d of a master he has drawn for us a type of the
teachers and trainers of its youth, a type of its places of education.
Mr. Creakle and Salem House are immortal. The type itself, it is to be
hoped, will perish; but the drawing of it which Dickens has given cannot
die. Mr. Creakle, the stout gentleman with a bunch of watch-chain and
seals, in an armchair, with the fiery face and the thick veins in his
forehead; Mr. Creakle sitting at his breakfast with the cane, and a
newspaper, and the buttered toast before him, will sit on, like Theseus,
for ever. For ever will last the recollection of Salem House, and of the
'daily strife and struggle' there; the recollection 'of the frosty
mornings when we were rung out of bed, and the cold, cold smell of the
dark nights when we were rung into bed again; of the evening schoolroom
dimly lighted and indifferently warmed, and the morning schoolroom which
was nothing but a great shivering-machine; of the alternation of boiled
beef with roast beef, and boiled mutton with roast mutton; of clods of
bread and butter, dog's-eared lesson-books, cracked slates, tear-blotted
copy-books, canings, rulerings, hair-cuttings, rainy Sundays, suet
puddings, and a dirty atmosphere of ink surrounding all.' By the Middle
Class I understand those who are brought up at establishments more or
less like Salem House, and by educators more or less like Mr. Creakle.
And the great mass of the Middle part of our community, the part which
comes between those who labour with their hands, on the one side, and
people of fortune on the other, is brought up at establishments of this
kind, although there is a certain portion broken off at the top which is
educated at better. But the great mass are both badly taught, and are
also brought up on a lower plane than is right, brought up ignobly. And
this deteriorates their standard of life, their civilization."

It surely must have been Salem House, or an institution very like it,
that produced the delicious letter quoted by Arnold in his General
Report for 1867. Even Mr. Anstey Guthrie never excelled it in the letter
dictated by Dr. Grimstone to his pupils at Crichton House.

"MY DEAR PARENTS.--The anticipation of our Christmas
vacation abounds in peculiar delights. Not only that its
'festivities,' its social gatherings and its lively amusements
crown the old year with happiness and mirth, but that I come a
guest commended to your hospitable love by t