Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/137

 FAFNIR, in Scandinavian mythology, the son of the giant Hreidmar. He was the guardian of the hoard of the Nibelungs and was killed by Sigurd.

FAGGING (from “fag,” meaning “weary”; of uncertain etymology), in English public schools, a system under which, generally with the full approval of the authorities, a junior boy performs certain duties for a senior. In detail this custom varies slightly in the different schools, but its purpose—the maintenance of discipline among the boys themselves—is the same. Dr Arnold of Rugby defined fagging as “the power given by the supreme authorities of the school to the Sixth Form, to be exercised by them over the lower boys, for the sake of securing a regular government among the boys themselves, and avoiding the evils of anarchy; in other words, of the lawless tyranny of brute force.” Fagging was a fully established system at Eton and Winchester in the 16th century, and is probably a good deal older. That the advantages of thus granting the boys a kind of autonomy have stood the test of time is obvious from the fact that in almost all the great public schools founded during the 19th century, fagging has been deliberately adopted by the authorities. The right to fag carries with it certain well-defined duties. The fag-master is the protector of his fags, and responsible for their happiness and good conduct. In cases of bullying or injustice their appeal is to him, not to the form or house master, and, except in the gravest cases, all such cases are dealt with by the fag-master on his own responsibility and without report to the master. Until recent years a fag’s duties included such humble tasks as blacking boots, brushing clothes, and cooking breakfasts, and there was no limit as to hours; almost all the fag’s spare time being so monopolized. This is now changed. Fagging is now restricted to such light tasks as running errands, bringing tea to the “master’s” study, and fagging at cricket or football. At Eton there is no cricket fagging, and at most schools it is made lighter by all the fags taking their turn in regular order for one hour, so that each boy has to “fag” but once in so many weeks. At Rugby there is “study-fagging”—two fags being assigned to each Sixth Form boy and made responsible for the sweeping out and tidying up of his study alternately each week,—and “night-fagging”—running errands for the Sixth between 8.30 and 9.30 every evening,—and each boy can choose whether he will be a study-fag or night-fag. The right to fag is usually restricted to the Sixth Form, but at Eton the privilege is also granted the Fifth, and at Marlborough and elsewhere the Eleven have a right to fag at cricket, whether in the Sixth or not.

FAGGOT, a bundle of sticks used for firewood. The word is adapted from the Fr. fagot, and appears in Italian as fagotto, the name given to the (q.v.). “Faggot” is frequently used with reference to the burning of heretics, and recanted heretics wore an embroidered faggot on the arm as a symbol of the punishment they had escaped. In the 18th century the word is used of a “dummy” soldier, appearing on the rolls of a regiment. It is this use, coupled with the idea of a bundle of sticks as being capable of subdivision, that appears in the expression “faggot-vote,” a vote artificially created by the minute splitting up of property so as to give a bare qualification for the franchise.

FAGNIEZ, GUSTAVE CHARLES (1842–), French historian and economist, was born in Paris on the 6th of October 1842. Trained at the École des Chartes and the École des Hautes Études, he made his first appearance in the world of scholarship as the author of an excellent book called Études sur l’industrie et la classe industrielle à Paris au XIII&#8202;e et au XIV&#8202;e siècle (1877). This work, composed almost entirely from documents, many unpublished, opened a new field for historical study. Twenty years later he supplemented this book by an interesting collection of Documents relatifs à l’histoire de l’industrie et du commerce en France (2 vols., 1898–1900), and in 1897 he published L’Économie sociale de la France sous Henri IV, a volume containing the results of very minute research. He did not, however, confine himself to economic history. His Le Père Joseph et Richelieu (1894), though somewhat frigid and severe, is based on a mass of unpublished information, and shows remarkable psychologic grasp. In 1878 his Journal parisien de Jean de Maupoint, prieur de Ste Catherine-de-la-Couture was published in vol. iv. of the Mémoires de la société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France. He wrote numerous articles in the Revue historique (of which he was co-director with Gabriel Monod for some years) and in other learned reviews, such as the Revue des questions historiques and the Journal des savants. In 1901 he was elected member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

FAGUET, ÉMILE (1847–), French critic and man of letters, was born at La Roche sur Yon on the 17th of December 1847. He was educated at the normal school in Paris, and after teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux he came to Paris. After acting as assistant professor of poetry in the university he became professor in 1897. He was elected to the academy in 1900, and received the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in the next year. He acted as dramatic critic to the Soleil; from 1892 he was literary critic to the Revue bleue; and in 1896 took the place of M. Jules Lemaître on the Journal des débats. Among his works are monographs on Flaubert (1899), André Chénier (1902), Zola (1903); an admirably concise Histoire de la littérature française depuis le XVII&#8202;e siècle jusqu’à nos jours; series of literary studies on the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries; Questions politiques (1899); Propos littéraires (3 series, 1902–1905); Le Libéralisme (1902); and L’Anticléricalisme (1906).

See A. Séché, Émile Faguet (1904).

FA-HIEN (fl. 399–414), Chinese Buddhist monk, pilgrim-traveller, and writer, author of one of the earliest and most valuable Chinese accounts of India. He started from Changgan or Si-gan-fu, then the capital of the Tsin empire, and passing the Great Wall, crossed the “River of Sand” or Gobi Desert beyond, that home of “evil demons and hot winds,” which he vividly describes,—where the only way-marks were the bones of the dead, where no bird appeared in the air above, no animal on the ground below. Arriving at Khotan, the traveller witnessed a great Buddhist festival; here, as in Yarkand, Afghanistan and other parts thoroughly Islamized before the close of the middle ages, Fa-Hien shows us Buddhism still prevailing. India was reached by a perilous descent of “ten thousand cubits” from the “wall-like hills” of the Hindu Kush into the Indus valley (about 402); and the pilgrim passed the next ten years in the “central” Buddhist realm,—making journeys to Peshawur and Afghanistan (especially the Kabul region) on one side, and to the Ganges valley on another. His especial concern was the exploration of the scenes of Buddha’s life, the copying of Buddhist texts, and converse with the Buddhist monks and sages whom the Brahmin reaction had not yet driven out. Thus we find him at Buddha’s birthplace on the Kohana, north-west of Benares; in Patna and on the Vulture Peak near Patna; at the Jetvana monastery in Oudh; as well as at Muttra on the Jumna, at Kanauj, and at Tamluk near the mouth of the Hugli. But now the narrative, which in its earlier portions was primarily historical and geographical, becomes mystical and theological; miracle-stories and meditations upon Buddhist moralities and sacred memories almost entirely replace matters of fact. From the Ganges delta Fa-Hien sailed with a merchant ship, in fourteen days, to Ceylon, where he transcribed all the sacred books, as yet unknown in China, which he could find; witnessed the festival of the exhibition of Buddha’s tooth; and remarked the trade of Arab merchants to the island, two centuries before Mahomet. He returned by sea to the mouth of the Yangtse-Kiang, changing vessels at Java, and narrowly escaping shipwreck or the fate of Jonah.

Fa-Hien’s work is valuable evidence to the strength, and in many places to the dominance, of Buddhism in central Asia and in India at the time of the collapse of the Roman empire in western Europe. His tone throughout is that of the devout, learned, sensible, rarely hysterical pilgrim-traveller. His record is careful and accurate, and most of his positions can be identified; his devotion is so strong that it leads him to depreciate China as a “border-land,” India the home of Buddha being the true “middle kingdom” of his creed.