parts of the country from forty to fifty pounds is paid by them); as
part payment of this sum providing him with board, &c., &c., and this
alone is the evil part of the scheme; this boarding in turn with the
proprietors, who keep him a week or a month in proportion to the number
of the pupils they send, and to make up their share of the year, for
which term he is hired, as his engagement is termed--an expression how
derogatory to the dignity of many a learned dominie? From this cause the
teacher has no home, no depository for his books, which are lost in
wandering from place to place; and if he had them, no chance for study:
for the log-house filled with children and wheels is no fit abode for a
student. This boarding system operates badly in many ways. The nature of
the blue nose is still leavened with that dislike of coercive measures
inherited from their former countrymen, the Yankees. It extends to their
children, and each little black-eyed urchin, on his wooden bench and
dog-eared dilworth in hand, must be treated by his teacher as a free
enlightened citizen. But even without this, where is there in any
country a schoolmaster daring enough to use a ratan, or birch rod, to
that unruly darling from whose mother he knows his evening reception
will be sour looks, and tea tinged with sky-blue, but would not rather
let the boy make fox-and-geese instead of, ciphering, say his lesson
when he pleased, and have cream and short-cake for his portion. Another
disagreeable thing is, that fond and anxious as they are for
"_larning_," they have not yet enough of it to appreciate the value of
education. The schoolmaster is not yet regarded as the mightiest moral
agent of the earth; the true vicegerent of the spirit from above, by
which alone the soul is truly taught to plume her wings and shape her
course for Heaven. And in this country, where operative power is certain
wealth, he who can neither wield axe or scythe may be looked on with a
slight shade of contempt: but this only arises from constant
association with the people; for were the schoolmaster more his own