attainments of the village school were spread
abroad; every one was anxious to hear, and for
a time national school visiting became the
fashion.  Like all human institutions, it is a
mixture of good and evil.  The evil which it
principally wrought in those days was that it
greatly encouraged, if it did not originate,
the almost natural desire to show off, and
make the knowledge of the children appear
to be greater than it really was.  Visitors
expected to hear the names of the Cinque Ports,
the latitude of Pekin, the particulars of the wars
of the Roses, the overland route to India,
perhaps all about botany, and the roots of such
and such words.  Where, then, was the time
of the master to teach the two subjects which
ought chiefly to engross his attention in a
village school?  School inspectors assisted in the
same evil greatly. In those days the object of
the inspector seemed to be to get rid of the
lower classes of a school as soon as possible,
and then put the upper ones through a severe
course of English history, grammar, and
geography, for the edification of the numerous
visitors.  All this tended to make the children,
and particularly the pupil-teachers, conceited,
and to imagine that their education was
completed, when it was scarcely begun.  By-and-by
the number of school-visitors decreased, the
attraction was old, new things arose, and
masters had begun to discover that the chief aim
of a national school was not to make an
exhibition of it.  They left off lecturing, and
took to working quietly, making the children
do more; so there was less for visitors to hear,
and consequently they were less interested.
The system has now, probably, found its proper
place, national school visitors being almost
entirely confined to those who really take some
interest in the education of the poor.

But to come to particulars. National school
visitors may be divided into two classes:

First, those who stop at the school door;
and, second, those who enter the school.

The first class consists of many and very
dissimilar people—the children's parents,
travellers in the book line, beggars, the vendors
of herrings, nuts, oranges, and other
unconsidered trifles, Lancashire weavers, Coventry
ribbon-men, decayed schoolmasters from Cornwall
and Northumberland, deputations from
men on strikes, itinerant exhibitors of magic
lanterns, and many others.

Parents, or more properly mothers, always
seem to think they have a vested right in the
school and its master, and it never strikes them
that their visits are altogether unwelcome; for in
nine cases out of ten they come to make some
complaint or other.  Either you have done, or
not done; their children should be in as high a
class as somebody else; some bad boy has
beaten or stoned their children, and so on
through a long list of grievances.  Travellers
in the book line are a great nuisance.  Their
impudence and conceit are intolerable.  They
will often walk into a school, even without
knocking, instead of stopping at the door—their
proper place; don't think of taking off their
hats, unless politely requested to do so; and
usurp the master's place for the time being.
They seem to think schoolmasters their proper
prey; they have heard a long way off that you
are a great reader, and that they confidently
expected an order; or, if disappointed, do not
scruple to hint that you are not literary.

A good deal of amusement often
accompanies the visits of the orange-sellers; though
when a rough head pops itself inside the open
school door on a summer's afternoon, and
demands, "Done ye want any herrins, master?" the
amusement is apt to be at the master's expense.
I used to trade extensively with an Irishman,
who always had a great deal to say in praise of
his oranges, and, when all else failed, always
vanquished me with "St. Michael's oranges, sir."
One day I asked him, "Where was St. Michael's?"
He replied, "Sure, master, it's an island
belonging to America, on the coast of Spain, near
the entrance to the Mediterranean river."
"Where did he read that?"  "Sure, in the
geography books."  That Irishman, to my great
regret, has disappeared.  I have often
wondered what has become of him. Is he
distributing oranges in some other locality? has he
taken a voyage at his country's expense? or is
he a general in the Federal army?  Such an
answer strongly reminds one of Byron's lines:

                          Spain's an island near
            Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.

But why take the remaining members of this
class in order? for they are either beggars or
beggars in disguise, and very thin indeed is the
disguise of many of these visitors, who stop at
the school door.  They care nothing for national
education, know not of Mr. Lowe and his
schemes, care not whether the master be from
York or Saltley, and are not interested in
Standard No. I.  But their interest in the master's
pocket is great; and if by some pitiful tale they
can move him to transfer coins from his pocket
to theirs, the object for which they visited him
is attained.

We now come to the second and more
important class of school-visitors, viz. those who
enter the school. That class may be divided thus:

I. Those who are either simply an annoyance
or necessary evils;

II. Those whose coming is a matter of
indifference;

III. Those who help and encourage.

I presume very few teachers like the inspection
of their schools simply for its own sake.
Of course they like a good report, and in olden
days it was very pleasant to get one's certificate
raised.  But even that, I imagine, was more on
account of pounds, shillings, and pence than for
any other reason.  Out of (say) one hundred
cases, we may safely conclude that ninety-nine
teachers only allowed or liked inspection because
they gained a certain sum of money by it.  Thus
it was that the inspector was never really
welcome.  His visit was naturally associated with
extra work, the bother of statistics, and