what may meet with disapprobation in one place,
will not do so in another; and thus what to us at a distance, and in
after years, may appear to be repulsive, may by no means be so
considered during boyhood. Again, others will say, that it ought to
be felt as a disgrace. To this, I can only answer that it never will
be; for where there are so many boys as at Eton, this mode of
punishment must frequently be adopted; and as often as it is, so
certain, from its repetition, will it cease to be considered in that
light--it is altogether a necessary evil, which flesh is heir to.
Should the boy have committed anything unbecoming a gentleman, he is
invariably and appropriately punished by the manner adopted towards
him by his own associates, and the feeling of the school in general.
Let flogging, then, still be tolerated as a mere physical and
convenient inconvenience--its effect, too, is but ephemeral, and soon
becomes lost among the things that were.

Not so will be the effects of frequent attendance in church.
Concerning these three subjects, perhaps no two persons could be found
who might entertain similar opinions; therefore, it behoves one to
advance any decision as regards them with caution and diffidence; but
if one of them admits of greater certainty of opinion than the others,
is it not that relative to the frequent occurrence of the church
service? However the other two subjects may be opposed, some
advantages may be still held out in extenuation of their practice, but
I cannot help feeling that this cloying attendance on chapel must be
altogether pernicious.

His religion is not to be flogged or forced into a boy, like so much
Latin and Greek, or even to be instilled into him by a comparative
stranger. Until he comes to be able to inquire or think about it for
himself, the duty of instructing him is exclusively incumbent on his
parents, or on those who are in more immediate contact with him than
the tutors of a college can be. The superior and sufficient influence
of the former, in this respect, may be evidenced by the fact of a
little Catholic boy whom I knew, duly attending church with the rest
of us, and afterwards leaving the school, and remaining to this day as
stanch a Papist as ever entered the confessional.

Out of the six or seven hundred boys present during divine service,
should only fifty of them have their minds properly disposed, there
would be something to advance in support of the practice; but th