12 AN EXCELLENT INSTRUCTOR 



However, in the course of the first twelve months of 

 my stay, the principal died, and the scholars were sent 

 home, some of them never to return. This was not my 

 case ; at the request of the widow I was allowed to 

 remain, and after a little time the school was conducted 

 by a gentleman who had graduated at Oxford. Then, 

 indeed, did a revolution take place in that afterwards 

 most excellent school — and then did my young mind 

 first begin to find pleasure in learning. The petty 

 tyrant who had exercised such arbitrary and cruel rule, 

 always carrying in his pocket a peculiar instrument of 

 punishment of his own invention, with which he struck 

 terror and hatred into the hearts of most of the scholars — 

 to my great relief and joy was sent away. No usher 

 was allowed to strike a boy under any circumstances. 

 Chastisement was administered by the master's hand 

 alone, and so superior was the system this excellent 

 man judiciously adopted, that the cries of a delinquent 

 were seldom heard. By his easy and temperate method, 

 learning was made attractive to even the unAvilling mind. 

 The most sullen temper was subdued by his kind and 

 persuasive manner. He was at once a well-bred gentle- 

 man, an accomplished scholar, and a sincere Christian, 

 and possessed by nature the power of drawing and 

 attaching to him the aftection as well as the obedience 

 and esteem of his pupils. Naturally of an inquisitive 

 disposition, I was led by this good man to drink at the 

 fountain of knowledge. It is true I could si]) but little, 

 and but little I may have retained, through a long and 

 fitful existence ; but young though I was, I can well 

 remember he was the first to pour into my heart, from 



