SCHOOL FAGGING.
THE other day, at the end of last week, an unpleasant sensation was caused by a paragraph in one of the papers, in which it was announced that some very serious cases of bullying had taken place upon the Britannia,' the training-ship for Naval Cadets, and that revelations of a still more disagreeable character were likely to follow upon an inquiry that was then being held by the commanding officers. It was alleged that some of the senior boys had been seen bullying a junior, and that one or two of them, who had been convicted of that offence, were already undergoing punish- ment. It was also alleged—and this is the offence that seems to have most horrified the public—that a system of what was called "fagging money" was practised on board the ship, and that "fagging," in that instance, simply meant the appropria- tion by the senior boys of the new-comers' money and valuables. This practice of high-handed robbery, which, unhappily, does seem to have existed on board the 'Britannia,' was certainly not a pretty one, and a daily contemporary might perhaps be excused for the hysterical outburst in which it declined to believe at all in such "an unspeakably des- picable form of larceny." We do not believe ourselves that such a custom could have established itself to any serious extent among the boys who are chosen for Naval Cadets. Still less, however, are we inclined to share the belief that was put forward by the same journal to the effect that "some exceptionally dastardly young caitiff must have crept on board the Britannia,' and corrupted by his example his normally honest, honourable, and free-handed young com- rades," although we confess that the words in which the sup- position is couched are very brave and beautiful. Honest and honourable boys are not so easily corrupted, even by the most dastardly caitiffs. On the other hand, boys, even when honest and honourable, are very queer cattle, and we should be sorry to express a very violent disbelief in even stranger practices than this deplorable one which has been now brought to light. It is not a question of corruption at all. A boy may still be as honest, as good, as simple-hearted, and as loveable as the day that he first left his mother's side, and yet the little wretch will bow his little knee in the temple of custom, and be found aiding and abetting his small schoolfellows in malpractices that at home he would have considered criminal. Custom is the schoolboy's law, and his customs are sometimes strange ; but it is more incumbent upon him to obey and carry out the man- dates of that code of his own making, than to respect the other that he has learnt at home. It may be the custom that no new boy should wear a watch. His senior by a term or two thinks it his duty to accost him thus :—" Hullo ! you boy, you musn't wear a watch. Hand it over, or I'll smash it." Two courses are then open to the last corner; either to give up the watch, in which case the other will keep it without the slightest compunction, or, indeed, a suspicion that he is breaking the Eighth Commandment ; or to fight for the possession of it, and either retain it by force of arms or see it smashed. The small robber has no idea of stealing ; he simply wishes to enforce the law. This is, of course, a purely imaginary case ; but it is not in the least an impossible one, although we only quote it to show how an otherwise honest and kind-hearted boy may be guilty of robbery with violence. As far as the particular cases of the 'Britannia' are con- cerned, they may very well have been of a similar nature. It is not credible that English boys of their position could become thieves for the theft's sake. We cannot, of course, quarrel with the right and just sentence that has dismissed four boys, convicted of such practices, from the service ; it was a case for severity, and they have been severely dealt with. But we confess to feeling more sympathy for those silly little urchins than we can for the victims of their childish villainy.
