boy, he would have ended with
a superficial knowledge of things in general, imagining he knew
everything when he knew nothing, and would have been left in the end,
without a faith either religious or political, a useless, careless man.

This danger the Doctor foresaw in the first month, and going to the
Major abruptly, as he walked up and down the garden, took his arm, and
said,--

"See here, Buckley. I have undertaken to educate that boy of yours, and
every day I like the task better, and yet every day I see that I have
undertaken something beyond me. His appetite for knowledge is
insatiable, but he is not an intellectual boy; he makes no deductions
of his own, but takes mine for granted. He has no commentary on what he
learns, but that of a dissatisfied idealist like me, a man who has been
thrown among circumstances sufficiently favourable to make a prime
minister out of some men, and yet who has ended by doing nothing.
Another thing: this is my first attempt at education, and I have not
the schoolmaster's art to keep him to details. Every day I make new
resolutions, and every day I break them. The boy turns his great eyes
upon me in the middle of some humdrum work, and asks me a question. In
answering, I get off the turnpike road, and away we go from lane to
lane, from one subject to another, until lesson-time is over, and
nothing done. And, if it were merely time wasted, it could be made up,
but he remembers every word I say, and believes in it like gospel, when
I myself couldn't remember half of it to save my life. Now, my dear
fellow, I consider your boy to be a very sacred trust to me, and so I
have mentioned all this to you, to give you an opportunity of removing
him to where he might be under a stricter discipline, if you thought
fit. If he was like some boys, now, I should resign my post at once
but, as it is, I shall wait till you turn me out, for two reasons. The
first is, that I take such delight in my task, that I do not care to
relinquish it; and the other is, that the lad is naturally so orderly
and gentle, that he does not need discipline, like most boys."

"My dear Doctor," replied Major Buckley, "listen to me. If we were in
England, and Sam could go to Eton, which, I take it you know, is the
best school in the world, I would still earnestly ask you to continue
your work. He will probably inherit a great deal of money, and will not
have to push his way in the world by his brains; so that close
scho