202 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FAKM. 



and Senior-wranglers! But if you want to know 

 the real value and blessing of that tedious operation 

 that seems to cut up our early liberties, for so many 

 years, into "morning and evening lessons," watch 

 the efforts of a naturally strong and gifted mind, 

 struggling in the after-years of life against the ste- 

 reotyped effects of early neglect. 



There is no class, probably, in society, among 

 whom more striking instances of this occur than 

 the agricultural : none, perhaps, in which there is 

 less of what is called " book-learning ; " none, cer- 

 tainly, in which there is more of natural shrewdness, 

 and a sort of furtive observation which shrinks from 

 being itself observed, paying the tribute of a kind 

 of secret intelligence and appreciation to qualifi- 

 cations and attainments which it never affects, and, 

 to the careless eye, appears to despise. But it 

 discriminates nicely. For Nature is a schoolmaster 

 that teaches without spelling-books. To the hus- 

 bandman, toiling early and late, her rede goeth 

 forth, but not in speech nor language : it inwardly 

 informs : and as the teacher teaches, so the scholar 

 learns. 



Such was the case with my good friend Mr. Green- 

 ino-: for I have tried to delineate his character, 



rt * 



which was an admirable type of a class still little 



