Cade. Nay, then, he's a conjuror.
Cade. Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest man?
Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name."—Shakspeare.
"Hail, wedded love"—"and all that sort of thing."
Milton and Matthews.
It may well be imagined that the appearance of such a flourishing literary manifesto as that set forth in the preceding chapter, created an uncommon sensation in the village. The ladies admired the distiches of poetry with which the pompous proclamation was so plentifully sprinkled, and the gentlemen, not being conversant with those convenient helps, the "Elegant Extracts," supposed of course that the advertisers must be persons of considerable erudition. Indeed, the thing took wonderfully, and nothing was thought of, or talked of, by ambitious mothers, and those opening rose-buds, their daughters, for the full period of nine days, but the new "Institute," or "Seminary"—the old-fashioned word "school" never being once mentioned. Nor were the lords of creation unmindful of the good fortune in which they were so soon to rejoice. Various situations were proposed and discussed, for the site of a new edifice which would doubtless be required within a twelve-month, and real estate rose exorbitantly in every vicinity thus designated. A charter from the Legislature was of course to be applied for, and several meetings of those who were to form the Board of Trustees, were held to adjust the details. The privileges of a college were to be obtained, with the power of conferring the same degrees upon female students, as upon males—forgetting, in their ardor, that the constitution of female Bachelors and Masters of Arts would be a misnomer in any other country than Ireland. In one word, there was to be no other classical institution, in this country or any other, comparable with it—and to it the nuns of Canada, the Moravians of Bethlehem, and the azure-hosed professors of modern Ilium, would forever thereafter be compelled to send for instructers.
It need not be added, that under all this excitement, and in view of all these measures, on the opening of the institute, there was a rush of pupils, promising golden returns to the accomplished and enterprising teachers. As to its progress, and the moral and intellectual results, the biographer has not been supplied with the materials for a minute history. It is known, however, that the principals provided themselves with the most modern, and consequently the best elementary "helps" to be found in the bookstores. Justice also requires of the biographer to say, that his friend Wheelwright did not enter upon his preceptorial duties without many severe misgivings; and for some weeks previous to the opening of the seminary, he applied himself to the work of preparation with unwonted assiduity. But he was nevertheless sadly deficient, as may well be supposed. Still, in his classes of geography and rhetoric, he managed to get along for several weeks, by the aid of those convenient instruments of instruction, which contain all necessary questions and answers at the bottom of the pages—Kames and Malte-Brun done over again by sciolists, so that the real authors would be astonished to find how greatly they had been simplified. Alexander's Virgil, also, reflecting the Latin of one page back in English from the other, was of great assistance to him. But in arithmetic and grammar he was completely at fault. He had never been able to repeat the whole multiplication table; and he now found it utterly beyond his capacity to work a common problem in the rule of three. In grammar, moreover, he could never quite distinguish between a noun and a verb; and although he almost committed the rules, and could enumerate the several parts of speech, yet he could never apply the principles in parsing.
It was not long, therefore, before the most forward of his pupils began to discover that they knew more than their instructer—and the natural consequences—contempt and insubordination—speedily followed.
Meantime the qualifications and efforts of Mrs. Wheelwright, in the other branch of the institute, were presently discovered to be equally, even if not more, defective and profitless. She was an Irish lady by birth—had resided for a time in Scotland, and likewise in England—previous to her visit across the channel to complete her education in the capital of la grande nation. When she left the emerald isle, "her speech," to use a phrase of Lord Bacon, "was in the full dialect of her nation." She had afterward conversed enough with English and Scotch, to complete the union of the three kingdoms—to all which was added such a smattering of French as was to be acquired by a residence—as a femme de chambre, as it was afterward scandalously reported—in Paris of a year or perhaps more. She had readily picked up a good many French words, in the course of her sojourn; but her Gallic pronunciation was blended with all the other dialects, among which the brogue of her own mother tongue ludicrously enough predominated.