282 
‘ I keep my son at home, he is in danger 
of becoming my young master; but, if I 
send him to a public school, it is scarcely 
possible to keep him from the ruling con- 
tagion of rudeness and vice.’ But neither 
of these objections go to the entire depth 
of the evil. Chastisement is employed at 
a period when children are incapable of 
knowing distinctions of right and wrong, or 
have never heard them properly explained ; 
and fagging is added, in order that the 
youthful mind may be ultimately suspended 
between the enjoyment of tyranny, and dis- 
gust at injustice—between the blind sub- 
serviency of the bond-slaye, and the petty 
oppression of the task-master. A more 
debasing result than such a system is likely 
to produce on the future man, it is impos- 
sible to conceive. Is this the way to make 
legislators and good citizens? What the 
immediate fruits of so evil a root are, we 
have, indeed, seen at Harrow—cowardice, 
ferocity, oppression, long - premeditated 
malignity of action, accompanied by revolt- 
ing brutality of expression! ‘ This should 
be reformed altogether.’ ” 
Q. But, how many prejudices will 
be in arms at the very proposition! 
How many fond arguments will be 
ready, in the mouths of the regularly 
educated, to defend the vices of the sys- 
tem in which they have been themselves 
matured! What devotion to the baubles 
of their own nursery! What esprit du 
Corps! What cant terms and ‘hard 
names against those who would touch 
their consecrated temples! ‘“ Great is 
Diana of Ephesus!” Great are St. 
Eton! St. Winchester! St. Harrow! 
St. Westminster! and all the other 
saints in the calendar of scholastic 
idolatry! Besides, would not reform, 
commenced in the public schools, en- 
endeavour to profane the Universities ? 
—those venerable institutions, encrusted 
with all the wisdom, the holy rust of 
centuries, and penetrated with all the 
social virtues of monasticism! the very 
badges of which constitute so proud 
a distinction, not only between those 
who have an education, with or without 
knowledge, and those who have only 
knowledge without what is called an 
education,—but, also, between the or- 
thodox and the heretical.. Might it not 
even come to be a question, whether a 
dissenter had not.as much right to be 
admitted to the advantages of a national 
education, towards the support of which, 
in some shape or other, he must be a 
Topics of the Month':—Eton and Harrow. 
(April I, 
contributor, as he who believes accor- 
ding to Act of Parliament? 
E. Before we ramble into so wide a 
field of inquiry, let the compositor take 
charge of this paper also; and, if there 
be so many objections to its doctrines 
as you seem to suggest, our pages are 
open to the controversy. We should 
like to know what can be said in favour 
of these seminaries. 
MM. As far as relates to the recent 
occurrences, Eton requires no defence. 
The event is tragical; but I do not 
see how the seminary is responsible: 
If school-boys quarrel, school -boys 
must fight it out, as the best way of 
making them friends again. It is part 
of the duty of their tutors to know 
nothing about it; and, above all, to 
hear no tales. It is almost the only 
saving virtue of our public schools, that 
they occasion our ingenuous youth to 
grow up in a settled abhorrence of 
tale-bearers, spies and informers. The 
moral of the tale points in a different 
direction. While the brutal conflicts 
of prize-fighters are stimulated by the 
bets and patronage of the opulent and 
the illustrious, and the slang of the 
ring (or the fancy, as the idiotism of 
fashion calls it) continues to jargonize 
our language and vulgarize our manners, 
you must either monasticize our youth 
entirely, (cut them. off; completely, 
from all knowledge of what is. going 
on in the world,) or, whatever be your 
system of education, blackguardism and 
brutalization will find their way among 
them: the venom of the cocatrice will 
infect them in the egg! Their quarrels 
will no longer be the mere casual con- 
tests of young gentlemen—the trials of 
strength between lads of spirit and 
honour: the schools will have their 
prize-fighters also, their bottle-holders 
and their detters, to influence the com- 
batants to rancour, —to dose them to in- 
saneand obstinate perseverance; to pour 
the false courage of brandy down their 
throats, till it rushes, in convulsion, to 
the brain, and the blow within, becomes 
more fatal than the blow without ; 
while their comrades (like their seniors, 
whose example they imitate) exchange 
the sympathies of humanity for all the 
baser passions; and look upon the 
bruises and maimings of their comrade 
as the Roman populace heretofore on 
the slaughter of gladiators; or as the 
blacklegs and gamblers of Newmarket, 
now, look upon the race, by whose 
issue their pockets are to be filled or 
emptied. 
E. Part 
