I. THE UNDER FORM AT ST. EDWARD'S, AND THE THEORY OF ELEMENTARY UNINTELLIGIBILITY. THIS day-October 10th, 1863--my Junior Class, in the Schola Nova of Dunedin, had its first lesson in Greek; put aside its frock and linen pants, and donned its breeches, intellectually. No transition-state is agreeable to the subject, or graceful in the eyes of a looker-on. These little fellows will all waddle, duck-like, for a considerable period in their new clothes: some will never habituate themselves thereto; but will by and by discard them, and return to the frock and linen pants; affording, it may be, a passing laugh to the unphilosophic bystander, but themselves deriving permanent comfort and unrestricted swing of limb. A ای The step these innocents take to-day is, of course, a step into the dark. Will the darkness, into which they so confidingly plunge, be to them perpetual and Cimmerian? or, will it duly break into a clear, bright dawn? Within three years, the majority of them will have probably passed from within these walls. What an opportunity is meanwhile afforded of wreaking upon their little heads summary vengeance for the wrongs done me by a past generation! of doing to them as I was done by! Not only should I thus be giving vent to my indignation for past ill-usage; but, strange to say, I should actually be carrying out the wishes of the parents of my victims; for, in general, those parents dread newfangled ways, and cling piously to old scholastic superstitions. Well: for three years, then, let me lead this little flock, blindfolded, by curiously sinuous and zigzag ways; so that, always in motion, they may never progress; and at the close of the triennium, remove the bandage from their eyes, and show them, to their wonderment, that they are standing by the starting-post; that they have been dancing their Greek hornpipe on a plate. This first lesson has turned back the dialhand of my days, and for a passing hour I am standing in the dawn of my own most dreary, weary boyhood. I was not quite seven and a half years old, when my dear Mother was presented with a free admission for myself, her eldest son, to the Grammar School of St. Edward. The offer was too valuable an one to admit of refusal. I was accordingly prepared for admission to my new home, by having my hair somewhat closely shorn, and by being clothed in a long, blue gown, not of itself ungraceful, but opening in front so as to disclose the ridiculous spectacle of kneebreeched, yellow-stockinged legs. After some laughter at my disguise, and much weeping at my banishment, I bade good-bye to my dear Mother. We little thought at the time that school was to be my home for twelve long years. The day after my entry into this colossal institution, a Latin grammar was placed into my hands. It was a bulky book of its kind: |