Although English public schools project an image of clean, polite, and uniformed boys living together in collective worship of God, team games, and academic standards, the early years of these schools had a reality that was far different. The public school that existed before the Clarendon Commission reforms of 1862-64 was a jungle inhabited by a warlike tribe of self-governing boys, into whose social, sporting, and moral lives the masters were not admitted. Boys were chiefly educated by street fighting, poaching, and rioting, and, according to the political enemies of the schools, acquiring...