_ In the course of a short time Mat was dressed, and having found benefit from the "hair of the dog that bit him," he tried another glass, which strung his nerves, or, as he himself expressed it--"they've got the rale mathematical tinsion again." What the farmer said, however, about the school-house had been true. Early that morning all the growing and grown young men of Findramore and its "vircinity" had assembled, selected a suitable spot, and, with merry hearts, were then busily engaged in erecting a school-house for their general accomodation.
The manner of building hedge school-houses being rather curious, I will describe it. The usual spot selected for their erection is a ditch in the road-side; in some situation where there will be as little damp as possible. From such a spot an excavation is made equal to the size of the building, so that, when this is scooped out, the back side-wall, and the two gables are already formed, the banks being dug perpendicularly. The front side-wall, with a window in each side of the door, is then built of clay or green sods laid along in rows; the gables are also topped with sods, and, perhaps, a row or two laid upon the back side-wall, if it should be considered too low. Having got the erection of Mat's house thus far, they procured a scraw-spade, and repaired with a couple of dozen of cars to the next bog, from which they cut the light heathy surface in strips the length of the roof. A scraw-spade is an instrument resembling the letter T, with an iron plate at the lower end, considerably bent, and well adapted to the purpose for which it is intended. Whilst one party cut the scraws, another bound the
couples and bauks* and a third cut as many green branches as were sufficient to wattle it. The couples, being bound, were raised--the ribs laid on--then the wattles, and afterwards the scraws.
* The couples are shaped like the letter A, and sustain the roof; the bauks, or rafters, cross them from one side to another like the line inside the letter.
Whilst these successive processes went forward, many others had been engaged all the morning cutting rushes; and the scraws were no sooner laid on, than half a dozen thatchers mounted the roof, and long before the evening was closed, a school-house, capable of holding near two hundred children, was finished. But among the peasantry no new house is ever put up without a hearth-warming and a dance. Accordingly the clay floor was paired--a fiddler procured--Barny Brady and his stock of poteen sent for; the young women of the village and surrounding neighborhood attended in their best finery; dancing commenced--and it was four o'clock the next morning when the merry-makers departed, leaving Mat a new home and a hard floor, ready for the reception of his scholars.
Business now commenced. At nine o'clock the next day Mat's furniture was settled in a small cabin, given to him at a cheap rate by one of the neighboring farmers; for, whilst the school-house was being built, two men, with horses and cars, had gone to Clansallagh, accompanied by Nancy, and removed the furniture, such as it was, to their new residence. Nor was Mat, upon the whole, displeased at what had happened; for he was now fixed in a flourishing country--fertile and well cultivated; nay, the bright landscape which his school-house commanded was sufficient in itself to reconcile him to his situation. The inhabitants were in comparatively good circumstances; many of them wealthy, respectable farmers, and capable of remunerating him very decently for his literary labors; and what was equally flattering, there was a certainty of his having a numerous and well-attended school in a neighborhood with whose inhabitants he was acquainted.
Honest, kind-hearted Paddy!--pity that you should ever feel distress or hunger--pity that you should be compelled to seek, in another land, the hard-earned pittance by which you keep the humble cabin over your chaste wife and naked children! Alas! what noble materials for composing a national character, of which humanity might be justly proud, do the lower orders of the Irish possess, if raised and cultivated by an enlightened education! Pardon me, gentle reader, for this momentary ebullition; I grant I am a little dark now. I assure you, however, the tear of enthusiastic admiration is warm on my eye-lids, when I remember the flitches of bacon, the sacks of potatoes, the bags of meal, the miscowns of butter, and the dishes of eggs--not omitting crate after crate of turf which came in such rapid succession to Mat Kavanagh, during the first week on which he opened his school. Ay, and many a bottle of stout poteen, when
"The eye of the gauger saw it not,"
was, with a sly, good-humored wink, handed over to Mat, or Nancy, no matter which, from under the comfortable drab jock, with velvet-covered collar, erect about the honest, ruddy face of a warm, smiling farmer, or even the tattered frieze of a poor laborer--anxious to secure the attention of the "masther" to his little "Shoneen," whom, in the extravagance of his ambition, he destined to "wear the robes as a clargy." Let no man say, I repeat, that the Irish are not fond of education.
