“You must remember, Betsy,” she frequently explained, “that few of them have ever been in any home but their father’s and their own. They have been as much mistress in their own home, as I have been in my home. Their ideas of what is fit and respectful, come from their heart and are not in any degree habits of social agreement. If they like or respect a person, they are not merely civil or respectful, they are kind and free, and speak just as they feel.”
“They do that, Madam--a good bit too free.”
“Well, Betsy, they are Mistress Temple’s business at present. Thou need not mind them.”
“They are finding out for her, things she wants to know about the village, the number of children that will be to teach--the number of men and women that know how to read and write.”
“Few of that kind, Madam, if any at all.”
“You know she is now making plans for a school, and she wants, of course, to have some idea as to the number likely to go there, and other similar questions. Everyone ought to know how to read and write.”
“Well, Madam, Britton and mysen hev found our good common senses all we needed. They were made and given to us by God, when we was born. He gave us senses enough to help us to do our duty in that state of life it had pleased Him to call us to. These eddicated lads are fit for nothing. Britton won’t be bothered with them. He says neither dogs nor horses like them. They understand Yorkshire speech and ways, but when a lad gets book knowledge, they doan’t understand his speech, and his ways of pronouncing his words; and they just think scorn of his perliteness--they kick up their heels at it, and Britton says they do right. _Why-a!_ We all know what school teachers are! The varry childher feel suspicious o’ them, and no wonder! They all hev a rod or a strap somewhere about them, and they fairly seem to enjoy using it. I niver hed a lick from anybody in my life. I wouldn’t hev stood it, except from dad, and his five senses were just as God made them; and if dad gave any o’ the lads a licking, they deserved it, and they didn’t mind taking it.”
“If they got one from a schoolmaster, I dare say they would deserve it.”
“No, Madam, begging your pardon, I know instances on the contrary. My sister-in-law’s cousin’s little lad was sent to a school by Colonel Broadbent, because he thought the child was clever beyond the usual run of lads, and he got such a cruel basting as niver was, just because he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, learn something they called parts of speech--hard, long names, no meaning in them.”