This
was no great privation, for the year was closing in.
About this time, October 16th, the appointment of new "Praepostors" was
made, to fill up vacancies in the body. In speaking as usual on the
occasion, the Headmaster called attention to the experiment in
self-government which our special circumstances were affording. There
would be little reason for our recording the occasion, were it not that
since that date the monitorial system in public schools has been
canvassed in the Press, on occasion of an untoward incident of recent
notoriety, and has been described by some as the parent of the "grossest
tyranny," ruinous to the future of any school from which the institution
is inseparable. We had thought this view of the system obsolete, or
correct only of schools subject to obsolete conditions. If we were
mistaken, it may be worth while to record an experience which tends to a
less pessimistic conclusion.
It will easily be understood that the mechanical organisation of the
school was greatly deranged by the removal from home. The boys of the
several houses were no longer locally separated, nor in the same
immediate contact with their housemasters; they were restrained by few
bolt-and-bar securities, "lock-up" being for the most part impracticable,
and were allowed a larger liberty in many less definable ways.
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