Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/100

 74    BIOGRAPHY AND rowdy boys, for some time previous, had prided themselves on whipping teachers and breaking up schools. The Saints being a small minority, could exercise no authority to remedy the evil, and the "old settlers" too indifferent on the subject of education to do so, and the roughs carried the day, insomuch that no teacher had been able to complete his term for some time before this, without serious difficulty.

Lorenzo was unaccustomed to defeat, and in this instance was willing to risk the chances. In the first place, he must obtain a school certificate of his moral character and proper qualifications, in order to secure the share of public money to which the district was entitled. Mr. Williams, a notorious mobocrat, was the one authorized to issue certificates, and to him my brother applied. The examination was not only brief, but very superficial—sufficiently so to exhibit Williams' profound ignorance, which was truly amusing.

The day arrived—he opened school—the belligerents were at their post, and as he proceeded in the arrangements, he noticed a half dozen of those boys grouped together, eying and scrutinizing him in that kind of earnestness that means business. Without a wise policy on his part, a battle was inevitable. "Stoop to conquer," was at this juncture his watchword. Physically they had decidedly the advantage of him, but mentally the advantage was altogether on his side. He resolved to win respect by conferring it. "Love, and love only, is the loan for love," and he addressed those boys as though they were most respectable gentlemen. Grown up without either moral or mental culture, they were larger, and some of them perhaps older than himself.

He took especial pains to impress them with a sense of the interest he felt in their behalf, and the efforts he purposed making to assist them forward in their studies, with his peculiar faculty for teaching—the ambition he felt in this direction, etc., etc. In this way, by kindness and persuasion, their feelings relaxed—their confidence was won, and with