Full of enthusiasm, young English schoolmaster  Mr. Chipping came to teach at Brookfield in 1870.  It was a time when dignity and a generosity of  spirit still existed, and the dedicated new  schoolmaster expressed these beliefs to his rowdy students.  Nicknamed Mr. Chips, this gentle and caring man  helped shape the lives of generation after  generation of boys. He became a legend at Brookfield, as  enduring as the institution itself. And sad but  grateful faces told the story when the time came for  the students at Brookfield to bid their final  goodbye to Mr. Chips.There is not  another book, with the possible exception of  Dickens's A Christmas Carol, that has  quite the same hold on readers' affections. James  Hilton wrote Goodbye, Mr. Chips in loving memory  of his schoolmaster father and in tribute to his  profession. Over the years it has won an enduring  place in world literature and made untold millions  of people smile--with a catch in the throat.