TRAGIC INCIDENT AT THE BLUE COAT SCHOOL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 57, 8 March 1923, Page 10

TRAGIC INCIDENT AT THE BLUE COAT SCHOOL.

IS RAGGING HARMFUL 7 CANON LYTTELTOX'S VIEWS. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, January 26. An extraordinary incident, ' ending in tragedy, has just occurred at Christ's Hospital—the famous Blue Coat School—: Horeham, to which Susses rural resort, the Charterhouse School, «o much fame wae given br Thackeray in the "Newcoabe," and Sir Herbert Tree in the play adapted from it. One of the schoolboys, keener on science than on football, had fallen' somewhat into disgrace for bad play in He was called up and reproved, part of the reproof appearing to have consisted of a kick or two. The boy went away and stuck 1, a knife in his chest, which, penetrating, iujured the heart, and he died. At the inquest the view seems to have been held that the boy, wishing to make a demonstration, lad meant merely to hurt himself slightly, but did not realise the force of the somewhat heavy pocket knife which, he usdd, which, slipping between the ribs, peiietifjated the- heart. His demonstration meant to create pity, had had the fatal ossue we have described. The affair has naturally created much discussion of the ''ragging" understood to be a standing f#ture of schoolboy life at the great puDlie schools. To-day Canon Lyttelton, fbrmerly headmaster at Eton, div, clareflon tiiia subject that "when by some fataligy a tragedy happens it very rarely indeejf means that there has been any want :of vigilance or forethought; thou; iit is highly probable that the jiubli may think bo. The masters in charj of the school have a duty to the instil tion; but if they find it necessary to po it out that the school is not a hpthed < .horrors, cruelty, violence, and everVj! nameless excess known .to fallen humanity, they will be accused of being unsympathetic with the suffering relatfres.' Dr»O. Haig-Brown, of Charterhouse, eaid J iat he quite agreed that too much ragging might well upset the mind of a nervals boy. But at the same time ne eonsiasred that boys to-day were spared muclfitfiat their fathers had to endure. "I Save not heard of any ill en*?*n of ra eß*Sß during my forty year* experience mt Charterhouse," he added, "but it does aot- follow, of ■ course, that none has occulted." The medical officer of one of the largest publioj schools has said that nowadays he praeJAially never came across a case of fcullyjag—"that ■is a. relic of the darkages.* Where even a suspicion of such an affair came .to his knowledge, he had found that to mention it to the senior Boysver the headmaster had always been to «tej> it at once. Seriitive hoys, he agreed, however, •fteirhad a rough time of it without its coming to the cars of anyone in authority. v . Thje doctor of a public school in Essex wae of opinion that ragging, if, carried on unduly, would have an undoubtedly injurious effect upon a sensitive lad. "But °°, n °t where it is so carried on? , The headmaster (Mr. W. Hamilton We) yesterday said *he kicking of one *>y by another was noe officially allowed. -« V^? , f between 8W and 900 it would olwonriy be impossible to prevent i l b w ng given and ™<*ived. •yrteita'of ZT- CMy ta P»f»ta 1" any against the school, at CCl ' ns their hoy bey Say