EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 265 



plains them with great simplicity. He is, however, liable to interruption in 

 his academic labours, a* his wife keeps a mangle > and he is obliged to turn it for 

 her. 



"Occasionally, in some of the more respectable districts there are still to be 

 found one or two of the old primitive dame-schools, kept by a tidy elderly fe- 

 male, whose school has an appearance of neatness and order, which strongly 

 distinguishes it from the generality of this class of schools. The terms, how- 

 ever, are here somewhat higher, and the children evidently belong to a more 

 respectable class of parents." 



Those of our readers who do not know the miserable and degraded 

 condition of rural teachers male teachers we" mean might suppose 

 that a report somewhat more creditable might be given of them. 

 We quote the report literally : 



" One of these teachers observed, during a visit paid to his school, that there 

 were too many schools to do any good, adding, ' I wish government would 

 pass a law that nobody but them as is high larnt should keep school, and then 

 we might stand a chance to do some good. 



" Most of the masters and mistresses of these schools seemed to be strongly 

 impressed with the superiority of their own plans to those of any other school, 

 and were very little inclined to listen to any suggestions respecting improve- 

 ments in the system of education that had been made in other places. ' The 

 old road is the best/ they would sometimes say. One master stated that he had 

 adopted a system which he thought would at once supply the great desi- 

 derata in education. ' It is simply," he said, ' in watching the dispositions of 

 the children, and putting them especially to that particular thing which they 

 take to/ In illustration of this system, he called upon a boy about ten years 

 of age, who had taken to Hebrew, and was just beginning to learn it ; the 

 master acknowledging that he himself was learning too, in order to teach his 

 pupil. On being asked whether he did not now and then find a few who did 

 not take to any thing, he acknowledged that it was so ; and this, he said, was 

 the only weak point in his system, as he feared that he should not be able to 

 make much of those children. 



" One of these masters, who was especially conscious of the superior ex- 

 cellence of his establishment, began to dilate upon the various sciences with 

 which he was familiar, among which he enumerated Hydraulics, Hydrostatics, 

 Geography, Geology, Etymology, and Entomology. It was suggested to him 

 that they had better perhaps take the list of queries in their order/On coming 

 to the subjects taught in the schools, he was asked, Do you teach Reading 

 ar?d Writing ? ' Yes !' Arithmetic ? ' Yes !' Grammar and Composition ? 

 ' Certainly !' French ? ' Yes !' Latin ? ' Yes !' Greek ?- ' Yes, yes/ 

 Geography ? ' Yes,' &c., and so on till the list of queries was exhausted, 

 answering every question in the affirmative. As he concluded the visitor re- 

 marked, ' This is multum in parvo indeed !' to which the master replied, ' Yes, 

 I teach that ; you may put that down too/ '' 



Without arresting our readers' attention by the wretched joke im- 

 plied (no fault of the reporters) in the above statement, we cannot 

 help calling their attention very seriously to the degraded con- 

 dition of the masters which is so strongly marked by these reports. 



Of the morals of these gentry the evidence is not a whit less con- 

 clusive. Instance the three cases here given. 



" The Committee met with two instances of schools kept by masters of some 

 abilities, but much given to drinking, who had, however, gained such a re- 

 putation in their neighbourhood that, after spending a week or fortnight in 

 this pastime, they could always fill their school-rooms again as soon as they 

 returned to their post. The children during the absence of the masters go to 



