Volume 1

Il6
LIFE OF SIR ROWLAND HILL.
the pupils on the other. With such joint consent, occasional alterations
have been made in the constitutional laws, tending chiefly, if
not entirely, to throw more and more power into the hands of the
pupils."
Fanciful as this may seem, yet for many years the
school was carried on strictly
in accordance with the
provisions of this Code, and carried on with great
vigour and spirit.
The boys, for the most part,
entered with eagerness into the system, and went
through their part in it with zeal. In an old letter
I read that one day the Committee met before breakfast
for the despatch of some important business. A
motion was made, and carried almost unanimously, that
they should proceed with the business without regard
to school-time, play-hours, or meals. It was not till
eleven that the work was finished and the Committee
adjourned. A jury, trying a charge of theft, deliberated
over its verdict from before noon till after
eight at night, The " School Magazine " records :
" The jury during this time suffered considerably, both
from cold and hunger, having had nothing to eat
from breakfast, at nine, till after the verdict was given."
In nine years nearly six hundred cases came before
the Court ;
out of these there were but nine appeals
to the Committee, which formed the Higher Court.
The part of the system which in my judgment is
most worthy of study
is that to which its founder gave
the name of " Voluntary Labour." So highly did he
himself think of it that he always reckoned it
among
the three inventions on which he might chiefly pride
himself. The other two were his Printing Press and
his Penny Postage. In an extract that I have given
from his Journal,* this device is partly explained. In
* See page 112.