appointed; Mr. Wilson being not only a trustee, but the treasurer and
secretary; in fact, taking most of the business arrangements upon
himself; a responsibility which appropriately fell to him, as he lived
nearer the school than any one else who was interested in it. So his
character for prudence and judgment was to a certain degree implicated in
the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and the working of it was
for many years the great object and interest of his life. But he was
apparently unacquainted with the prime element in good
administration--seeking out thoroughly competent persons to fill each
department, and then making them responsible for, and judging them by,
the result, without perpetual interference with the details.

So great was the amount of good which Mr. Wilson did, by his constant,
unwearied superintendence, that I cannot help feeling sorry that, in his
old age and declining health, the errors which he was believed to have
committed, should have been brought up against him in a form which
received such wonderful force from the touch of Miss Bronte's great
genius. No doubt whatever can be entertained of the deep interest which
he felt in the success of the school. As I write, I have before me his
last words on giving up the secretaryship in 1850: he speaks of the
"withdrawal, from declining health, of an eye, which, at all events, has
loved to watch over the schools with an honest and anxious interest;"--and
again he adds, "that he resigns, therefore, with a desire to be thankful
for all that God has been pleased to accomplish through his
instrumentality (the infirmities and unworthinesses of which he deeply
feels and deplores)."

Cowan Bridge is a cluster of some six or seven cottages, gathered
together at both ends of a bridge, over which the high road from Leeds to
Kendal crosses a little stream, called the Leck. This high road is