The Schoolboy: Saint-Leons 



And this went on to twelve times twelve, the first 

 in the row starting the next table and the whole 

 class repeating it as loud as it could yell. Of all 

 that we were taught in school, the multiplication 

 table was what we knew best, for this noisy method 

 ended by dinning the different numbers into our 

 ears. This does not mean that we became skilful 

 reckoners. The cleverest of us easily got muddled 

 with the figures to be carried in a multiplication 

 sum. As for division, rare indeed were they who 

 reached such heights. In short, the moment a prob- 

 lem, however insignificant, had to be solved, we 

 had recourse to mental gymnastics much rather than 

 to the learned aid of arithmetic. 



This account cannot be suspected of any 

 malicious exaggeration: the narrator is too 

 full of sympathy for his old master to do 

 him anything less than justice. In any case 

 he bears him no grudge in respect of the de- 

 ficiencies of his teaching: 



When all is said, our master was an excellent 

 man who could have kept school very well but for 

 his lack of one thing: and that was time. He de- 

 voted to us all the little leisure which his numerous 

 functions left him. And first of all, he managed 

 the property of an absentee landowner, who only 

 occasionally set foot in the village. He had under 

 his care an old castle with four towers, which had 



33 



