60 



EDUCATION OF HIS SON ROBERT. 



CHAP. V. 



the engine was a sort of wag, and thinking to get a 

 laugh at the boy, he said, " Those bars are getting varra 

 bad, Eobert ; I think we maun cut up some of that hard 

 wood, and put it in instead." " What would be the use 

 of that, you fool ? " said the boy quickly. " You would 

 no sooner have put them in than they would be burnt 

 out again ! " 



i So soon as Robert was of a proper age, his father sent 

 I him over to the road-side school at Long Benton, kept by 

 I Rutter, the parish clerk. But the education which Rutter 

 could give was of a very limited kind, scarcely extending 

 beyond the primer and pothooks. While working as a 

 brakesman on the pit-head at Killingworth, the father 

 had often bethought him of the obstructions he had 

 himself encountered in life through his own want of 

 schooling ; and he formed the noble determination that 

 no labour, nor pains, nor self-denial on his part should be 

 spared to furnish his son with the best education that it 

 was in his power to bestow. 



ROTTER'S SCHOOL HOUSE, LONU 



[By R. P Leitch.j 