In the course of a month Mat's school was full to the door posts, for, in fact, he had the parish to himself--many attending from a distance of three, four, and five miles. His merits, however, were believed to be great, and his character for learning stood high, though unjustly so: for a more superficial, and at the same time, a more presuming dunce never existed; but his character alone could secure him a good attendance; he, therefore, belied the unfavorable prejudices against the Findramore folk, which had gone abroad, and was a proof, in his own person, that the reason of the former schoolmasters' miscarriage lay in the belief of their incapacity which existed among the people. But Mat was one of those showy, shallow fellows, who did not lack for assurance.
The first step a hedge schoolmaster took, on establishing himself in a school, was to write out, in his best copperplate hand, a flaming advertisement, detailing, at full length, the several branches he professed himself capable of teaching. I have seen many of these--as who that is acquainted with Ireland has not?--and, beyond all doubt, if the persons that issued them were acquainted with the various heads recapitulated, they must have been buried in the most profound obscurity, as no man but a walking Encyclopaedia--an admirable Crichton--could claim an intimacy with them, embracing, as they often did, the whole circle of human knowledge. 'Tis true, the vanity of the pedagogue had full scope in these advertisements, as there was none to bring him to an account, except some rival, who could only attack him on those practical subjects which were known to both. Independently of this, there was a good-natured collusion between them on those points which were beyond their knowledge, inasmuch as they were not practical but speculative, and by no means involved their character or personal interests. On the next Sunday, therefore, after Mat's establishment at Findrainore, you might see a circle of the peasantry assembled at the chapel door, perusing, with suitable reverence and admiration on their faces, the following advertisement; or, perhaps, Mat himself, with a learned, consequential air, in the act of "expounding" it to them.
"Mr. Matthew Kavanagh, Philomath and' Professor of the Learned Languages, begs leave to inform the Inhabitants of Findramore and' its vicinity, that he lectures on the following branches of Education, in his Seminary at the above-recited place:--
"Spelling, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, upon altogether new principles, hitherto undiscovered by any excepting himself, and for which he expects a Patent from Trinity College, Dublin; or, at any rate, from Squire Johnston, Esq., who paternizes many of the pupils; Book-keeping, by single and double entry--Geometry, Trigonometry, Stereometry, Mensuration, Navigation, Guaging, Surveying, Dialling, Astronomy, Astrology, Austerity, Fluxions, Geography, ancient and modern--Maps, the Projection of the Sphere--Algebra, the Use of the Globes, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Pneumatics, Optics, Dioptics, Catroptics, Hydraulics, Erostatics, Geology, Glorification, Divinity, Mythology, Medicinality, Physic, by theory only, Metaphysics practically, Chemistry, Electricity, Galvanism, Mechanics, Antiquities, Agriculture, Ventilation, Explosion, etc.
"In Classics--Grammar, Cordery, AEsop's Fables, Erasmus' Colloquies, Cornelius Nepos, Phaedrus, Valerius Maximus, Justin, Ovid, Sallust, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Terence, Tully's Offices, Cicero, Manouverius Turgidus, Esculapius, Rogerius, Satanus Nigrus, Quinctilian, Livy, Thomas Aquinas, Cornelius Agrippa, and Cholera Morbus.
"Greek Grammar, Greek Testament, Lucian, Homer, Sophocles, AEschylus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the Works of Alexander the Great; the manners, habits, customs, usages, and the meditations of the Grecians; the Greek Digamma resolved, Prosody, Composition, both in prose and verse, and Oratory, in English, Latin and Greek; together with various other branches of learning and scholastic profundity--
quoi enumerare longum est--along with Irish Radically, and a small taste of Hebrew upon the Masoretic text.
