“I want a word with you, Mr. Schoolmaister,” said he. “My boy goes to the National School, and I gives you fair warning, if you touches him with your hand or a stick, I’ll have the law of you.” “But suppose he be disobedient, rude, disorderly?” “My boy is not to be punished. He is well enough if let alone.” “But--do you send him to school to be let alone?” “I send him to school to be out of the way when my missus is washing or doing needlework.” A little farther on his way, a woman arrested Walter Bramber, and said, “You be the new teacher, be you not? Please, I’ve five childer in your school and three at home. Some of the scholars bain’t clean as they should be. I can’t have my childer come home bringing with them what they oughtn’t, and never carried to school from my house. So will’y, now, just see to ’em every day, as they be all right, afore you let ’em leave school, and I’ll thank’y for it kindly.” Presently a mason returning from his work saluted Bramber. “Look here, schoolmaister! I want you to take special pains wi’ my children and get ’em on like blazes. If they don’t seem to get forward in a week or two, I shall take ’em away and send them to Mr. Puddicombe, who is going to open a private school.” Then another man came up, halted, and, catching hold of the lappet of Bramber’s coat, said, “My name is Tooker. I’m not a churchman, but I have several children at your school. I won’t have them taught the Church Catechism. I’m a Particular Baptist, and I won’t have no childer of mine taught to say what their godfather and godmother promised and vowed for them--for they ain’t had no godfathers nor godmothers, and ain’t a-going to have none. You can’t mistake my childer. One has got a red head, another is yaller, and the third is a sort of whitey-brown--and has sunspots, and a mole between the shoulder-blades, and the boy never had no toe-nails. So mind--no catechism for them.” “And there is something,” said again another, “upon which I want to lay down what I think. I wish you to teach readin’ and writin’ in a rational manner.” “I hope to do that.” “Ah! but you’ve been too much at college, and crammed wi’ book-larnin’. Why should you teach childer, and fret their little heads about the H, when it’s a thing of no concern whatever. Mr. Puddicombe, he was the reasonable man. Sez he, ‘Raisin puddin’ is good, and duffy puddin’ wi’out raisins is good--so is it with the English language--it’s good all round, and the H’s are just the raisins; you can put ’em in or leave ’em out as you pleases, and stick ’em in by the scores or just a sprinklin’, and it’s no odds--it’s good anyways.’ Them’s the principles of spellin’ I expect my little ones to larn at your school.” “And I hopes, Mr. Teacher,” said another sententiously, “as you’ll never forget that it is not enough to teach the children readin’, writing, and ’rithmetic. There is something more”-- “There is a great deal more--geography, history, the Elements”--