an inexhaustible flow of milk-punch, which, dashing in cascades down the miniature rocks, fell into the more capacious lake below, washing the mimic foundations of Headlong Hall."

The Squire's aunt, Miss Brindle-mew Grimalkin Phoebe Tabitha Ap-Headlong, who has come to the ball, urges her nephew next morning to marry. The Squire is willing enough, but finds it hard to make a choice. At last, however, he decides on Miss Tenorina, and the match is immediately arranged. At the same time he makes up a match between Sir Patrick O'Prism and Miss Graziosa. Miss Caprioletta and Mr. Foster are also going to be married, and the Squire tries to persuade Mr. Cranium to consent that his daughter and Mr. Escot shall be the fourth couple; but the craniologist prefers Mr. Panscope and his ten thousand a-year, and when Headlong asks him, "Who fished you out of the water?" answers:

"What is that to the purpose? The whole process of the action was mechanical and necessary. The application of the poker necessitated the ignition of the powder; the ignition necessitated the explosion; the explosion necessitated my sudden fright, which necessitated my sudden jump, which from a necessity equally powerful was in a curvilinear ascent. The descent, being in a corresponding curve, and commencing at a point perpendicular to the extreme line of the edge of the tower, I was by the necessity of gravitation attracted first through the ivy, and secondly through the hazel, and thirdly through the ash, into the water beneath. The motive or impulse thus adhibited in the person of a drowning man was as powerful on his material compages as the force of gravitation on mine; and he could no more help jumping into the water than I could help falling into it."

But, Mr. Escot consenting to give him the skull of Cadwallader, which he had bought from the sexton, the gratified craniologist resigns to him his daughter. Going to console Mr. Panscope for his disappointment, or rather to condole with him on the occasion, the latter observes that "the monotonous system of female education brought every individual of the sex to so remarkable an approximation of similarity that no wise man would suffer himself to be annoyed by a loss so easily repaired."

In process of time the four couples are married under the ministrations of the Reverend Doctor Gaster, and the party disperse, Mr. Jenkison by his parting congratulations evoking from the optimist and the pessimist characteristic concluding harangues on the perfectibility and the deterioration of mankind.

C. WOODWARD HUTSON.

SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS.

HE schoolmaster of the olden time possessed but few character

Tistics in harmony with those of the modern propagator of solid

and polite learning. His tastes and manners were totally incompatible with the tastes and manners of those who wield the birch in this fast age. The modern type, indeed, as to appearance and behavior, has made a bold dash to the front of the professions; and while he lacks the culture and solid learning to hold the place he essays to reach, still he is entitled to a vast deal of praise for his efforts in the race for precedence. He has faults, and a sort of inherent and predisposed egotism, which must ever keep him in the background, and force him to take a lower seat in the temple of learning and profound thought. The time doubtless will come when he will no longer kneel with offerings of myrrh and frankincense at the feet of the accepted oracle of pretentious wisdom, and think and act independent of the narrow rut and narrower logic which keep him forever treading a wheel which never can advance.

It is true that the character of the vocation in these latter days tends to crush out anything like free thought; and that there is a disposition, now become a fixed law, to keep certain faculties perpetually on the strain and within the compass of the most ruinously circumscribed limits, compelling, in a measure, the mind to operate only in one way, and that way the most fatal to health, progress, and enlarged intelligence. The development of several of the faculties only can never result in anything like true culture. The fault we find with our modern schoolmaster is that he submits with a sort of easy abandonment to the situation; that he does not essay to break through the horribly dull routine, and only smiles grimly as one after another inalienable right is swept from the grasp of his reason. He not only walks into the trap, but after he is in, champions the vocation and fortifies himself with the flimsiest fallacies that invention ever originated.