"Matthew Kavanagh, Philomath." (* See note at the end of this sketch.)
Having posted this document upon the hapel-door, and in all the public places and cross roads of the parish, Mat considered himself as having done his duty. He now began to teach, and his school continued to increase to his heart's content, every day bringing him fresh scholars. In this manner he flourished till the beginning of winter, when those boys, who, by the poverty of their parents, had been compelled to go to service to the neighboring farmers, flocked to him in numbers, quite voracious for knowledge. An addition was consequently built to the school-house, which was considerably too small; so that, as Christmas approached, it would be difficult to find a more numerous or merry establishment under the roof of a hedge school. But it is time to give an account of its interior.
The reader will then be pleased to picture to himself such a house as I have already described--in a line with the hedge; the eave of the back roof within a foot of the ground behind it; a large hole exactly in the middle of the "riggin'," as a chimney; immediately under which is an excavation in the floor, burned away by a large fire of turf, loosely heaped together. This is surrounded by a circle of urchins, sitting on the bare earth, stones, and hassocks, and exhibiting a series of speckled shins, all radiating towards the fire, like sausages on a Poloni dish. There they are--wedged as close as they can sit; one with half a thigh off his breeches--another with half an arm off his tattered coat--a third without breeches at all, wearing, as a substitute, a piece of his mother's old petticoat, pinned about his loins--a fourth, no coat--a fifth, with a cap on him, because he has got a scald, from having sat under the juice of fresh hung bacon--a sixth with a black eye--a seventh two rags about his heels to keep his kibes clean--an eighth crying to get home, because he has got a headache, though it may be as well to hint, that there is a drag-hunt to start from beside his father's in the course of the day. In this ring, with his legs stretched in a most lordly manner, sits, upon a deal chair, Mat himself, with his hat on, basking in the enjoyment of unlimited authority. His dress consists of a black coat, considerably in want of repair, transferred to his shoulders through the means of a clothes-broker in the county-town; a white cravat, round a large stuffing, having that part which comes in contact with the chin somewhat streaked with brown--a black waistcoat, with one or two "tooth-an'-egg" metal buttons sewed on where the original had fallen off--black corduroy inexpressibles, twice dyed, and sheep's-gray stockings. In his hand is a large, broad ruler, the emblem of his power, the woful instrument of executive justice, and the signal of terror to all within his jurisdiction. In a corner below is a pile of turf, where on entering, every boy throws his two sods, with a hitch from under his left arm. He then comes up to the master, catches his forelock with finger and thumb, and bobs down his head, by way of making him a bow, and goes to his seat. Along the walls on the ground is a series of round stones, some of them capped with a straw collar or hassock, on which the boys sit; others have bosses, and many of them hobs--a light but compact kind of boggy substance found in the mountains. On these several of them sit; the greater number of them, however, have no seats whatever, but squat themselves down, without compunction, on the hard floor. Hung about, on wooden pegs driven into the walls, are the shapeless yellow "caubeens" of such as can boast the luxury of a hat, or caps made of goat or hare's skin, the latter having the ears of the animal rising ludicrously over the temples, or cocked out at the sides, and the scut either before or behind, according to the taste or the humor of the wearer. The floor, which is only swept every Saturday, is strewed over with tops of quills, pens, pieces of broken slate, and tattered leaves of "Reading made Easy," or fragments of old copies. In one corner is a knot engaged at "Fox and Geese," or the "Walls of Troy" on their slates; in another, a pair of them are "fighting bottles," which consists in striking the bottoms together, and he whose bottle breaks first, of course, loses. Behind the master is a third set, playing "heads and points"--a game of pins. Some are more industriously employed in writing their copies, which they perform seated on the ground, with their paper on a copy-board--a piece of planed deal, the size of the copy, an appendage now nearly exploded--their cheek-bones laid within half an inch of the left side of the copy, and the eye set to guide the motion of the hand across, and to regulate the straightness of the lines and the forms of the letters. Others, again, of the more grown boys, are working their sums with becoming industry. In a dark corner are a pair of urchins thumping each other, their eyes steadily fixed on the master, lest he might happen to glance in that direction. Near the master himself are the larger boys, from twenty-two to fifteen--shaggy-headed slips, with loose-breasted shirts lying open about their bare chests; ragged colts, with white, dry, bristling beards upon them, that never knew a razor; strong stockings on their legs; heavy brogues, with broad, nail-paved soles; and breeches open at the knees. Nor is the establishment without a competent number of females. These were, for the most part, the daughters of wealthy farmers, who considered it necessary to their respectability, that they should not be altogether illiterate; such a circumstance being a considerable drawback, in the opinion of an admirer, from the character of a young woman for whom he was about to propose--a drawback, too, which was always weighty in proportion to her wealth or respectability.
