“His parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt,
A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
Pure livers were they all, austere and grave.”
The purchase-money must have been paid off by instalments. I have before me, as I write, a card of the terms. The charges were moderate. Day-scholars paid four guineas or five pounds a year, and boarders twenty guineas or twenty-five guineas, according to age. The address that the new schoolmaster published is somewhat curious. It is as follows:—
ADDRESS.
“T. Hill, sensible of the severe responsibility attached to the office of a public preceptor, resolves, if entrusted with that charge, to devote himself to the duties of it with assiduity, perseverance, and concentrated attention, as indispensable to reputation and success. To ensure the co-operation of his pupils, he will make it his study to excite their reasoning powers, and to induce in them habits of voluntary application; for this purpose, varying the ordinary course of instruction, and, as occasion shall offer, drawing their attention to subjects more particularly fitted to interest their feelings; he will always endeavour, by kindness and patience, firmness and impartiality to secure for himself their affection and esteem. And as he aspires to exhibit models of education, possessing higher excellencies than mechanical dexterity or mere intellectual acuteness; his anxious aim will be to make instruction in art and science, the culture of the understanding, and of the physical powers, subservient to the nobler intention of fostering and maturing the virtues of the heart.”
Rowland was at once placed in the school, and thus at the age of seven his formal education began. His health still continued weak, and his studies were too often broken in upon by illness. He was fortunate enough, however, to find at his new home, in an outbuilding, a workshop, fitted with benches, a vice, and a blacksmith’s forge. “Here,” he said, “we spent much of our spare time, and most of our spare cash, which latter, however, was but very scanty.” The want of pence, indeed, often troubled him full sore. “Ever since I can remember,” as he wrote in a Journal which he began to keep in his eighteenth year, “I have had a taste for mechanics.... In works of the fingers I chiefly excel.” But the best mechanician wants materials, and materials cost money. One Good Friday morning he and his brother Matthew turned dealers. They had been sent with a basket to buy hot cross buns for the household. As they went along, the street-vendors were calling out, after the Birmingham fashion—
“Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!