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abominable are many school experiences , that the advocates of reform are but too easily pooh-pooh'd . It must be at once conceded , that disgusting vice and cruelty of the vilest sort exist more rarely in public than in private schools : the " public opinion " of boys is not indeed good , nor anything at ' all like what high-flying educationalists
represent it to be ; but it is not absolutely bad ; and the larger the school , the greater will be its power . We remember in our own time a certain fifth-form boy , who had the brutality to press his fag ' s hand round a red-hot halfpenny , so that he lost the use of his fingers for some weeks , received a " college hiding , " and was obliged to leave the school ; and we have seen boys suspended head downwards , or
hung out of window in winter nights , without any punishment or rebuke whatever . The question of fagging is too great a matter to be entered into in so short a paper as this : it seems to resolve itself at last into whether it be true that one portion of a school must , under some form or other , of necessity be servants of the rest , or not . The Mason ' s answer to this question I need not anticipate . The
monitorial system is said by some to be the best means of mitigating this evil , by some to be an actually judicious form of government , and by some to be altogether a bad plan . If a head master of very great discernment would and could choose , out of his whole school , such boys as natural gentleness , firmness , and a sense of right , seem
to qualify to govern others , the thing might work well enough , — the whole matter of education , indeed , does , and ought to turn , upon the character of the head master , and in particular ought the internal government of a school ; but where is such a master , or at least , how many of such , exist ; and where and how many such boys are there to be found ?
AIL civilized progress , all reformation , in army , navy , and prison discipline , down to this present day , has been based upon the principle of doing away as much as possible with individual , and—far more—irresponsible power . All history teaches us how totally unfit are even the best and wisest men to enjoy despotic power ; how the
privilege of inflicting corporal punishment makes ] STeros of mere children , and devils of men . Is it likely , then , that youths one year or two older perhaps than their companions should be capable of exercising a sound judgment in such cases ? Have recent disclosures impressed us with this opinion ? or are we so sanguine as to
suppose that these cases , so reluctantly , made public , are extreme and exceptional ? The possession of power is the most intoxicating of poisons , and the abuse of it the most deadly ; the doer of an injustice , the infiietor of cruelty , are each more depraved by their bad acts than the sufferer is degraded . For his own sake , as much as for that of others , let the tainted sheep be cast from out the flock
for he will only spread the rot amongst his fellows . The great authorities upon this monitorial question have a lofty dogma , that boys should be taught to consider all punishment inflicted under the sanction of the law of their school , neither unjust nor excessive ; but be sure that we shall either mould thereby a serf or an auto-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
abominable are many school experiences , that the advocates of reform are but too easily pooh-pooh'd . It must be at once conceded , that disgusting vice and cruelty of the vilest sort exist more rarely in public than in private schools : the " public opinion " of boys is not indeed good , nor anything at ' all like what high-flying educationalists
represent it to be ; but it is not absolutely bad ; and the larger the school , the greater will be its power . We remember in our own time a certain fifth-form boy , who had the brutality to press his fag ' s hand round a red-hot halfpenny , so that he lost the use of his fingers for some weeks , received a " college hiding , " and was obliged to leave the school ; and we have seen boys suspended head downwards , or
hung out of window in winter nights , without any punishment or rebuke whatever . The question of fagging is too great a matter to be entered into in so short a paper as this : it seems to resolve itself at last into whether it be true that one portion of a school must , under some form or other , of necessity be servants of the rest , or not . The Mason ' s answer to this question I need not anticipate . The
monitorial system is said by some to be the best means of mitigating this evil , by some to be an actually judicious form of government , and by some to be altogether a bad plan . If a head master of very great discernment would and could choose , out of his whole school , such boys as natural gentleness , firmness , and a sense of right , seem
to qualify to govern others , the thing might work well enough , — the whole matter of education , indeed , does , and ought to turn , upon the character of the head master , and in particular ought the internal government of a school ; but where is such a master , or at least , how many of such , exist ; and where and how many such boys are there to be found ?
AIL civilized progress , all reformation , in army , navy , and prison discipline , down to this present day , has been based upon the principle of doing away as much as possible with individual , and—far more—irresponsible power . All history teaches us how totally unfit are even the best and wisest men to enjoy despotic power ; how the
privilege of inflicting corporal punishment makes ] STeros of mere children , and devils of men . Is it likely , then , that youths one year or two older perhaps than their companions should be capable of exercising a sound judgment in such cases ? Have recent disclosures impressed us with this opinion ? or are we so sanguine as to
suppose that these cases , so reluctantly , made public , are extreme and exceptional ? The possession of power is the most intoxicating of poisons , and the abuse of it the most deadly ; the doer of an injustice , the infiietor of cruelty , are each more depraved by their bad acts than the sufferer is degraded . For his own sake , as much as for that of others , let the tainted sheep be cast from out the flock
for he will only spread the rot amongst his fellows . The great authorities upon this monitorial question have a lofty dogma , that boys should be taught to consider all punishment inflicted under the sanction of the law of their school , neither unjust nor excessive ; but be sure that we shall either mould thereby a serf or an auto-