This was the place to learn things in, with some possibility of keeping
them, and herein lay the wisdom of our ancestors. Could they ever have
known half as much as they did, and ten times as much as we know, if
they had let the sun come in to dry it all up, as we do? Will even the
fourteen-coated onion root, with its bottom exposed to the sun, or will
a clever puppy grow long ears, in the power of strong daylight?

The nature and nurture of solid learning were better understood when
schools were built from which came Shakespeare and Bacon and Raleigh;
and the glare of the sun was not let in to baffle the light of the
eyes upon the mind. And another consideration is that wherever there is
light, boys make a noise, which conduces but little to doctrine; whereas
in soft shadow their muscles relax, and their minds become apprehensive.
Thus had this ancient grammar school of Stonnington fostered many
scholars, some of whom had written grammars for themselves and their
posterity.

The year being only at the end of March, and the day going on for five
o'clock, the light was just right, in the long low room, for correction
of manners and for discipline. Two boys had been horsed and brushed up
well, which had strengthened the conscience of all the rest, while sobs
and rubs of the part affected diffused a tender silence. Dr. Swinks,
the head-master, was leaning back in his canopied oaken chair, with the
pride inspired by noble actions.

"What wonderfully good boys!" Dolly whispered, as she peeped in through
the dark porch with Faith, while her father was giving the horses in
charge to the hostler from the inn across the way; "I declare that I
shall be frightened even to look at Mr. Scudamore, if this is a specimen
of what he does. There is scarcely a boy looking off his book. But