gentlemen; you must teach them three things: to love their mother, to speak the truth, and to believe in another world.'

During his stay, the village was astounded to hear that the strange clergyman was out at five in the morning learning shoemaking from the village cobbler. He wanted to realise, I suppose, as far as possible, what a workman's life is like. It was also noticed that his visits were chiefly to the cottages of the most notorious evil-doers, and that even there he was welcome. There was something about him that would take no denial. My mother asked him whether he had been to see the old Halls,' the pattern old folk, during her absence. Not much,' he answered "except when I needed some lesson in faith. I thought I could help poor Job Withers more.'

Long after he had gone the village people remembered him, his queer ways and kindly speech, and how the little rise in the middle of the terrace-walk troubled him as he walked up and down. The terrace-walk was altered, but he never came to see us again, and the next time that we met was in 1873, when I went to Harrow. The boys told me that it was 'old John,' who took us in 'pupe,' and in old John' I recognised the friend of my youth.

,

Let me try to describe him as he sat at the high desk in 'pupilroom.' His hair was white, and gave him a venerable appearance, which it was his humour to cultivate. He liked to talk of himself as an 'old, old man,' though at the time he could not have been much more than fifty. Underneath his bushy eyebrows were a pair of the kindliest eyes ever to be seen in a human face, and his broad brow had a peculiarly saintly quality, entirely redeeming the long upper lip and heavy jaw, which might have disfigured any less spiritual countenance. Another noticeable feature was his hands, with which he was forever pointing and making signs. They were white and well shaped; and his fingers were provided with very large filbert nails, which he tended with scrupulous care.

It was part of his teaching that such things as keeping your nails clean were as much a part of a boy's duty in the sight of God as other and more generally recognised virtues. So he acted up to his doctrine by setting a good example in such matters himself. He was never to be seen in the smallest way untidy; his dress and linen were most scrupulously clean and neat. And his voice-it is difficult to describe, though he talked like no one else. It sounded as if he generally spoke under the influence of some high enthusiasm. It had a mouthing quality, which

made everything he said emphatic without being in the least unreal. His obvious simplicity and sincerity put affectation out of the question. He was also a precisian in speaking, and sounded his final consonants in a way that did, alas! at one time make his reading at prayers ludicrous. He appealed to me about it: 'Laddie, what is it makes the dear fellows laugh so, when I read?' and there were tears in his voice. Shame on me that I never told him of the absurdity of those final t's and p's-why, I cannot imagine; but that was years after my first entrance into pupil-room.

There were some twenty or thirty boys who sat with him in pupil-room for preparation; the senior boys did their work upstairs in their own rooms. To all these boys he taught the fear of God, as part of the daily round. Heaven was to him so near that the word was forever in his mouth. When a boy carelessly left the door open, he would point to it and say 'Shut the door, lad; doors are not left open in heaven.'

Idleness he could not abide. On one occasion, wearied with a boy's persistent excuse that he had finished his work and therefore had nothing more to do, he flashed out 'Nothing to do, laddie? Say a prayer, then; you can always say a prayer.'

I can imagine that at stories like these some of my readers who think that they know schoolboys will smile with incredulous pity. If John Smith really talked like that, they are sure that the boys could have had but little respect for him; assuredly they laughed at him in their sleeves if not openly. And yet it is certain that they did not do so. Things that John' had said were detailed through the school and repeated with humorous relish; his eccentric mode of speech was imitated, but it was not in the spirit of mockery, but with affectionate enjoyment of his quaint humour.

He also taught us respect for our work. Whatever it might be, it must be shown up with the utmost neatness and precision. The intrinsic excellence of the work, I verily believe, took with him a second place. If a boy brought up a finished exercise to show that his form work was done, he would say 'Copy it out again, dear lad; those terrible corrections spoil everything.' As for help in our work, lazy boys soon found out that he was not to be relied upon for assistance at critical moments. Whether it was that he really did not trust himself to answer all questions (it was part of his extraordinary humility to pretend to no knowledge outside his ordinary beat) or that he thought it better to make us persevere by refusing help, I do not know. Certainly his answer to many

inquiries was 'Dear lad, I fear it is too hard for an old man like me; take it back to your place and try again.' When the question was one of mathematics, and the boy could obviously make no way without help, he would say 'Ah, laddie, I know nothing of these marvellous things. You must take it to one of those wonderful fellows upstairs,' and the boy would go knocking at sixth-form doors for assistance. His attitude of mind in all these matters was exactly opposite to that of most masters. He pretended to no intellectual superiority but sought to stimulate us by confessing himself as puzzled by similar difficulties. He was full of admiration for the high gifts of knowledge and wisdom in others, but took no credit for anything of the kind himself.

At the same time, with all his simplicity he was not easily imposed upon, as he sometimes gave his pupils plainly to understand. For example, one evening he attacked a well-known sporting character in the house with the request to be informed what horse was first favourite for the Derby. The boy, thinking that innocent ignorance would be the most telling pose, stammered out, amid general amusement, I don't know, sir.'

'Then, laddie, you must be more foolish than I thought. Find out the name every Englishman ought to know it: and write it out one hundred times.'

