At The Entrance I Perceived Over The Door Of The House A Large
Board, And Written On It, Dr. G - 's Academy.
Dr. G - received me
with great courtesy as a foreigner, and shewed me his school-room,
which was furnished just in the same manner as the classes in our
public schools are, with benches and a professor's chair or pulpit.
The usher at Dr. G - 's is a young clergyman, who, seated also in a
chair or desk, instructs the boys in the Greek and Latin grammars.
Such an under-teacher is called an usher, and by what I can learn,
is commonly a tormented being, exactly answering the exquisite
description given of him in the "Vicar of Wakefield." We went in
during the hours of attendance, and he was just hearing the boys
decline their Latin, which he did in the old jog-trot way; and I own
it had an odd sound to my ears, when instead of pronouncing, for
example viri veeree I heard them say viri, of the man, exactly
according to the English pronunciation, and viro, to the man. The
case was just the same afterwards with the Greek.
Mr. G - invited us to dinner, when I became acquainted with his
wife, a very genteel young woman, whose behaviour to the children
was such that she might be said to contribute more to their
education than any one else. The children drank nothing but water.
For every boarder Dr. G - receives yearly no more than thirty pounds
sterling, which however, he complained of as being too little.
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