But to come down from great men and higher matters to my
little children and poor school-house again; I will, God
willing, go forward orderly, as I purposed, to instruct children
and young men both for learning and manners.

--ROGER ASCHAM.

Having given the reader a slight sketch of the village schoolmaster,
he may be curious to learn something concerning his school. As the
Squire takes much interest in the education of the neighbouring
children, he put into the hands of the teacher, on first installing
him in office, a copy of Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster, and advised him,
moreover, to con over that portion of old Peacham which treats of the
duty of masters, and which condemns the favourite method of making
boys wise by flagellation.

He exhorted Slingsby not to break down or depress the free spirit of
the boys, by harshness and slavish fear, but to lead them freely and
joyously on in the path of knowledge, making it pleasant and desirable
in their eyes. He wished to see the youth trained up in the manners
and habitudes of the peasantry of the good old times, and thus to lay
a foundation for the accomplishment of his favorite object, the
revival of old English customs and character. He recommended that all
the ancient holidays should be observed, and that the sports of the
boys, in their hours of play, should be regulated according to the
standard authorities laid down in Strutt, a copy of whose invaluable
work, decorated with plates, was deposited in the school-house. Above
all, he exhorted the pedagogue to abstain from the use of birch, an
instrument of instruction which the good Squire regards with
abhorrence, as fit only for the coercion of brute natures that cannot
be reasoned with.

Mr. Slingsby has followed the Squire's instructions, to the best of
his disposition and abilities. He never flogs the boys, because he is
too easy, good-humoured a creature to inflict pain on a worm. He is
bountiful in holidays, because he loves holidays himself, and has a
sympathy with the urchins' impatience of confinement, from having
divers times experienced its irksomeness during the time that he was
seeing the world. As to sports and pastimes, the boys are faithfully
exercised in all that are on record, quoits, races, prison-bars,
tipcat, trap-ball, bandy-ball, wrestling, leaping, and what not. The
only misfortune is, that having banished the birch, honest Slingsby
has not studied Roger Ascham sufficiently to fin