Martaban

“ You want work, Mr Considine, and I want a workman. You’ve had a good education, which I count a priceless advantage. Some of my sons have had a little, but since I came here the young ones have had none at all worth mentioning. What say you to become a schoolmaster? You stop with me and give the youngsters as much as you think fit of whatever you know, and I’ll give you house-room and food, with a small salary and a hearty welcome. You need not bind yourself. ”

“ Once the apprenticeship at an end, the youth could work, as what would now be known as an ‘improver,’ with any master he liked, and in any town that he chose. Later on, in order to become a master, he had to present himself before the heads of the guild and give proofs of efficiency, promise obedience to the rules of the corporation, and swear to carry on his work well and honestly. ”

“ Thought Matilall to himself:—"I have escaped from the hands of my old teacher; how am I to get rid of this rice-and-plantain-eating old Brahman? I am my father and mother's darling, and whether I can write or not, they will say nothing to me. The only object of learning after all is to gain money, and my father has boundless wealth: what then is the good of my learning? It is quite enough for me to be able to sign my name; besides what will my intimate friends have left to do if I take to learning? their occupation in ministering to my pleasures will be gone! ”

“ But you, Padre Fernandez, you, a teacher, you, a learned man, do you wish a people of peons and laborers? In your opinion, is the laborer the perfect state at which man may arrive in his development? Or is it that you wish knowledge for yourself and labor for the rest?"
"No, I want knowledge for him who deserves it, for him who knows how to use it," was the reply. "When the students demonstrate that they love it, when young men of conviction appear, young men who know how to maintain their dignity and make it respected, then there will be knowledge, then there will be considerate professors! ”

“ Father thinks that teaching would be the best profession for me, as do also my friends in Batavia. They think that would be a suitable, fine work for me, where I could spread my ideas broadcast among the younger generation, the women and mothers of the future. As a teacher, even of a little circle, there would be a direct influence exerted upon that little circle, which would in time, widen and spread out so that many would follow my example. ”

“ As to Birmingham and Manchester,—I do not know what is the character of the working youths there,—but I have heard it said that long apprenticeships are good for the morals of the young people.”
“Then I must be a much more moral person than Walter—Eh, Effie? But I should like to know what there is in my being bound to tread the length of the rope-walk so many times a-day, for my master’s profit, that is good for my morals. I hardly think that it is good for one’s morals to be running off as often as one can slip the noose, and sulky and grumbling all the while one is under a master’s eye.” ”

“ But considering the education you have had, I should imagine that travel would be of great advantage to you.
Now if I do go abroad said Ramlall, I shall have to stay for some time in places where there is society: and with what classes, and with what kinds of people, should I chiefly associate?
That is no easy question, Barada Babu replied: I must contrive though to give you some kind of an answer. In every rank in life there are people good and bad: any good people you may come across you may associate with ”

“ She had been trained for service, but was such a little, frail, miserable thing that the kind-hearted matron did not like to send her adrift alone, even after she had reached the grown-up, wage-earning age of seventeen. ”

“ The new noises, and the strangeness of bare metal walls and artificial light, still novel after only a single day's training, gave rise to something very like a panic, and a confused babble of voices arose from the crowd.
"What is this?"
"What place is this?"
"It is a training place."
"My name Hortat. My name Hortat."
"What is training?"
"There is food here."
"What place is this?"
"Where are elders?"
"Are masters here?"
"My food."
"Is this a place for sleeping?"
"Training is to do what a master says. Training—"
"There are no elders. My name Hortat." ”

“ At these words the heart of the Starosta began to beat fiercely.
[Pg 85] "Then he cannot be a serf if he becomes a scholar, eh?"
"No. At all times and everywhere a scholar is a gentleman."
"Your Reverence has no doubt heard of the curse with which a Rabbi threatened me?"
"Every one knows of it."
"And do you suppose that it can be fulfilled?"
"Everything is possible in this world."
"But, according to your reasoning, a scholar can never become a serf." ”

“ But Martha's requirements were such as the average servant can not meet or will not face, and candidates for the place and wages she offered asked questions and were not satisfied with her answers.
"And where is the house?"
"Canada."
"Is it a city?"
"It's country."
"Are there neighbors?"
"No."
"What manner of man is the master?"
"A fine, kind man."
"Married?"
"Single."
"An old man?"
"A young man. But you'll not see the master."
"Me work for a man I don't see?"
"He don't see nobody but me." ”

“ I do heartily congratulate you upon the success which you have gained, and upon your adoption as sons of the University of Madras. That success implies the possession by you of qualities which give no Small assurance of fitness for the various callings to which you are destined. Apart from special studies to qualify yourselves for particular avocations, you must have applied yourselves with ardour and earnestness to the acquisition of knowledge, and you have given proof that you are sufficiently intelligent to use and apply the knowledge so acquired. ”

“ If the condition of your country presents to the enlightened men among you a path strewn with so many difficulties and trials, it is on this account all the richer in noble opportunity. You do not need to travel beyond your own homes, or beyond the circle of your daily social life, to find a vocation worthy of the high position to which your education has raised you. ”

“ We now, to return to Pelléas, know pretty well what to do and how to behave on the master's premises. But the world does not end at the house-door, and, beyond the walls and beyond the hedge, there is a universe of which one has not the custody, [Pg 27] where one is no longer at home, where relations are changed. How are we to stand in the street, in the fields, in the market-place, in the shops? In consequence of difficult and delicate observations, we understand that we must take no notice of passers-by; obey no calls but the master's; be polite, with indifference, to strangers who pet us. ”

