e study absolutely
repulsive, so the student would shun it as soon as he was out of school,
we can not guess it.

The system was probably born of inertia on the part of the teachers. The
pastor who pushes through his prescribed services, with mind on other
things, and thus absolves his conscience for letting his congregation go
drifting straight to Gehenna, was duplicated in the teacher. He did his
duty--and nothing more.

Selfishness, heartlessness and brutality manipulated the birch. Head was
all; heart and hand nothing. This was schoolteaching. As a punishment
for failure to memorize lessons, there were various plans to disgrace
and discourage the luckless ones. Standing in the corner with face to
the wall, and the dunce-cap, had given place to a system of fines,
whereby "ten lines of Vergil for failure to attend prayers," and ten
more for failure to get the first, often placed the boy in hopeless
bankruptcy. If he was a fag, or slave of a higher-form boy, cleaning the
other's boots, scrubbing stairs, running on foolish and needless
errands, getting cuffs and kicks by way of encouragement, he saw his
fines piling up and no way ever to clear them off and gain freedom by
promotion.

Viewed from our standpoint, the thing has a ludicrous bouffe air that
makes us smile. But to the boy caught in the toils it was tragic. To
work and evolve in an environment of such brutality was impossible to
certain temperaments. Success lay in becoming calloused and indifferent.
If the boy of gentle habits and slight physical force did not sink into
mental nothingness, he was in danger of being bowled over by disease and
death.

Indeed, the physical condition of the pupils was very bad: smallpox,
fevers, consumption, and breaking out with sores and boils, were common.

Thomas Arnold was thirty-three years old when he was called as head
master to Rugby. He was married, and babies were coming along with
astonishing regularity. He had taken priestly orders and was passing
rich on one hundred pounds a year. Poverty and responsibility had given
him ballast, and love for his own little brood had softened his heart
and vitalized his soul.

As a writer and speaker he had made his presence felt at various college
commencements and clergymen's meetings. He had challenged the brutal,
indifferent, lazy and so-called disciplinary methods of teaching.

And so far as we know, he is the first man in England to declare that
the teacher should be