Transcribed from the 1854 John Murray edition by DavidPrice
BY
CHARLES JOHN VAUGHAN, D.D.
HEAD MASTER.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET:
CROSSLEY AND CLARKE, HARROW:
MDCCCLIV.
p.2This Letter, when first printed, was designed only forprivate circulation amongst those personally or officiallyinterested in its subject. Circumstances have since arisen,which appeared to render its publication expedient.
My Lord,
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of yourLordship’s letter of the 11th instant; to which your greatabilities and varied experience, as well as your affectionateattachment to Harrow as the place of your own education, givepeculiar value and interest.
I am grateful for the opportunity which it affords me ofbriefly stating the principles of the Monitorial system as atpresent established at Harrow.
p. 4I do not,I think, misapprehend the precise point to which yourobservations are directed. It is not upon the Monitorialsystem itself—upon the commission of a recognized authorityto the hands of the Upper Boys—but upon a particular methodof enforcing it, that you comment in terms of anxiety. Theprinciple is coeval with the School—established bythe Founder. It is the universal rule of PublicSchools:—until lately, when the experience of its salutaryeffects has led to a wider extension of it, it was the onedistinguishing feature of a Public as contrasted with a PrivateSchool.
But the Monitorial system might exist without this particularmethod of enforcing it—the power of inflicting corporalpunishment. And this is the question to which your Lordshiphas been good enough to call my attention.
Those who are acquainted with Dr. Arnold’s Life—abook regarded by many as one of authority upon such asubject—are aware that the right of his Sixth Form to theuse of the cane was one for which p. 5he contended with the greatestearnestness, as indispensable to the efficient working of thatMonitorial system to which he considered that Rugby owed so muchof its well-being under his Head-Mastership. [5] p. 6And although many Masters might shrinkfrom avowing so boldly their approbation of a power liable to somuch abuse and to so much misconstruction, yet I have never heardit questioned that the same power is exercised, whether bypermission or by acquiescence, in most of the great PublicSchools of England, as I know that it existed at Harrow, actuallyif not avowedly, for very many years before I became Master.
But I have no wish to plead authority or prescription indefence of a practice which, if bad, can at any time beabolished, and for the toleration of which I do not deny that theMaster under whom it exists may fairly be held responsible.
There can be no doubt that a Master who consulted merely hisown ease and present popularity would at once abolish the powerin dispute. The tide of public feeling is setting stronglyin that direction. It would