174 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



from school, or college, were all, Heaven help our 

 First-class-men and Senior- wranglers ! But if you 

 want to know the real value and blessing of that tedi- 

 ous operation that seems to cut up our early liberties, 

 for so many years, into 'morning and evening les- 

 sons/ watch the efforts of a naturally strong and gifted 

 mind, struggling in the after-years of life against the 

 stereotyped effects of early neglect. 



There is no class, probably, in society, amongst 

 whom more striking instances of this occur than the 

 agricultural : none, perhaps, in which there is less of 

 what is called ' book-learning -,' none, certainly, 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 intel- 

 ligence and appreciation to qualifications and attain- 

 ments which it never affects, and, to the careless eye, 

 appears to despise. But it discriminates nicely. For 

 Nature is a schoolmaster that teaches without spell- 

 ing-books. To the husbandman, 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- 

 ing ; for I have tried to delineate his character, 



