grammar school and of other public schools of a useful character, were then very inefficiently utilised. Hastings was far away from the universities and from any influential public school, and lacked the stimulus afforded by opportunities of pushing into good educational careers, Those who wished their sons — daughters were not so much thought of, educationally — to obtain a better education than that which was given by the parish or the scarcely better endowed schools of the place, either sent their sons away, or sent them to one of the small private day schools. It was in one of those private day-schools that my first school-years were passed.
The master — Robert Carr — deserves mention as a superior example of an extinct type. Teaching was not his original avocation, and he took to it late in life less as a source of livelihood than because he longed for some congenial occupation. His schoolroom was a loft over the kitchen at the back of his house. We approached it along an open passage leading to a ladder at the top of which a trap-door admitted us to the floor of the room. The ceiling rose into the gable, and the light came from a slanting window in one side of the roof. There could never have been more than about thirty boys. Now aend then we had, for short periods, two or three of the boys’ sisters, on a form by themselves, sent to acquire some branch of learning not then ordinarily taught in girls’ schools. During a part of my time there we had as a fellow pupil an adult Jew who had fled from Morocco for some cause which we boys only imperfectly understood. His name was Solomon Mammon, and out of school-hours he traded in knick-knacks and nutmegs. The nutmegs were pronounced to be bad and hollow by those who purchased them. Solomon made no bad school-fellow, and as I recall him now it seems to me that he must have been a man of good position at home.
Carr taught us only English subjects—probably he knew no others; but what he professed to teach he taught well. His boast was that “he well grounded his pupils.” But however much knowledge he drilled into us, to many of us it is probable that the influence of his character was more valuable than all his pedagogic drill. Few boys worth anything could have passed through his hands without being morally as well as mentally the better for it. His influence over us was all the stronger because he could not help letting us see, despite his discipline and his cane, that in many respects he was as much a boy as any of ourselves. He was absolutely innocent of cant, and he abhorred humbug of all kinds. He never preached to us, never rode the high, moral, didactic horse, never indulged in long-set addresses. But now and then, unexpectedly, prompted by some sudden impulse, or wishing to -grammar school and of other public schools of a useful character, were then very inefficiently utilised. Hastings was far away from the universities and from any influential public school, and lacked the stimulus afforded by opportunities of pushing into good educational careers, Those who wished their sons — daughters were not so much thought of, educationally — to obtain a better education than that which was given by the parish or the scarcely better endowed schools of the place, either sent their sons away, or sent them to one of the small private day schools. It was in one of those private day-schools that my first school-years were passed.
The master — Robert Carr — deserves mention as a superior example of an extinct type. Teaching was not his original avocation, and he took to it late in life less as a source of livelihood than because he longed for some congenial occupation. His schoolroom was a loft over the kitchen at the back of his house. We approached it along an open passage leading to a ladder at the top of which a trap-door admitted us to the floor of the room. The ceiling rose into the gable, and the light came from a slanting window in one side of the roof. There could never have been more than about thirty boys. Now aend then we had, for short periods, two or three of the boys’ sisters, on a form by themselves, sent to acquire some branch of learning not then ordinarily taught in girls’ schools. During a part of my time there we had as a fellow pupil an adult Jew who had fled from Morocco for some cause which we boys only imperfectly understood. His name was Solomon Mammon, and out of school-hours he traded in knick-knacks and nutmegs. The nutmegs were pronounced to be bad and hollow by those who purchased them. Solomon made no bad school-fellow, and as I recall him now it seems to me that he must have been a man of good position at home.
Carr taught us only English subjects—probably he knew no others; but what he professed to teach he taught well. His boast was that “he well grounded his pupils.” But however much knowledge he drilled into us, to many of us it is probable that the influence of his character was more valuable than all his pedagogic drill. Few boys worth anything could have passed through his hands without being morally as well as mentally the better for it. His influence over us was all the stronger because he could not help letting us see, despite his discipline and his cane, that in many respects he was as much a boy as any of ourselves. He was absolutely innocent of cant, and he abhorred humbug of all kinds. He never preached to us, never rode the high, moral, didactic horse, never indulged in long-set addresses. But now and then, unexpectedly, prompted by some sudden impulse, or wishing to -
