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Tuck is candy or other treats that the children can buy periodically during the week. This may seem like a minor aspect of boarding school life. For the children, however, it is a particularly important aspect. The schools of course insist that the children are well fed. But unlike many children at home, they are not able to snack like they would like. And of course all children love sweets! Thus tuck is organized, usually once or twice a week. There are various approaches to this. Sometimes matron does it. At some school the headmaster's wife takes charge, a good way to develop good relatons with the children. Often they are assisted by the prefects. Most schools do not want the children to bring candy or other food and drink to school. Other schools allow tuck boxes. These are small locked boxes that the children brink to school with their trunks. The purpose of these boxes was originally tuck, giving rise to their name. Schools have varying rules about the content and access. Over time the purpose of these tuck boxes have changed, in part because the schools begun to exercise more control over the treats brought to school in them. At many schools the boxes have become more places that the children can store and lock up a variety of personal possessions.
Tuck is an interesting word. Its origins are the Old English (Germanic) word "tucian" to torment. Somehow that evolved into the modern word "tuck" in the sence of food, especially candy or other treats. that the children can bring to school or buy periodically during the week. The food at boarding schools was notriously poor and often inadequate. Thus tuck was almost essential. Gradually the food imprived, but there was not a lot of treats, thus tuck on the sence of candy. The British also use it as a verb, meaning something like to tear into something pleasurable. Most prep schools because of the age of the children, restrict to varying degrees what the children could bring to school. We thought this was a generally used British word. But this apparently is not the case. Tuck is a word many English boys recognizes, but no American boy unless he has lived in England. An English reader tells us that the word is now not recognized by many English boys. He writes, "Non-Public School boys only know the word 'tuck' from stories in comics about Public Schools from my generation - and they are now a thing of the past. It is never used anywhere else as a noun or adjective. In very rare cases, someone might say, 'Well, tuck in then.'" Another reader writes, "I picked up a book of short stories at the local library, by Ian Rankin--a Scot. It is called 'Beggars Banquet, and in his introduction, Rankin says, 'I thank my editor for the title. I hope you enjoy tucking into these morsels.' You wouldn't find the word used much more than that nowadays!"
This may seem like a minor aspect of boarding school life. For the children, however, it is a particularly important aspect. The schools of course insist that the children are well fed. But unlike many children at home, they are not able to snack like they would like. And of course all children love sweets! So tuck takes on an importance in the life of a prep school child beyond that of a child at home. It is much more of a special treat.
Thus tuck is organized, usually once or twice a week. There are various approaches to this. Sometimes matron does it. At some school the headmaster's wife takes charge, a good way to develop good relatons with the children. Often they are assisted by the prefects. Matron or the headmaster's wife normally get a lot of advice from the children as to what sweets should be stocked. The children do not normally have actual money, so a ledger has to be kept accounting for the purchases.
Almost an essential of boarding school life is a robust, lockable tuck box. These traditional boxes are how children can secure their personal posessions. The name of course comes from their original purpose and reflected what was most important to boarding school students--food. Most schools do not want the children to bring candy or other food and drink to school. Other schools allow tuck boxes. These are small locked boxes that the children brink to school with their trunks. You can see the tuck boxes in the photograph here (figure 1).
The purpose of these boxes was originally tuck, giving rise to their name. Schools have varying rules about the content and access. Over time the purpose of these tuck boxes have changed, in part because the schools begun to exercise more control over the treats brought to school in them. At many schools the boxes have become more places that the children can store and lock up a variety of personal possessions.
Virtually all boarding prep schools had the boys bring tuck boxes to school. Where the boxes were kept varied considerably from school to school. At the school here, the boys tuck boxes were placed in their form commons rooms Figure1). Here the children are setting up some games rather than helping themselves to some tuck. They thus had access to them daily. We also notice them in form rooms that look more like class rooms. At other schools the tuck boxes were put away in a storage room and access limited. A reader writes, "Obviously prep schools will have different arrangements, according to
the accommodation and whether or not boarders are housed in separate buildings. However tuck boxes in a form room, which in the UK would be taken to be synonymous with a class room, would be unusual to the point of unlikely - whether or not used for tuck or just for (non-perishable) personal possessions." Well it is certainly true that the tuck boxes were not kept in classrooms, we did note tuck boxes kept in form rooms and the form rooms were highly variable.
