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cells might be appropriated to that purpose: and perhaps it may be
thought advisable that some even cases of infection should be thrown out and lodged
under another roof .
But, if infection in general must be sent to be cured
elsewhere, there is no spot in which infection originating in negligence ca
either in the rise of spread of it, meet with such obstacles as here. In no oth
as in this, will you see the interests of the Governors and the Governed, in th
important particular, so perfectly confounded and made one: those of the
Keepers, with those of the Prisoners: those of the Medical Curator with those
of the Patients, Clean or Unclean, safe or unsafe, he runs the same chance
that they do: if he lets them poison themselves, he lets them poison him.+
stands as a hostage in his own hands for the salubrity of the whole.
+Encompassed on
all sides by a multitude
company of persons whose
good or bad condition depends
upon himself.
Letter 20th XXI.
After applying the Inspection principle first to Prisons, and
bringing down through Mad-houses bringing it down to Hospitals, will the parental feeling
endure my applying it at last to Schools? will the observation of its efficacy
in preventing the irregular application of undue hardship, even to the ,
be sufficient to dispell the apprehension of its tendency to introduce tyranny
into the abodes of innocence and youth?
Applied to them you will find it capable of two very distinguishing
degrees of extension. It may be confined to the hours of study; or it
may be made to fill the whole circle of time, including the hours of repose
and refreshment and recreation.
To the first of these applications the most timidity
I think, could hardly fancy an objection. Concerning the hours of study, there
can, I think, be but one wish: that they should be employed in study. It is
more scarce necessary to observe, that gratings, bars, and bolts, and every
circumstance, from which an Inspection-house can derive a terrific character, have
nothing to do here. All play, all chattering, in short all distraction of every
kind, is effectually banished by the central controul and covered situation of the
master, seconded by partitions or screens between the scholars, as slight
as you please. The different measures and casts of talents, by this means
rendered, perhaps for the first time, distinctly discernible, will indicate the
different degrees of attention and modes of culture most suitable to each
particular disposition: and is incurable and irreproachable dulness or
imbecility will no longer be punished for the sins of idleness or obstinacy. The
species of fraud, at Westminster called cribbing, a vice thought hitherto
to schools, will never creep in here. That system of premature corruption, in
which idleness is screened by oppulence, and the honour due to talents or
industry is let out for hire, will be compleatly done away: and a nobleman
might stand as good a chance of knowing something as well as a common man.
Nor, in point of present enjoyment, will the scholars be a losers
by
the change. Those sinkings of the heart at the thoughts of a task undone —
those galling struggles between the passion for play and the fear of
punishment, would there be unknown. During the hours of business, Habit no longer
broken in upon by accident, would strip the master's presence of its terrors,
without depriving it if its use. And the time allotted for study being faithfully and
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