Oliver Optic

“ We are to make good mechanics of you, and not good scholars.”
“Can’t good scholars be good mechanics?” asked Bolingbroke Millweed.
“Certainly they can: I don’t object to any amount of scholarship,” replied Captain Gildrock rather warmly. “You have been to the high-school, Bolingbroke; but all that you have learned will not prevent you from becoming a first-class mechanic. On the contrary, your education will be a great help to you.” ”

“ It was plain enough that the first duty of existence for every person was to support himself.
“But some are born rich,” suggested Corny Minkfield.
“Then their means of support are provided, but this is not the case with one in a hundred. The great body of our people have to earn their own living. The only real objections I have to the high-school are, first, that it unfits boys and girls for the humble labors of life; and, second, that it uses up so many of the years of the young in learning what does not directly help them in earning their own livelihood,” continued the captain. ”

“ Why does the blacksmith cool one piece of iron by putting it in water, and let another piece cool off on the floor, if he don’t know any thing about the science of chemistry?”
“I meant book science,” added Bob Swanton.
“All science is the same, whether it be in a book or in a man’s head,” added the instructor. “You must get it into the head to have it of any use to you, and it matters not where it come from. All I mean to say is, that a theoretical knowledge of science, such as you get in school, will be of very great advantage to you in the mechanic arts.” ”

“ The skipper realized that his rebel passenger was about to make an assault of some kind upon him, and he put the helm hard down. The boat came up into the wind with every thing shaking. Oscar sprang upon him as he did so, but Dory was on his feet at the same instant. The waves beat smartly upon the shore of the island, and the centre-board was still grating upon the bottom. ”

“ I am afraid I shall upset her,” said Oscar, somewhat disgusted with his experience so far.
“I think the wind is rather too fresh for a first lesson to-day,” replied Dory, as he took the tiller. “It would be better for you to try it when there isn’t wind enough to upset her if you make a mistake. You must excuse me if I spoke too quick to you just now, for the Goldwing would have gone over in another second if she had had her own way.”
“I was just beginning to get a little mad,” replied Oscar. “It don’t take much of a breeze to put me into a passion. ”

“ Millweed,” replied Dory, as he glanced at the approaching steamer.
“But I don’t want to be caught by that man! It might be fatal to me. He is a conspirator; and he is seeking to destroy my good name,” pleaded Mr. Millweed earnestly.
“I don’t understand the matter. Is the man an officer?”
“Not at all: he is chief clerk in a store in Burlington, and the steam-launch belongs to his employer. But he is rapidly overtaking us,” said the passenger.
“Why should he be after you? What have you been doing that is wrong?” asked Dory, who had no idea of enlisting on the wrong side in anybody’s cause. ”

“ He has been sailing with me in the schooner; and, as far as he has gone, he knows how to do it,” replied Dory.
“It will be impossible to keep them out of the boats; and the pupils must be taught at once how to row, and how to handle a sailboat,” continued the captain, as he glanced at the rowing of the party in the four-oar boat. “When I saw that sloop-boat go over, I thought that the first day of our school was to end in a disaster. I am thankful that no one lost his life. But no one shall go out of Beech Lake again in a sailboat unless there is a skipper on board.” ”

“ Captain Gildrock next called out the three stewards, and conducted them to the forward cabin. The general duties of the stewards were to take care of the cabins, set the table, wait upon it at meals. One had not yet come on board.
“Then, we are to be sort of servants, are we?” said Lick Milton.
“We are all equal on board of the Sylph,” replied the captain with a smile. “You are no more servants than all the others on the steamer. The first duty of officers and seamen is to obey orders; and the first officer is as much bound to do this as the stewards and deck-hands. ”

“ The captain succeeded in gathering them all into the Beech-hill Industrial School, as he decided to call the new institution. But the boys in Genverres were shy of the new school, or their parents were shy for them. Not a few of the latter regarded the retired shipmaster as a sort of harmless lunatic, liberal with his money, but, like all reformers, an unsafe leader to follow.
Several boys from the high-school had made excellent records out in the world, and each fond parent expected his own son would join the galaxy of bright stars from its graduates. ”

“ The next sound that attracted the attention of the pupils was the speed-bell, which was quickly followed by the gong; and the screw ceased to turn. At a single stroke of the large ship’s bell, Bates, standing upon the rail, at the forward gangway, heaved the lead.
“No bottom!” shouted the leadsman. Dory rang the gong, and the steamer went ahead at half speed.
“Does he mean to say there is no bottom to the lake in this place, Captain Gildrock?” asked Dave Windsor.
“Not at all: we don’t usually sound below fifty feet; and any greater depth than that is called ‘no bottom,’” replied the captain. ”

“ You might have been working your jaws from the time we left the shore-road,” said Dory, as he handed the lunch-basket to his passenger. “Help yourself, and I will feed as the helm gives me time.”
Mr. Millweed showed that he had an appetite by the time the Goldwing reached the lake. As the sun went down, the wind died out, though not till the schooner had passed Split Rock.
“I am afraid we shall not get to Burlington to-night; for we can’t go without wind,” said Dory, when the breeze had nearly deserted them. ”

“ Captain Gildrock was on the wharf, waiting her coming. As soon as he went on board, Mr. Brookbine reported the case of discipline to him, and informed him that the prisoner was confined in the ice-house.
“All right: let him stay there,” replied the captain, when he had listened to the account of the doings of the new scholar. “Then Dory has had a hard time of it. I was afraid he might have some difficulty.”
“No fear for Dory,” replied the carpenter, laughing. “He can take care of himself. He fought his own battle in the Goldwing, and won the day every time.” ”

