Yet the result was that all went well. The boys did not bully one another, and they gave their masters no sort of trouble. Old rules had to be relaxed, because they could not be enforced, but no licence came of it; new rules had to be made, which might seem vexatious and not very intelligible restrictions, but there was no tendency to break them. Of course wrong things were done at Borth as elsewhere; but if we were to record the few misdeeds which occur to us, their insignificance would provoke a smile; while we have good evidence for the belief that the rate of undetected offences was not increased. These are the facts we have to record. Different explanations will suggest themselves to others, but among observers on the spot there was but one opinion--that the prosperous result was due to the system of self- government, "monitorial system," or whatever we name the institution, which rests on the assumption that English boys are capable of responsibility and authority, and will prove trustworthy if their masters are willing to trust them. We do not forget that other factors entered into the cause; one which cannot be ignored was the consciousness of the boys that the school was on its trial, and that a public one. But people cannot acquire self-control merely by the removal of restraints, or behave well, for a long time together and in spite of tedium, simply because they would like to do so. The truth is, that in a time which might have been anarchical, we lived on the fruits of a long-established order; and it is fair to add that at the end of thirteen months there were no visible symptoms that discipline was wearing threadbare. Shall we, for writing this, be taxed with the vain-glory for which public schools are at times reproached? We must brave the charge, then; for the facts seem to furnish evidence of a kind so rarely obtainable, that to omit them from this chapter in school life would be hardly excusable. An experiment so crucial as that to which we were submitted does not occur once in fifty years.