Delgado’s eyes glistened horribly. ‘Buckra,’ he answered with a hideous grin, dropping all the usual polite formulas, ‘I will tell you for true den; I will tell you all about it. Dat man Noel is son ob brown gal from ole Barbadoes. Her name is Budleigh, an’ her fam’ly is brown folks dat lib at place dem call de Wilderness. I hear all about dem from Isaac Pourtalès. Pourtalès an’ dis man Noel, dem is bot’ cousin. De man is brown just same like Isaac Pourtalès!’
‘By George, Uncle Theodore!’ Tom Dupuy cried exultantly, ‘Delgado’s right—right to the letter. Pourtalès is a Barbadoes man: his father was one of the Pourtalèses of this island who settled in Barbadoes, and his mother must have been one of these brown Budleighs. Noel told us himself the other day his mother was a Budleigh—a Budleigh of the Wilderness. He’s been over in Barbadoes looking after their property.—By Jove, Delgado, I’d rather have a piece of news like that than a hundred pounds!—We shall stick a pin, after all, Uncle Theodore, in that confounded, stuck-up, fal-lal mulatto-man.’
‘It’s too late to follow them up by the mountain-cabbages,’ Mr Theodore Dupuy exclaimed with an anxious sigh—how did he know but that at that very moment this undoubted brown man might be proposing (hang his impudence) to his daughter Nora?—‘it’s too late to follow them, if we mean to dress for dinner. We must go home straight by the road, and even then we won’t overtake them before they’re back at Orange Grove, I’m afraid, Tom.’
Delgado stood in the middle of the lane and watched them retreating at an easy canter; then he solemnly replaced the bundle of sticks on the top of his head, spread out his hands and fingers in the most expressively derisive African attitudes, and began to dance with wild glee a sort of imaginary triumphal war-dance over his intended slaughter. ‘Ha, ha,’ he cried aloud, ‘Wednesday ebenin’—Wednesday ebenin’! De great and terrible day ob de Lard comin’ for true on Wednesday ebenin’! Slay, slay, slay, an’ leave not one libbin’ soul behind in de land ob de Amalekites. Dat is de first an’ de last good turn I ebber gwine to do for Tom Dupuy, for certain. I doan’t want his money, I tell him, but I want de blood ob him. On Wednesday night, I gwine to get it. Ha, ha! We gwine to slay de remnant ob de Amalekites.’ He paused a moment, and poised the bundle more evenly on his head; then he went on, walking homewards more quietly, but talking to himself aloud, in a clear, angry, guttural voice, as negroes will do, under the influence of powerful excitement. ‘What for I doan’t tell dat man Noel himself dat he is mulatto when him hit me?’ he asked himself with rhetorical earnestness. ‘Becase I doan’t want to go an’ spoil de fun ob de whole discovery. If I tell him, dat doan’t nuffin’—even before de missy. Tom Dupuy is proper buckra: he hate Noel, an’ Noel hate him! He gwine to tell it so it sting Noel. He gwine to disgrace dat proud man before de buckras an’ before de missy!’
He paused again, and chewed violently for a minute or two at a piece of cane he pulled out of his pocket; then he spat out the dry refuse with a fierce explosion of laughter, and went on again: ‘But I doan’t gwine to punish Noel like I gwine to punish de Dupuys an’ de missy. Noel is fren’ ob Mistah Hawtorn, de fren’ ob de naygur: dat gwine to be imputed to him for righteousness. In de great and terrible day, de angel gwine to pass ober Noel, same as him pass ober de house ob Israel; but de house ob de Dupuy shall perish utterly, like de house ob Pharaoh, an’ like de house ob Saul, king ob Israel, whose seed was destroyed out ob de land, so dat not one ob dem left.’
THE MODERN PRIZE SYSTEM.
It may be accepted as a principle that the education question admits of no final settlement in a state of progressive civilisation. Methods and forms, possibly the outcome of much thought and effort, established in one age, become cumbrous or altogether valueless in the next. They are found unsuited to the requirements of the later period, during which a demand has arisen for other kinds of knowledge, or for more advanced teaching in subjects previously treated in an elementary manner only. Hence it follows that the minds of enlightened nations become directed to educational matters with a certain degree of periodicity: from time to time the education question becomes a burning one.
The most superficial reader of the daily papers or magazines cannot fail to have been struck latterly by the increasing attention bestowed on such matters by the people of these countries. So decided an influence is exerted by these considerations on the public just now, that we find them furnishing a test in some districts for parliamentary or other representatives. At social and literary gatherings, such questions as the following are warmly discussed: Should the State provide and maintain schools for the people, or should these be largely left to individual enterprise, as at present?—Should State interference take the form it has done in recent educational experiments, wherein two universities and one gigantic scheme of intermediate education have been framed on the lines of mere examining boards, disbursing public prize-money?—What is the relative value of the kinds of instruction ordinarily given in schools?—How may the desire for information be aroused among the masses, and in what way may the stimulus be best applied?
These and other questions of a kindred nature occupy the thoughts of many at this time. It is not our present purpose to deal with the whole question of education, but to consider very briefly one aspect of it—namely, prizes and their distribution.
If we inquire what inducements are offered to pupils to excel in special subjects or to proceed to higher branches of them, we find that the same general plan is followed in all our institutions, from the most elementary to the highest—namely, money prizes or their equivalent in books or medals, the obtaining of which presupposes a competitive examination. In most instances, the prize-money is paid in cash to the successful candidate. The age in which we live is eminently competitive, a fact early recognised by children at school, and still better understood in after-life. In comparing ourselves with our neighbours, may it not be a fact that we are an over-examined people? We may further ask, are examinations always fair tests of ability? Is the reward system, as we have it, the best means of promoting a higher culture?