in
mind the golden maxim, "spare the rod and spoil the child."--Ichabod
Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel
potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the
contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than
severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak and laying it on
those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the
least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the
claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some
little, tough, wrong headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and
swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he
called "doing his duty by their parents"; and he never inflicted a
chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to
the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it and thank him for it
the longest day he had to live."

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of
the larger boys; and on holyday afternoons would convoy some of the
smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard.
Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The
revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely
sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder,
and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help
out his maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those
parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children
he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus
going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied
up in a cotton handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic
patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous
burden and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of
rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers
occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay;
mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from
pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the
dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his
little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and
ingratiating. He f