Collections and RecollectionsRussell, George William Erskine
History
Collections and Recollections
Russell, George William Erskine
England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
What offers? Very few, I should fear, in a community so shrewdly
commercial as Manchester, where, I understand, religious profession is
seldom taken as a substitute for technical training. The mention of that
famous city reminds me that not long ago I was describing Chetham
College to an ignorant outsider, who, not realizing how the name was
spelt, observed that it sounded as if Mr. Squeers had been caught by the
Oxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, and had sought to give an
ecclesiastical air to his famous seminary of Dotheboys Hall by
transforming it into "Cheat'em College."
That immortal pedagogue owed much of his deserved success to his skill
in the art of drawing an advertisement:--
"At Mr. Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful
village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, Youth are
boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all
necessaries, instructed in all languages, living and dead, mathematics,
orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes,
algebra, singlestick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification,
and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas
per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled."
Now, mark what follows. Wackford Squeers the younger was, as we all
know, destined by his parents to follow the schoolmaster's profession,
to assist his father as long as assistance was required, and then to
take the management of the Hall and its pupils into his own hands. "Am I
to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?" said Wackford
junior. "You are, my son," replied Mr. Squeers in a sentimental voice.
"Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting
child, grasping his father's cane--"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But
we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal
difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the
school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far
we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture.
But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all the
dogged perseverance of a true Yorkshireman, struggled manfully against
misfortune; resolved to make a home for his parents and sister; and, as
soon as he could raise the needful capital, opened a private school in
the South of England, as far as possible from the scene of earlier
misfortune. Making due allowance for change of time and circumstances, I
trace a close similarity of substance and style between the
advertisement which I quoted above and that which I give below, and I
feel persuaded that young Wackford inherited from his more famous
father this peculiar power of attracting parental confidence by means
of picturesque statement. We have read the earlier manifesto; let us now
compare the later:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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