Of all members of society, however, there are none so useful, and none whose labors and talents are so ill rewarded. They drift on, think on the same line of thought day after day, and swing round in the same circle with as much regularity as if ordered by a fixed law. The views of one are the views of a hundred; the prejudices of one are the prejudices of almost the entire fraternity of public-school teachers. Hence men are disposed to charge the profession with contracted ideas, stereotyped opinions, trite sayings, pedantic airs, and bleak logic. These men, indeed, who tread the classic halls of our schoolhouses are supposed by the mass of mankind never to go beyond a certain point in mental development, that they ascend so many steps and go no farther; and still more, that when the maximum of intelligence is reached, the momentum swings backward, drifting the keen bright intellect into a perfect Dead Sea of dullness and

narrowness. People presume that a teacher, after being in the harness during the best years of his life, cannot change his habits, his opinions, or his egotism; that he is incapable of keeping abreast with progress, or accepting a revelation, or discussing any topic save the exploded and obsolete questions of the past. And yet there are exceptional cases where the scars of long service are barely visible; while there are others who put in an appearance and put on the habits, seemingly cherishing the peccadilloes of the craft, but are mere temporary sojourners in the field, acting a species of abeyance until this stepping-stone lifts them into something better-in which event they gladly leap the barrier and "jump" the profession, its slavery, pedantry, and intolerance. They then cease to cut and slash every theory which refuses to fit the measure of their logic, and they abandon the once indispensable Procrustean policy as to principles. and opinions.

The schoolmaster of a remote epoch was unpolished in demeanor, but liberal and tolerant as to principle and curriculum. Furthermore, he was liberal in the use of the ferule and the rod. He taught, ploughed, and often preached. He was not cramped in thought or action, in school government or school books. Text-books were used miscellaneously, and perhaps a score of different authors were studied in the same school. In those times, Gess, Murray, and Comly were popular; Pilgrim's Progress and The Book of Martyrs were more abundant than spelling-books and geographies; while readers and spellers of modern type had no existence whatever. The duties of the schoolmaster were not circumscribed; besides this, the master of the school had more to do than simply hearing recitations. Teaching was the least of his duties. The unpolished plebeians wanted something else to amuse them besides conning lessons and calculating examples in mathematics. A tilt with the master or with each other was more keenly relished than the seemingly sapless tupto, tupteis, tuptci, or all the problems and puzzles ever invented by wise men. The schoolmaster was not unfrequently compelled to put his pupil in the street, or settle him with a poker or stick of cord-wood. Sometimes he was himself put out or conquered in hot contest for supremacy. Indeed, squaring accounts by wager of battle was reckoned a famous exploit, and boys of pluck and muscle wanted no finer feather in their caps than to have word go abroad that they had worsted and beat the schoolmaster. It is to be presumed that parents in those olden times took about the same view of this matter as the half-wild pupils. A boy was rarely punished at home for making war upon the teacher ; and when on special occasions, as on the Christmas holidays, the strategy and force of teachers and scholars were in open conflict, the first assailing the door with battering engines of wood for entrance, or applying strategy in the way of closing the chimney and forcing a surrender by means of smoke, or, as was usually the case, the besieged party opened the door upon entirely honorable terms,- the patrons, who often, in fact always, knew what was "in the wind," appeared upon the scene as neutral parties and watched with delight the fray and culmination. It was necessary for the teacher in those piping times to be able and ready to collar any pupil, pygmy or giant,

ness.

and shake him or beat him with a hoop-pole, if the discipline of the school required it. Development was then more physical than mental, while the aesthetical was lost sight of in the more solid accomplishments of wrestling, boxing, and fighting. Boys then made better ploughmen and soldiers than lawyers or preachers; they lived longer, had better digestions, and as a consequence made better citizens. At that epoch a teacher was not weighed for place upon the ground of his capacity to teach many branches, or to teach them well, as he was for his capacity to rule and subjugate. He was often tolerated for his ignorance, but never for his inability to govern. Muscle and courage were the indispensable requisites; and a candidate wanting in these could not get, much less hold a school. The man who had "ciphered" as far as the single rule of three, and had cut the blood from the back of the tallest boy in his last school, was voted into place without hesitation or question. The exhibition of sharp rules for school government was highly appreciated; and a rattling verbal disquisition on the classics and mathematics generally settled any doubts as to fitIf the salary was less than that of his brother of to-day, he had less to pay for subsistence, while fashion was not half so exacting as in this age of flight and steam. The schoolmaster cut wood for his board, taught a pupil for the same, or spent a week at each of his patrons, until the quarter expired. Wheat was then thirty cents per bushel, and board fifty cents per week. Silk hats, patent leather boots, and jewelry were not so common then as now. The result of it all was that the teacher of primitive times was a more useful member of society than his prim type of to-day. Indeed, there was no more important personage in the community than the schoolmaster. He was presumed to know everything. He wrote deeds for the farmer, letters for the ignorant, and love-missives for the young men and maidens. He calculated for the tradesmen and merchants, superintended sales and elections, and was invited to all the christenings and parties in the neighborhood. He took a social smoke with the six-footer he had soundly caned at school, and kissed the very girl whose hand he had pounded with the ferule. He taught during the winter, walking three miles to do so, while in the summer he ploughed, reaped, and felled trees. He was from Harvard, may be from Oxford or Eton in England, perhaps from New England or North Carolina, and sometimes was a finished scholar. But as he was on the ground, he took in the situation, and conformed to the customs like a reasonable man. People did not make fortunes in a day then as they do now, and teachers knew that as well as any one else.

