The minor parts of speech were recognized as such, not from the functions performed by them in the sentence in which they appeared, but from the fact that they were in the list which the pupil was forced to memorize. "With" was a preposition because it was in the list of prepositions, and "forth" was an adverb because the teacher said it was, and if by chance, from nervousness or any other cause, the boy with a treacherous memory failed to place it under its proper heading, a flogging was considered a proper chastisement for the offence. It sometimes happened that a boy did not see eye to eye with his teacher upon this question of corporal punishment, and a scrimmage would ensue. If the teacher came out second best, his usefulness in that neighbourhood was gone. To be learned, as the teacher was supposed to be, was a distinction which gave him a certain amount of prominence, and opened up for him several other fields of usefulness. He was frequently called upon as arbitrator to adjust complicated accounts, or to settle disputes in the measurement of wood or lumber, or to lay out a plot of ground with a given acreage. He was the court of last resort in matters of orthography and spelling. If he happened to be of a religious turn of mind, he might be called upon to fill the pulpit in the absence of the regular clergyman. The Squire and the school teacher each played his part in the administration of the affairs of the neighbourhood. Each carried some weight and commanded a certain amount of respect; but both yielded first place to the clergyman. While there were several other denominations, the Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists formed the great mass of the population. The Anglicans were the pampered class; they received most of the public favours and were correspondingly haughty and independent. For the first fourteen years of the settlement the clergymen of this church enjoyed a monopoly in the matter of marrying. It was a common occurrence, before there was a Protestant parson or minister duly ordained residing in the province, for a Justice of the Peace to tie the knot, and in rarer cases still for a military officer to perform the ceremony.[#] [#] All such marriages were confirmed and made valid by "The Marriage Act" passed in 1793; and it was declared lawful for a Justice of the Peace to solemnize marriages under certain circumstances, when the parties lived eighteen miles from a parson of the Church of England.