3°2 



LIFE IN MONTREAL. [Chap. VII. 



His idea was — " Discipline first, and attempts at teaching 

 afterwards : " and he was now better able to carry it out. His 

 school was popular, and he could select from applicants those 

 whom he thought best fitted for him. He wrote (March, 1869) 

 that he had a very nice set of boys : the older class from fourteen 

 to eighteen years of age. " Dr. Sterry Hunt has been giving 

 a course of five Lectures in the evenings at the College, on 

 Metallurgy. It was something to bring a class of eleven in- 

 telligent boys, all taking notes, and writing out recollections 

 afterwards." His Prospectus shows a varied range of study, and 

 his care that the parents, by means of marks, etc., in the 

 monthly reports, should be enabled to note the progress (or 

 otherwise) of their sons. He found teaching exhausting \ which 

 was no wonder, because he threw both his heart and mind into 

 it. His school-house was his church : — " I expound the Scrip- 

 tures every morning to my little congregation of twenty children, 

 with a freedom on which I should not have ventured in an 

 English school of mixed sects. Perhaps I may sow as much 

 of the word as when I was minister at Warrington." At 

 another time he wrote : " It seems queer — living in a busy 

 city and taking no part in its affairs, rarely preaching or even 

 giving a temperance lecture, with no time to write in the papers 

 or see people. But I keep telling my boys what things they 

 will have to act out, when they are men." There are some 

 who think that though the master of a boarding-school should 

 regard himself as in the parent's place, day-scholars need only 

 be taught stated lessons. But he spoke to the boys as a 

 father might ; and gave them lessons on what was passing in 

 the world, and what was to be done to make it better and 

 happier. He had yearnings which earth can never satisfy : — 

 " If my stubborn heart can ever be purified, I always look for- 

 ward to some little humble corner for teaching boys in the next 

 world. They are, in my eyes, inexpressibly lovely. Here one 

 has to rein one's self in, and not show a millionth part of what 

 one feels towards them ; but there, I always fancy that one can 

 pour out one's whole soul into them, and lose one ; s self somehow 

 in their lovely natures." It was thus that his Lord discerned 



