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 Peachum 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 the
foundation for the accomplishment of his favourite 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 by 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,