Transcribed from the 1854 John Murray edition by David Price A LETTER TO THE VISCOUNT PALMERSTON, M.P. &c. &c. &c. ON THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM OF HARROW SCHOOL. * * * * * BY CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D. HEAD MASTER. * * * * * LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET: CROSSLEY AND CLARKE, HARROW: MDCCCLIV. * * * * * This Letter, when first printed, was designed only for private circulation amongst those personally or officially interested in its subject. Circumstances have since arisen, which appeared to render its publication expedient. A LETTER, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship’s letter of the 11th instant; to which your great abilities and varied experience, as well as your affectionate attachment to Harrow as the place of your own education, give peculiar value and interest. I am grateful for the opportunity which it affords me of briefly stating the principles of the Monitorial system as at present established at Harrow. I do not, I think, misapprehend the precise point to which your observations are directed. It is not upon the Monitorial system itself—upon the commission of a recognized authority to the hands of the Upper Boys—but upon a particular method of enforcing it, that you comment in terms of anxiety. The _principle_ is coeval with the School—established by the Founder. It is the universal rule of Public Schools:—until lately, when the experience of its salutary effects has led to a wider extension of it, it was the one distinguishing feature of a Public as contrasted with a Private School. But the Monitorial system might exist without this particular method of enforcing it—the power of inflicting corporal punishment. And this is the question to which your Lordship has been good enough to call my attention.