260 CANADIAN LOCAL HISTORY : 



building. On tills platform the public recitations also took place ; and here on some of the 

 anniversaries a drama by Milman or Hannah More was enacted. Here we ourselves took part 

 ■'n one of the hymns or choruses of the "Martyr of Antioch." 



XIII.— DISTRICT GRAMMAR SCHOOL— (Continued.) 

 The immediate successor of Dr. Strachan in the school was Mr. Samuel Armour, a graduate 

 of Glasgow, whose profile resembled that of Cicero, as shewn in some engravings. Being fond 

 of sporting, his excitement was great when the flocks of wild pigeons were passing over the 

 town and the report of flre-arms in all directions was to be heard. During the hours of school 

 his attention, on these occasions, would be much drawn off from the class-subjects. In those 

 days there was not a plentiful supply in the town of every book wanted in the school. The 

 only copy that could be procured of a "Eutropius" which we ourselves on a particular occasion 

 required, was one with an English translation at the end. The book was bought, Mr. Armour 

 stipulating that the English portion of the volume should be sewn up : in fact, he himself 

 stitched the leaves together. In Mr. Armour's time there was, for some reason now forgotten, 

 a barring-out. A pile of heavy wood (sticks of cordwood whole used then to be thrust into the 

 great school-room stove) was built against the door vrithin ; and the master had to effect, and 

 did effect, an entrance into his school through a window on the north side. Mr. A. became 

 afterwards a clergyman of the English Church, and officiated for many years in the township of 

 Cavan. 



The master who succeeded to Mr. Armour was Dr. Phillips, who came out from England to 

 take charge of the school. He had been previously master of a school at Whitchurch, in Here. 

 fordshire. His degree was from Cambridge, where he graduated as a B.A. of Queen's in the 

 year 1805. He was a venerable-looking man — the very ideal, outwardly, of an English country 

 parson of an old type — a figure in the general scene, that would have been taken note of con- 

 genially by Puller or Antony a Wood. The costume in which he always appeared (shovel-hat 

 included), was that usually assumed by the senior clergy some years ago. He also wore powder 

 in the hair, except when in mourning. According to the standards of the day he was an accom- 

 plished scholar, and a good reader and writer of English. He introduced into the school at 

 York the English public-school traditions of the strictest type. His text books were those 

 published and used at Eton, as Eton then was. The Eton Latin Grammar, without note or 

 comment, , displaced -" Ruddiman's Rudiments" — the book to which we had previously been, 

 accustomed, and which really did give hints of something rational underlying what we learnt 

 out of it. Even the Eton Greek Grammar, in its purely mediseval untranslated state, made its 

 appearance : it was through the medium of that very uninviting manual that we obtained our 

 earliest acquaintance with.tlie first elements of the Greek tongue. Our "Paleephatus" and other 

 Extracts m the Grceca Minora were translated by us, not into English, but into Latin, in which, 

 language all the notes and elucidations of difficulties in that book were given. Very many of 

 the Greek "genitives absolute," we remember, were to be rendered by quum, with a subjunc- 

 tive pluperfect — an enormous mystery to us at the time. Our Lexicon was Schrevelius, as yet 

 un-Englished. For the Greek Testament we had "Dawson," a vocabulary couched in the Latin 

 tongue, notwithstanding the author's name. The thickets across the path to knowledge were 

 numerous and dense. The Latin translation, line for line, at the end of Clarke's Homer, as 

 also the Ordo in the Delphin classics, were held to be mischievous aids, but the help was slight 

 that could be derived from them, as the Latin language itself was not yet grasped. For what- 

 ever of the anomalous we moderns may observe in all this, let the good old traditional school- 

 system of England be responsible — not the accojnplished and benevolent man who transplanted 

 the system, pure and simple, to Canadian ground- For ourselves : in one point of view, we 

 deem it a piece of singular good fortune to have been subjected for a time to this sort of driU ; 

 for it has enabled us to entet with intelligence into the discussions on English education that 

 have marked the era in which we live. Without this jnorsel of experience we should have 

 known only by vague report at what the reviewers and .essayists of England were aiming their 

 attacks. Our early recollections in this regard, we treasure up now among our mental curiosi- 

 ties, with thanltfulness ; just as we treasure up our memories of the few years which, in the 

 .days of our youth, 'we had an opportunity of passing in .the old father-land, while yet mail 



