to burglary; no
reprobation would fall upon him if he appealed to the law to help him.

Is it not possible to encourage something of this feeling in a school?
Is it not possible, without violating schoolboy honour, which is in
many ways a fine and admirable thing, to allow the possibility of an
appeal to protection for the young and weak against vile temptations?
It seems to me that it would be best if we could get the boys to
organise such a system among themselves. But to take no steps to arrive
at such an organisation, and to leave matters severely alone, is a very
dark responsibility to bear.

It is curious to note that in the matter of bullying and cruelty, which
used to be so rife at schools, public opinion among boys does seem to
have undergone a change. The vice has practically disappeared, and the
good feeling of a school would be generally against any case of gross
bullying; but the far more deadly and insidious temptation of impurity
has, as far as one can learn, increased. One hears of simply
heart-rending cases where a boy dare not even tell his parents of what
he endures. Then, too, a boy's relations will tend to encourage him to
hold out, rather than to invoke a master's aid, because they are afraid
of the boy falling under the social ban.

This is the heaviest burden a schoolmaster has to bear; to be
responsible for his boys, and to be held responsible, and yet to be
probably the very last person to whom the information of what is
happening can possibly come.

One great difficulty seems to be that boys will only, as a rule,
combine for purposes of evil. In matters of virtue a boy has to act for
himself; and I confess, too, with a sigh, that a set of virtuous boys
banding themselves together to resist evil and put it down has an
alarmingly priggish sound.

The most that a man can do at present, it seems to me, is to have good
sensible servants; to be vigilant and discreet; to try and cultivate a
paternal relation with all his boys; to try and make the bigger boys
feel some responsibility in the matter; but the worst of it is that the
subject is so unpleasant that many masters dare not speak of it at all;
and excuse themselves by saying that they don't want to put ideas into
boys' heads. I cannot conscientiously believe that a man who has been
through a big public school himself can honestly be afraid of that. But
we all seem to be so much afraid of each other, of public opinion, of
possible unpopula