He would deliver a series of sermons analysing 'the six
vices' by which 'great schools were corrupted, and changed from
the likeness of God's temple to that of a den of thieves'. He
would exhort, he would denounce, he would sweep through the
corridors, he would turn the pages of Facciolati's Lexicon more
imposingly than ever; and the rest he would leave to the
Praepostors in the Sixth Form.
Upon the boys in the Sixth Form, indeed, a strange burden would
seem to have fallen. Dr. Arnold himself was very well aware of
this. 'I cannot deny,' he told them in a sermon, 'that you have
an anxious duty-- a duty which some might suppose was too heavy
for your years'; and every term he pointed out to them, in a
short address, the responsibilities of their position, and
impressed upon them 'the enormous influence' they possessed 'for
good or for evil'. Nevertheless most youths of seventeen, in
spite of the warnings of their elders, have a singular trick of
carrying moral burdens lightly. The Doctor might preach and look
grave; but young Brooke was ready enough to preside at a fight
behind the Chapel, though he was in the Sixth, and knew that
fighting was against the rules. At their best, it may be supposed
that the Praepostors administered a kind of barbaric justice; but
they were not always at their best, and the pages of "Tom Brown's
Schooldays" show us what was no doubt the normal condition of
affairs under Dr.
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