Is it really true that the behaviour of pupils was better in the past?

The illustration shows a scan of a page from the Prefects` Book of 1905. In case you are unable to make it out on your PC monitor, it reads as follows:

On December 19^th, 1905

    A meeting was called in the Lower VI Classroom, when it was proposed by the Senior Prefect that a notice should be posted on the School Board in the names of the Prefects, exhorting the School and O.M.s to refrain from throwing cushions across the room and breaking chairs at the end of the concert, as it was disreputable and disorderly. This was agreed to Nem. Con..

    It was then urged that it was essential that if on the evening itself this appeal was disregarded, force should be used to enforce its observance. And it was accordingly agreed that if there were any signs of this notice being disregarded, the prefects near the offenders should make for them and demolish them violently. All the prefects undertook to do this if necessary.

G.F.Fisher         

In order to understand the full significance of the above one needs to be aware of the following points:

1. In 1905 the end of term concerts were held in the old Upper School, (demolished in 1935, it had stood on the site of the grass plot in New Court) containing about 100 desks, this room would have been hopelessly overcrowded with the whole School jammed into it.
2. In those days the Michaelmas Terms would end about 20^th December so the university terms would be over, allowing recently left O.M. undergraduates to come back to M.C. for some fun! Clearly, trouble had taken place on this occasion in previous years and there was every reason to expect trouble again!
3. And the identity of the Senior Prefect? Geoffrey Francis Fisher was a boy at M.C. from January 1901 until July 1906. He was a member of C2 and played for the College Rugby XV in 1905. And what did he go on to do in his life? Well, among many other things, he was Headmaster of Repton, President of the Marlburian Club, Bishop of London and…. Archbishop of Canterbury!

Can there be a better example of “muscular Christianity” than the above ? And is it really true that the behaviour of boys was always better in the “good old days”?