Jane inculcated another valuable lesson. In all perplexity, trouble, or untoward misfortune, she taught them to _look it full in the face_; not to fly from it, as is the too-common custom, but to meet it and do the best with it. She knew that in trouble, as in terror, looking it in the face takes away half its sting: and so she was teaching them to look, not only by precept, but by example. With such minds, such training to work upon, there was little need to _urge_ them to apply closely to their studies; they saw its necessity themselves, and acted upon it. "It is your only chance, my darlings, of getting on in life," she would say. "You wish to be good and great men; and I think perhaps you may be, if you persevere. It is a tempting thing, I know, to leave wearying tasks for play or idleness; but do not yield to it. Look to the future. When you feel tired, out of sorts, as if Latin were the greatest grievance upon earth, say to yourselves, 'It is my duty to keep on, and my duty I must do. If I turn idle now, my past application will be lost; but, if I persevere, I may go bravely on to the end.' Be brave, darlings, for my sake."
And the boys were so. Thus it would happen that when the rest of the school were talking, or idling, or being caned, the Halliburtons were at work. The head master could not fail to observe their steady application; and he more than once held them up as an example to the school.
So far so good. But though the classics are essential parts of a good education, they do not include all its requisites. And nothing else was taught in the college school. There certainly was a writing master, and something like an initiation into the first rules of arithmetic was attempted; but not a boy in the charity school, hard by, that could not have shamed the college boys in adding up a column of figures or in writing a page. As to their English----You should have seen them attempt to write a letter. In short, the college school ignored everything except Latin and Greek.
This state of affairs gave Jane great concern. "Unless I can organize some plan, my boys will grow up dunces," she said to herself. And a plan she did organize. None could remedy this so well as herself; she, so thoroughly educated in all essential branches. It would take two hours from her work, but for the sake of her boys she would sacrifice that. Every night, therefore, except Saturday, as soon as they had prepared their lessons for school--and in doing that they were helped by William--she left her work and became their instructor. History, geography, astronomy, composition, and so on. You can fill up the list.