Having given our readers an imperfect sketch of the interior of Mat's establishment, we will now proceed, however feebly, to represent him at work--with all the machinery of the system in full operation.
"Come, boys, rehearse--(buz, buz, buz)--I'll soon be after calling up the first spelling lesson--(buz, buz, buz)--then the mathematicians--book-keepers--Latinists and Grecians, successfully. (Buz, buz, buz)--Silence there below!--your pens! Tim Casey, isn't this a purty hour o' the day for you to come into school at; arraix, and what kept you, Tim? Walk up wid yourself here, till we have a confabulation together; you see I love to be talking to you.
"Sir, Larry Branagen, here; he's throwing spits at me out of his pen."--(Buz, buz, buz.)
"By my sowl, Larry, there's a rod in steep for you."
"Fly away, Jack--fly away, Jill; come again, Jack--"
"I had to go to Paddy Nowlan's for to-baccy, sir, for my father." (Weeping with his hand knowingly across his face--one eye laughing at his comrades.)--
"You lie, it wasn't."
"If you call me a liar agin, I'll give you a dig in the mug."
"It's not in your jacket."
"Isn't it?"
"Behave yourself; ha! there's the masther looking at you--ye'll get it now."--
"None at all, Tim? And she's not after sinding an excuse wid you? What's that undher your arm?"
"My Grough, sir."--(Buz, buz, buz.)
"Silence, boys. And, you blackguard Lilliputian, you, what kept you away till this?"
"One bird pickin', two men thrashin'; one bird pickin', two men thrashin'; one bird pickin'--"
"Sir, they're stickn' pins in me, here."
"Who is, Briney?"
"I don't know, sir, they're all at it."
"Boys, I'll go down to yez."
"I can't carry him, sir, he'd be too heavy for me: let Larry Toole do it, he's stronger nor me; any way, there, he's putting a corker pin in his mouth."*--(Buz, buz, buz.)
* In the hedge schools it was usual for the unfortunate culprit about to be punished to avail himself of all possible stratagems that were calculated to diminish his punishment. Accordingly, when put upon another boy's back to be horsed, as it was termed, he slipped a large pin, called a corker, in his mouth, and on receiving the first blow stuck it into the neck of the boy who carried him. This caused the latter to jump and bounce about in such a manner that many of the blows directed at his burthen missed their aim. It was an understood thing, however, that the boy carrying the felon should aid him in every way in his power, by yielding, moving', and shifting about, so that it was only when he seemed to abet the master that the pin was applied to him.
"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo--I'll never stay away agin, sir; indeed I won't, sir. Oh, sir, clear, pardon me this wan time; and if ever you cotch me doing the like agin, I'll give you lave to welt the sowl out of me."--(Buz buz, buz.). "Behave yourself, Barny Byrne."
"I'm not touching you."
"Yes, you are; didn't you make me blot my Copy?"
"Ho, by the livin', I'll pay you goin' home for this."
"Hand me the taws."
"Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo--what'll I do, at all at all! Oh, sir dear, sir dear, sir dear--hoo-hoo-hoo."
"Did she send no message, good or bad, before I lay on?"
"Oh, not a word, sir, only that my father killed a pig yestherday, and he wants you to go up to-day at dinner-time."--(Buz, buz, buz.)
