§ 14. What are we to say about the effects of the system on the morals of the boys? If we were to start like Saint-Cyran from the doctrine of human depravity, we should entirely condemn the system and predict from it the most disastrous results;[90] but from experience we come to a very different conclusion. Bishop Dupanloup, indeed, spoke of the public schools of France as “_ces gouffres_.” This is not what is said or thought of the English schools, and they are filled with boys whose fathers and grandfathers were brought up in them, and desire above all things to maintain the old traditions. § 15. The Little Schools of Port-Royal aimed at training a few boys very differently; each master had the charge of five or six only, and these were never to be out of his presence day or night.[91] § 16. It may reasonably be objected that such schools would be possible only for a few children of well-to-do parents, and that men who would thus devote themselves could be found only at seasons of great enthusiasm. Under ordinary circumstances small schools have most of the drawbacks and few of the advantages which are to be found in large schools. As I have already said, parents, schoolmasters, and school-fellows have separate functions in education; and even in the smallest school the master can never take the place of the parent, or the school become the home. Children at home enter into the world of their father and mother; the family friends are _their_ friends, the family events affect them as a matter of course. But in the school, however small, the children’s interests are unconnected with the master and the master’s family. The boys may be on the most intimate, even affectionate terms with the grown people who have charge of them; but the mental horizon of the two parties is very different, and their common area of vision but small. In such cases the young do not rise into the world of the adults, and it is almost impossible for the adults to descend into theirs. They are “no company” the one for the other, and to be constantly in each other’s presence would subject both to very irksome restraint. When left to themselves, boys in small numbers are far more likely to get into harm than boys in large numbers. In large communities even of boys, “the common sense of most” is a check on the badly disposed. So as it seems to me if from any cause the young cannot live at home and attend a day-school, they will be far better off in a large boarding school than in one that would better fulfil the requirements of Erasmus,[92] Saint-Cyran, and Locke.