Strange and singularly amusing stories are still recited in the rural districts of Western Maryland, Virginia, and other Eastern States, by gray-headed men, and these disclose the wonderful feats performed by these rigid district oracles of olden times. How some strapping fellow was stripped of his coat and jacket and flogged like a horse, how urchins were tortured and welts laid on their shoulders through the thick cassinet coat, how the man of the hickory rod was soundly beaten by some bold country fellow, and how boys six feet in height stood quietly until the skin was slashed off their backs by some little spirited schoolmaster. If we drift down nearer to the new evangel in

teaching, we observe a new man at the helm. He is not imported, and he has been some time at a village academy, or perhaps to some high-school or college for a session. This may be said to be the age of "spelling matches," when to be a good speller was regarded as the highest style of rural intellection. In these times all ages and both sexes gathered at night in the school-house once a week, when captains were chosen, the assembly divided, and a tournament of spelling began. Young men and maidens held it not hardship to foot it four miles to be present at one of these peaceful battles. A young gentleman was not then ashamed to wear "linsey woolsey;" he crossed swamps and swollen creeks in search of the nearest seat of learning, nor would he hesitate to make the long march when snow and storm interfered. This was also an age of discussion. The winter nights would call out the young and middle-aged to mingle in these literary frays. The topics argued were not the newest or the most practical, and it may truly be said that the past furnished all the questions over which our young and old debaters wrangled and fought. But what was it to them if the matter debated was obsolete? it was once alive; that was enough. In these Ciceronian flights, ambitious pupils and gray-bearded patrons entered the lists with the schoolmaster and town-clerk or country lawyer.

Of course the "barring out" custom prevailed during all these periods of quiet and spasmodic drifts toward mental culture. It was one of those "heirlooms which are retained through every revolution of sentiment and idea; and this remained even down to the late war. It was one of those "morsels" in school-boy life which remained green and fresh long after brick houses began to be built and green shutters adorned the windows of the modest seminaries of learning. But the belligerent schoolmaster who accounted it a defeat to be successfully kept out, at last gave way to a later type of the school keeper, who, with more philosophy than fight, retired on those occasions to his boarding-house and enjoyed a quiet day, believing that he was maintaining his dignity by not raiding upon the windows and doors of the school-house. Besides his polish and new style of teaching, he put on fashionable clothes, jewelry, gentility, and importance to boot. He in many instances came before his time, for after spending a few stormy weeks in some out of the way district, he was ejected by suitable means, not pecisely legitimate, but at least. effectual. As long as boys of twelve-stone weight wore coon-skin caps and carried loaded horse-pistols to school, it was not the safest thing for an ethereal pedagogue to attempt discipline in that "nick of the woods." And these mutinous fellows were, and in fact are yet, opposed to progress in the arts and sciences. "It's a rank heresy to attempt to make people wise." So declaring, they made raids upon pale-faced teachers, and stirred up mutinies against city ways and city teaching. The old fighting schoolmaster, at last, however, was pushed aside by the march of events and left without a vocation. The jovial, genial character drifted out of sight, having been distanced in the race by the "new-fangled gentry" with modern notions and innovations; and with his exit from the scene, other old-time things and customs have suffered entire defacement.