<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395930" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Borough. Letter XXIV: Schools</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">To every class we have a School assign'd,<br>Rules for all ranks and food for every mind:<br>Yet one there is, that small regard to rule<br>Or study pays, and still is deem'd a School:<br>That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,<br>And awes some thirty infants as she knits;<br>Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay<br>Some trifling price for freedom through the day:<br>At this good matron's hut the children meet,<br>Who thus becomes the mother of the street:<br>Her room is small they cannot widely stray, -<br>Her threshold high they cannot run away:<br>Though deaf, she sees the rebel-heroes shout, -<br>Though lame, her white rod nimbly walks about;<br>With band of yarn she keeps offenders in,<br>And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin:<br>Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds,<br>Her power they dread and reverence her words.<br>To Learning's second seats we now proceed,<br>Where humming students gilded primers read;<br>Or books with letters large and pictures gay,<br>To make their reading but a kind of play -<br>'Reading made easy,' so the titles tell;<br>But they who read must first begin to spell:<br>There may be profit in these arts, but still<br>Learning is labour, call it what you will;<br>Upon the youthful mind a heavy load,<br>Nor must we hope to find the royal road.<br>Some will their easy steps to science show,<br>And some to heav'n itself their by-way know;<br>Ah! trust them not,--who fame or bliss would share,<br>Must learn by labour, and must live by care.<br>Another matron, of superior kind,<br>For higher schools prepares the rising mind;<br>Preparatory she her Learning calls,<br>The step first made to colleges and halls.<br>She early sees to what the mind will grow,<br>Nor abler judge of infant-powers I know:<br>She sees what soon the lively will impede,<br>And how the steadier will in turn succeed;<br>Observes the dawn of wisdom, fancy, taste,<br>And knows what parts will wear, and what will </div><div style="margin:10px 0">waste:<br>She marks the mind too lively, and at once<br>Sees the gay coxcomb and the rattling dunce.<br>Long has she lived, and much she loves to trace<br>Her former pupils, now a lordly race;<br>Whom when she sees rich robes and furs bedeck,<br>She marks the pride which once she strove to check.<br>A Burgess comes, and she remembers well<br>How hard her task to make his worship spell;<br>Cold, selfish, dull, inanimate, unkind,<br>'Twas but by anger he display'd a mind:<br>Now civil, smiling, complaisant, and gay,<br>The world has worn th' unsocial crust away:<br>That sullen spirit now a softness wears,<br>And, save by fits, e'en dulness disappears:<br>But still the matron can the man behold,<br>Dull, selfish, hard, inanimate, and cold.<br>A Merchant passes,--'Probity and truth,<br>Prudence and patience, mark'd thee from thy youth.'<br>Thus she observes, but oft retains her fears<br>For him, who now with name unstain'd appears:<br>Nor hope relinquishes, for one who yet<br>Is lost in error and involved in debt;<br>For latent evil in that heart she found,<br>More open here, but here the core was sound.<br>Various our Day-Schools: here behold we one<br>Empty and still: --the morning duties done,<br>Soil'd, tatter'd, worn, and thrown in various </div><div style="margin:10px 0">heaps,<br>Appear their books, and there confusion sleeps;<br>The workmen all are from the Babel fled,<br>And lost their tools, till the return they dread:<br>Meantime the master, with his wig awry,<br>Prepares his books for business by-and-by:<br>Now all th' insignia of the monarch laid<br>Beside him rest, and none stand by afraid;<br>He, while his troop light-hearted leap and play,<br>Is all intent on duties of the day;<br>No more the tyrant stern or judge severe,<br>He feels the father's and the husband's fear.<br>Ah! little think the timid trembling crowd,<br>That one so wise, so powerful, and so proud,<br>Should feel himself, and dread the humble ills<br>Of rent-day charges, and of coalman's bills;<br>That while they mercy from their judge implore,<br>He fears himself--a knocking at the door;<br>And feels the burthen as his neighbour states<br>His humble portion to the parish-rates.<br>They sit th' alloted hours, then eager run,<br>Rushing to pleasure when the duty's done;<br>His hour of leisure is of different kind,<br>Then cares domestic rush upon his mind,<br>And half the ease and comfort he enjoys,<br>Is when surrounded by slates, books, and boys.