THE SCHOOLBOYS' NOTES.
As the time went on, Jane's brain grew very busy. Its care was the
education of her boys--a perplexing theme. So far as the classics went,
they were progressing. Frank and Gar certainly were not pushed on as
they might have been, for Helstonleigh collegiate school was not at that
time renowned for its pushing qualities; but the boys had a spur in
themselves. Jane never ceased to urge them to attention, to strive after
progress; not by the harsh reproaches some children have to hear, but
by loving encouragement and gentle persuasion. She would call up
pleasant pictures of the future, when they should have surmounted the
difficulties of toil, and be reaping their reward. It had ever been her
custom to treat her children as friends; as friends and companions, more
than as children. I am not sure that it is not a good plan in all cases,
but it undoubtedly is so where children are naturally well disposed and
intelligent. Even when they were little, she would converse and reason
with them, so far as their understandings would permit. The primary
thing she inculcated was the habit of unquestioning obedience. This
secured in their earliest childhood, she could afford to reason with
them as they grew older; to appeal to their own sense of intelligence;
to show them how to form and exercise a right judgment. Had the children
been wilful, deceitful, or opposed to her, her plan must have been
different; compulsion must have taken the place of reasoning. When they
did anything wrong--all children will, or they are not children--she
would take the offender to her alone. There would be no scolding; but in
a grave, calm, loving voice she would say, "Was this right? Did you
forget that you were doing wrong and would grieve me? Did you forget
that you were offending God?" And so she would talk; and teach them to
do right in all things, for the sake of right, for the sake of doing
their duty to Heaven and to man. These lessons from a mother loved as
Jane was, could not fail to take root and bear seed. The young
Halliburtons were in fair training to make not only good, but admirable
men.
Jane inculcated another valuable lesson. In all perplexity, trouble, or
untoward misfortune, she taught them to _look it full in the face_; not
to fly from it, as is the too-common custom, but to meet it and do the
best with it. She knew that in trouble, as in terror, looking it in the
face takes away half its sting: and so she was teaching them to look,
not only by precept, but by example. With such minds, such training to
work upon, there was little need to _urge_ them to apply closely to
their studies; they saw its necessity themselves, and acted upon it. "It
is your only chance, my darlings, of getting on in life," she would say.
"You wish to be good and great men; and I think perhaps you may be, if
you persevere. It is a tempting thing, I know, to leave wearying tasks
for play or idleness; but do not yield to it. Look to the future. When
you feel tired, out of sorts, as if Latin were the greatest grievance
upon earth, say to yourselves, 'It is my duty to keep on, and my duty I
must do. If I turn idle now, my past application will be lost; but, if I
persevere, I may go bravely on to the end.' Be brave, darlings, for my
sake."
And the boys were so. Thus it would happen that when the rest of the
school were talking, or idling, or being caned, the Halliburtons were at
work. The head master could not fail to observe their steady
application; and he more than once held them up as an example to the
school.
So far so good. But though the classics are essential parts of a good
education, they do not include all its requisites. And nothing else was
taught in the college school. There certainly was a writing master, and
something like an initiation into the first rules of arithmetic was
attempted; but not a boy in the charity school, hard by, that could not
have shamed the college boys in adding up a column of figures or in
writing a page. As to their English----You should have seen them attempt
to write a letter. In short, the college school ignored everything
except Latin and Greek.
This state of affairs gave Jane great concern. "Unless I can organize
some plan, my boys will grow up dunces," she said to herself. And a plan
she did organize. None could remedy this so well as herself; she, so
thoroughly educated in all essential branches. It would take two hours
from her work, but for the sake of her boys she would sacrifice that.
Every night, therefore, except Saturday, as soon as they had prepared
their lessons for school--and in doing that they were helped by
William--she left her work and became their instructor. History,
geography, astronomy, composition, and so on. You can fill up the list.
And she had her reward. The boys advanced rapidly. As the months and
quarters went on, it was only so much the more instruction gained by
them.
I think you must be indulged with a glance at one of these college
school notes. But, first of all, suppose we read one written by Frank.
"DEAR GLENN,--Thanks for wishing me to join your fishing
expedition the day after to-morrow, but I can't come. My mother
says, as I had a holiday from college one day last week, it
will not do to ask for it again. You told me to send word this
evening whether or not, so I drop you this note. I should like
to go, and shall be thinking of you all day. Mind you let me
have a look at the fish you bring home. Yours,
"FRANK HALLIBURTON."
The note was addressed "Glenn senior," and Gar was ordered to deliver it
at Glenn senior's house. Glenn senior, who was a king's scholar, not a
chorister, made a wry face over it when delivered, and sat down on the
spur of the moment to answer it:
"DEER HALIBURTON,--Its all stuf about not asking for leve again
what do the musty old prebens care who gets leve therell be
enuff to sing without you tell your mother I cant excuse you
from our party theirs 8 of us going and a stunning baxket of
progg as good go out for a day's fishing has stop at home on a
holiday for the benefit of that preshous colledge bring me word
you'll come to-morrow at skool for we want to arrange our plans
yours old fellow
"P GLENN."
Master P. Glenn was concluding his note when his father passed through
the room and glanced over the boy's shoulder. He (Mr. Glenn) was a
surgeon; one of the chief surgeons attached to the Helstonleigh
infirmary, and in excellent practice. "At your exercise, Philip?"
"No, papa. I am writing a note to one of our fellows. I want him to be
of our fishing party on Wednesday."
"Wednesday! Have you a holiday on Wednesday?"
"Yes. Don't you know it will be a saint's day?"
"Not I," said Mr. Glenn. "Saints' days don't concern me as they do you
college boys. That's a pretty specimen of English!" he added, running
his amused eyes over Philip's note.
"Are there any mistakes in it?" returned Philip. "But it's no matter,
papa. We don't profess to write English in the college school."
"It is well you don't profess it," remarked Mr. Glenn. "But how is it
your friend Halliburton can turn out good English?" He had taken up
Frank's letter.
"Oh! they are such chaps for learning, the two Halliburtons. They stick
at it like a horse-leech--never getting the cane for turned lessons.
They have school at home in the evenings for English, and history, and
such stuff that they don't get at college."
"Have they a tutor?"
"They are not rich enough for a tutor. Mrs. Halliburton's the tutor.
What do you think Gar Halliburton did the other day? Keating was having
a row with the fourth desk, and he gave them some extra verses to do. Up
goes Gar Halliburton, before he had been a minute at his seat. 'If you
please, sir,' says he to Keating, 'I had better have another piece.'
'Why so?' asks Keating. 'Because,' says Gar, 'I did these same verses
with my brother at home a week ago.' He meant his eldest brother; not
Frank. But, now, was not that honourable, papa?"
"Yes, it was," answered Mr. Glenn.
"That's just the Halliburtons all over. They are ultra-honourable."
"I should like to see your friend Frank, and inquire how he manages to
pick up his English."
"Let me bring him to tea to-morrow night!" cried Philip eagerly.
"You may, if you like."
"Hurrah!" shouted Philip. "And you'll persuade him not to mind his
mother, but to come to our fishing party?"
"Philip!"
"Well, papa, I don't mean that, exactly. But I do not see the use of
boys listening to their mothers just in everything."
Philip Glenn seized his note, and added a postscript:--"My father sais
you are to come to tea to-morrow we shall be so joly." And it was
despatched to Frank by a servant in livery.