Still unenlightened, Winston inquired further.
"It is what you would say if you were talking to or addressing a table."
Winston's mouth flew open in surprise. "But I never talk to tables," he said.
"Don't be impertinent, young man, or you will get a severe beating."
This was an omen of the days to come. Beatings were handed out weekly for crimes committed during that week. Fifteen lashes were administered to bare buttocks with a birch rod, and blood was always drawn by the fourth lash. Complaints written home were censored.
Winston apparently got more beatings than most. Because of his resistance to studying, resentful of being forced to learn Latin (which made no sense to him), to study the unjust arithmetic, and to participate in sports for which he had no talent, he often didn't complete his assignments and was late to classes and practices.
By the end of his second year at the school his health began to fail. Perhaps Mrs. Everest also saw evidence of the beatings, because he was transferred to another, kindlier school at Brighton, chosen partly for its health-inducing sea air. He was allowed to choose subjects more to his liking than Latin (French, history, and poetry) and to engage in swimming and riding. Because he was preparing for Public School, he eventually had to take Latin and Greek, which he learned by translating them to English. In spite of the improvements, Winston remained at the bottom of his class--29th in a class of 30.
Finally came the dreaded day, for which this all had been preparation. Winston took his entrance exams for Harrow Public School. When he took the Latin portion of the test, he carefully and artistically wrote his name at the top, and put a 1 on the paper. After thinking for a few moments, he put brackets around the 1. But all Latin had left his head, and the only other marks on the paper were some "unexplainable" ink blots. Surprisingly, however, he did exceptionally well on the arithmetic exam. The averaged scores gained him entrance to the school--again at the bottom form.
Dunces in Latin like Winston were instead given intensive instruction in English grammar and literature. Because his grades in general were still not good, he was kept in that bottom form much longer than most, gaining a great deal of extra drill in English.
Throughout the five years Winston spent at Harrow, the headmaster and teachers often wrote to his parents with two complaints: First, while he was capable of doing excellent work, he was very erratic; and additionally, he was too often late to class. In general, he did well only in subjects that interested him--when they interested him.
