"I cannot deny that you have an anxious duty-a duty which some might suppose was too heavy for your years. But it seems to me, the nobler as well as the truer way of stating the case to say, that it is the great privilege of this and other such institutions, to anticipate the common time. of manhood; that by their whole training they fit the character for manly duties at an age when, under another system, such duties would be impracticable; that there is not imposed upon you too heavy a burden; but that you are capable of bearing, without injury, what to others might be a burden, and therefore to diminish your duties and lessen your responsibility would be no kindness, but a degradation-an affront to you and to the school." (Serm. vol. v. p. 59.)

3. Whilst he looked to the Sixth Form, as the ordinary correction to the ordinary evils of a public school, he still felt that these evils from time to time developed themselves in a form, which demanded peculiar methods to meet them, and which may best be explained from a letter of his own.

"My own school experience has taught me the monstrous evil of a state of low principle prevailing amongst those who set the tone to the rest. I can neither theoretically nor practically defend our public school system, where the boys are left so very much alone to form a distinct society of their own, unless you assume that the upper class shall be capable of being in a manner μɛ

Ta between the masters and the mass of the boys, that is, shall be capable of receiving and transmitting to the rest, through their example and influence, right principles of conduct, instead of those extremely low ones which are natural to a society of boys left wholly to form their own standard of right and wrong. Now, when I get any in this part of the school who are not to be influencedwho have neither the will nor the power to influence others, -not from being intentionally bad, but from very low wit,

and extreme childishness or coarseness of character-the evil is so great, not only negatively but positively, (for their low and false views are greedily caught up by those below them,) that I know not how to proceed, or how to hinder the school from becoming a place of education for evil rather than for good, except by getting rid of such persons. And then comes the difficulty, that the parents who see their sons only at home-that is just where the points of character, which are so injurious here, are not called into action-can scarcely be brought to understand why they should remove them; and having, as most people have, only the most vague ideas as to the real nature of a public school, they cannot understand what harm they are receiving or doing to others, if they do not get into some palpable scrape which very likely they never would do. More puzzling still is it, when you have many boys of this description, so that the evil influence is really very great, and yet there is not one of the set whom you would set down as a really bad fellow if taken alone; but most of them would really do very well if they were not together and in a situation where, unluckily, their age and size leads them, unavoidably, to form the laws and guide the opinion of their society: whereas, they are wholly unfit to lead others, and are so slow at receiving good influences themselves, that they want to be almost exclusively with older persons, instead of being principally with younger

ones."

The evil undoubtedly to any one acquainted with it was great, and the difficulty, which he describes in the way of its removal, was not only in itself great, but tended to aggravate the evil. When first he entered on his post at Rugby, there was a very general feeling in the country, that so long as a boy kept himself from offences sufficiently enormous to justify expulsion, he had a kind of right to remain in a public school; that the worse and more troublesome to parents were their sons, the more did a public school

seem the precise remedy for them; that the great end of a public school, in short, was to flog their vices out of bad boys. Such a feeling as this not only excited double indignation so soon as boys were sent away for lesser offences, but also secured an unfailing supply of vicious sons, and inspired a natural reluctance in scrupulous parents against committing their boys to such a discipline.

His own determination had been fixed long before he came to Rugby, and it was only after ascertaining that his power in this respect would be absolute, that he consented to become a candidate for the post. Any thing short of removing boys who were clearly incapable of deriving good from the system, or whose influence on others was decidedly and extensively pernicious, seemed to him not a necessary part of the trials of school, but an inexcusable and intolerable aggravation of them. "Till a man learns that the first, second, and third duty of a schoolmaster is to get rid of unpromising subjects, a great public school," he said, "will never be what it might be, and what it ought to be." The remonstrances which he encountered both on public and private grounds were vehement and numerous. But on these terms alone had he taken his office: and he solemnly and repeatedly declared, that on no other terms could he hold it, or justify the existence of the public school system in a Christian country.

The cases which fell under this rule included all shades of character from the hopelessly bad up to the really good, who yet from their peculiar circumstances might be receiving great injury from the system of a

a See Letter to Dr. Hawkins, in 1827.

public school; grave moral offences frequently repeated; boys banded together in sets to the great harm of individuals or of the school at large; overgrown boys, whose age and size gave them influence over others, and made them unfit subjects for corporal punishment, whilst the low place which, either from idleness or dulness, they held in the school, encouraged all the childish and low habits to which they were naturally tempted. He would retain boys after offences, which considered in themselves would seem to many almost deserving of expulsion; he would request the removal of others for offences which to many would seem venial. In short, he was decided by the ultimate result on the whole character of the individual, or on the general state of the school.

It was on every account essential to the carrying out of his principle, that he should mark in every way the broad distinction between this kind of removal, whether temporary or final; and what used to be called expulsion, (in the strict sense of the word,) which was intended by him as a punishment and lasting disgrace, was inflicted publicly and with extreme solemnity, was of very rare occurrence, and only for gross and overt offences. But he took pains to show that removal, such as is here spoken of, was not disgraceful or penal, but intended chiefly, if not solely, for a protection of the boy himself or his schoolfellows. Often it would be wholly unknown who were thus leaving or why; latterly he generally allowed such cases to remain till the end of the half-year, that their

a The admission of very young boys, e. g. under the age of ten, he earnestly deprecated, as considering them incapable of profiting by the discipline of the place.

removal might pass altogether unnoticed: the subjoined letters also to the head of a college and a private tutor, introducing such boys to their attention, are, it is believed, samples of the general spirit, in which he acted on these occasions".

This system was not pursued without difficulty: the inconvenience attendant upon such removals was

if

a 1. To the Head of a college.-" With regard to you had asked me about him half a year ago, I should have spoken of him in the highest terms in point of conduct and steady attention to his work; there has been nothing in all that has passed, beyond a great deal of party and schoolboy feeling, wrong, as I think, and exceedingly mischievous to a school, but from its peculiar character not likely to recur at college or in after life, and not reflecting permanently on a boy's principles or disposition. I think you will have in a steady and gentlemanly man, who will read fairly and give no disturbance, and one who would well repay any interest taken in him by his tutor to direct him either in his work or conduct. He was one of those who would do a great deal better at college than at school; and of this sort there are many: as long as they are among boys, and with no closer personal intercourse with older persons than a public school affords, they are often wrong-headed and troublesome; but older society and the habits of more advanced life set them to rights again."

2. . . "Their conduct till they went away was as good as possible, and I feel bound to speak strongly in their favour with regard to their prospects at college; for there was more of foolishness than of vice in the whole matter, and it was their peculiar situation in the school, and the peculiar danger of their fault among us, that made us wish them to be removed. was very much improved in his work, and did some of his business very well: since he left us he has been with a private tutor, and I shall be disappointed if he has not behaved there so as to obtain from him a very favourable character."

3. . . . . . was not a bad fellow at all, but had overgrown school in his body before he had outgrown it in wit; he was therefore the hero of the younger boys for his strength and prowess; and this sort of distinction was doing him harm, so that

VOL. I.

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