Whether the authorities themselves approved of the Headmaster’s practical joke is not known, but a partial indication is found in the fact that, on the subsequent disbandment of the school for the reasons already given, no mention was made of the Wildman incident, which would surely have supplied useful fuel for an attack on the School’s policy, had it been desired to stress this point.
The reader may well begin to wonder, what was Wildman’s exact aim: this can be answered fairly succinctly, though the psychology of the man himself calls for far deeper discussion. Wildman, who had suffered from accidents that might have affected his brain, seemed sincerely to believe it his mission to spread the doctrine of corporal punishment. In a world where such punishment had already greatly diminished both in quantity and in force, he saw himself somehow as an apostolic figure.