FAGGING [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—None of your
correspondents seems quite to have grasped the underlying principle of fagging and the prefectorial system. Before Dr. Arnold went to Rugby, it had long been usual for the oldest and strongest boys to enforce a code of etiquette (sartorial and the like) among their weaker fellows, while the small boys were made to fetch and carry. What Dr. Arnold did was to make this form of bullying the privilege of those whom he appointed to keep order for him. Even then the tiresome and repressive caste system would hardly have survived had not the prefects tended to appoint 0 friendlies " from the body of the house to keep order for them. These seniors empowered to reprimand, perhaps to chastize, and expected to bear tales, easily made any breach etiquette, not in itself an official offence, an insult to them- selves and the prefects, an incitement to breach of the peace, as it were, or contempt of court. This is further strengthened by each grade in the hierarchy of privilege jealously guarding its own rights, and very careful to see that lower grades Mind their " P's and Q's." Indeed, not to do so is to run the risk of a beating for slackness, or a housemaster's reprimand for not exercising one's authority.
This may be very excellent for knocking the nonsense out of ex-captains of" Prep." schools. But it is very open to abuse ; the line between the efficient and the officious is very narrow. To entrust adolescents with the power of administering corporal punishment is to court cruelty.
To sum up, is not this system, in the first place, far too delicate to be entrusted to people so young, as the old Etonian pointed out? And, secondly, is it not bad education to deal so far from reality ? No one nowadays would dare to treat a servant or batman as a prefect treats his fags. Again, even if this is fairly tolerable to the thick skin of the average boy, I seriously doubt the value of a system based on complacency to obvious injustice, and the supposition that everyone has the hide and long suffering of the patient ox. It is out of touch with the spirit of the age, and the antithesis of the Public School virtue of " playing the game."
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