“ Such being the varieties in the strength of the natural faculty, the training of it must vary accordingly.
As I have said before, no human faculty needs to be repressed; because no human faculty is in itself bad. Where any one power appears to be excessive, we are not to set to work to vex and mortify it: but rather, to bring up to it those antagonist faculties which ought to balance it, and which, in such a case, clearly want strengthening. ”

“ So we hoped the emulation created by the prospect of leaving a beautiful specimen of needle-work upon graduation would inspire our girls to faithful painstaking in sewing at their homes even before entering school. The matron has the graduating class spend their required hour of work in learning to make good bread and to do other plain cooking. When any student is ill, opportunity is given for practical instruction from the preceptress in nursing the sick. ”

“ But the young creature is all the while taught stronger lessons by circumstances than can ever come through human lips. He sees that a number of grown persons about him are almost wholly occupied with him, and that it is their business in life to induce him to command his temper and manners. He feels that when he is bid to fetch and carry, or to do any other little service, it is not [Pg 43] because such service is wanted, but for the sake of the training to himself. He is aware that all that concerns him every day is a matter of arrangement, and not of necessity ”

“ I often saw a volume on the table of the widow's parlour, with her spectacles in it. She told me, one day, of her satisfaction in her children, that they were given to good pursuits, and all received church members. All young people in these villages are more or less instructed. Schooling is considered a necessary of life. I happened to be looking over an old almanack one day, when I found, among the directions relating to the preparations for winter on a farm, the following: "Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten loose clap-boards and shingles. Secure a good school-master." ”

“ Welcome, once and again, Miss Martineau; who, though you may rather belong to the Marthas, who are "careful about many things," than the Maries who choose "the better part," have yet earned our respect and gratitude for a long and consistent life of labour, whose sole object was the improvement and benefit of your generation. ”

“ I met on the physical plane a man of great enthusiasm and of the most saintly character, one who believed thoroughly in the existence of the Masters, and devoted his life to the one object of qualifying himself for Their service. He seemed to me a man in every way so entirely suitable for discipleship, so obviously better than myself in many ways, that I could not understand how it was that he was not already accepted ”

“ To the training of company after company of young cadets—French, Swiss, English, Belgian, German, Italian and Russian—the Maréchale gave a great deal of her time and strength, her pattern being ever our Lord's own training of the Twelve. All obeyed her joyfully and without question. She realised intuitively that the highest thing in training is not discipline, but something which discipline follows as light follows the sun. That something is the spirit, the atmosphere, which men and women are brought into and which transforms them. ”

“ But, although I had long believed that the observant and thoughtful home-keeping man might attain an understanding of himself and even of his nation, I came now to doubt that there was any means other than foreign travel for developing a realization of what is really fundamental to the general human spirit.
In voicing to Professor Maturin my gratitude for the pleasure and profit of the evening, I found that he had observed me growing a trifle stale, and had designedly administered this meeting as a remedy. ”

“ A hale, good-humoured, erect, old woman was Martha, and an agreeable contrast to the grim, decrepit hag, which my fancy had conjured up, as the depository of all the horrible tales in which I doubted not this old place was most fruitful. She welcomed me and her master with a profusion of gratulations, alternately kissing our hands and apologising for the liberty, until at length Lord Glenfallen put an end to this somewhat fatiguing ceremonial, by requesting her to conduct me to my chamber if it were prepared for my reception. ”

“ But, since your term of apprenticeship expired, have you made no effort to acquire a little education?"
"Since that time I have had to work all day and far into the night to earn enough to keep my godmother and myself alive, monsieur," said Mariette, sadly.
"Alas! yes, time is bread to the labourer, and only too often he has to choose whether he shall die of hunger or live in ignorance." ”

“ When the vocation for which he is naturally best fitted becomes apparent, as it must from the study of the development of the youth and his desires, the school will know, and can give exactly, that training that is necessary for the vocation. ”

“ Those who understand anything of this work, and most especially those of us who have been privileged to see the Masters doing it, would never for a moment think of interrupting Them in such altruistic labour as this by propounding any personal requests. The vast importance of the work which They are doing, and the enormous amount of it, make it obviously impossible that They should take up personal work with individuals. In the cases where such work has to be done it is always delegated to pupils or performed by means of elementals and nature-spirits. ”

“ The life of the students of these madrassehs resembles that of monks in monasteries of the Eastern Church. They prepare their own modest food, clean their own rooms, make their own beds, and wash their own clothes. A new student not only does all this for himself, but he has also to do it for the fellow or tutor of the madrasseh in whose room he is placed. Most of the students are very poor. ”

“ Will the stream grow deeper higher up?”
“No, master,” replied the Malay; “the boat can go no farther. We must walk.”
“Humph! and carry the provisions?” said the doctor.
“Yes, if the master wishes to go up to the mountains.”
“Why, you are afraid, Ismael!” said the doctor.
“Yes, master, we are both afraid; but if he says we must go, his servants will follow him right up where the spirits dwell. Look—see,” he whispered. “There is one waving its hands to us to tempt us. Don’t—no, don’t look, master, or you may die.” ”

“ I have been in the habit of noticing the candidates for the Matriculation Examination during the past few years, and I was much struck on the last occasion to see crowding out of the pandal in the Town Hall compound such numbers of thin, pallid and sickly-looking youths. I have also been told by some of the older class of educated natives that they can now easily tire out their sons and other young relations in ordinary walking exercise. ”