versity of character
and conduct exhibited by the children. The home is the culture medium,
and in no two homes is its composition the same. For each child home
influence remains to a great extent unchanged, and in great part
unchangeable. Its action upon the child is constant and long
sustained. Hence, it is not surprising that the growth of his
character and powers is commonly unequal. At one point we may find a
good crop of virtues, at another a barren tract; and the home
influences which have ripened the one and blighted the other are
calculated by the lapse of time to increase the contrast rather than
to diminish it.

I suppose it is for this reason that the custom of sending children to
boarding-schools has so firm a hold among us. The boarding-school
forms an environment selected to correct the inequalities which result
from the special action upon the child of individual homes. The life
of a boy in one of our large public schools is well calculated to act
as a corrective in this way not only by reason of its ordered routine
and discipline, but still more because it is affected, perhaps for the
first time, by the strong force of public opinion. It is the strength
of this public opinion which gives to our public schools their
peculiar character and produces their peculiar effects. That which the
schoolboy most despises is what he calls "Bad Form," and he bows down
and worships an idol he himself has set up, the name of which is "Good
Form." Public opinion forms the code of morals observed in the school.
The standard set is commonly not so high as to be very difficult of
attainment. It demands many good qualities. To lie, to sneak, to tell
tales, to bully, to "put on side," are bad form. In some respects the
definition of what is virtuous may be a little hazy. Thus it may be
wrong to cheat to gain a prize, but to copy from one's neighbour only
so much as will enable one to pass muster and escape condemnation is
no great sin. In short, good form demands that a boy should have all
the social virtues: that he should be a good fellow, easy to live
with, and possessed of a high sense of public spirit--good qualities
certainly, though perhaps not those which help to make the reformers
or martyrs of this world.

The school life is the life of the herd, and to be successful in it
the boy must mingle with the herd, not break from it or shun it. Good
form--if we came to analyse the conception that underlies it--consists
o