<br>Poor Reuben Dixon has the noisiest school<br>Of ragged lads, who ever bow'd to rule;<br>Low in his price--the men who heave our coals,<br>And clean our causeways, send him boys in shoals;<br>To see poor Reuben, with his fry beside, -<br>Their half-check'd rudeness and his half-scorn'd </div><div style="margin:10px 0">pride, -<br>Their room, the sty in which th' assembly meet,<br>In the close lane behind the Northgate-street;<br>T'observe his vain attempts to keep the peace,<br>Till tolls the bell, and strife and troubles cease, </div><div style="margin:10px 0">-<br>Calls for our praise; his labour praise deserves,<br>But not our pity; Reuben has no nerves:<br>'Mid noise and dirt, and stench, and play, and </div><div style="margin:10px 0">prate,<br>He calmly cuts the pen or views the slate.<br>But Leonard!--yes, for Leonard's fate I grieve,<br>Who loaths the station which he dares not leave:<br>He cannot dig, he will not beg his bread,<br>All his dependence rests upon his head;<br>And deeply skill'd in sciences and arts,<br>On vulgar lads he wastes superior parts.<br>Alas! what grief that feeling mind sustains,<br>In guiding hands and stirring torpid brains;<br>He whose proud mind from pole to pole will move,<br>And view the wonders of the worlds above;<br>Who thinks and reasons strongly: --hard his fate,<br>Confined for ever to the pen and slate:<br>True, he submits, and when the long dull day<br>Has slowly pass'd, in weary tasks, away,<br>To other worlds with cheerful view he looks,<br>And parts the night between repose and books.<br>Amid his labours, he has sometimes tried<br>To turn a little from his cares aside;<br>Pope, Milton, Dryden, with delight has seized,<br>His soul engaged and of his trouble eased:<br>When, with a heavy eye and ill-done sum,<br>No part conceived, a stupid boy will come;<br>Then Leonard first subdues the rising frown,<br>And bids the blockhead lay his blunders down;<br>O'er which disgusted he will turn his eye,<br>To his sad duty his sound mind apply,<br>And, vex'd in spirit, throw his pleasures by.<br>Turn we to Schools which more than these afford </div><div style="margin:10px 0">-<br>The sound instruction and the wholesome board;<br>And first our School for Ladies;--pity calls<br>For one soft sigh, when we behold these walls,<br>Placed near the town, and where, from window high,<br>The fair, confined, may our free crowds espy,<br>With many a stranger gazing up and down,<br>And all the envied tumult of the town;<br>May, in the smiling summer-eve, when they<br>Are sent to sleep the pleasant hours away,<br>Behold the poor (whom they conceive the bless'd)<br>Employ'd for hours, and grieved they cannot rest.<br>Here the fond girl, whose days are sad and few<br>Since dear mamma pronounced the last adieu,<br>Looks to the road, and fondly thinks she hears<br>The carriage-wheels, and struggles with her tears:<br>All yet is new, the misses great and small,<br>Madam herself, and teachers, odious all;<br>From laughter, pity, nay command, she turns,<br>But melts in softness, or with anger burns;<br>Nauseates her food, and wonders who can sleep<br>On such mean beds, where she can only weep:<br>She scorns condolence--but to all she hates<br>Slowly at length her mind accommodates;<br>Then looks on bondage with the same concern<br>As others felt, and finds that she must learn<br>As others learn'd--the common lot to share,<br>To search for comfort and submit to care.<br>There are, 'tis said, who on these seats attend,<br>And to these ductile minds destruction vend;<br>Wretches--(to virtue, peace, and nature, foes) -<br>To these soft minds, their wicked trash expose;<br>Seize on the soul, ere passions take the sway,<br>And lead the heart, ere yet it feels, astray:<br>Smugglers obscene!--and can there be who take<br>Infernal pains the sleeping vice to wake?<br>Can there be those by whom the thought defiled<br>Enters the spotless bosom of a child?<br>By whom the ill is to the heart conveyed,<br>Who lend the foe, not yet in arms, their aid;<br>And sap the city-walls before the siege be laid?<br>Oh! rather skulking in the by-ways steal,<br>And rob the poorest traveller of his meal;<br>Burst through the humblest trader's bolted door;<br>Bear from the widow's hut her winter-store;<br>With stolen steed, on highways take your stand,<br>Your lips with curses arm'd, with death your hand; </div><div style="margin:10px 0">-<br>Take all but life--the virtuous more would say,<br>Take life itself, dear as it is, away,<br>Rather than guilty thus the guileless soul betray.