The small boy is _in_ the society, but not _of_ it, as far as any
benefits go. He has to field out (and I admit that the discipline is
salutary) while other boys bat. Other boys commit the faults, and compel
him to copy out the impositions--say five hundred lines of Virgil--with
which their sins are visited. Other boys enjoy the pleasures of
football, while the small boy has to run vaguely about, never within five
yards of the ball. Big boys reap the glories of paperchases, the small
boy gets lost in the bitter weather, on the open moors, or perhaps (as in
one historical case) is frozen to death within a measurable distance of
the school playground. And the worst of it is that, as a member of the
great school secret society, the small boy can never complain of his
wrongs, or divulge the name of his tormentors. It is in this respect
that he resembles a harmless fellow, dragged into the coils of an
Anarchist "Inner Brotherhood." He is exposed to all sorts of wrongs from
his neighbours, and he can only escape by turning "informer," by breaking
the most sacred law of his society, losing all social status, and,
probably, obliging his parents to remove him from school. Life at
school, as among the Celtic peoples, turns on the belief that law and
authority are natural enemies, against which every one is banded.
The chapter of bullying among boys is one on which a man enters with
reluctance.
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