"I do not whip my pupils," said Miss Wilson indignantly. "The comparison
is an outrage."

"But you expel them; and, as they are devoted to you and to the place,
expulsion is a dreaded punishment. Yours is the old system of making
laws and enforcing them by penalties, and the superiority of Alton
College to other colleges is due, not to any difference of system,
but to the comparative reasonableness of its laws and the mildness and
judgment with which they are enforced."

"My system is radically different from the old one. However, I will not
discuss the matter with you. A mind occupied with the prejudices of the
old coercive despotism can naturally only see in the new a modification
of the old, instead of, as my system is, an entire reversal or
abandonment of it."

He shook his head sadly and said: "You seek to impose your ideas on
others, ostracizing those who reject them. Believe me, mankind has been
doing nothing else ever since it began to pay some attention to ideas.
It has been said that a benevolent despotism is the best possible form
of government. I do not believe that saying, because I believe another
one to the effect that hell is paved with benevolence, which most
people, the proverb being too deep for them, misinterpret as unfulfilled
intentions. As if a benevolent despot might not by any error of judgment
destroy his kingdom, and then say, like Romeo when he got his friend
killed, 'I thought all for the best!' Excuse my rambling. I meant to
say, in short, that though you are benevolent and judicious you are none
the less a despot."

Miss Wilson, at a loss for a reply, regretted that she had not, before