Read Ebook: Cupid's Fair-Weather Booke Including an Almanack for Any Two Years (True Love Ought to Last That Long) by Clay John Cecil Herford Oliver

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SECT. 7. If some untouchable youth happens to be detected in expressing his insolence, your wife, or the person he has offended, must beg him off.

SECT. 8. Severe discipline is never to be inflicted immediately before the school breaks up, or very soon after the return.

SECT. 9. Setting a maid upon her head, or pissing upon a mistress's new gown, is a flogging matter, no more; it might look like partiality.

SECT. 10. The best punishment for idleness is confinement and short commons.

INSTRUCTION.

The instruction of youth you must commit in a great measure to your ushers; it is for this purpose you employ them, But not to omit any thing material, which may concern you, take the following rules.

SECT. 1. If your principal boys ask too hard questions, make it a rule never to tell them; it would be excusing them from a necessary part of their duty. Tell them it is easy enough, and send them back; the more pains they take to acquire their learning, the longer they will retain it.

SECT. 2. If you be ever obliged to have a hard lesson said to you, busy yourself in writing letters, or take an occasional nap; the boys will be glad of it, and it may prevent their accusing you of ignorance.

SECT. 3. Never explain a passage in a difficult author; your scholars will hereafter have a greater pleasure in making the discovery themselves.

SECT. 5. If you see a boy sent back by an usher, and the boy cries, call him, unseen by the usher, hear him, and let it pass; it will please the boy mightily.

SECT. 6. Never let your boys get too forward; the longer they stay, the longer they pay. I have known a dozen boys of six years standing in an academy, who neither knew the declension or conjugations of their accidence, their multiplication or pence table, or any thing else besides, which they had been sent to learn, and for the learning of which, some of them to my certain knowledge had paid upwards of three hundred pounds. What then? the boys are rather slow, and require time; or a little idle, and will, it is hoped, grow more thoughtful as they grow up; or your ushers have neglected their duty; and you have therefore thought it necessary to change them.

SECT. 7. In all kinds of Latin or Greek exercises it is best to mark the faults, and let the boys mend them, it puts them on enquiring into the exact meaning of the words they use, and will make them more careful of committing blunders.

SECT. 8. If your highest attainments be only some small smattering in the English language, and the command of the pen, it were to be wished you could impress upon the boys a higher opinion of you than you deserve: and, for this purpose, I know nothing better than to inform yourself of the merit of the different authors of the learned languages. Declaim on this subject to your boys, and order all their exercises to be publickly submitted to your inspection regularly every evening. This was an infallible rule with our friend Gerundivy Leech, and he acquired an easy fortune, has taken out his Dedimus for the county of Wilts, and lives in great repute.

SECT. 9. If you are a Dissenter, or a Roman Catholic, you will not fail to make the young gentlemen committed to your care, sensible of the truth of your particular tenets; it will prevent their being bigots.

ADDRESS and BEHAVIOUR before Parents.

SECT. 1. When a gentleman or lady pays you a visit, run out, the more slovenly the better; it will shew your attention to business, and a due sense of the honour they do you. It would be proper also that your wife hold the door open; your ushers be all ready to bow as they pass; and that your best looking boys be called into the parlour.

SECT. 2. If a parent unfortunately call to see a boy who has been just whipped, call the boy to you, and threaten, if he promises not to behave better, to tell his parents; then carry him into the parlour, pat him upon the head; tell them how prettily he reads, that he is sometimes in fault--but you never tell, and he will do so no more.

SECT. 3. If a fond mother come too often to see a favourite child, never fail to tell her, how the child cries when she is gone.

SECT. 5. Never ask the parents or friends of the boys to dine with you. You live upon the fragments left by the boys, and have nothing worth asking them to; it will be a proof of your frugality, and they will the more readily pay your demands.

ACADEMY WIVES.

SECT. 1. The properest person is a daughter or widow of the trade, such a one is commonly best instructed in the mystery of the business, best able to conciliate the affection of the boys, and make most of the children's linen.

SECT. 2. If such a one cannot be had, some old maiden must be sought for; she probably may have learnt the art of frugality, and if peevish and proud, the more desirable; you will be liked the better, it will preserve her also from being too familiar with the ushers, and she will be more respected by people of quality.

