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 responsibility and authority, and will prove trustworthy if their masters are willing to trust them.  We do not forget that other factors entered into the cause; one which cannot be ignored was the consciousness of the boys that the school was on its trial, and that a public one.  But people cannot acquire self-control merely by the removal of restraints, or behave well, for a long time together and in spite of tedium, simply because they would like to do so.  The truth is, that in a time which might have been anarchical, we lived on the fruits of a long-established order; and it is fair to add that at the end of thirteen months there were no visible symptoms that discipline was wearing threadbare.

Shall we, for writing this, be taxed with the vain-glory for which public schools are at times reproached?  We must brave the charge, then; for the facts seem to furnish evidence of a kind so rarely obtainable, that to omit them from this chapter in school life would be hardly excusable.  An experiment so crucial as that to which we were submitted does not occur once in fifty years.

But enough of serious matters.  Let us go out and forget them in a run with Sir Pryse’s harriers, along the breezy gorse-covered downs of the Gogerddan estate.  We take the train which arrives just after we have risen from dinner, and land at the upland village of Langfihangel.  It is a Saturday afternoon, the 21st of October, the day is clear and sunny, and several ladies are of the party.  A few hundred yards from the station we met the hounds, and Sir Pryse’s man who hunts them.  The owner is not with them, but (by his good leave) yonder tall, lithe fellow, the best runner in the school, acts as Master of Hounds.  He promises us good sport, having heard from the huntsman of a hare which is “waiting for us.”  As they prepare to cast off, the non-effectives separate from the runners, and climb a round-topped hill which commands the country.  The fields are spread like a map under us; nothing on the face of the country escapes our eyes.  The hare that was “waiting for us” has grown tired of it, and left the rendezvous, but another is soon started, and a stout one.  She is of the mountain breed, as are many in this country; they could not otherwise have held out so long before the pursuit of such runners, to say nothing of the hounds.  The “tally-ho” comes cheerly up to us from the valley through the crisp October air, and we see puss scudding along up the hedgerow, the hounds and the foremost runners in the next field, the rest thinning out and straggling behind them.  Among these we recognise with glee a friend or two, who years