ENGLISH COMMON SCHOOLS. 203 



CHAPTER XXX. 



Visit to Two English Common Schools. 



TN compliance with our desire to visit an English common 

 * school, we were driven from the castle to a village in the vi- 

 cinity, in which was a school for boys, under the guidance of the 

 British and Foreign Society, and one for girls under the control 

 of the National or State Church Society. The schoolhouse of 

 the former was a simple but tasteful stone building, standing a 

 little to one side, but not fenced off, from the principal street, 

 with a few large trees and a playground about it. The interior 

 was all in one room, except a small vestibule. It was well light- 

 ed, the walls were plastered and whitewashed, and had mottoes, 

 texts of Scripture, tables, charts, etc., hung upon them ; there 

 was no ceiling, but the rafters of the roof, which was high-peaked, 

 were exposed ; the floor was of stone. There were long desks 

 and benches all around against the wall, and others, the form of 

 which I do not remember, filling up the most of the body. The 

 house and furniture was much too small and scanty for the num- 

 ber of scholars present, and the labor of the teacher must have 

 been very arduous. 



The boys all rose as we entered, and remained standing dur- 

 ing our visit, a request from us that they might be seated not be- 



