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§ 38. In conclusion, I will give the chief points of the system in the words of one of its advocates and admirers, who was himself educated at Stonyhurst:

“Let us now try to put together the various pieces of this school machinery and study the effect. We have seen that the boys have masters entirely at their disposition, not only at class time, but at recreation time after supper in the night Reading Rooms. Each day they record victory or defeat in the recurring exercises or themes upon various matters. By the quarterly papers or examinations in composition, for which nine hours are assigned, the order of merit is fixed, and this order entails many little privileges and precedencies, in chapel, refectory, class room, and elsewhere. Each master, if he prove a success and his health permit, continues to be the instructor of the boys in his class during the space of six years. ‘It is obvious’ says Sheil, in his account of Stonyhurst, ‘that much of a boy’s acquirements, and a good deal of the character of his taste, must have depended upon the individual to whose instructions he was thus almost exclusively confined.’ And in many cases the effects must be a greater interest felt in the students by their teachers, a mutual attachment founded on long acquaintance, and a more thorough knowledge, on the part of the master, of the weak and strong points of his pupils. Add to the above, the ‘rival’ and ‘side’ system, the effect of challenges and class combats; of the wearing of decorations and medals by the Imperators on Sundays, Festival Days, Concertation Days, and Examination Days; of the extraordinary work—done much more as private than as class work—helping to give individuality to the boy’s exertions, which might otherwise be merged in the routine work of the class; and the ‘free time’ given for improvement on wet evenings and after night prayers; add the Honours Matter; the Reports read before the Rector and all subordinate Superiors, the Professors, and whole body of Students; add the competition in each class and between the various classes, and even between the various colleges in England of the Society; and only one conclusion can be arrived at. It is a system which everyone is free to admire or think inferior to some other preferred by him; but it is a system.” (Stonyhurst College, Present and Past, by A. Hewitson, 2nd edition, 1878, pp. 214, ff.)