less pessimistic conclusion.

It will easily be understood that the mechanical organisation of the
school was greatly deranged by the removal from home. The boys of the
several houses were no longer locally separated, nor in the same
immediate contact with their housemasters; they were restrained by few
bolt-and-bar securities, "lock-up" being for the most part impracticable,
and were allowed a larger liberty in many less definable ways. At the
same time they were exposed to no little discomfort, and during the rainy
months to much monotony, the very conditions which promote bullying and
other mischief. Further, the same causes which reduced the control of
masters, also embarrassed the upper boys in their monitorial duties. Thus
the school was left in a quite unusual degree to its self-government, and
that government had to act at a disadvantage.

Yet the result was that all went well. The boys did not bully one
another, and they gave their masters no sort of trouble. Old rules had
to be relaxed, because they could not be enforced, but no licence came of
it; new rules had to be made, which might seem vexatious and not very
intelligible restrictions, but there was no tendency to break them. Of
course wrong things were done at Borth as elsewhere; but if we were to
record the few misdeeds which occur to us, their insignificance would
provoke a smile; while we have good evidence for the belief that the rate
of undetected offences was not increased.

These are the facts we have to record. Different explanations will
suggest themselves to others, but among observers on the spot there was
but one opinion--that the prosperous result was due to the system of self-
government, "monitorial system," or whatever we name the institution,
which rests on the assumption that English boys are capable of