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.
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