“‘You’d scarce expect one of my age,’ &c.
Dr. Scott, the commentator, could not compose a theme when twelve years old; and even at a later age, Dr. Clark, after incredible effort, failed to commit to memory a poem of a few stanzas only. Wellington, at the military school, was not brilliant. The teachers of Linnæus thought he was fit for nothing but a common mechanic. Sir Isaac Newton ranked very low in school until the age of twelve. When Samuel Wythe, the Dublin schoolmaster, attempted to educate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, he pronounced the boy an ‘incorrigible dunce.’ The mother of Sheridan fully concurred in this verdict, and declared him the most stupid of her sons. Walter Scott had the credit of having the ‘thickest skull in the school,’ though Dr. Blair told the teacher that many bright rays of future glory shone through that same ‘thick skull.’ Milton and Swift were noted for dulness in childhood. The great Isaac Barrow’s father used to say that, if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, as the least promising. Goldsmith was dull in his youth, and Shakspeare, Gibbon, Davy and Dryden, do not appear to have exhibited in their childhood even the common elements of future success.”
The principal now dismissed the school, and the boys filed out, in military order, at the touch of a bell
CHAPTER XV.
LESSONS IN PHYSIOLOGY.
WHISTLER persevered with the drawings which his teacher had requested him to make; and, though he was frequently obliged to rub out and re-draw his lines, he became so much interested in the work that the idea of being discouraged scarcely occurred to him. He devoted to it all the time he could spare out of school, which was not much, now that he had Clinton to entertain. In two or three days, however, the drawings were completed; and it was but the work of an evening to shade the lines with Indian ink. The next morning the young artist had the satisfaction of handing them to his teacher, and of receiving both his thanks and praise for the neat and faithful manner in which he had executed his commission. After the opening exercises of the school, while all the boys were assembled in the large room, the principal remarked that he wished to address a few words to the scholars before they separated to their several rooms.
“I have noticed,” he said, “a somewhat prevalent fault in the school, which I wish to correct now, at the beginning of the term. Some of you, I perceive, do not know how to sit or stand properly. It is very important that you all should acquire this art, or rather habit. If necessary, you had better neglect your grammar or arithmetic a little, rather than fail of this accomplishment. As you sit or stand now, you will be likely to sit or stand as long as you live. Your bodies are now growing very fast, and they will grow into the shape which you accustom them to. If it is a bad shape, it will be difficult to correct it a few years hence.
“The great thing, in sitting, standing and walking, is erectness. Keep the head up, and the body straight. Don’t try to hump your backs, nor hang your heads as though they were too heavy for you. There are two great objections to the crooked position. One is, it looks badly; and the other is, it is very injurious to the body. I consider this subject of so much importance that I have procured a few drawings to illustrate it, which I shall fasten upon the wall, where you can all see them several times every day. The first two that I shall show you were executed by Master William Davenport; and I think you will all admit that they are very creditable to him. This drawing”—and here the principal held up the first design on this page—“shows the wrong standing posture. There are not many of you that cut quite so bad a figure as that when you stand up to read, but some of you resemble it a great deal more than you ought to. Look at it, and see how ungainly it appears! How unnatural it is! Now, just compare it with this boy”—holding up the other design. “This is the right position. It is easy, natural, graceful, and favorable to health. I wish you all to imitate it.”