But to real ignorance and stupidity he was very pitiful. When he took pupil-room once a week in English subjects, he used to walk about the room, leaving one of the boys to mark the answers, and do his best to extract such knowledge as every boy possessed. 'Black M- yes! White R- yes! and the little thing called Hyes! Mark these men; mark them all; 'and then, putting his fingers on the head of the fourth, a slow fellow, who never got anything right, he would say 'Poor old S-! poor old thing!' and as he waited for an answer, press his hand down so hard that his long sharp nails became painful. But that was his way of showing sympathy, so it did not occur to S- or anyone else to mind it.

His hatred of dirt and untidiness made him swift to notice personal defects of the kind in us. On such occasions he would. say 'Show your hands, laddie; those are not divinely pure. Away and cleanse them!' Similarly with our exercises. We might not be able to do them right, but we could show them up neatly; and therefore it was a part of every boy's duty in the sight of God to do so. Copies of verses shown up to him personally in pupilroom had to be faultless in this respect, or they were torn up.

And the rule which he applied as far as possible to our work in preparation became absolute in his own form. He always took the first fourth at Harrow, which was the third form from the bottom of the school. Other masters were promoted as time went on, but John Smith thought he could do the best work where he was, and no doubt he was right. Young boys could have had no better master nor more valuable training. His discipline, the habits of neatness and accuracy which he insisted upon, must have been invaluable to the small lower-school boys under his care. As a boy he had been devoted to Scott's Marmion,' and his favourite exercise for his form was to make them write abstracts of the different cantos of the poem. What struggles the copying and recopying of those 'Marmion' abstracts cost the careless boys of the first fourth can be imagined. Though I was never in his form myself, I can well remember being called into council by a friend as to how he could best conceal a necessary erasure in his exercise. My part only consisted in certain delicate operations with a pocket-knife, but my friend's intense anxiety during the process showed me with what reverence he had learned to regard his written work. On completion he surveyed my efforts with a gloomy and despondent stare, and said 'It's no use; he'll be sure to see it, I know,' and no doubt John's eagle eye detected the erasure next morning.

His manner with his form was paternal, and characterised by the same quaint humour. But it was not safe to presume in any way upon that kindliness. The legend was that on one occasion a new boy to the form ventured to try a fall with his master, and that John' arose majestic, and thundered out 'Marvellously funny, laddie, but rather impertinent; you go straight to the dear Doctor, and when you come back it will be all quite different.' At any signs of lying or cheating in a boy, his anger was terrible. The way in which his blue eye flashed, as he hissed out 'Miserable creature!' (his most stringent term of abuse) was sufficient to scare the most hardened criminal.

As a rule, however, he was not unduly swift to punish, nor pitiless in his dealings even with deliberate offenders, though he knew how to set long punishments- Glorious discipline for thee, laddie!'-or even to put a boy into the great extra,' when it was deserved. A house-master once asked him to take strong measures with a new boy in his house who was thoroughly idle and unsatisfactory. John said 'No; be patient with him; it is his first term; when he comes back (with a crescendo of emphasis)

I'll set him lines; I'll punish him; I'll send him up, and have him flogged, for I love the lad.'

He knew also how to use persuasion; it is on record that he got a neat exercise out of a hopelessly untidy boy by saying to him 'Will you do it for my sake, dear thing?' and then when the motive proved sufficient went on to say 'Could you not do one better still for Christ's sake?' The fact that he was able to say such things to boys without exposing himself to mockery shows how great was his power over them.

Unpunctuality in form he punished sharply. On one day in the week, Tuesday I think it was, he stood watch in hand at the door, and woe be to any sluggard who found it shut. The penalty on that day was seven hundred lines. On any other day in the week boys who were late had to come up at seven in the morning, and wait in the road opposite his lodging till a gaunt arm waved across the window showed that they had been noticed and might go. He rose habitually himself at six o'clock or a little after, but was never seen before schooltime at half-past seven. 'We older people, you see, have so much to pray about,' he said once in apology to a boy who wondered why he took so long dressing.' That these long prayers were no perfunctory ceremony is shown by the confession made in after years that he had been in the habit of praying for every boy in the school separately by name once a week. For this purpose he had arranged a routine of forms, beginning with the sixth on Sunday, and ending with the third form on Saturday night.

But his form had its privileges as well as its punishments: privileges of service, dear to the heart of boys as everyone knows. Certain boys called monitors' were appointed to take the billbooks 1 round to the different masters. Another series provided pen, pencil, matches, india rubber, etc., for his personal use. It was a piece of 'John's' humour to appoint also deputies in case one of them should 'die in the night.'

In the summer term he gave a swimming school'—that is to say, took the whole form personally down to 'Ducker' in schooltime, on condition that at least ten boys could be found to dive from the highest board. It was most comical to hear 'John' exhorting his flock in quaintly humoured speech, and urging the last of the shivering boys on to this deed of daring. See how all those wonderful fellows have gone head first before you; jump, laddie; feet first if you can't the other way. There's no shrinking in 1 Books containing the names of those absent from call-overs.