asters,
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,
bandy-ball, wrestling, leaping, and what not. The only misfortune is,
that having banished the birch, honest Slingsby has not studied Roger
Ascham sufficiently to find out a substitute, or rather he has not the
management in his nature to apply one; his school, therefore, though one
of the happiest, is one of the most unruly in the country; and never was
a pedagogue more liked, or less heeded, by his disciples than Slingsby.

He has lately taken a coadjutor worthy of himself, being another stray
sheep that has returned to the village fold. This is no other than the
son of the musical tailor, who had bestowed some cost upon his
education, hoping to see him one day arrive at the dignity of an
exciseman, or at least of a parish clerk. The lad grew up, however, as
idle and musical as his father; and, being captivated by the drum