"It's time to get lave--it isn't, it is--it isn't, it is," etc.
"You lie, I say, your faction never was able to fight ours; didn't we lick all your dirty breed in Builagh-battha fair?"
"Silence there."--(Buz, buz, buz.)
"Will you meet us on Sathurday, and we'll fight it out clane!"
"Ha-ha-ha! Tim, but you got a big fright, any how: whist, ma bouchal, sure I was only jokin' you; and sorry I'd be to bate your father's son, Tim. Come over, and sit beside myself at the fire here. Get up, Micky Donoghue, you big, burnt-shinn'd spalpeen you, and let the dacent boy sit at the fire."
"Hulabaloo hoo-hoo-hoo--to go to give me such a welt, only for sitting at the fire, and me brought turf wid me."
"To-day, Tim?"
"Yes, sir."
"At dinner time, is id?"
"Yes, sir."
"Faith, the dacent strain was always in the same family."--(Buz, buz, buz.)--
"Horns, horns, cock horns: oh, you up'd vrid them, you lifted your fingers--that's a mark, now--hould your face, till I blacken you!"
"Do you call thim two sods, Jack Laniran? why, 'tis only one long one broke in the middle; but you must make it up tomorrow. Jack, how is your mother's tooth?--did she get it pulled out yet?"
"No, sir."
"Well, tell her to come to me, and I'll write a charm for it, that'll cure her.--What kept you' till now, Paddy Magouran?"
"Couldn't come any sooner, sir."
"You couldn't, sir--and why, sir, couldn't you come any sooner', sir?"
"See, sir, what Andy Nowlan done to my copy."--(Buz, buz, buz.)--
"Silence, I'll massacree yez if yez don't make less noise."--(Buz, buz, buz.)
"I was down with Mrs. Kavanagh, sir."
"You were, Paddy--an' Paddy, ma bouchal, what war you doing there, Paddy?"
"Masther, sir, spake to Jem Kenny here; he made my nose bleed."--
"Eh, Paddy?"
"I was br ingin' her a layin' hen, sir, that my mother promised her at mass on Sunday last."
"Ah, Paddy, you're a game bird, yourself, wid your layin' hens; you're as full o' mischief as an egg's full o' mate--(omnes--ha, ha, ha, ha!)--Silence, boys--what are you laughin' at?--ha, ha, ha!--Paddy, can you spell Nebachodnazure for me?"
"No, sir."
"No, nor a better scholar, Paddy, could not do that, ma bouchal; but I'll spell it for you. Silence, boys--whist, all of yez, till I spell Nebachodnazure for Paddy Magouran. Listen; and you yourself, Paddy, are one of the letthers:
A turf and a clod spells Nebachod--
A knife and a razure, spells Nebachodnazure--
Three pair of boots and five pair of shoes--
Spells Nebachodnazure, the king of the Jews.'
Now, Paddy, that's spelling Nebachodnazure by the science of Ventilation; but you'll never go that deep, Paddy."--
"I want to go out, if you plase, sir."
"Is that the way you ax me, you vagabone?"
"I want to go out, sir,"--(pulling down the fore lock.)
"Yes, that's something dacenter; by the sowl of Newton, that invinted fluxions, if ever you forgot to make a bow again, I'll nog the enthrils out of you--wait till the Pass comes in."
Then comes the spelling lesson. "Come, boys, stand up to the spelling lesson."
"Mickey," says one urchin, "show me your book, till I look at my word. I'm fifteenth."
"Wait till I see my own."
"Why do you crush for?"
"That's my place."
"No, it's not."
"Sir, spake to---------I'll tell the masther."
"What's the matther there?"
"Sir, he won't let me into my place."
"I'm before you."
"No you're not."
"I say, I am."
"You lie, pug-face: ha! I called you pug-face, tell now if you dare."
"Well boys, down with your pins in the book: who's king?"
"I am, sir."
"Who's queen?"
