But come,—I have it: Thou shalt earn thy bread
Duly and honourably, and usefully.
Our village schoolmaster hath left the parish,
Forsook the ancient school-house with its yew-trees,
That lurk’d beside a church two centuries older,—
So long devotion took the lead of knowledge;
And since his little flock are shepherdless,
’Tis thou shalt be promoted in his room;
And rather than thou wantest scholars, man,
Myself will enter pupil.
The Ayrshire Tragedy.
The old gentleman’s narrative had, I confess, grown interesting to me. I am always anxious, not only to study characters as they exist, but to learn how characters have been formed. I believe we all pay too little attention to this, when we blame men for their vices, or praise them for their virtues. If we find an oak in the forest knotted and gnarled, with his limbs distorted, and his trunk bending down to the ground instead of towering majestically to the sky, we blame not the old oak for his deformity, nor reproach him with the waste of many a long year in which he has been visited by the refreshing dews of the heaven above, and the fatness of the earth beneath. We are sure that there were causes, though we do not now perceive them, which obstructed and stunted his early growth, and made him what he is, and must now ever remain. The natural soil might be barren, his early shoots might have been cropped by the browzing sheep, or his top might be overshadowed, and the beams of the sun prevented from cherishing his growth, by some more fortunate tree, which has long since fallen before the woodman’s axe, but not till it had dried up all the vital p. 13energies of the withered old stump before us. And as it is with oaks, so, in some respects, with men. The soil in which they first strike root, the sunshine under which they grow, the influence of other minds on their early habits and opinions, are all to be considered when we sit in judgment on men in after life, and attempt to measure the praise or blame which is due to their moral or religious conduct. It is true, that man differs from the oak in this, that he can take an active part in forming his own character. He can change his soil, seek the sunshine, remove from evil neighbourhood, and fly from the influence of dangerous example. But how seldom has he firmness and grace for this! How truly does he resemble the oak in this, that he becomes, through life, what the early circumstances of his youth have made him! Hence, I am always anxious to know men’s histories from the very beginning. Even slight matters, in childhood, produce permanent effects; and I like to hear little anecdotes of youth, which some men regard as trivial, because I know (as a great poet has said) that “the child is father to the man,” and that education begins even with life itself. A certain French lady wished to consult a philosopher about the best mode of educating her child, and said that she was commencing at a very early period, as her child was but three years old:—“Madam,” said the philosopher, “you are beginning three years too late!”
Hence, as I said, I was glad to find the old man so willing to narrate his history, and to have so perfect a memory of his early days, as I expected thus to learn a lesson in the formation of human character, the most important study to which the human mind can be directed. But I confess I was somewhat startled when he invited me, as he termed it, to “walk with him into Hawskhead school,” as I dreaded what is commonly called a long yarn, more especially as the course of our walk together was now drawing to a termination. “My good friend,” said I, “I would listen to you with the greatest pleasure, but there is one school-boy taste which we never lose sight p. 14of as long as we live, viz., an accurate knowledge of the dinner hour; and mine, I feel, is approaching. I shall be most happy to resume our walk and our talk together to-morrow morning, when I hope we shall be able to get through your first school-day with mutual pleasure and satisfaction.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the old man, smiling, “but a full stomach has seldom much feeling for an empty one.—Mine happens to be in that more favourable condition at the present moment, and thankful am I to God for it, for I can remember the day when I have been reduced to feed my eyes instead of my mouth at the butcher’s shop? But I am really anxious to give you a specimen of my early school-days, because I was brought up under a system of instruction which is now rapidly passing away. At every town, and almost every village in the north of England, there was, and indeed still is, a grammar school; generally pretty well endowed as to income, and under the management of a master and usher, one if not both, educated at one of the universities of Oxford or Cambridge. All the learning required at the time when they were founded was Latin and Greek, and the masters of these schools were full of both. The schools were free to all who came to them, so that the little statesman or farmer, who happened to live near one of them, could give his son as good an education as the first nobleman in the land, and at no further expense than providing his child with meat and clothing. These lads were brought up with frugal and industrious habits, and told from their very childhood, that if they made themselves good scholars, they might hereafter become bishops, or judges of the land, which in those days often came to pass. One or two of the oldest bishops on the bench at this moment, sprang out of these grammar schools; and many of our most distinguished lawyers. But they are now, most of them, I hear, at a very low ebb. The school-house is falling down, and the little village around it, which was supported by the pupils and boarders, is pining away. This p. 15is a sad blow, sir, to the poor north.—The farmer’s son gets not that good education that he used to have, and is bound down for ever to his plough and his flail, instead of rising to be one of the ornaments of his country, and a benefactor to his poor native land. Pray, sir, can you account for the falling off in these good old schools?”
“There are many reasons for it,” said I, “some of which might be removed, and some not. One reason is, that noblemen and gentlemen now send their sons to be educated either at the great public schools, or at private academies, where they meet only with persons of their own rank, and escape the mischiefs which are supposed to arise from mixing with persons beneath them in birth or station.—Great folly this. The best part of education consists in becoming acquainted, in early life, when the passions and perceptions are strong, with persons of every class, and all degrees of talents and opinions. Thus, asperities are softened, and a knowledge of men and manners is obtained, which can be acquired so easily in no other way. England is what it is, by this early admixture of high and low, rich and poor, one with another; and it will cease to be old England, free, liberal, and religious England, when men are taught to consider each other as almost belonging to a different race of beings from their very cradles. Every man is an ignorant man who only knows his own class.”
“You are quite right there sir,” said the old man, “and all the experience of my long life proves it. I have seen a thousand times, that if men knew a little more of each other, half their prejudices on the subjects of religion, politics, and other causes of division, would vanish away at once: and these good old schools were great helps in making youths of all classes know and understand each other.”
“Another reason for their falling away,” said I, “was their standing still while the world went on. They taught Latin and Greek, when Latin and Greek were the only necessary knowledge, and the only passports to p. 16wealth and distinction; and so long as that was the case, all classes were satisfied with them.—But the world soon wanted other knowledge.—It wanted arithmetic, land-surveying, engineering, and a thousand other things by which men make money, and get on in the world. But these things grammar schools could not or would not teach. So boys were sent to other places, where wise men, or pretenders to wisdom, professed to teach all that is necessary for these very enlightened times; and the old school benches soon became empty. There, grammar schools were wrong;—they should have adapted themselves more to the wants of the times; and then they might have flourished as of old, to the great benefit of the whole nation. But I am forgetting your story, and what is more, forgetting my dinner. Till we meet to-morrow, farewell!”