Now Frank was a lad no one ever noticed. Perhaps now and then some one of unusual discernment might have said, “that youth has a fine countenance;” but it was a remark that always elicited surprise when it was made, for most persons would have said, with Mrs. Harrington, that he was a “heavy boy.” He was shorter by a head nearly than Arthur, and heavily moulded, and people generally are apt to take the body for the soul, and judge the spirit by the flesh. And, then, though Frank had a fine brow, and clear, well set, deep eye, there was nothing of what Mrs. Harrington called the “flash of genius in his look up.” It was a calm, earnest face, and when in study, there was an intensity of expression, a concentration of attention, that is rare—otherwise he was not a striking, and certainly not a handsome boy. He was rather shy, too, and awkward when brought forward, and one of those who never made a figure on “exhibition days.” In short, he was not one of the show boys, which Arthur was. Heads of schools, and teachers generally, are very quick to know the effect produced by such pupils as Arthur. They like to put them forward. All they know tells, and what they don’t know is not seen. Manner and appearance never go further than on such occasions. The human heart naturally warms to beauty, and to youthful beauty it is particularly indulgent; and when united to any thing like precocity of talent, it is sure to take the greater part of parents.
Consequently Arthur carried off more than one prize at the examinations, that, had he not been so highly endowed with external gifts, might not have been so readily awarded him.
But this exhibition, to Mrs. Harrington’s surprise and mortification, Arthur carried off none of the highest premiums. The boy himself was loud in his complaints of injustice and ill-treatment, and Mrs. Harrington lent a willing and indignant ear to all he said.
It never occurred to the loving mother that Arthur might not deserve the prizes. She did not remember that his application had rather relaxed than increased with the increasing difficulties of his studies, and that much of the time that should have been devoted to work had been passed in light reading, or quite as often, perhaps, in talking with herself. She only felt that Arthur had been most unjustly treated, and tried to soothe and console his wounded feelings, and talked of the “too frequent fate of unrewarded merit.” But the more she talked, the keener grew his sense of slighted talents. He grumbled and talked—and finally called his teacher names, and then his mother yielded; for as she afterward said to her husband—“When a boy loses his respect for his teachers, the moral influence that should work is destroyed.” And the good man assented, without very clearly understanding what she meant. He only comprehended that his wife was dissatisfied with Arthur’s school, and he himself was indignant at the idea of his boy’s being treated with injustice. He never inquired into Arthur’s studies, nor examined into his progress. “He had not time.” He was a hard-working, money-making man, and while he slaved body and soul to amass a fortune, he left the education, mental, moral and physical, of his only son to his wife. A not uncommon case, we are sorry to say; for the most intelligent and cultivated of mothers have rarely the firmness, and never the knowledge of men and the world, required in the education of boys. Not that we would disparage woman or her acquirements, nor lessen the influence due to mothers, but only suggest that she is not to be both father and mother, and hint that men have other duties beside the all-absorbing one of making money. Mr. Harrington was steeped to the very lips in commercial affairs. Business was his occupation—his pleasure—his life—the breath of his nostrils—everything in short.
He went early to the counting-house and came home late, and generally tired, and often perplexed, and did not want then to be worried with domestic matters.
He loved his boy, and was proud of him; and his wife told him he was a very uncommon boy, and he believed her. She talked a great deal of the peculiarities of his mind, and the traits of his character, and told many anecdotes indicative of his superiority, mental and spiritual, and much that the husband would have thought “great nonsense,” if it had been anybody but his wife talking, and his boy she was talking of. But as it was, it was amusing to see the complacence with which he listened. He paid the bills regularly, and left the rest to his wife; satisfied that he had put his money out to good interest, and never doubting that he had done his whole duty. So when at the present time she told him she thought they had better withdraw Arthur, and place him at a “select school, where only twenty boys were taken,” he assented, and told her to do as she thought best.
“The Rector of the Grammar School,” she said, “is not a man of enlarged mind. He does not enter sufficiently into the original capacities of boys, but makes them all go through the same mill, no matter how different their natural talents. Indeed, the school is so large, that it would be out of the question for him to do justice to them all, even if he were a man of more comprehensive and discriminating mind than he is. There are upward of a hundred boys there, I believe.”
“Ah! there it is,” said Mr. Harrington, indignantly; “they will take in such a crowd.” Quite forgetting that other men beside merchants may like to make money in their professions, too. So it was pretty well settled that Arthur was to go to this “select school,” of which Mrs. Harrington had heard a great puff from Mrs. Osborn, for many mothers beside Mrs. Harrington manage their sons’ education in this “work-day world” of ours. There are a good many moral “half orphans” in our community. And so Mrs. Harrington consulted some half-dozen of her friends, quite as deep as herself in the work of education, before she decided, and spoke at last to Mrs. Ashhurst, who replied —
“We have no idea of withdrawing Francis. His father is quite satisfied with his progress.”
Mrs. Harrington was surprised at hearing a father cited as authority, but she turned and applied herself to Mr. Ashhurst, for she was one of those who rather liked to have others do as she did, and patronize a school, or withdraw their children, according as she inclined, but Mr. Ashhurst said —