Page images
PDF
EPUB

LESSON LII.

The Idle School-Boy.

1. "COME, George, it is time for us to be moving on; the bell will ring now in a few minutes, and you know what we shall catch if we come in late."

2. "Oh, Tom, how I do hate school! Don't let's go yet; it wants a quarter to nine, I'm sure; and it's such fun watching these little terrapins as they scramble out of the water to sun themselves on the logs! Don't go yet, Tom."

3. "Oh, but we must, George. I like to see the terrapins, as well as you; but I don't like the master's black looks, or a punishment either; and I know it wants only a few minutes to nine. Come along, George."

4. " Well, if I must, I suppose I must. But I think it's very hard, Tom. I can't see what father makes me go to school for; I guess he wouldn't like it himself."

5. "Oh, but you know, George, we must learn writing and arithmetic, and other things. My father says, that a man might almost as well be without hands, as without edu cation; and if it was not likely to be good for me, I don't believe he would go to the expense; for you know he can't afford it very well, any more than yours. So come along,

George."

6. This little dialogue passed, one fine morning in the beginning of summer, between two lads whose parents lived in a beautiful village on the west bank of the Hudson. Their names were George Wilson and Thomas Macfarlane. They were both tolerably good boys-that is, they never fought, or told lies, or took what did not belong to them, or did mischief for mischief's sake, as too many lads often do; they were good-natured, industrious, and obedient to their parents, respectful to their elders, and cheerful and obliging among their school-fellows and play-mates.

7. So far, there was but little difference between them; but there was one point in which one boy could hardly be more at variance with another, than was George Wilson from his friend and companion. Thomas loved books with a resistless passion, while to George they were the most wearisome things in the world.

8. Thomas delighted in reading accounts of travels, and, above all, works that treated of natural history-of the

habits and instincts of the various beasts-the beautiful plumage and melodious song of birds-the wonderful and ingenious contrivances of insects of the huge elephant, mightiest of all that treads the earth-the sagacious marmot-the insatiable otter-the fierce eagle, and the humming-bird, that loveliest of the feathered kind-the methodical bee, and the precious silk-worm, with all their admirable works and modes of providing for their own wants, and the safety of their progeny.

9. He had little time to read, for his father was a poor farmer, and there was work enough for him to do in every season of the year except the winter; it is true, that he was but a boy, and could not undertake hard work, such as ploughing, or mowing, or building fences, or getting in the crops; but there are many things to be done upon a farm, which even young boys can undertake; and Thomas was never idle.

10. This summer was the first in which he had been spared for school; and, although he did not like grammar, and arithmetic, and geography, so well as he did the books for which we have already mentioned his fondness, yet he gave them up cheerfully, and devoted all his leisure time at home to his lessons, because he knew that it would please his father, in the first place, and in the second, because he could not be sure of going to school another year, except in the three winter months, and therefore had no time to lose.

11. Besides, he had sense enough to reflect, that what he learned at school was likely to be more useful to him than what he read in his favorite books, although not quite so pleasant; and his father had early made him understand, that out of useful things acquired in youth, grow pleasant things to be enjoyed in manhood.

12. As we have already said, George Wilson was in many things as good a boy as his companion, Thomas; but he disliked books in general, and school-books in particular, with an aversion that almost amounted to hatred. He was not an idle boy; he would work from morning till night, as hard as his years and strength would permit-go any where do any thing-even go without his dinner, rather than be "stuck down," as he called it, to a book, no matter how pleasant and entertaining it might be.

13. His father was but very little richer than Thomas

Macfarlane's; but he was equally desirous that his son should enjoy the advantages of education, and when his neighbor told him that he had resolved to strain a point, and let Tom go to school for at least one summer, he made up his mind at once to do as much for George, however inconvenient the expense might be.

14. But this was dreary tidings for George. School was quite bad enough, he thought, in winter; but to be cooped up in a little room every day, in the bright, pleasant summer, poring over a stupid grammar, or horrible slate, or the "hard maps," when he would rather be scampering over the hills, or down by the river-side fishing, or helping his father in the hay-field, or going into the woods to bring home the cows, or lying at full length upon his back, listening to the song of the gay birds, and the chirp of the grasshoppers, or, in short, working or playing at any thing out of doors, was, in his estimation, the very perfection of hardship.

15. It may well be supposed that, with such feelings, going to school was of no real service to George. Learning is not to be won by a reluctant mind; and reluctant his was, in the fullest sense of the word. He was always the last to come in, and the last of his class when he got there; his lessons were seldom well learned, his sums seldom finished, except when he obtained help from his friend Tom, and his copy-books always lasted the longest.

