Page:The education of the farmer.djvu/22

 counteracted if she allows her children, when out of her sight, to be with servants unfit for the charge. I am led to press this point in consequence of having been told by a gentleman at the head of a large collegiate school, that he could trace the bad tricks and low tone of mind of some boys under his charge to the influence of inferior servants. Propriety in conduct and manner, truth, and good temper, are essential in those who are to be about children; how can we expect these qualities to be in our children if a contrary example is set them? Those who have been blessed with good nurses know how beneficial their influence is on the character.

Before I go on to speak of the school itself I may refer to the remark of several schoolmasters, that the great difficulty they have to contend with is the habits the boys bring from home; undisciplined wills and untrained attention, producing a state of mind which is entirely the reverse of teachable. The master is expected to take boys in this state for a year, to give them what is called a finishing, after a year's running wild in the country—a very common but most unwise way of interrupting education.

A boy's school-life in general commences when he is found to be troublesome at home; this is usually about eight years old. The question then arises whether he is to go to a day-school or a boarding school. If every farmer's little boy had a chance of being placed for a while under such teachers as are sent out annually from Whitelands, Salisbury, and other female training-schools, how happy would it be for them.

It is needless, however, here to speak of the training of a female teacher, which is only a continuation of nursery discipline, though often most valuable to young boys; nor to discuss the question in what cases it is desirable that the farmer's son should be educated by the teacher of the village school; suffice it to say that happy are those boys whose parents are wise enough to think more, during the early days of youthful simplicity, of the qualifications of the teacher, than of their own dignity. The practical question which we have to deal with here, is the education to be given at the boarding school of the middle classes for boys from the ages of 10 or 12 to 16 or 18.

Two remarks may be made at the outset as generally applicable to all schools. First; that the education which boys receive from each other is at least as important as that imparted by the master. Secondly; that the moral and intellectual tone of the master will impress itself on the boys with far more lasting effect