To come to the question of fagging. The outside world that has never known a public school, or has forgotten its own experiences at school, is rather prone to confuse fagging with bullying. Fagging is the right exercised by the older boy to make the younger do what he likes, and what the younger one generally dislikes. When exercised within wise and well- defined limits, the system has generally been found to work well, both for the fags and for those who fag them. When it is abused, it naturally turns into bullying. One of the best ways to prevent its abuse is for the authorities to openly recognise it, and to make their own limits as to its exercise. Fagging cannot be abolished ; in some form or other, it is sure to exist, and any attempt to suppress it altogether only results in its being practised in a more secret and reprehensible way. Given a community of some two hundred boys or so; of different ages and of different sizes, it is inevitable that the natural law will assert itself among them, and that the stronger will seek to impose their will upon the weaker. The thing must be, and cannot possibly be helped. Even among brothers of the same family, there will be found the same tendency to domineer, and sometimes to oppress. Among a large number of boys, it is infinitely better to recognise, limit, and direct that tendency, than to attempt the impossible task of eradicating it. If Brown major has the right to employ Smith minimus for half-an-hour every day in the making of toast, the tidying -of his study, or in running his errands—to employ him for that amount of time only, and to employ no one else—both the dignity and the wants of Brown are amply satisfied, and Smith is not grievously oppressed. Smith's turn will come some day, and until that day arrives it is well that he should have a little discipline. Were Brown's right unrecognised, he would still exercise it unlawfully ; and if Smith objected, he would—well, he would take measures to overrule his objec- tion in a manner unpleasant to Smith. In that case, the opposi- tion of Smith, and the frequently recurring contest between them, would not improbably convert Brown, who had the makings in him of a beneficent despot, into a very malevolent tyrant, and would turn Smith, a willing little fag perhaps, into a very ill-used and unhappy little rebel. Fagging, when recog- nised and properly controlled, is the very best remedy against bullying that can be devised, because it deprives the bigger and the older boys of the chief incentive towards bullying. Only, of course, it ought to be never carried to excess, or made in any way really oppressive for those who are fagged, as "Lagging out" at cricket and some other forms of fagging sometimes are. Surely the supervision and discretion of schoolmasters should suffice for its due control. The fond mother may exclaim in horror at the idea of her own boy per- forming such menial offices as brushing the clothes or preparing the breakfast of another ; but then, she has no idea of the benefit of that discipline. It is the making of some unruly and unlicked little cubs, who would otherwise have grown up into the most unpleasant kind of young men ; and the responsibility of the authority is very often quite as beneficial to those who exercise it. Moreover, some of the very best and most lasting of schoolboy friendships are those that have sprung up between fags and their masters. It is not possible among a number of boys so nearly of the same age and size as they are upon the Britannia,' to have any Teally efficient system of fagging. Had it been possible, there would probably have been no bullying.
We are prompted to speak thus in defence of fagging, because we fancy that there is rather a tendency to-day to consider it as one of the barbarous customs of the past that, like flogging, was more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Flogging at school has become a very much less frequent, and consequently a very much more disgraceful punishment, than it used to be : neither of which results is to be deplored. But it does not in the least follow that it would be advantageous to abolish flogging altogether. Fagging has also been largely modified, and is not practised to anything like the extent that it once was. At some of the old public schools, at that most conservative school, Winchester, for instance, twenty-five years ago the fagging was certainly of rather an oppressive character, and the life of a junior boy during his first few terms was by no means an enviable one. But even in those days, though the ex- cessive nature of the fagging might itself be termed bullying in a certain sense, the practice helped to prevent .an infinitely worse and more detestable form of bullying by which the lives of the smaller and weaker boys were really made miserable. The fag had his own master, and was not at the mercy of any bigger boy who chose to buffet him into obedience. It is not the biggest boys in the school who are the bullies, but the bigger boys among the small ones; and these latter, the most cruel tyrants of all, can only be kept in subjection by a system which authorises the biggest boys to prevent any encroachment upon their own especial rights. In a school like Winchester, were fagging to be abolished altogether and some fifty big boys deprived of the right to exercise authority over a hundred or so of the smallest, the right of which they were deprived would immediately be unlawfully and oppressively exercised by some three or four hundred intermediate boys in size and age. -Every boy, in fact, would fag who could find a boy small enough to obey him ; and nothing in a school leads more quickly to bullying than indiscriminate fagging. It is just possible that in the course of time, when the humanitarian ideas and principles of to- day have succeeded in creating a new race of men, posterity shall also see a new race of boys who will be uniformly courteous and considerate to each other, and never dream of oppressing or profiting by their juniors. Then, of course, Lugging will be a thing of the past,—and so, for the matter of that, we suppose, will be all the present safeguards of society, soldiers, police, and magistrates included. But as long as human nature remains what it is to-day, and the boy at school is the father of the man in the world, we would humbly suggest that fagging at school has its uses, and can hardly be dispensed with.
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