"Me, sir."
"Who's prince?"
"I am prince, sir."
"Tag rag and bob-tail, fall into your places."
"I've no pin, sir."
"Well down with you to the tail----now, boys."*
* At the spelling lesson the children were obliged to put down each a pin, he who held the first place got them all with the exception of the queen--that is the boy who held the second place! who got two; and the prince, the third who got one. The last boy in the class was called Bobtail.
Having gone through the spelling-task, it was Mat's custom to give out six hard words selected according to his judgment--as a final test; but he did not always confine himself to that. Sometimes he would put a number of syllables arbitrarily together, forming a most heterogeneous combination of articulate sounds.
"Now, boys, here's a deep word, that'll thry yez: come Larry spell me-mo-man-dran-san-ti-fi-can-du-ban-dan-li-al-i-ty, or mis-an-thro-po-mor-phi-ta-ni-a-nus-mi-ca-li-a-lioy;--that's too hard for you, is it? Well, then, spell phthisic. Oh, that's physic you're spellin'. Now, Larry, do you know the difference between physic and phthisic?"
"No, sir."
"Well, I'll expound it: phthisic, you see, manes--whisht, boys: will yez hould yer tongues there--phthisic, Larry, signifies--that is, phthisic--mind, it's not physic I'm expounding, but phthisic--boys, will yez stop yer noise there--signifies----but, Larry, it's so deep a word in larnin' that I should draw it out on a slate for you. And now I remimber, man alive, you're not far enough on yet to understand it: but what's physic, Larry?"
"Isn't that sir, what my father tuck the day he got sick, sir?"
"That's the very thing, Larry: it has what larned men call a medical property, and resembles little ricketty Dan Reilly there--it retrogrades. Och! Och! I'm the boy that knows things--you see now how I expounded them two hard words for yez, boys--don't yez?"
"Yes, sir," etc., etc.
"So, Larry, you haven't the larnin' for that either: but here's an 'asier one--spell me Ephabridotas (Epaphroditas)--you can't! hut! man--you're a big dunce, entirely, that little shoneen Sharkey there below would
sack. God be wid the day when I was the likes of you--it's I that was the bright gorsoon entirely--and so sign was on it, when a great larned traveler--silence boys, till I tell yez this [a dead silence]--from Thrinity College, all the way in Dublin, happened to meet me one day--seeing the slate and Gough, you see, undher my arm, he axes me--' Arrah, Mat,' says he, 'what are you
in?' says he. 'Faix, I'm in my breeches, for one thing,' says I, off hand--silence childhre, and don't laugh so loud--(ha, ha, ha!) So he looks closer at me: 'I see that,' says he; 'but what are you reading?' 'Nothing at all at all,' says I; 'bad manners to the taste, as you may see, if you've your eyesight.' 'I think,' says he, 'you'll be apt to die in your breeches;' and set spurs to a fine saddle mare he rid--faith, he did so--thought me so cute--(omnes--ha, ha, ha!) Whisht, boys, whisht; isn't it a terrible thing that I can't tell yez a joke, but you split your sides laughing at it--(ha, ha, ha!)--don't laugh so loud, Barney Casey."--(ha, ha, ha!)
Barney.--"I want to go out, if you plase, sir."
"Go, avick, you'll be a good scholar yet, Barney. Faith, Barney knows whin to laugh, any how."
"Well, Larry, you can't spell Ephabridotas?--thin, here's a short weeshy one, and whoever spells it will get the pins;--spell a red rogue wid three letters. You, Micky! Dan? Jack? Natty? Alick? Andy? Pettier? Jim? Tim? Pat? Body? you? you? you? Now, boys, I'll hould you that my little Andy here, that's only beginning the
Rational Spelling Book, bates you all; come here, Andy, alanna: now, boys, If he bates you, you 'must all bring him a little
miscaun of butter between two kale leaves, in the mornin', for himself; here, Andy avourneen, spell red rogue with three letthers."
Andy.--"M, a, t--Mat."
