Thus he taught the boys till they were sufficiently advanced to be confirmed. With the help of his wife he gave the girls a "finishing course." They were graduated with a paternoster done in red on a black background, or perhaps a pierced heart between two flower-pots. Then they were through and ready to become the grandmothers of their own generation.
There was no natural science then. Even to-day there is room for improvement along this line. It is said that some advance has been made recently. It is more useful for a child to know how corn grows than to be able to call the name of it in a foreign language. I don't say that either is incompatible with the other.
The public schools were most deficient at the time when Walter and Keesje were slowly crawling around the arena of honor; but I doubt if one could say much more of the "institutes" of to-day. I would advise everyone to visit such a school as he attended when a boy; and I am convinced that after this test many a father who has the welfare of his children at heart will prefer to keep them at home. One comes to the conclusion, that after all in the school of clever Master Miller, who was so clever that he got himself addressed as M'sieu Millaire, precious little was to be learned.
Failing to make this test we continue to believe in the infallibility of M'sieu of Millaire. We always consider that one a great man whom we have known in childhood and haven't seen since.
When I remarked a moment ago that school-teachers are paid so niggardly, I didn't mean that their remuneration was insufficient, considering the quality and quantity of the goods delivered--knowledge, scholarship, education. I only had in mind the bitterness of their lot, and the poor indemnity given to the man who spends his life in a wasp's nest.
In addition to versifying, Pennewip had still another hobby, which gave him more claim to a throne than did anything else. He was possessed with the mania for classifying, a passion known to few, but still of not infrequent occurrence. I have never quite understood the disease; and I gave up my search for the "first cause" as soon as I saw how difficult it is to get around with a hobby-horse taken from somebody else's stable. So I am going to give only a short sketch of Pennewip's harmless animal.