1829.] Fagging, and the Great Schools. : 15 
io, o 
to the maintenance of discipline in the School ; and it is impossible that they can 
exercise that authority with effect, if they are not protected from personal 
outrage. If they, or any of them, exceed the line of their duty, or commit any 
wrong act, they are liable to censure and punishment from the master ; and if 
any boy think himself aggrieved, he may prefer his complaint in the proper 
quarter, with a certainty that it will meet with due attention. But he cannot, 
on any account, be permitted to use force against those whom he is bound to 
obey. I cannot admit that the distinction which I understand you to make 
between authority exercised on behalf of the Master, or in enforcing privileges 
permitted to the Prefects, is of sufficient importance to make that conduct 
venial in the one case, whichis highly culpable in the other. Obedience to the 
Prefects is required by the usage and laws of the School; and if boys either 
deliberately refuse obedience, or support the disobedience of others by tumul- 
tuous and forcible resistance to their officers, such conduct is, in my judgment, 
subversive of subordination and discipline, and requires to be repressed by 
such an example as I have lately been compelled to make. Severe notice I 
conceive to be equally necessary, whether the immediate occasion of the dis- 
order arise from the exercise of authority in a matter of discipline, or of per- 
sonal privilege ; since, if it were once admitted that violent hands could, with 
comparative impunity, be laid upon the Prefects, boys who were discontented 
with their superior for a strict and honest discharge of official duty, would 
never be at a loss to find opportunities of venting their dissatisfaction on some 
question of a different nature. My conviction being still that the removal of 
your brother, and the other young persons connected with him, was a neces- 
sary measure, I am sorry to add that the step which you propose to obviate 
the charge of vacillation in the counsels of the heads of the School, in case 
they should revoke their sentence, does not appear to me to be well suited for 
that purpose. The consequence of reversing the sentence upon petition from 
‘the Prefects would be, that, if similar circumstances should hereafter occur, 
} no Prefect could, without being placed in a most invidious light, decline to 
intercede for the offender ; and the expectation that the Master would favour- 
ably receive such intercession, must operate to diminish that salutary fear of 
serious consequences, which the punishment now infiicted is intended to impress. 
In conclusion, I can only repeat my assurance, that I would not have removed 
your brother from the School, unless a review of all the circumstances con- 
nected with the case had convinced me that it was necessary ; and that I most 
unwillingly decline acceding to your proposal for his reinstatement, because I 
am persuaded that I could not receive him again without injury to the disci- 
pline which I am bound to maintain.—I have, &c. 
“ Sir A. Mater, Bart.” « D. WILLIAMS.” 
- The whole of this very magisterial declaration, divested of its yerbo- 
sity, amounts.to the fact, that Dr. Williams sanctions the beating of the 
little boy, by the two big boys. As to the pompous pretence of keeping 
up discipline, what has the good order of a school to do with the perpe- 
tual sitting of a line of little boys on a cross bench, to be ready to toast 
bread, morning and evening, for a class of big boys? The thing is non- 
sense, and only worthy of a pedagogue’s brains. Again, as to the fine 
principle of suffering all kinds of insult and injury, without daring to 
_ resist, because a complaint may afterwards be made ; thank Heaven that 
Dr. Williams is not a legislator, beyond the reach of his own birch rod. 
What would become of mankind, if a ruffian were to be suffered to 
eat, maim, and nurder, because—justice would have her ears open to 
the complaint when the mischief was done. This may be law among 
_ the empty slaves of school-legislation, but it would be scouted among all 
_ men of understanding and experience in life. 
But leaving Dr. Williams to his tardy, but sure repentance, that he 
ever tingle ‘binisclf with this subject, let us look at the question on a 
* larger scale, unencumbered with the recollection of such formal and 
i pompous practitioners of the old, and perfectly worthless school system. 
“we 
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