“Although, as he told them, he was happy to trust them and risk being let down, and although his ideal when he ser out in 1863 was to rule by kindness, Wilson did beat boys. Those who lied or cheated were invariably caned. Among snippets of evidence about his practice there is T. Aylesbury Brown’s recollection of only once seeing the tawse in the five years he was at school between 1889 and 1893. Even so, it was used with vigour a horrifying twelve times to each hand of a boy who had been impertinent to a master. Wilson, who had limped to the classroom to give the strap, sent the boy to his dormitory, from where, apparently, he packed himself off home.”