SECT. 3. Never, I beseech you, attempt to marry a young woman of fortune or family.

SECT. 4. Never allow your wife to contradict you before the boys or parents.

SECT. 5. The older your wife the better; she will look more motherly, and take more patiently such names as the children may wantonly give her.

SECT. 6. Never let her be humble enough to inspect the children's heads; it will put her too much on a condition with the servants: and yet she should not be too proud to sell them ribbon, garters, studds, gingerbread, &c. It is a necessary part of her duty.

SECT. 7. When you are absent she must watch the ushers, and see that they watch the boys, and cheat them not out of their money or play-things: there is no trusting any of them.

USHERS.

SECT. 1. Never employ a man of abilities if you can help it; he will scarce ever submit to the drudgery of your business, or pay that deference to your authority, which you may find necessary.

SECT. 2. The most desirable method of procuring ushers is by advertisements. None will apply who are not in desperate circumstances, and these are your men. If they know little it is no great matter; they will be the more diligent: and should the children detect their ignorance, or the parents complain, you may easily dismiss them; others such-like are to be had; and it will shew your friends how desirous you are to oblige them.

SECT. 3. When your ushers first come, you must endeavour to open their hearts by kind treatment. Make yourself acquainted with their circumstances; you may then more judiciously reduce them to trammels.

SECT. 4. It is not your interest that the ushers be too intimate one with another, or with the boys; they may communicate their respective observations; poison the minds of your boys with injurious reflections on your character; or revolt, and make a confusion in your school.

SECT. 5. If a search is to be made after some hoards of forbidden dainties, the information must always be declared to come from an usher; it will preserve the odium from you: but the seizure must be made by you or your wife; it will afford you an agreeable repast.

SECT. 6. If a boy be sent home, whose parents are in low circumstances, the usher is the man to accompany him: he is the properest person to inform the parents what progress the boy makes: and to send your footman would be making no distinction betwixt the children of the poor and the rich.

SECT. 7. If a beggar appears at the door, your usher is the man to send him away, both because he may be mistaken for the master of the house, and because he ought, whilst the boys are at play, to be always at the door.

SECT. 8. If you see an usher writing a letter, or reading in school-time, send him a boy to teach; it will shew your regard to the welfare of your boys.

SECT. 9. Never let your ushers have money before-hand; they may abscond: and you may as well seek a criminal in a coal-mine, as an usher in an academy.

SECT. 10. Never introduce an usher into company; it will lessen your authority, and he will undermine your credit.

SECT. 11. Let them always breakfast with the servants, or in some other equally humble manner; it will keep them at a due distance from you, and make them the more thankful for what little notice you may think proper to take of them.

SECT. 12. If any of them dislike you, and give you notice of their intentions to leave you, let them go the first possible opportunity; it will prevent their behaving awhile remarkably well, and rendering their memory grateful to the boys: it will also look as if some quarrel had been the occasion of their abrupt departure.

SECT. 13. Never speak well of an usher when he is gone, nor recommend him to another place; if bad he does not deserve it; if good, it is your interest to keep him as long as you can, and never to suppose or allow him good for any thing after he is gone.

SECT. 15. If an usher have it in his power to make advantages of his leisure-hours, this must be carefully denied him; it will make him independent.

OTHER SERVANTS.

This is a point of no great consequence.

SECT. 1. They must be able to live upon scraps, and lie three in a bed. If you give them no wages it will oblige them to look sharp, and be upon good terms with the boys.

SECT. 2. It will always be your interest to have a quarrel between the maids and the ushers; it will prevent the latter from having more meat and drink than they are allowed.

SECT. 3. If your maids are taken from taverns or inns so much the better; they will bear with less reluctance the innocent freedoms of the boys.--Many other rules might be added on this head, but it is needless; if you adhere strictly to those that I have already prescribed, you will not fail of success; and indeed I am rather afraid you will think them already too many and too plain, as well as object to this method of conveyance. To which I can only answer, that I could think of no other so generally useful; and that notwithstanding some few cautious parents, or guardians, may see more from it than might be wished; you, I am sensible, will remember the rules, when they shall have long forgotten for what good purposes they were given.

Lambeth, Jan. 7. 1770.

The E N D.

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