<br>Years pass away--let us suppose them past,<br>Th' accomplish'd nymph for freedom looks at last;<br>All hardships over, which a school contains,<br>The spirit's bondage and the body's pains;<br>Where teachers make the heartless, trembling set<br>Of pupils suffer for their own regret;<br>Where winter's cold, attack'd by one poor fire,<br>Chills the fair child, commanded to retire;<br>She felt it keenly in the morning-air,<br>Keenly she felt it at the evening prayer.<br>More pleasant summer; but then walks were made,<br>Not a sweet ramble, but a slow parade;<br>They moved by pairs beside the hawthorn-hedge,<br>Only to set their feelings on an edge;<br>And now at eve, when all their spirits rise,<br>Are sent to rest, and all their pleasure dies;<br>Where yet they all the town-alert can see,<br>And distant plough-boys pacing o'er the lea.<br>These and the tasks successive masters brought -<br>The French they conn'd, the curious works they </div><div style="margin:10px 0">wrought;<br>The hours they made their taper fingers strike<br>Note after note, all dull to them alike;<br>Their drawings, dancings on appointed days,<br>Playing with globes, and getting parts of plays:<br>The tender friendships made 'twixt heart and heart,<br>When the dear friends had nothing to impart: -<br>All! all! are over;--now th' accomplish'd maid<br>Longs for the world, of nothing there afraid:<br>Dreams of delight invade her gentle breast,<br>And fancied lovers rob the heart of rest;<br>At the paternal door a carriage stands,<br>Love knits their hearts and Hymen joins their </div><div style="margin:10px 0">hands.<br>Ah! world unknown! how charming is thy view,<br>Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new:<br>Ah! world experienced! what of thee is told?<br>How few thy pleasures, and those few how old!<br>Within a silent street, and far apart<br>From noise of business, from a quay or mart,<br>Stands an old spacious building, and the din<br>You hear without, explains the work within;<br>Unlike the whispering of the nymphs, this noise<br>Loudly proclaims a 'Boarding-School for Boys;'<br>The master heeds it not, for thirty years<br>Have render'd all familiar to his ears;<br>He sits in comfort, 'mid the various sound<br>Of mingled tones for ever flowing round:<br>Day after day he to his task attends, -<br>Unvaried toil, and care that never ends:<br>Boys in their works proceed; while his employ<br>Admits no change, or changes but the boy;<br>Yet time has made it easy;--he beside<br>Has power supreme, and power is sweet to pride:<br>But grant him pleasure; what can teachers feel,<br>Dependent helpers always at the wheel?<br>Their power despised, their compensation small,<br>Their labour dull, their life laborious all;<br>Set after set the lower lads to make<br>Fit for the class which their superiors take;<br>The road of learning for a time to track<br>In roughest state, and then again go back:<br>Just the same way, on other troops to wait, -<br>Attendants fix'd at learning's lower gate.<br>The Day-tasks now are over--to their ground<br>Rush the gay crowd with joy-compelling sound;<br>Glad to elude the burthens of the day,<br>The eager parties hurry to their play:<br>Then in these hours of liberty we find<br>The native bias of the opening mind;<br>They yet possess not skill the mask to place,<br>And hide the passions glowing in the face;<br>Yet some are found--the close, the sly, the mean,<br>Who know already all must not be seen.<br>Lo! one who walks apart, although so young,<br>He lays restraint upon his eye and tongue,<br>Nor will he into scrapes or dangers get,<br>And half the school are in the stripling's debt:<br>Suspicious, timid, he is much afraid<br>Of trick and plot: --he dreads to be betray'd:<br>He shuns all friendship, for he finds they lend<br>When lads begin to call each other friend:<br>Yet self with self has war; the tempting sight<br>Of fruit on sale provokes his appetite; -<br>See! how he walks the sweet seduction by;<br>That he is tempted, costs him first a sigh, -<br>'Tis dangerous to indulge, 'tis grievous to deny!<br>This he will choose, and whispering asks the price,<br>The purchase dreadful, but the portion nice:<br>Within the pocket he explores the pence;<br>Without, temptation strikes on either sense,<br>The sight, the smell;--but then he thinks again<br>Of money gone! while fruit nor taste remain.<br>Meantime there comes an eager thoughtless boy,<br>Who gives the price and only feels the joy:<br>Example dire: the youthful miser stops<br>And slowly back the treasured coinage drops:<br>Heroic deed! for should he now comply,<br>Can he tomorrow's appetite deny?