common is it to hear the master of such a school
say, "Aye, I am proud of that lad; I have been a schoolmaster these
thirty years, and have never had such another!"

The society above referred to, the dinner-party, or the club, was to
a considerable degree select, brought together by a certain supposed
congeniality between the individuals thus assembled. Were they
taken indiscriminately, as boys are when consigned to the care of
a schoolmaster, the proportion of the brilliant would not be a whit
greater than in the latter case.

A main criterion of the superiority of the schoolboy will be found in
his mode of answering a casual question proposed by the master. The
majority will be wholly at fault, will shew that they do not understand
the question, and will return an answer altogether from the purpose. One
in a hundred perhaps, perhaps in a still less proportion, will reply
in a laudable manner, and convey his ideas in perspicuous and spirited
language.

It does not certainly go altogether so ill, with men grown up to years
of maturity. They do not for the most part answer a plain question in a
manner to make you wonder at their fatuity.

A main cause of the disadvantageous appearance exhibited by the ordinary
schoolboy, lies in what we denominate sheepishness. He is at a loss, and
in the first place stares at you, instead of giving an answer. He does
not make by many degrees so poor a figure among his equals, as when he
is addressed by his seniors.

One of the reasons of the latter phenomenon consists in the torpedo
effect of what we may call, under the circumstances, the difference of
ranks. The schoolmaster is a despot to his scholar; for every man is
a despot, who delivers his judgment from the single impulse of his own
will. The boy answers his questioner, as Dolon answers Ulysses in the
Iliad, at the point of the sword. It is to a certain degree the same
thing, when the boy is questioned merely by his senior. He fears he
knows not what,--a reprimand, a look of lofty contempt, a gesture
of summary disdain. He does not think it worth his while under these
circumstances, to "gird up the loins of his mind." He cannot return a
free and intrepid answer but to the person whom he regards as his equal.
There is nothing that has so disqualifying an effect upon him who is
to answer, as the consideration that he who questions is universally
acknowledged to be a being of a higher sphere, or, as between the
boy and the ma