A Letter to the Viscount Palmerston, M.P. &c. &c. &c. on the Monitorial System of Harrow School

by C. J. Vaughan

And it appears to me that, as soon as the power of the Monitors is transferred from the ground of strength to that of right; as soon as it is made, in its place, as the power of the Masters in theirs, a recognized and constitutional principle; at that moment all feeling of degradation in submitting to it is done away: there is degradation, because there is cowardice, in submitting tamely to the kicks or cuffs of an equal or an inferior, but there is none in rendering to a Master—nor need there be in rendering to a constituted authority of a lower rank—that submission even to personal correction which may be one of the conditions of the society in which you are placed.

By a custom, existing certainly long before my own acquaintance with Harrow, traceable for many years into the past history of the School, the common method of enforcing Monitorial authority has been the use of the cane. A power not formally committed to the Monitors, not (in the strictest sense) delegated by the Master, but still exercised without interference or censure within the limits prescribed by humanity or by the fear of penal consequences in case of its excess.

This custom, I repeat, I found established; ignored, it may be, by previous Masters, but not unknown. The question with me was, Is this custom, which I find in force, injurious in its use, or only in its abuse? If the former, it must be, not disavowed only, but destroyed. If the latter, it must be, not only connived at, but turned to account. It must be made conducive to the real welfare of the School. And a Monitor who avails himself of this prescriptive right, in support of good order and good discipline, must feel that he is safe in doing so, provided he stops short of inflicting injury. He must feel that he can depend upon the Master to stand by him, before the School and before the Public, so long as no wanton or tyrannical use of this power can be proved against him.

It is urged indeed that this Monitorial power is illegal in a higher than any School sense of that term,—that it contradicts the law of the land. “Delegatus non potest delegare.” The Parent delegates his power to the Master: the Master has no right to delegate that power to the Monitor. Now I will not enter into the question how far the Master is correctly described as the Parent’s delegate. Doubtless the act which consigns to him the individual Boy is the act of the individual Parent. But the Master of a Public School is not made so by that act, nor by any number of such acts: his office is conferred upon him by an independent authority, and is exercised under conditions irrespective of the parental will. Otherwise the Parent who created, might in each case limit, the right: he might prescribe to the Master the studies to be pursued and the punishments to be inflicted; he might depute his own functions thus far and no further. But, even allowing the justice of the appellation, it would scarcely be desired, I suppose, to admit all the consequences involved in this principle, and assert that the Master has no right to delegate any portion of his office, but that alone, unaided by coadjutors or subordinates, he must teach in person every Boy entrusted to him, hear every lesson, and impose every punishment. The fact surely is, that the system of a Public School is essentially peculiar and exceptional; and that, when that system is fairly established, and its rules publicly notorious, a Parent uses his own discretion in selecting the School for his son, and having done so he subjects him to its discipline as established, retaining only the power of withdrawing him when he will.

But, on the other hand, it is no less necessary, for the sake alike of the Monitors and of the School, that such checks shall be imposed upon the exercise of this power as shall make its abuse either absolutely impossible or at least a very rare exception.

With this view, it is one rule of the system, that any Boy has a right of appeal from the individual Monitor (however high his station) to the assembled body; who are bound to enter into the merits of the case, and come to a formal decision upon it. My experience thus far has led me to believe that ten young men, acting under such responsibilities, are not likely either to come to an unjust decision or to execute their sentence with undue severity.

But if, after all, this hope is in any case disappointed; if (which in such an event is the most probable supposition) an individual Monitor has outrun his powers, by not allowing this appeal to the collective body, or by not waiting for its result, or by executing punishment himself in undue excitement or passion; then the duty is cast upon me, of interposing my authority to redress the injustice, by the degradation of the offending Monitor, or by a measure of punishment yet more severe.

This, happily, is a case of rare, most rare, occurrence. The general testimony, alike of Boys and of their Parents, will rather be this—that, while the School has enjoyed, on the whole, under the Monitorial system, a very real exemption from the miseries of that tyranny of brute force which it is designed more especially to preclude, it is perfectly easy, on the other hand, for any Boy to pass through his Harrow life without once incurring the risk of Monitorial punishment, while the salutary dread of it has done much to keep him orderly and tractable, and to save him in no slight degree from the sight and hearing of evil. [21]

And, while this is so, however unpopular may be the avowal, I know that my duty is clear: to watch the operation of the system, to guard it from abuse, to influence and animate (so far as I may be able) those who are to take part in it—if necessary, to coerce and to punish its abuse; but, none the less, to adhere to it manfully, and to take my full share of its obloquy.

It may be found impossible long to withstand such impressions as those to which your Lordship has adverted. To persons unacquainted with its practical operation the Monitorial system must always appear objectionable; a cumbrous and uncertain substitute for zeal and vigilance on the part of the Master. The time may come when public opinion will imperatively require the introduction of an opposite principle; of which it shall be the object to confine and preclude the expression of evil by the unceasing espionage of an increased staff of subordinate Masters. The experiment may be tried; I hope not at Harrow—certainly not by me. I see many difficulties, some evils, in the present system; some advantages, many plausibilities, in its opposite: and yet I believe the one to be practically ennobling and elevating—the other essentially narrowing, enfeebling, and enervating. I well foresee the results of the change, come when it may. I know how pleasing, yet how brief, will be the lull consequent upon the establishment of a rule of equality and fraternity; how warm perhaps, for the moment, the congratulations of some who have trembled for their sons’ safety under the present (so called) reign of terror; on the other hand, how gradual, yet how sure, the growth of those meaner and more cowardly vices which a Monitorial system has coerced where it could not eradicate; and how impossible the return to that principle of graduated ranks and organized internal subordination, which, amidst some real and many imaginary defects, has been found by experience to be inferior to no other system in the formation of the character of an English Christian Gentleman.