f 



Youth and Education. 23 



so the exercise of his uncommon gifts as a teacher was 

 easy. Uncle Good held that the mind needed rather 

 to be provoked than informed. He cared little for 

 rote learning- ; his aim was to develop the thinking 

 faculty in his pupils by well-considered questions and 

 suggestions. Grammar was his strong point and a 

 parsing lesson his delight. He would start a question 

 of syntax, stimulate the expression of independent 

 opinion, and then show that the right answer proved 

 good grammar to be nothing else than good sense. Of 

 order, as commonly observed, there was little in Uncle 

 Good's school ; the pupils sat where they liked, moved 

 about freely, talked aloud if they chose, but seldom 

 lost sight of the work for which they had come to- 

 gether. The utmost familiarity subsisted between 

 pupils and teacher, but respect for him was never for- 

 gotten. He had his well-understood rules of conduct, 

 any breach of which drew down not the ferule but 

 something more dreadful still, his displeasure. He 

 gave pet names to the pupils, many of which, from 

 their aptness, stuck to them through life. From a 

 cross-beam above his chair — he had no desk — after a 

 lesson he would shake raisins and candy to the floor, 

 to be scrambled for by the children in the abandon- 

 ment of delight. 



For all their unconventionality. Uncle Good's meth- 

 ods proved sound, his pupils learned quickly and thor- 

 oughly, and illustrated the value of his great principle 

 — the right guidance of spontaneity. His fame not 

 only brought him all the children in the district, but 

 many candidates for the teaching office sought his 

 instruction. Edward plainly saw that it was Uncle 

 Good's rare personal qualities that enabled him to 

 dispense with the rigid rules needed by ordinary 



