viii. PREFACE. 



reference to corn averages, that bread was then at least double the 

 price it is now. 



At the same time, should anyone invite me to give an apt 

 illustration to the text That " Creation groaneth and travaileth 

 until now," it would be that mathematics and dead languages — 

 the most dry and uninteresting of all subjects, except to an elect 

 few — form the chief items in the curriculum of our schools ; and 

 that the elect, who, as a matter of course, preside over the schools, 

 understanding and delighting in these subjects, are apt to give 

 short shrift and little commiseration to dull fellows like myself, 

 who don't — or at least didn't at the age of eight — share their 

 knowledge and enthusiasm. 



Those who are not fully aware how much humbug — unconscious 

 no doubt — there is, even amongst the best of men, may feel 

 surprised that the great moralist, and generally reasonable Dr. 

 Johnson, should always have expressed his approbation of enforcing 

 instruction by means of the rod ; and yet, not only do we find him 

 beating his schoolmistress, but also bitterly complaining of hie 

 master. " He used," he said, " to beat us unmercifully, and did 

 not distinguish between ignorance and negligence." If such things 

 were done to the green tree, what must have been done to the 

 dry ? If the owner of such an intellect complains, how must 

 the dunces have suffered ? We also find Boswell and his patron 

 laying their heads together to defend a ruffian — whose salary 

 appears to have been only £2.0, and therefore plainly of the 

 cheap and nasty type — who had been " somewhat severe " in 

 the chastisement of his scholars. " This man," says the great 