“ At that instant the wind caught the jib, and the schooner began to swing very rapidly. The other sails filled at the same time.
“Now right the helm and meet her,” continued Dory. “Be lively about it. Carry the tiller over till you feel a strong resistance. Over with it, before she falls off too far.”
Oscar obeyed, but he had been hardly prompt enough in his movements. The sails were brought too nearly at right angles with the wind, which caused her to careen till the new skipper’s nerves were badly shaken. A bucket of water poured in over the wash-board. ”

“ I do not believe that high-schools should be supported, as a rule, out of the public taxes.”
“You are very radical in your opinions, Captain Gildrock,” added the instructor.
“Let us look at it a moment. There are two thousand scholars of all ages in the public schools of Genverres. Not more than one in five of them will ever reach the highest class in the grammar-school. The other four will leave school, and go to work: their parents need them, or what they can earn. But the parents of all those who fall out of the schools by the way are tax-payers. ”

“ There is food: you can eat it or let it alone. You can stay in this place a day, a week, a month, or a year: the time depends upon yourself,” said the captain, as he withdrew from the brig.
He closed the door, and secured it with the great lock. He also fastened the door in the plank partition, so that no student could get within six feet of the strong-room.
“That fellow will think better of it in a few days, perhaps by to-morrow,” said Captain Gildrock, as they left the dormitory.
“For a boy, he is the hardest customer I ever had to deal with,” replied Brookbine. ”

“ Captain Gildrock will come on board as soon as we get to Burlington, and if I mistake not you will find a Tartar in him.”
“I’m not afraid of him. But I don’t think I shall wait for him,” replied Oscar. “I have not been to Beech Hill yet, but I have had about enough already to satisfy me what it is going to be. If I am to be ordered about by a boy younger than I am, and insulted by him, because I happen to be in a boat with him, I don’t want any more of it. My uncle gave me money enough to pay my fare to New York, and you have more than I have, Will. ”

“ Darlingby.
“I rejoice in the progress as much as any one can,” retorted the captain vigorously. “But I believe there is intemperance in the matter of education as well as in eating and drinking. The first business of life, in an enlightened or a savage state, is bread and butter. In other words, a man must get his living before he does any thing beyond that; and the greater part of our population can do nothing more than get a living. ”

“ Help! Murder!” yelled one of the angry men; and Dory was confident it was the voice of the engineer.
The skipper of the Goldwing did not wait to hear any more, or to speculate upon the cause of the difficulty on board of the Juniper. Hauling in his sheets, he filled away on the starboard tack. The schooner could just lay her course for the steamer’s light. It looked a little like a stormy time ahead, and Dory decided to call his passenger. ”

“ That school only spoils good farmers and mechanics, good seamen and engineers. It gives them altogether too high notions of themselves. It turns its pupils out on the world fit only to be genteel. The education which the fathers of New England meant, when they planted the schoolhouse alongside the church, was simply a common-school education, without any high-school bosh on the tail-end of it. ”

“ Can’t you find any thing else to do?”
“I don’t know: I never looked for any other kind of a place.”
“I should think you might find a place to work on a farm,” added the captain in perfect good faith.
“On a farm!” exclaimed Bolingbroke, actually stopping in his walk in his astonishment.
“I hear that there is a scarcity of help on the farms in the State,” continued Captain Gildrock. “I should say you might earn four or five dollars a week, or at least fifteen dollars a month, on a farm, besides your board; and that is better pay than you can get in a store.” ”

“ Oscar soon got used to the motion and the erratic gyrations of the boat, and then he enjoyed it. He had been told to steer for a tree on a hill, and he kept the course remarkably well for a beginner. The Goldwing had gone two miles in a little over ten minutes, and the shoal-water of Field’s Bay was ahead of her.
“We must haul up a little, or we shall get aground,” said Dory. “As we are going squarely before the wind, there is no up or down about it; and you must put the helm to starboard. ”

“ A big thief is a gentleman: a little one is a criminal, after he is caught. The boys and girls have been educated too much: they get above their station in life, and then half starve themselves in order to be genteel.”
The captain did not believe that the young people were educated too much; only that they were trained in useless accomplishments, as he regarded them. He did not think that the Genverres high-school, though a very successful institution in the opinion of the school-board and the citizens generally, was really a blessing to the town. ”

“ Dory followed her in the Goldwing when he got his sails up. He watched the work of his pupil with close attention as he passed the Monkey, and shouted his approval to Oscar. When he reached the point, Captain Gildrock made a signal that he would like to be taken on board the schooner; and Dory made a landing.
“No more boating for these boys at present,” said the principal, as he stepped into the Goldwing. “They can neither sail a boat nor row one. Who is sailing that boat now, Dory? He is doing better than has been done with her before this afternoon.” ”

“ We learned to row, but the club are not doing very well with their oars,” added Dory, as one of the party “caught a crab.”
“Who is managing that sailboat, Dory?” asked Oscar, as he pointed at the Monkey.
“Bolly Millweed; but he don’t know how to do it, and he ought not to come out on the lake without a skipper.”
“That’s just my case, but I am very anxious to learn how to do it.”
“You will soon learn. One sails a boat as he drives a horse: it is done more by the feeling than by the sight. All you need is practice, for the science is very simple. ”

“ Phil and John Brattle positively refused to sail with Bolly again, and the late skipper of the Monkey had his doubts about attempting to get the boat into the river without upsetting her.
“I can do it,” suggested Oscar.
“I have no doubt you can, Oscar, and you may do it,” replied Dory. “You will have the wind fair all the way.”
Oscar took his place in the Monkey, which he soon found was not such a craft as the Goldwing. He trimmed the sail, and got under way without making any mistakes. He had the wind on the beam, and he let out the sheet of the sloop until the sail would just draw full. ”