“If they come, I shall do them more good than the high-school ever did,” said the captain to himself, as he went into the house.
The captain insisted, at the breakfast-table, that the high-school had spoiled the Millweed boys and girls. Mr. Brookbine dissented, and was sure it was the mother who had made the mischief.
“It was she who sent them to the high-school; and the matter is about as broad as it is long,” added the captain.
“But the mother could have spoiled them just as fully if they had not gone to the high-school,” persisted the master-carpenter, who had opinions of his own. “I believe the high-school is a good thing; and, if these boys and girls had gone to work when they got through, it would have been all right with the family. It was the high notions, and not the high-school, that did the mischief; and the children got them from the mother. The father is a man of no great force.”
“But he had force enough to take care of his family, and lay up something, until he was broken
down by the demands of his family upon him. There was a screw loose somewhere, and the children ought never to have gone to the high-school.”
“Perhaps not: I think myself that the high-school business is sometimes overdone,” replied the mechanic. “I never went to a high-school or an academy, but I don’t think I should have been any the worse off for a great deal more learning than I ever got.”
“I am willing to admit that the high-school is a necessity in an American community, but I think it ought to be combined with something of an industrial character. The occupation of the mechanic should be redeemed from the odium which has attached to it.”
“I agree with you there,” added Mr. Brookbine heartily. “The Millweed boys must have been good scholars to get through when they were only sixteen. Most of the scholars that graduate are eighteen and nineteen.”
“And those who are not going into the learned professions have wasted three years which ought to have been spent in the shop, or in learning the business of life. The graduates come out, a year