"No, no, avick, that's myself, Andy; it's red rogue, Andy--hem!--F--."
"F, o, x--fox."
"That's a man, Andy. Now boys, mind what you owe Andy in the mornin, God, won't yez?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
"I will, sir."
"And I will, sir."
"And so will I sir," etc., etc, etc
I know not whether the Commissioners of Education found the monitorial system of instruction in such of the old hedge schools as maintained an obstinate resistance to the innovations of modern plans. That Bell and Lancaster deserve much credit for applying and extending the principle (speaking without any reference to its merits) I do not hesitate to grant; but it is unquestionably true, that the principle was reduced to practice in Irish hedge schools long before either of these worthy gentlemen were in existence. I do not, indeed, at present remember whether or not they claim it as a discovery, or simply as an adaptation of a practice which experience, in accidental cases, had found useful, and which they considered capable of more extensive benefit. I remember many instances, however, in which it was applied--and applied, in my opinion, though not as a permanent system, yet more judiciously than it is at present. I think it a mistake to suppose that silence, among a number of children in school, is conducive to the improvement either of health or intellect, that the chest and the lungs are benefited by giving full play to the voice, I think will not be disputed; and that a child is capable of more intense study and abstraction in the din of a school-room, than in partial silence (if I may be permitted the word), is a fact, which I think any rational observation would establish. There is something cheering and cheerful in the noise of friendly voices about us--it is a restraint taken off the mind, and it will run the lighter for it--it produces more excitement, and puts the intellect in a better frame for study. The obligation to silence, though it may give the master more ease, imposes a new moral duty upon the chil--the sense of which must necessarily weaken his application. Let the boy speak aloud, if he pleases--that is, to a certain pitch; let his blood circulate; let the natural secretions take place, and the physical effluvia be thrown off by a free exercise of voice and limbs: but do not keep him dumb and motionless as a statue--his blood and his intellect both in a state of stagnation, and his spirit below zero. Do not send him in quest of knowledge alone, but let him have cheerful companionship on his way; for, depend upon it, that the man who expects too much either in discipline or morals from a boy, is not in my opinion, acquainted with human nature. If an urchin titter at his own joke, or that of another--if he give him a jab of a pin under the desk, imagine not that it will do him an injury, whatever phrenologists may say concerning the organ of destructiveness. It is an exercise to the mind, and he will return to his business with greater vigor and effect. Children are not men, nor influenced by the same motives--they do not reflect, because their capacity for reflection is imperfect; so is their reason: whereas on the contrary, their faculties for education (excepting judgment, which strengthens my argument) are in greater vigor in youth than in manhood. The general neglect of this distinction is, I am convinced, a stumbling-block in the way of youthful instruction, though it characterizes all our modern systems. We should never forget that they are children; nor should we bind them by a system, whose standard is taken from the maturity of human intellect. We may bend our reason to theirs, but we cannot elevate their capacity to our own. We may produce an external appearance, sufficiently satisfactory to ourselves; but, in the meantime, it is probable that the child may be growing in hypocrisy, and settling down into the habitual practice of a fictitious character.
But another and more serious objection may be urged against the present strictness of scholastic discipline--which is, that it deprives the boy of a sense of free and independent agency. I speak this with limitations, for a master should be a monarch in his school, but by no means a tyrant; and decidedly the very worst species of tyranny is that which stretches the young mind upon the rod of too rigorous a discipline--like the despot who exacted from his subjects so many barrels of perspiration, whenever there came a long and severe frost. Do not familiarize the mind when young to the toleration of slavery, lest it prove afterwards incapable of recognizing and relishing the principle of an honest and manly independence. I have known many children, on whom a rigor of discipline, affecting the mind only (for severe corporal punishment is now almost exploded), impressed a degree of timidity almost bordering on pusillanimity. Away, then, with the specious and long-winded arguments of a false and mistaken philosophy. A child will be a child, and a boy a boy, to the conclusion of the chapter. Bell or Lancaster would not relish the pap or caudle-cup three times a day; neither would an infant on the breast feel comfortable after a gorge of ox beef. Let them, therefore, put a little of the mother's milk of human kindness and consideration into their straight-laced systems.
