"
Lady Holland tells us that in old age her father "used to shudder at the
recollections of Winchester," and represented the system prevailing there
in his youth as composed of "abuse, neglect, and vice." And, speaking of
the experience of lower boys at Public Schools in general, he described it
as "an intense system of tyranny, of which the English are very fond, and
think it fits a boy for the world; but the world, bad as it is, has nothing
half so bad."
"A man gets well pummelled at a Public School; is subject to every
misery and every indignity which seventeen years of age can inflict
upon nine and ten; has his eye nearly knocked out, and his clothes
stolen and cut to pieces; and twenty years afterwards, when he is a
chrysalis, and has forgotten the miseries of his grub state, is
determined to act a manly part in life, and says, 'I passed through
all that myself, and I am determined my son shall pass through it as I
have done'; and away goes his bleating progeny to the tyranny and
servitude of the Long Chamber or the Large Dormitory. It would surely
be much more rational to say, 'Because I have passed through it, I am
determined my son shall not pass through it. Because I was kicked for
nothing, and cuffed for nothing, and fagged for everything, I will
spare all these miseries to my child.
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