In the end, too, I have reason to think that I must have thrown away much sympathy on my young friend Adams. Some time later, there came to my knowledge a notable device hatched among these boarders of mine. I may have been misinformed in part; but the main features of what I am going to relate, are to be relied on as facts. It seems that when I entered upon office there was much speculation among them as to how, when, and where would begin the work of correction which their experience of "old Grove" had taught them to consider as inseparably connected with the functions of a schoolmaster. Then these ingenious youngsters actually banded themselves into a sort of insurance union against my supposed ferocity. They agreed to subscribe one halfpenny each from their weekly pocket-money, to form a fund which should become the property of the first among the subscribers on whom I happened to lay my hands not in the way of kindness. Here was a pretty sweepstakes, in which I must be the unconscious umpire! As weeks passed by without such an incident as they had reckoned on, the fund grew like a snowball, and the excitement became more and more intense as to whose lot it should fall to at last. Two or three bold spirits or hardened skins, I now see reason to suspect, had even put themselves in the way of my indignation, hoping thus to enrich their pockets at the expense of their feelings; but their enterprise was foiled by my scrupulous humanity, and it began to look as if there would be no thrashing after all. They had made love to this chastisement! I acquit Adams of any such intention; still, when he did stumble into that scrape, it was to his profit as well as to his loss; and while bearing the consequences, it must have been no slight consolation to him to know that I was engrossing upon his person the title to a handsome prize of fortitude for which some boys would have been content "the keenest whips to wear like rubies." The accumulated money, in fact, had thereafter been handed over to him by clear right, and he very properly spent it all in treating the house to a feast of sweet things, which, indirectly and directly too, were the fruit of the cane. On making this discovery, I was so much disgusted that, like Prospero, I broke my wand, made a bonfire of the whole lot of them, renouncing for ever such "rough magic." Still, I must confess, it was more for my own sake than that of my boys, that I thus resigned the time-honoured sceptre of school authority. The divining rod by which pedagogues in all ages have been wont to bring to light what treasures are hid in their pupils' minds, has, I admit, its charms as well as its terrors. There are some schoolmasters who know the touch of it, as I believe: there may be much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot I make it speak to good effect. How I got on without it, I may take another opportunity of telling. In the meanwhile, I will only ask whether my readers do not agree with me that, in the language of the poet, if for once in the way I may be allowed to make a quotation— "Of all the studies in the round of learning, MY ASSISTANTS. I BEGAN these reminiscences as a very humble neophyte in Minerva's temple; I end them as a hierophant, speaking oracles both to boys and to men. The discriminating reader who has been taken into the secret of my later pedagogic tribulations, need not suppose them unsalved by the rewards of outward success. If this record read too much like a half serious book of Lamentations or subrisive Jeremiad, it will only be because my cross-grained humour finds comedy in distilling the sweetness of bitter experiences, and philosophy in letting oneself be tickled by the whips and scorns of time. Every term, the school grew in numbers, so that I had soon to augment my staff, and with it my cares and responsibilities. After dwelling, perhaps, more than enough on the difficulties a schoolmaster may have with his boys, I would now fain make my moan over the troubles I have had through assistant-masters, a more troublesome race, in my experience, and I think some emeriti of the profession, at least, will sympathise with me. I know less of the present state of things, when the teacher seems to be casting his humble slough and appearing fresh in his true character as an honourable minister of civilisation. These reminiscences, be it understood, date back some four or five lustra, before the scholastic market became glutted with a supply of university men, good, bad, and indifferent. In those days, we minor archididascali who presided over second or third rate country grammar-schools, had to draw our subalterns largely from what may be called the non-commissioned ranks of the educational army, most of whom had enlisted from despair of success in other occupations, and few such conscripts could hope to carry a headmaster's birch in his knapsack. Good men were to be found among them here and there, teachers born rather than made; but what could be expected of the motley mass to whom teaching was not so much a profession as an irksome resource for bare livelihood? It was natural that these unqualified and illpaid hirelings should take little interest in their work, and that one found it hard to treat them as trustworthy colleagues, to whom one's juvenile sheep, themselves not over hungry for instruction, neither looked up to, nor were fed by their lean and flashy attainments. Yet schools like mine, in its struggling days, had nothing for it but to pick and choose among this floating population of ushers, who came and went almost as often as flighty maid-servants, helped on from place to place by the testimonials which unconscientious |