facility in speaking French as set me at my ease with my pupils; and
as I had encountered them on a right footing at the very beginning, and
continued tenaciously to retain the advantage I had early gained, they
never attempted mutiny, which circumstance, all who are in any degree
acquainted with the ongoings of Belgian schools, and who know the
relation in which professors and pupils too frequently stand towards
each other in those establishments, will consider an important and
uncommon one. Before concluding this chapter I will say a word on the
system I pursued with regard to my classes: my experience may possibly
be of use to others.

It did not require very keen observation to detect the character of the
youth of Brabant, but it needed a certain degree of tact to adopt one's
measures to their capacity. Their intellectual faculties were generally
weak, their animal propensities strong; thus there was at once an
impotence and a kind of inert force in their natures; they were dull,
but they were also singularly stubborn, heavy as lead and, like lead,
most difficult to move. Such being the case, it would have been truly
absurd to exact from them much in the way of mental exertion; having
short memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers, they
recoiled with repugnance from any occupation that demanded close study
or deep thought. Had the abhorred effort been extorted from them by
injudicious and arbitrary measures on the part of the Professor, they
would have resisted as obstinately, as clamorously, as desperate swine;
and though not brave singly, they were relentless acting EN MASSE.

I understood that before my arrival in M. Pelet's establishment, the
combined insubordination of the pupils had effected the dismissal of
more than one English master. It was necessary then to exact only the
most moderate application from natures so little qualified to apply--to
assist, in every practicable way, understandings so opaque and
contracted--to be ever gentle, considerate, yielding even, to a certain
point, with dispositions so irrationally perverse; but, having reached
that culminating point of indulgence, you must fix your foot, plant it,
root it in rock--become immutable as the towers of Ste. Gudule; for a
step--but half a step farther, and you would plunge headlong into the
gulf of imbecility; there lodged, you would speedily receive proofs
of Flemish gratitude and magnanimity in showers of Brabant saliva and
ha