Beside the members of the "college" Wykeham founded, another kind of pupils has grown up, called commoners, who pay for lodging, board, and tuition—about $700 a year. These, at first few and unimportant, have increased so greatly of late that they are usually regarded as the characteristic kind of school-boy. They live in nine communities, or houses, of about thirty-five each, under separate masters. The life of the commoners is almost exactly the same as that of the collegians; but the division into those who are and those who are not supported by the college is worth remembering, for a similar distinction exists not only in all public schools, but in the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. It does not happen everywhere, however, that the best scholars all live together; and many Wykehamists maintain that both scholars and commoners would gain by being mingled. Before many years the old college will doubtless be broken up, and the "scholars" proportioned among the various "houses."
The discipline is not so strict as at many public schools, yet quite strict enough, according to American standards. The boys—or men, as they are always called—are not allowed to enter the town, and have to get special "leave out" to go far into the country. The school day begins at seven o'clock, and bed-time comes at nine or ten. Constant attendance at prayers is required, morning and night; and there are four services on Sunday. For breaches of discipline the boys are still flogged. One is tempted to say that such a system is not modern; but as a matter of fact, it did not exist, among the commoners, at least, until the present century; and no true Wykehamist would think of changing it. Even the boys like it sincerely, in spite of some few breaches of discipline. Certainly the strictness has no more faults than the great freedom granted by certain of our large preparatory schools; and though we should hardly want to live just as English boys do, we can learn a great deal from them.
The main idea of the discipline of an English school is that as much of it as possible shall be carried on by the boys themselves. At Winchester it was ordained from the beginning that eighteen of the older boys should, in Wykeham's own words, "oversee their fellows, and from time to time certify the masters of their behavior and progress in study." These eighteen are called Prefects, and are chosen from the men who stand highest in studies. To an American boy, I am afraid, it wouldn't seem much fun to have to take care of his schoolmates' behavior. He would probably look upon himself more or less as a spy. Yet everything I saw at Winchester went to prove that to be a Prefect was almost as great an honor as to be an athlete. Five of the Prefects have special titles, such as Prefect of Chapel, Prefect of Hall, etc. These are generally chosen from the five best scholars. The Prefect of Hall has charge not only of his special duties, but of the other Prefects. If any disturbance takes place, he quells it. If the boys have any favors to ask, he is their spokesman. He is thus the head of the whole school, and a far more important person, I should say, than the Captain of the cricket team.
An incident occurred in 1838 which well illustrates the power of a Prefect. A peddler insisted on bringing various contraband articles, among them liquor, to sell to the boys on their recreation-grounds. The Prefects remonstrated time and again, with no effect. At last five of them seized him and threw him, basket and all, into the river. The peddler had the Prefects arrested and tried for assault with intent to kill, and the magistrate fined them fifty dollars each. This fine the college paid willingly, complimenting the Prefects for their zeal and common-sense. The spirit which prompted both masters and pupils exists to-day, not only at Winchester, but at all public schools. The result is that not only is order maintained without ill feeling between masters and pupils, but the eighteen Prefects of each year learn to fill posts requiring unusual tact, common-sense, and courage.
The duty of a Prefect which an American would least envy is that of inflicting bodily punishment—"tunding," as it is called in Winchester slang. This consists in beating the culprit across the back of his waistcoat with a ground-ash the size of one's finger. The art of "tunding," an old Prefect of Hall informed me, was to catch the edge of the shoulder-blade with the rod, and strike in the same spot everytime. In this way, he said, it was possible to cut the back of a waistcoat into strips. In the early part of the century flogging was of more than daily occurrence. An old Wykehamist states that on the day of his arrival at school there were 198 boys in residence and 279 names reported for punishment. Nowadays, however, only a score or so of cases occur each year; and many boys go through the school without being tunded.
A characteristic case occurred during my stay at Winchester. A party of small boys had been invited to a strawberry feast in the rooms of one of the dons, and seeing a group of Prefects in the court below, had been unable to resist the temptation. First a rotten strawberry splashed on the flint at the feet of the Prefects, and then a storm descended. This was too much for Prefectorial dignity to bear. The good don's strawberry feast ended in a general tunding. The Prefect of Hall described this to me next day with quiet satisfaction; and, later, the don spoke of the case as characteristic of the best effects of the Prefectorial system. As host, he said, he had not been able to interfere; and except for school-boy discipline, the culprits would have escaped. The wife of one of the masters, however, said it was a brutal shame, and that if she had her way with those Prefects, she would throw strawberries at them.
Such a system leaves little for the masters to do, yet a boy sometimes carries his case to the higher court, though he does it at the risk of great unpopularity. Some years ago two Seniors, having a grudge against another boy, employed two Juniors, at ninepence a head, to give him a beating. The Prefects very naturally objected to this method of doing one's dirty work, and ordered all four to be tunded. One of the Senior culprits lost courage when he found how hard it was going with his companion, and appealed to the master on the plea that the ground-ash was too large. The master declared that the ground-ashes were "proper good ground-ashes," and proceeded to wear them out on him.
A DORMITORY.
