And the child is thus gently warned against the bad habit of noisy disputes at table:—
Enfant, soyes toujours paisible,
Doulx, courtois, bening, aimable,
Entre ceulx qui sierront à table,
Et te garde d’estre noysible.
Il est conseillé en la Bible
Entre les gens estre paisible.
Teaching of some sort the peasantry certainly received, whatever means may have been used to convey it; they probably knew little of grammatical analysis, or the relative lengths of the European rivers, but it may be doubted whether, with all our cumbrous machinery of State education, we have hit on any system which is likely to form the Christian character so successfully in the hearts of our people as that which existed in the days of St. Anselm or Chaucer. “The majority of husbandmen are saved,” writes the former, “because they live with simplicity, and feed the people of God with their hands; and therefore they are blessed.”[288] And the poet who never paints a fancy picture, thus portrays from the life the character of his poor ploughman:—
A true worker and a good was he,