A hedge schoolmaster was the general scribe of the parish, to whom all who wanted letters or petitions written, uniformly applied--and these were glorious opportunities for the pompous display of pedantry; the remuneration usually consisted of a bottle of whiskey.
A poor woman, for instance, informs Mat that she wishes to have a letter written to her son, who is a soldier abroad. "An' how long is he gone, ma'am?"
"Och, thin, masther, he's from me goin' an fifteen year; an' a comrade of his was spakin' to Jim Dwyer, an' says his ridgiment's lyin' in the Island of Budanages, somewhere in the back parts of Africa."
"An' is it a lotther of petition you'd be afther havin' me to indite for you, ma'am?"
"Och, a letthur, sir--a letthur, master; an' may the Lord grant you all kinds of luck, good, bad, an' indifferent, both to you and yours: an' well it's known, by the same token, that it's yourself has the nice hand at the pen entirely, an' can indite a letter or petition, that the priest of the parish mightn't be ashamed to own to it."
"Why, thin, 'tis I that 'ud scorn to deteriorate upon the superiminence of my own execution at inditin' wid a pen in my hand; but would you feel a delectability in my supersoriptionizin' the epistolary correspondency, ma'am, that I'm about to adopt?"
"Eagh? och, what am I sayin'!--sir--masther--sir?--the noise of the crathurs, you see, is got into my ears; and, besides, I'm a bit bothered on both sides of my head, ever since I heard that weary
weid."
"Silence, boys; bad manners to yez, will ye be asy, you Lilliputian Boeotians--by my hem--upon my credit, if I go down to that corner, I'll castigate yez in dozens: I can't spake to this dacent woman, with your insuperable turbulentiality."
"Ah, avourneen, masther, but the larnin's a fine thing, any how; an' maybe 'tis yourself that hasn't the tongue in your head, an' can spake the tall, high-flown English; a wurrah, but your tongue hangs well, any how--the Lord increase it!"
"Lanty Cassidy, are you gettin' on wid your Stereometry?
festina, mi discipuli; vocabo Homerum, mox atque mox. You see, ma'am, I must tache thim to spake an' effectuate a translation of the larned languages sometimes."
"Arrah, masther dear, how did you get it all into your head, at all at all?"
"Silence, boys--
tace--' conticuere omnes intentique ora tenebant.' Silence, I say agin."
"You could slip over, maybe, to Doran's, masther, do you see? You'd do it betther there, I'll engage: sure and you'd want a dhrop to steady your hand, any how."
"Now, boys, I am goin' to indite a small taste of literal correspondency over at the public-house here; you
literati will hear the lessons for me, boys, till afther I'm back agin; but mind, boys,
absente domino strepuunt servi--meditate on the philosophy of that; and, Mick Mahon, take your slate and put down all the names; and, upon my soul--hem--credit, I'll castigate any boy guilty of
misty mannes on my retrogadation thither;--
ergo momentote, cave ne titubes mandataque frangas."
"Blood alive, masther, but that's great spakin'--begar, a judge couldn't come up to you; but in throth, sir, I'd be long sarry to throuble you; only he's away fifteen year, and I wouldn't thrust it to another; and the corplar that commands the ridgment would regard your handwrite and your inditin'."
"Don't, ma'am, plade the smallest taste of apology."
"Eagh?"
"I'm happy that I can sarve you, ma'am."
"Musha, long life to you, masther, for that same, any how--but it's yourself that's deep in the larnin' and the langridges; the Lord incrase yer knowledge--sure, an' we all want his blessin', you know."
"Home, is id? Start, boys, off--chase him, lie into him--asy, curse yez, take time gettin' out: that's it--keep to him--don't wait for me; take care, you little spalpeens, or you'll brake your bones, so you will: blow the dust of this road, I can't see my way in." _