Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 1.djvu/69

 My captain said that every thing found its level in a man-of-war. True; but ina midshipman's berth it was the level.of a savage, where corporeal strength was the sine gua non, and decided whether you were to act the part of a tyrant or a slave. The discipline of public schools, bad and demoralizing as it is, was light, compared to the tyranny of a midshipman's berth in 1803.

A mistaken notion has long prevailed, that boys derive advantages from suffering under the tyranny of their oppressors at school; and we constantly hear the praises of public schools and midshipmen's berths on this very account, namely, "that boys are taught to find their level." I do not mean to deny but that the higher orders improve by collision with their inferiors, and that a young aristocrat is often brought to his senses by receiving a sound threshing from the son of a tradesman. But he that is brought up a slave, will be a tyrant when he has the power; the worst of our passions are nourished to inflict the same evil on others which we boast of