Excerpt from Classic Myth and Legend

Ascott Hope was a name of joy to the schoolboys of sixty years ago. They recognized in his stories their own jolly lives, and saw the same happy young scamps who were all round them, punching each other's heads, and shirking their work if they could, and triumphantly hoodwinking their masters, and having a good time. That was before the psychological problems came in, and unwholesome schoolboys, half grown up, began to spin their elaborate webs over the scene. Schoolboys are really just the same as they were, as natural and as wholesome, and that is the one hope of the world. Only one new discovery has been made, but that is a great one: the discovery that boys are just as much interested in their intellectual work as in their games, if only they are given a chance, if they are taught with common sense instead of being bullied. That has not come into school stories yet, but perhaps it may take the place of those dreary problems one day, and a new Ascott Hope may appear.

The addition of a surname to Ascott Hope is not an improvement, from the old boy's point of view, any more than it is to our delightful friend "F. Anstey", but if the reader can forgive that, he will find a new sort of Ascott Hope in this book.

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