<br>Beside, these spendthrifts who so freely live,<br>Cloy'd with their purchase, will a portion give: -<br>Here ends debate, he buttons up his store,<br>And feels the comfort that it burns no more.<br>Unlike to him the Tyrant-boy, whose sway<br>All hearts acknowledge; him the crowds obey:<br>At his command they break through every rule;<br>Whoever governs, he controls the school:<br>'Tis not the distant emperor moves their fear,<br>But the proud viceroy who is ever near.<br>Verres could do that mischief in a day,<br>For which not Rome, in all its power, could pay;<br>And these boy-tyrants will their slaves distress,<br>And do the wrongs no master can redress:<br>The mind they load with fear; it feels disdain<br>For its own baseness; yet it tries in vain<br>To shake th' admitted power: --the coward comes </div><div style="margin:10px 0">again:<br>'Tis more than present pain these tyrants give,<br>Long as we've life some strong impressions live;<br>And these young ruffians in the soul will sow<br>Seeds of all vices that on weakness grow.<br>Hark! at his word the trembling younglings flee,<br>Where he is walking none must walk but he;<br>See! from the winter fire the weak retreat,<br>His the warm corner, his the favourite seat,<br>Save when he yields it to some slave to keep<br>Awhile, then back, at his return, to creep:<br>At his command his poor dependants fly,<br>And humbly bribe him as a proud ally;<br>Flatter'd by all, the notice he bestows,<br>Is gross abuse, and bantering and blows;<br>Yet he's a dunce, and, spite of all his fame<br>Without the desk, within he feels his shame:<br>For there the weaker boy, who felt his scorn,<br>For him corrects the blunders of the morn;<br>And he is taught, unpleasant truth! to find<br>The trembling body has the prouder mind.<br>Hark! to that shout, that burst of empty noise,<br>From a rude set of bluff, obstreperous boys;<br>They who, like colts let loose, with vigour bound,<br>And thoughtless spirit, o'er the beaten ground;<br>Fearless they leap, and every youngster feels<br>His Alma active in his hands and heels.<br>These are the sons of farmers, and they come<br>With partial fondness for the joys of home;<br>Their minds are coursing in their fathers' fields,<br>And e'en the dream a lively pleasure yields;<br>They, much enduring, sit th' allotted hours,<br>And o'er a grammar waste their sprightly powers;<br>They dance; but them can measured steps delight,<br>Whom horse and hounds to daring deeds excite?<br>Nor could they bear to wait from meal to meal,<br>Did they not slily to the chamber steal,<br>And there the produce of the basket seize,<br>The mother's gift! still studious of their ease.<br>Poor Alma, thus oppress'd forbears to rise,<br>But rests or revels in the arms and thighs.<br>'But is it sure that study will repay<br>The more attentive and forbearing?'--Nay!<br>The farm, the ship, the humble shop, have each<br>Gains which severest studies seldom reach.<br>At College place a youth, who means to raise<br>His state by merit and his name by praise;<br>Still much he hazards; there is serious strife<br>In the contentions of a scholar's life:<br>Not all the mind's attention, care, distress,<br>Nor diligence itself, ensure success:<br>His jealous heart a rival's powers may dread,<br>Till its strong feelings have confused his head,<br>And, after days and months, nay, years of pain,<br>He finds just lost the object he would gain.<br>But grant him this and all such life can give,<br>For other prospects he begins to live;<br>Begins to feel that man was form'd to look<br>And long for other objects than a book:<br>In his mind's eye his house and glebe he sees,<br>And farms and talks with farmers at his ease;<br>And time is lost, till fortune sends him forth<br>To a rude world unconscious of his worth;<br>There in some petty parish to reside,<br>The college boast, then turn'd the village guide:<br>And though awhile his flock and dairy please,<br>He soon reverts to former joys and ease,<br>Glad when a friend shall come to break his rest,<br>And speak of all the pleasures they possess'd,<br>Of masters, fellows, tutors, all with whom<br>They shared those pleasures, never more to come;<br>Till both conceive the times by bliss endear'd,<br>Which once so dismal and so dull appear'd.