16. The least and most trivial object or incident was enough to retard him in his way to the school; and, even when he kept on without stopping, his movement was sluggish and indolent. In all other directions he went skipping gaily along, as full of life and activity as a squirrel leaping from tree to tree in its sportive gambols; but, with study before him, his pace was that of a snail.

17. The way from his house ran through a number of fields, and by the side of a pond; and it came into the road that led to the school-house, just at the end of a high stone wall, by the side of which was a stile that had to be got over before he came into the road. That pond, and that stile, were sore hindrances to poor George.

18. When the weather was fine, the odd-looking little tortoises used to crawl out of the water, and lie all about on the logs, and stones, and little hillocks of turf, basking in the warm sunshine, and poking their heads out from their shells

as far as their long necks would allow; and George could not resist the temptation to linger a while, and enjoy the fun of seeing them go, scrambling, and slipping, and splashing, tail foremost, into the water, when he sent stones at them, or frightened them by a too near approach. The turtles were seldom got by in less than a quarter of an hour, and the stile was almost sure to come in for another quarter.

19. The top-rail made such a nice seat, and the wall so projected beyond, that, without coming forward a little, he could not be seen from the school; and on the other side of the road was a barn, that had a weathercock stuck on a pole, standing up from the peak of the roof-one of those whimsical figures, so often produced by the ingenuity of the country lads, a fierce warrior, with a monstrous cocked hat, and a sword in each hand, which he flourishes as he turns, with a most ferocious dexterity.

20. And there George would sit, with his satchel dangling over his shoulders, admiring the valiant soldier fighting the wind, or watching the cows and the sheep, and the swallows that twittered about the eaves of the barn, and the pigeons that wheeled over his head, and the horses cropping the grass-or, perhaps, thinking what a pity it was that boys had to go to school, whether they liked it or not.

21. The summer passed away, and winter came and went. Thomas Macfarlane made good use of his time and opportunity; but George was still the idle school-boy, and his year of education scarcely added to his stock of learning. He had become a tolerable reader, but gained no increase of taste or inclination for the practice; of grammar and geography, he knew almost nothing; and his writing might still have passed for the first efforts of a better penman, driven to the employment of his left hand, by the loss or mutilation of the right.

22. As for arithmetic, that he never could get on with at least, so he declared, himself—and he could apply to himself literally, and with perfect truth, the well-known schoolboy rhymes, in which the torments of Multiplication, Division, Practice, and the Rule of Three, are specifically designated. His father's circumstances, and his own increased strength, denied him another complete year of trial, and the little schooling he was able to gain during the next three or four winters, did scarcely more than serve to enable him to retain the very scanty acquirements we have described.

23. Years rolled on, and George, from an idle school-boy, grew to be an ignorant young man. He was frugal and industrious, and, in other respects, a well-disposed and wellbehaved person; but he knew scarcely any thing beyond the mere mechanical routine of his daily occupation; and, even when he had nothing else to do, books were the very last expedient to which he thought of resorting, for pleasure or employment.

24. As it was, he had to work hard all day, and, when his work was done, if he had nobody to talk with through the long evenings, nor any place to go to, nor amusement to beguile the time, he would either go to bed, or else sit dozing by the fireside, with no more thought of cultivating his mind, than if he had no such thing in his possession.

LESSON LIII.

The Idle School-Boy-(continued.)

Old Mr.

1. TIME passes, and so do the lives of men. Wilson died, and George, now twenty-six years of age, succeeded him in the farm. He married a wife, and children were born unto him; and in other respects his career was for many years almost the counterpart of his father's.

2. He continued to labor in the same field, and send his produce to the same markets; living in the same little old house; and like him, too, found himself, year after year, just as poor on the last day of December as he had been on the previous first of January.

3. He saw his neighbors increasing in wealth and prosperity; boys who had gone to the same school, and at the same time, with himself, and, like him, the sons of poor farmers, rising above their original sphere-their possessions enlarged by judicious enterprise, their enjoyments augmented, not only by the increase of means, but still more by the improved taste and expanded knowledge, for the acquisition of which competence gives facilities.

4. He saw their children preparing, by a liberal and complete education, for a career of usefulness, and, perhaps, the attainment of the highest honors, accessible, in this favored land, to all men of intelligence and talent, whatever may be their origin or station.

5. George was not of a complaining or envious disposi

« PreviousContinue »