CIVIL COURT-MARTIALS.
THE curious disposition of the present day to change every profession and trade into a kind of Service, governed by rules higher than the will of any individual, has extended itself to the Schoolmasters of the kingdom. It is quite evident from correspondence before us, that the conduct of Mr. Hay- man in dismissing one of the masters of Rugby of his own will and as a disciplinary measure has profoundly irritated men
who are not directly affected by it, and that the whole profession is inclined to agitate for a change of system, for the introduction into all great schools of some rule, or custom, or etiquette which shall relieve Assistant-Masters of their present insecurity, and give them some guarantee s.gainst individual crotchettiness and caprice. This guarantee will not, we imagine, be sought in a right of appeal to Trustees, or Visitors, or other external authorities, but rather in a right of requesting a trial such as is conceded to the fighting Services, to the Bar, and in principle, though not always in practice, to the Indian Civil Service, a trial, that is, by a Court of the masters themselves. It would not surprise us in the least to hear that the best Masters all through the kingdom had combined to secure such a system, which, we must add, is beginning to attract con- siderable favour among all classes of receivers of wages. The change involved would be very considerable, but as regards the educated professions, and particularly as regards those tutors who in our great schools and colleges hold positions which resemble in many respects those of public officers, we incline, on the whole, to believe it would be beneficial. If we allow a trial to a soldier, whose first virtue is obedi- ence, we may wisely allow one to a tutor, whose first virtue is efficiency, a virtue developed rather than decreased by the comparative independence which the new system would secure. Of course, discipline must be maintained in a public school, as in every other great organisation ; but experience shows that a right of trial strengthens instead of weakening discipline, for two obvious reasons, that there is better security for justice, and that punishment, if in- flicted, is so very much more severe. An assistant-master, if dismissed by the mere fiat of his superior, can always say and think that he was a victim of personal dislike ; but a master dismissed by a fiat pronounced by other masters as well as the chief would be deemed by the world to be in some way in- -competent, and indeed would suspect himself of some incom- petence. There is no good reason to believe that a body of masters entrusted with such power would fail to use it wisely, or refuse to sustain the needful discipline of the school, a discipline quite as important to themselves as to the chief among them. Officers trying officers in the British Navy dis- play no disposition towards undue lenity, nor can we see why Assistant-Masters should be ex necessitate hostile to their head. On the other hand, we can see very well why a Head Master who knew that discipline in his school depended on the loyal adhesion of his Masters should culti- vate that loyalty by his personal demeanour, and by rigid adherence to the laws which would then bind him and them alike. And we can also see that a profession thus pro- tected would become still more attractive to the scholars of the country, and would be sought by men full of that kind of independence and mental originality which is in every profession indispensable to progress. Of -course we should lose something in return. A man • of exceptional genius like Arnold would probably find himself slightly hampered by the solidarity among his subordinates ; but then it is not for men of exceptional force and originality that we make rules, and Arnold would have adapted himself as readily to a constitutional leadership as to an absolute sway. He would have recognised in the continuity of tone which the new system would secure full compensation for the slight restraint it must impose upon individuality. At present, while a school prospers exceedingly under an able chief, it may be ruined in a year by another whose foibles a sys- tem of Court-Martial would have almost completely neu- tralised.
Whether the principle we have indicated, that of making dismissal dependent in some degree on the verdict of the em- ployes fellows, can be carried into private life, we are not as yet quite certain. The workmen in several trades, notably the railway artisans, have suggested from time to time limitations on the right of arbitrary dismissal, and its exercise is denounced by the new Agricultural Unions; but they have never suc- ceeded in carrying their point, or at all events in formulating any restrictive rule, though a . real restriction of some
kind must exist in the co-operative associations. Nor have the military legislators in the most democratic States ever ventured to entrust the right of punishing breaches of discipline to Courts composed in the main of the soldiers or sailors themselves. The danger that the men may prefer the immediate pleasure of self-will, or the immediate advan- tage of reduced toil, to the permanent advantage of the service or corporation, has always seemed too great to be endured. Nevertheless, the whole idea of trial by jury, which seems in certain stages of civilization to work so well, rests upon the assumption that private men can be induced to prefer the supremacy of Law to their own ideas and in- terests; and we cannot but think that as education advances it may yet be found possible to strengthen the hands of great employers, while increasing the comfort of the employed, by associating them together in the maintenance of discipline. It is done in the democratic Churches, where elected Elders or Committeemen act as decidedly as Bishops in the Episcopal Churches, and the defect of the doing is found to be not the laxity employers apprehend, but the tendency to irrational or arbitrary severity. It is done also in all the Union arrange- ments, in which discipline is maintained without the aid of any superior, and it cannot, one would think, be entirely beyond hope in the general system of the organisation of labour. At all events, where all concerned are alike educated men, capable of foresight, and attached to discipline, it is not only possible, but easy, and unless we misread the signs of the times, it will after no long interval be tried. If a Bishop can usefully be assisted by a diocesan council, the usual practice in America, so also can a Head Master be usefully assisted and restrained by a Council with disciplinary powers.
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