard reference works, the Greek and Latin dictionaries, which are nevertheless equally available, as we have seen, to his pupils. It is challenged in the classroom Schoolboys and gentlemen 35 largely through appeals to dictionary authority, but also by use of the public evidence of Morshead's mistakes and self-contradictions. In the Mushroom a triangular relationship obtained between teacher, pupils and dictionaries ('our two friends' in the case of Greek).