m.
Voluntary labour took its rise from the necessity of furnishing those
boys, who had no chance of obtaining rank through their talents, with
some other means of distinguishing themselves: this is accomplished in
two modes: first, by giving rewards for industry exerted out of school
hours, and receiving these rewards as the price of rank; making no
other stipulation than one, in addition to its being 'tolerably well
executed'--viz. that it shall be in a state of completion. The
Experimentalist comments justly at p. 187, on 'the mental dissipation
in which persons of talent often indulge' as being 'destructive beyond
what can readily be imagined' and as leading to 'a life of shreds and
patches.' 'We take care' (says he) 'to reward no boy for fragments,
whatever may be their excellence. We know nothing of his exertions
until they come before us in a state of completion.' Hence, besides
gaining the 'habit of finishing' in early youth, the boy has an
interest also in gaining the habit of measuring his own powers: for he
knows 'that he can receive neither fame nor profit by instalments;'
and therefore 'undertakes nothing which he has not a rational hope of
accomplishing.'[42] A second mode of preventing rank from being
monopolised by talents is by flinging the school into various
arrangements, one of which is founded on 'propriety of manners and
general good conduct.'

[Footnote 41: On this point there is however an exception made, which
amuses us not a little. 'In a few instances,' says the Experimentalist,
'it has been found or supposed necessary to resent insolence by a blow:
but this may be rather called an assertion of private right, than an
official punishment. In these cases a single blow has _almost_ always
been found sufficient, even the rarity of the infliction rendering
severity unnecessary.' He insists therefore that this punishment (which,
we cannot but think, might have been commuted for a long imprisonment)
shall not be called a punishment, nor entered on the public records as
such: in which case however it becomes a private 'turn-up,' as the
boxers call it, between the boy and his tutor.]

[Footnote 42: The details of the system in regard to the penal and
premial counters may be found from pp. 23 to 29. We have no room to
extract them: one remark only we must make--that we do not see how it
is possible to ascribe any peculiar and incommunicable privileges to
the premial as opposed to the penal counters, wh