THE SCHOOL-HOUSE. 
359 
ambition of becoming a greater " settlement ;" it is only then that 
trees which a few years before were all blindly cut away, are 
now carefully replaced by regular plantations, and the general 
aspect of things is brought imder consideration. But the hamlet 
ai the Red Brook has not yet reached this point of progress. Man}^ 
trees have been cut down, scarce, one set out. There is not even 
a classic birch within shading distance of the school-house ; one 
looks in vain for the 
" birchen tree 
Which learning near her little dome did stowe." 
The "birchen twig," that whilome sceptre of power in tlie hand 
of dame or master, is, however, no longer an essential part of the 
school-house furniture ; like Solomon's rod, it has well nio-h be- 
come a mere tradition. The red-cherry ruler is in modern times 
the ensign of office. 
Many, indeed, are the changes that have taken place, without 
and within the school-house walls, since the days of Slienstone 
and the dame who taught him his A B C, a hundred years ago. 
It is no longer a " matron old whom we school-mistress name," 
who is found presiding there ; and all that part of the description 
which refers to her, has become quite obsolete : 
" Albeit ne flattery did corrupt her truth, 
Ne pompous title did deoauch her ear, 
Goody — good-woman — gossip — n'aunt, forsooth, 
Or dame, the sole additions she did hear." 
An elderly person acting as master or mistress of a common 
school, is an unheard of circumstance throughout the country ; it 
may be doubted if such an individual could be found between the 
