72 IDLEHURST: 



self-assertive North-country nature on its worst side ; 

 absorbed in his own prospects, bounded by reports 

 and grants ; ready with his brutal slash at every fine 

 Gordian hitch of humours or chances. The effect of 

 his handling upon the peculiar half-shy, half-sullen 

 natures of the Sussex children is grievous. He might 

 have made a pavior or a rivetter, under an able fore- 

 man ; as a teacher of the elegancies of the Code, as 

 preceptor to some hundred opening intelligences 

 whose qualities would tax the powers of a philosophic 

 saint, Mr. Clegg is absolutely dreadful. 



But here in Arnington, with our docile Managers, 

 and the Rector to steer, we are not greatly superior in 

 our results, after all. Our Master and Mistress are 

 excellent people, who maintain their percentage with- 

 out a touch of Mr. Clegg's tyranny. The reason lies 

 in the whole plan of instruction ; in the rude whole- 

 sale classing, the mechanical methods, the ignoring of 

 the element of personal character. Not to mention 

 Mr. Clegg, our Mr. Attree is a melancholy instrument 

 for the building up of a democracy. His mild lower- 

 middle-class fundamentals, his modest capacities, 

 which being superior to the grocer-boy destiny of his 

 fellows, lifted him to a training-college and a painful 

 science, deep in decimals and nibbling at French and 

 the Gallic War ; what can they do towards the 



