there are clever boys and stupid boys, just as there are clever men and stupid men, and it would be unjust to expect that one can keep up to the other; but I do look to each doing his best according to his ability. On my part I shall do my best to advance you in your studies, to correct your faults, and to make useful men of you.
' One word as to punishments. I do not believe that knowledge is to be thrashed into boys, or that fear is the best teacher. I shall expect you to learn, partly because you feel that as your parents have paid for you to learn it is your duty to learn, partly because you wish to please me. I hope that the cane will seldom be used in this school. It will be used if any boy tells me a lie, if any boy does anything which is mean and dishonourable, if any boy is obstinately idle, and when it is used it will be used to a purpose, but I trust that the occasion for it will be rare.
' I shall treat you as friends whom it is my duty to instruct. You will treat me, I hope, as a friend whose duty it is to instruct you, and who has a warm interest in your welfare; if we really bear these relations to each other there should be seldom any occasion for punishment. And now as a beginning to-day, boys, let each come up to my
desk, one at a time, with his books. I shall examine you separately, and see what each knows and is capable of doing. I see by the report here that there are six boys in the first class. As these will occupy me all the morning the rest can go into the playground. The second class will be taken this afternoon.'
The boys had listened with astonished silence to this address, and so completely taken aback were they that all save those ordered to remain rose from their seats and went out in a quiet and orderly way, very different from the wild rush which generally terminated school-time.
Ned being in the second class was one of those who went out. Instead of scattering into groups, the boys gathered in a body outside.
' What do you think of that, Sankey ?' Tompkins said. ' It seems almost too good to be true. Only fancy, no more thrashing except for lying and things of that sort, and treating us like friends! and he talked as if he meant it too.'
'That he did,' Ned said gravely; 'and I tell you, fellows, we shall have to work now, and no mistake. A fellow who will not work for such a man as that deserves to be skinned.'
' I expect,' said James Mathers, who was one of the biggest boys in the school though still in the third class, 'that it's all gammon, just to give himself a good name, and to do away with the bad repute the school has got into for Hathorn's flogging. You will see how long it will last! I ain't going to swallow all that soft soap.'
Necl, who had been much touched at the master's address, at once fired up:
'Oh! we all know how clever you are, Mathers—quite a shining genius, one of the sort who can see through a stone wall. If you say it's gammon, of course it must be so.'
There was a laugh among the boys.
'I will punch your head if you don't shut up, Sankey,' Mather said angrily; 'there's no ink-bottle for you to shy here.'
Ned turned very white, but he checked himself with an effort.
' I don't want to fight to-day—it's the first day of the half-year, and after such a speech as we've heard I don't want to have a row on this first morning. But you had better look out; another time you won't find me so patient. Punch my head, indeed! Why, you daren't try it.'
But Mathers would have tried it, for he had for the last year been regarded as the cock of the school. However, several of the boys interfered.
'Sankey is right, Mathers; it would be a beastly shame to be fighting this morning. After what Porson said there oughtn't to be any rows to-day. We shall soon see whether he means it.'
Mathers suffered himself to be dissuaded from carrying his threat into execution, the rather that in his heart of hearts he was not assured that the course would have been a wise one. Ned had never fought in the school, but Tompkins' account of his fight on the moor with Bill
Swinton, and the courage he had shown in taking upon himself the office of spokesman in the rebellion against Hathorn, had given him a very high reputation among the boys; and in spite of Mather's greater age and weight there were many who thought that Ned Sankey would make a tough fight of it with the cock of the school.
So the gathering broke up and the boys set to at their games, which were played with a heartiness and zest all the greater that none of them were in pain from recent punishments, and that they could look forward to the afternoon without fear and trembling.
When at twelve o'clock the boys of the first class came out from school the others crowded round to hear the result of the morning's lessons. They looked bright and pleased.
' I think he is going to turn out a brick,' Ripon, the head of the first class, said. ' Of course one can't tell yet. He was very quiet with us and had a regular examination of each of us. I don't think he was at all satisfied, though we all did our best, but there was no shouting or scolding. We are to go in again this afternoon with the rest. He says there's something which he forgot to mention to us this morning.'
'More speeches!' Mathers grumbled. 'I hate all this jaw.'
'Yes,' Ripon said sharply; 'a cane is the thing which suits your understanding best. Well, perhaps he will indulge you; obstinate idleness is one of the things he mentioned in the address.'
When afternoon school beajan Mr. Porson again rose.
' There is one thing I forgot to mention this morning. I understand that you have hitherto passed your playtime entirely in the playground, except on Saturday afternoons, when you have been allowed to go where you like between dinner and tea-time. With the latter regulation I do not intend to interfere, or at any rate I shall not do so so lono- as I see that no bad effects come of it; but I shall do so only with this proviso, I do not think it good for you to be going about the town. I shall therefore put Marsden out of bounds. You will be free to ramble where you like in the country, but any boy who enters the town will be severely punished. I am not yet sufficiently acquainted with the neighbourhood to draw the exact line beyond which you are not to go, but I shall do so as soon as I have ascertained the boundaries of the town.
' I understand that you look forward to Saturday for making such purchases as you require. Therefore each Saturday four boys, selected by yourselves, one from each class, will be allowed to go into the town to make purchases for the rest, but they are not to he absent more than an hour.
' In the second place, I do not think that the playground affords a sufficient space for exercise, and being gravelled, it is unsuitable for many games. Therefore I have hired a field, which I dare say you all know; it is called ' The Four-acre Field,' about a hundred yards down the road on the left-hand side. This you will use as your
playground during the six summer months. I have brought with me from York a box which I shall place under the charge of Eipon and the two next senior to him. It contains bats, wickets, and a ball for cricket; a set of quoits; trap-bat and ball for the younger boys; leaping-bars, and some other things. These will give you a start. As they become used-up or broken they must be replaced by yourselves; and I hope you will obtain plenty of enjoyment from them. I shall come and play a game of cricket with you myself sometimes.
'You will bear in mind that it is my wish that you should be happy. I expect you to work hard, but I wish you to play hard too. Unless the body works the brain will suffer, and a happy and contented boy will learn as easily again as a discontented and miserable one. I will give you the box after tea, so that you can all examine them together. The second and third classes will now stay in; the fourth class can go out in the playground with the first. I shall have time to examine them while the others are doing their work to-morrow.'
There was a suppressed cheer among the boys, and Ripon, as the senior, said:
' I am sure, sir, we are all very much obliged to you for your kindness, and we will do our best to deserve it.'
There was a chorus of assent, and then the elder and younger boys went out into the playground while the work of examination of the second and third classes began.
On the following day lessons began in earnest, and the
boys found their first impressions of the new master more than justified. A new era had commenced. The sound of the cane was no longer heard, and yet the lessons were far better done than had been the case before. Then the whole work had fallen on the boys; the principal pari of the day's lessons had been the repeating of tasks learned by heart, and the master simply heard them and punished the boys who were not perfect.
There was comparatively little of this mechanical work now; it was the sense and not the wording which had to be mastered. Thus geography was studied from an atlas and not by the mere parrot-like learning of the names of
