56 FAGGING IN THE SEMINARIES OF BRITAIN. 



in his work entitled &quot; Men and Manners in America,&quot; wherein 

 he seems to consider its menial duties as tending to overcome 

 pride of birth and station. But even in this narrow view 

 fagging must be condemned, as the menial offices are forcibly 

 imposed, and flow not from philanthropy of feeling or legiti 

 mate authority, but from usurped and overpowering tyranny. 

 Menial offices in the seminaries of England are the means of 

 corrupting, not of improving youth, and fagging fosters the 

 worst of human vices. If pride of birth and station is to be 

 corrected, public schools where fagging is unknown, and 

 where all the pupils are placed on an equality, will best attain 

 the object. 



Mr Hamilton treats of fagging as if it were general in Eng 

 land, whereas it exists only in the higher description of schools, 

 and is, I believe, altogether unpractised in Scotland. When 

 lately discussing this point, a friend stated that fagging existed 

 at the academy of Dollar in Scotland ; and on applying to my 

 brother Charles, who was educated at that seminary, if such 

 was the case, I learned that he himself was the only instance 

 of an attempt of the kind, a big fellow having claimed such a 

 privilege on his first arrival, and which was frustrated by 



Willie M and he joining and beating the tyrant well. 



Very few Scotch boys would feel inclined to fag their com 

 panions, and still fewer to submit to such a bondage. 



The education of youth ought to embrace all that is neces 

 sary for discharging the duties of life, and is most effectual 

 when combining industrious and moral habits with the highest 

 degree of mental cultivation on such a principle some of 

 the schools of continental Europe are founded, and it is also 

 acted on in one or two instances in the State of New 

 York. 



