It is urged indeed that this Monitorial power is illegal in a higher than any School sense of that term,—that it contradicts the law of the land. “_Delegatus non potest delegare_.” The Parent delegates his power to the Master: the Master has no right to delegate that power to the Monitor. Now I will not enter into the question how far the Master is correctly described as the Parent’s delegate. Doubtless the act which consigns to him the individual Boy is the act of the individual Parent. But the Master of a Public School is not made so by that act, nor by any number of such acts: his office is conferred upon him by an independent authority, and is exercised under conditions irrespective of the parental will. Otherwise the Parent who created, might in each case limit, the right: he might prescribe to the Master the studies to be pursued and the punishments to be inflicted; he might depute his own functions thus far and no further. But, even allowing the justice of the appellation, it would scarcely be desired, I suppose, to admit _all_ the consequences involved in this principle, and assert that the Master has no right to delegate any portion of his office, but that alone, unaided by coadjutors or subordinates, he must teach in person every Boy entrusted to him, hear every lesson, and impose every punishment. The fact surely is, that the system of a Public School is essentially peculiar and exceptional; and that, when that system is fairly established, and its rules publicly notorious, a Parent uses his own discretion in selecting the School for his son, and having done so he subjects him to its discipline _as established_, retaining only the power of withdrawing him when he will. But, on the other hand, it is no less necessary, for the sake alike of the Monitors and of the School, that such _checks_ shall be imposed upon the exercise of this power as shall make its abuse either absolutely impossible or at least a very rare exception. With this view, it is one rule of the system, that any Boy has a right of appeal from the individual Monitor (however high his station) to the assembled body; who are bound to enter into the merits of the case, and come to a formal decision upon it. My experience thus far has led me to believe that ten young men, acting under such responsibilities, are not likely either to come to an unjust decision or to execute their sentence with undue severity. But if, after all, this hope is in any case disappointed; if (which in such an event is the most probable supposition) an individual Monitor has outrun his powers, by not allowing this appeal to the collective body, or by not waiting for its result, or by executing punishment himself in undue excitement or passion; then the duty is cast upon me, of interposing my authority to redress the injustice, by the degradation of the offending Monitor, or by a measure of punishment yet more severe.