27 DECEMBER 1828, Page 11

The pamphlet almost entirely consists of two letters addressed to

Dr. WILLIAMS, interceding for his brother's recall, and the Doc- tor's polished but peremptory refusal. It seems that the authority of the prefects must be protected, and the sanctity of their per- sons as solemnly guarded as that of the tribunes. In future, they are to flog little boys for not toasting their muffins, and the rod * Some Account of the System of Fagging at Winchester School, with Remarks, and a Correspondence with Dr. Williams, Head Master of that Public School, on the late Expulsions thence, for Resistant ate the Authority of theBrefects. By Sir Alesauder Mulct, Bart, 14ution ttr Itiligwcw shall not be arrested in their hands. The MALETS all allow that this law is justice and gospel as regards the fourth form, but the privileges of the fifth were and ought to have been defended vi et arrnis. So much for the world in miniature—a public school. The question of Fagging is quite another affair: it is simply this,—is there any harm in a little gentleman for a year or two being another little gentleman's servant ? It is true, these young- sters are often hard masters ; but then, early experience takes off the roughness of the hardships of life, and perhaps developes a certain talent called hardiness, of immense importance to a lover of independence. Sometimes the poor fag is indeed reduced to an unhappy dilemma: he is flogged by his tutor for not being in school, or not having written his exercise, when he has been de- spatched to the other end of the town to wait until the rascally and unpunctual shoemaker has finished his young master's pumps : if he is not at school, he is flogged—if he does not go for the pumps, he is well pummelled : a tender mother would think this hard, and so does a tender child : a bold lad does not care, and resolves upon managing better the next time. There are many of these dilem- mas in the world, and the earlier generally the cheaper the expe- rience. The system of our public schools is tolerably well cal- culated to make men of the world : they are not by any means the best adapted for making models of virtue, of learning, or of piety. The morals they inculcate are simply those of St. James's-street : their piety is a careless indifference about religion, with a sort of general respect for its forms : their learning enables them to avoid blunders in mythology and quantity, to avoid the pedantic, and to understand classical and allegorical pictures of the old masters. A fine young man is their general produce : a stout cricket-player, a good rider, a neat dresser, his honour is unimpeachable—that is to say, he is ready to shoot, or be shot, when there is a question of it: he will nevertheless seduce any girl he may fall in with, who has no formidable brothers ; it is an accident if he does not gamble : he never reads—damns politics, until he is made either a lawyer or a statesman—and abuses parties, mothers, and bores, until he falls in with a fortune, or is pursued by his debts to Bou- logne or the Bench.