But the mistake is on Southey's part; bullying, such as this child endured, while it makes the strong boys tyrants, makes the weak boys cowards, and teaches them to defend themselves by deceit, the fist of the weak.

The recollection of this boarding school mainly it was that at a later day inspired the plea for a home education in _Tirocinium_.
Then why resign into a stranger's hand A task as much within your own command, That God and nature, and your interest too, Seem with one voice to delegate to you?
Why hire a lodging in a house unknown For one whose tenderest thoughts all hover round your own?
This second weaning, needless as it is, How does it lacerate both your heart and his The indented stick that loses day by day Notch after notch, till all are smooth'd away, Bears witness long ere his dismission come, With what intense desire he wants his home.
But though the joys he hopes beneath your roof Bid fair enough to answer in the proof, Harmless, and safe, and natural as they are, A disappointment waits him even there: Arrived, he feels an unexpected change, He blushes, hangs his head, is shy and strange.
No longer takes, as once, with fearless ease, His favourite stand between his father's knees, But seeks the corner of some distant seat, And eyes the door, and watches a retreat, And, least familiar where he should be most, Feels all his happiest privileges lost.
Alas, poor boy!--the natural effect Of love by absence chill'd into respect.
From the boarding school, the boy, his eyes being liable to inflammation, was sent to live with an oculist, in whose house he spent two years, enjoying at all events a respite from the sufferings and the evils of the boarding school.

He was then sent to Westminster School, at that time in its glory.

That Westminster in those days must have been a scene not merely of hardship, but of cruel suffering and degradation to the younger and weaker boys, has been proved by the researches of the Public Schools Commission.

There was an established system and a regular vocabulary of bullying.