“Convinced that numerous and important advantages would be derived from engaging their pupils in the consideration and in the practice of rules for their own government, from placing restrictions to the powers of the teachers, and from giving to the regulations of the school a permanent form, the proprietors, early in the year 1817, proposed to the school a certain division of powers, together with regulations for their exercise, which, having received the joint assent of teachers and pupils, became the constitutional laws of the school; and, in the confident expectation that the powers placed in the hands of the pupils would never be employed but for the welfare of the school, the proprietors pledged themselves not to alter these laws without the consent of a majority of the proprietors and regular teachers, meeting in conference, on one hand, and of a majority of the pupils on the other. With such joint consent, occasional alterations have been made in the constitutional laws, tending chiefly, if not entirely, to throw more and more power into the hands of the pupils.” Fanciful as this may seem, yet for many years the school was carried on strictly in accordance with the provisions of this Code, and carried on with great vigour and spirit. The boys, for the most part, entered with eagerness into the system, and went through their part in it with zeal. In an old letter I read that one day the Committee met before breakfast for the despatch of some important business. A motion was made, and carried almost unanimously, that they should proceed with the business without regard to school-time, play-hours, or meals. It was not till eleven that the work was finished and the Committee adjourned. A jury, trying a charge of theft, deliberated over its verdict from before noon till after eight at night. The “School Magazine” records: “The jury during this time suffered considerably, both from cold and hunger, having had nothing to eat from breakfast, at nine, till after the verdict was given.” In nine years nearly six hundred cases came before the Court; out of these there were but nine appeals to the Committee, which formed the Higher Court. The part of the system which in my judgment is most worthy of study is that to which its founder gave the name of “Voluntary Labour.” So highly did he himself think of it that he always reckoned it among the three inventions on which he might chiefly pride himself. The other two were his Printing Press and his Penny Postage. In an extract that I have given from his Journal,[52] this device is partly explained. In “Public Education” it is described at length: there we read:—