t lave him a leg to stand upon. He took him in
Euclid's Ailments and Logicals, and proved in Frazher's teeth that the
candlestick before them was the church-steeple, and Frazher himself the
parson; and so sign was on it, the other couldn't disprove it, but had
to give in."

"Mat, then," I observed, "is the most learned man on this walk."

"Why, thin, I doubt that same, sir," replied he, "for all he's so great
in the books; for, you see, while they were ding dust at it, who comes
in but mad Delaney, and he attacked Mat, and, in less than no time,
rubbed the consate out of him, as clane as he did out of Frazher."

"Who is Delaney?" I inquired.

"He was the makings of a priest, sir, and was in Maynooth a couple of
years, but he took in the knowledge so fast, that, bedad, he got cracked
wid larnin'--for a dunce you see, never cracks wid it, in regard of the
thickness of the skull: no doubt but he's too many for Mat, and can go
far beyant him in the books; but then, like Mat, he's still brightest
whin he has a sup in his head."

These are the prejudices which the Irish peasantry have long entertained
concerning the character of hedge schoolmasters; but, granting them to
be unfounded, as they generally are, yet it is an indisputable fact,
that hedge schoolmasters were as superior in literary knowledge and
acquirements to the class of men who are now engaged in the general
education of the people, as they were beneath them in moral and
religious character. The former part of this assertion will, I am aware,
appear rather startling to many. But it is true; and one great cause why
the character of Society Teachers is undervalued, in many instances, by
the people, proceeds from a conviction on their parts, that they are,
and must be, incapable, from the slender portion of learning they have
received, of giving their children a sound and practical education.

But that we may put this subject in a clearer light, we will give a
sketch of the course of instruction which was deemed necessary for a
hedge schoolmaster, and let it be contrasted with that which falls to
the lot of those engaged in the conducting of schools patronized by the
Education Societies of the present day.

When a poor man, about twenty or thirty years ago, understood from the
schoolmaster who educated his sons, that any of them was particularly
"cute at his larnin'," the ambition of the parent usually directed
itself to one of three objects--he would either