{8} “It is idle to say that the Masters form, or can form, this government; it is impossible to have a sufficient number of Masters for the purpose; for, in order to obtain the advantages of home government, the boys should be as much divided as they are at their respective homes. There should be no greater number of schoolfellows living under one Master than of brothers commonly living under one Parent: nay, the number should be less, inasmuch as there is wanting that bond of natural affection which so greatly facilitates domestic government, and gives it its peculiar virtue. Even a father with thirty sons, all below the age of manhood, and above childhood, would find it no easy matter to govern them effectually—how much less can a Master govern thirty boys, with no natural bond to attach them either to him or to one another! He may indeed superintend their government of one another; he may govern them through their own governors; but to govern them immediately, and at the same time effectively, is, I believe, impossible. And hence, if you have a large _boarding_-school, you cannot have it adequately governed without a system of fagging.”—_Dr. Arnold_, as above, page 372. {21} “Public Schools are by no means faultless institutions; but, if there is one vice of which they have to a wonderful extent shaken themselves free of late, it is that of gross bullying and oppression: and this great improvement is owing mainly to the happy working of that institution which makes the ruling body in the School one which owes its acknowledged authority, not to inches or to sinews, or to boyish truculence, but to activity of mind, industry, and good conduct. Ask any ‘little fellow’ from Eton, Harrow, or Rugby, whether he is bullied at School; he will probably answer, ‘No:’ if ‘Yes,’ ask him by whom; and he will tell you that it is by some bigger or stronger fellow in his own part of the School—one who neither is nor ever will be a member of the ‘decemvirate,’ but who annoys him because he is industrious, or won’t do Latin verses for his more stupid neighbour, or ‘gets above him’ in form, and who dare not use his brute strength upon him within sight or hearing of any Sixth-form fellow. But it ought to be idle to say this after all that Arnold has done and written, after all that hundreds have seen and read of,” &c. &c.—_Correspondent of the Spectator_, _December_ 17, 1853.