at any infraction of discipline will be surely
punished; the son and daughter of the decent artizan cause little
trouble to any teacher, because they know that their parents are on the
side of order, and, even if the children are inclined to be rebellious,
they dare not defy the united authority of parents and teacher. But the
child of the thief, the costermonger, the racecourse swindler, the
thriftless labourer, is now practically emancipated through the action
of sentimental persons. He may go to school or not, as he likes; and,
while the decent and orderly poor are harried by School Board
regulations, the rough of the slum snaps his fingers without fear at all
regulations. If one of the bad boys from the "rookeries" does go to
school, he soon learns that he may take his own way. If he is
foul-mouthed, thievish, indecent, or insolent, and is promptly punished,
he drags his teacher into a police-court, and the sentimentalists secure
a conviction. No one can tell the kind of anarchy that reigns in some
parts of England excepting men who dwell amidst it; and, to make matters
worse, a set of men who may perhaps be charitably reckoned as insane
have framed a Parliamentary measure which may render any teacher who
controls a young rough liable at once to one hundred pounds fine or six
months' imprisonment. This is no flight of inventive humour on our part;
it is plain fact which may probably be seen in action as law before
twelve months are over.

Tyranny I abhor, cruelty I abhor--above all, cruelty to children. But we
are threatened at one pole of the State-world with a tyranny of
factioneers who cultivate rudeness and rowdyism as a science, while at
the other pole we are threatened with the uncontrolled tyranny of the
"residuum." We must return to our common sense; the middle-classes must
make themselves heard, and we must teach the wild spirits who aim at
wrecking all order that safety depends upon the submission of all to the
expressed will of the majority. Debate is free enough--too free--and no
man is ever neglected ultimately if he has anything rational to say, so
that a minority has great power; but, when once a law is made, it must
be obeyed. England is mainly sound; our movement is chiefly to the good;
but this senseless pampering of loutishness in high and low places is a
bad symptom which tends to such consequences as can be understood only
by those who have learned to know the secret places. If it is not
checked