Tom Brown's Schooldays [antikvár]

PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION I received the following letter from an old friend soon after the last edition of this book was published, and resolved, if ever another edition were called for, to print it. For it is clear from this and other like comments, that something more should have been said expressly on the subject of bullying, and how it is to be met. My dear — I blame myself for not having earlier suggested whether you could not, in another edition of Tom Brown or another story, denounce more decidedly the evils of bullying at schools. You have indeed done so, and in the best way, by making Flashman the bully the most contemptible character; but in that scene of the tossing, and similar passages, you hardly suggest that such things should be stopped - and do not suggest any means of putting an end to them. This subject has been on my mind for years. It fills me with grief and misery to think what weak and nervous children go through at school - how their health and character for life are destroyed by rough and brutal treatment. It was some comfort to be under the old delusion that fear and nervousness can be cured by violence, and that knocking about will turn a timid boy into a bold one. But now we know well enough that is not true. Gradually training a timid child to do bold acts would be most desirable; hut frightening him and ill-treating him will not make him courageous. Every medical man knows the fatal effects of terror, or agitation, or excitement, to nerves that are oversensitive. There are different kinds of courage, as you have shown in your character of Arthur. A boy may have moral courage, and a finely organised brain and nervous system. Such a boy is calculated, if judiciously educated, to be a great, wise, and useful man; but he may not possess animal courage-, and one night's tossing, or bullying,