<br>But fix our Scholar, and suppose him crown'd<br>With all the glory gain'd on classic ground;<br>Suppose the world without a sigh resign'd,<br>And to his college all his care confined;<br>Give him all honours that such states allow,<br>The freshman's terror and the tradesman's bow;<br>Let his apartments with his taste agree,<br>And all his views be those he loves to see;<br>Let him each day behold the savoury treat,<br>For which he pays not, but is paid to eat;<br>These joys and glories soon delight no more,<br>Although, withheld, the mind is vex'd and sore;<br>The honour too is to the place confined,<br>Abroad they know not each superior mind:<br>Strangers no wranglers in these figures see,<br>Nor give they worship to a high degree;<br>Unlike the prophet's is the scholar's case,<br>His honour all is in his dwelling-place:<br>And there such honours are familiar things;<br>What is a monarch in a crowd of kings?<br>Like other sovereigns he's by forms address'd,<br>By statutes governed and with rules oppress'd.<br>When all these forms and duties die away,<br>And the day passes like the former day,<br>Then of exterior things at once bereft,<br>He's to himself and one attendant left;<br>Nay, John too goes; nor aught of service more<br>Remains for him; he gladly quits the door,<br>And, as he whistles to the college-gate,<br>He kindly pities his poor master's fate.<br>Books cannot always please, however good;<br>Minds are not ever craving for their food;<br>But sleep will soon the weary soul prepare<br>For cares to-morrow that were this day's care:<br>For forms, for feasts, that sundry times have past,<br>And formal feasts that will for ever last.<br>'But then from Study will no comforts rise?' -<br>Yes! such as studious minds alone can prize;<br>Comforts, yea!--joys ineffable they find,<br>Who seek the prouder pleasures of the mind:<br>The soul, collected in those happy hours,<br>Then makes her efforts, then enjoys her powers;<br>And in those seasons feels herself repaid,<br>For labours past and honours long delay'd.<br>No! 'tis not worldly gain, although by chance<br>The sons of learning may to wealth advance;<br>Nor station high, though in some favouring hour<br>The sons of learning may arrive at power;<br>Nor is it glory, though the public voice<br>Of honest praise will make the heart rejoice:<br>But 'tis the mind's own feelings give tho joy,<br>Pleasures she gathers in her own employ -<br>Pleasures that gain or praise cannot bestow,<br>Yet can dilate and raise them when they flow.<br>For this the Poet looks thy world around,<br>Where form and life and reasoning man are found;<br>He loves the mind, in all its modes, to trace,<br>And all the manners of the changing race;<br>Silent he walks the road of life along,<br>And views the aims of its tumultuous throng:<br>He finds what shapes the Proteus-passions take,<br>And what strange waste of life and joy they make,<br>And loves to show them in their varied ways,<br>With honest blame or with unflattering praise:<br>'Tis good to know, 'tis pleasant to impart,<br>These turns and movements of the human heart:<br>The stronger features of the soul to paint,<br>And make distinct the latent and the faint;<br>MAN AS HE IS, to place in all men's view,<br>Yet none with rancour, none with scorn pursue:<br>Nor be it ever of my Portraits told -<br>'Here the strong lines of malice we behold.'<br>---------------------<br>This let me hope, that when in public view<br>I bring my Pictures, men may feel them true:<br>'This is a likeness,' may they all declare,<br>'And I have seen him, but I know not where:'<br>For I should mourn the mischief I had done,<br>If as the likeness all would fix on one.<br>---------------------<br>Man's Vice and Crime I combat as I can,<br>But to his GOD and conscience leave the Man;<br>I search (a Quixote!) all the land about,<br>To find its Giants and Enchanters out, -<br>(The Giant-Folly, the Enchanter-Vice,<br>Whom doubtless I shall vanquish in a trice -<br>But is there man whom I would injure?--No!<br>I am to him a fellow, not a foe, -<br>A fellow-sinner, who must rather dread<br>The bolt, than hurl it at another's head.<br>No! let the guiltless, if there such be found,<br>Launch forth the spear, and deal the deadly wound.<br>How can I so the cause of Virtue aid,<br>Who am myself attainted and afraid?<br>Yet as I can, I point the powers of rhyme,<br>And, sparing criminals, attack the crime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=George+Crabbe">George Crabbe</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=395930" data-title="The Borough. Letter XXIV: Schools de George Crabbe" data-description="To every class we have a School assign'd, Rules for all ranks and food for every mind: Yet one there is, that small regard to rule Or study pays, and still is deem'd a School: That, where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits, And awes some thirty infa..."></div> </div> </div>

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