your master. Discipline indeed! Because one man scourges twenty or
thirty boys more in a morning than another, is he therefore a better
disciplinarian? I do presume to confer in this point with all who have
taught from Chiron's time to this day; and, if I was master of six boys
only, I would preserve as good discipline amongst them as the master of
the greatest school in the world. I say nothing, young man; remember I
say nothing; but if Sir Thomas himself had been educated nearer home,
and under the tuition of somebody--remember I name nobody--it might have
been better for him:--but his father must institute him in the knowledge
of the world. _Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit_." Joseph, seeing him
run on in this manner, asked pardon many times, assuring him he had no
intention to offend. "I believe you had not, child," said he, "and I am
not angry with you; but for maintaining good discipline in a school; for
this."--And then he ran on as before, named all the masters who are
recorded in old books, and preferred himself to them all. Indeed, if
this good man had an enthusiasm, or what the vulgar call a blind side,
it was this: he thought a schoolmaster the greatest character in the
world, and himself the greatest of all schoolmasters: neither of which
points he would have given up to Alexander the Great at the head of
his army.

Adams continued his subject till they came to one of the beautifullest
spots of ground in the universe. It was a kind of natural amphitheatre,
formed by the winding of a small rivulet, which was planted with thick
woods, and the trees rose gradually above each other by the natural
ascent of the ground they stood on; which ascent as they hid with their
boughs, they seemed to have been disposed by the design of the most
skilful planter. The soil was spread with a verdure which no paint could
imitate; and the whole place might have raised romantic ideas in elder
minds than those of Joseph and Fanny, without the assistance of love.