They could pardon,
but they could assign no punishments, nor make laws inflicting any.
Now such a plan as this may succeed for a short time, and under very
favorable circumstances; and the circumstance which it is chiefly
important should be favorable is, that the man who is called to preside
over such an association should possess such talents of _generalship_
that he can really manage the institution _himself_, while the power is
_nominally_ and _apparently_ in the hands of the boys. Should this not
be the case, or should the teacher, from any cause, lose his personal
influence in the school, so that the institution should really be
surrendered into the hands of the pupils, things must be on a very
unstable footing. And, accordingly, where such a plan has been adopted,
it has, I believe, in every instance, been ultimately abandoned.
_Real self-government_ is an experiment sufficiently hazardous among
men, though Providence, in making a daily supply of food necessary for
every human being, has imposed a most powerful check upon the tendency
to anarchy and confusion. Let the populace of Paris or of London
materially interrupt the order and break in upon the arrangements of the
community, and in eight-and-forty hours nearly the whole of the mighty
mass will be in the hands of the devourer, hunger, and they will be soon
brought to submission. On the other hand, a month's anarchy and
confusion in a college or an academy would be delight to half the
students, or else times have greatly changed since I was within college
walls.
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