A Letter to the Viscount Palmerston, M.P. &c. &c. &c. on the Monitorial System of Harrow School

A headmaster sets out a practical defence of the monitorial system used at his school, explaining that entrusted senior boys enforce everyday manners, order, and peer discipline in ways masters cannot. He contrasts this model with alternatives of intrusive adult supervision or monitors reduced to secret informers, warns of public unease and the potential abuse of corporal punishment, and argues that regulated, delegated authority—including traditional practices like fagging—best promotes the juniors’ welfare. Serious moral offences remain reserved for the master’s intervention, while routine discipline is left to the monitors’ independent but accountable judgment.