Of all Continental hotels.
The dining-room allowed to be
A grand pattern of luxury."
Which does not say much for the bard of Bonn. Besides these there was the Illustrated Village Barber, a paper published at Leipzig, full of humorous cuts, over which the rustics chuckled not a little.[A]
Wildenthal has no church; the people, therefore, are dependent on Eybenstock, three miles distant, for sermons, baptisms, marriages, and burials; but, in common with other villages, it has a good schoolhouse. Hearing the sound of voices as I passed, I went in, and had a talk with the master, who was a model of politeness. He had about a hundred scholars, of both sexes, in a room well-lighted and ventilated, with a spelling-frame, and black music board, ruled for four parts, and other appliances of education placed along the walls. Threepence a week—two and a half neugroschen—is the highest rate paid at country schools; but there are two lower rates to suit folk of scanty means, and the very poorest pay nothing. The children attend school from the age of six up to fourteen, with no vacations except a fortnight at each of the three rural ingatherings—haymaking, harvest, and potato-digging. The hours of attendance are from seven to ten in the forenoon, one to four in the afternoon.
"Yes, they are pretty good children," said the master, in reply to my inquiry; "I have not much trouble to keep them in order; but, in case of need, here is a little instrument (kleines Instrument) which comes to my aid;" and he produced a small birch from a secret place behind his desk.
A general nudging went through the school, and quick, sly looks from one to the other, at sight of the interwoven twigs. "Ha! ha!" cried the master, "you see they recognise it. However, 'tis very seldom called for."
Then, mounting his rostrum, he said: "Now, children, tell me—which is the most famous country in the world?"
"Eng-land!" from all the hundred voices.
"Is it a most highly renowned country?"