country; new comers, too, who had not been
sobered down, went so far as to invent
matter for the glory of old England in general,
and of their own homes in particular. I
myself had not been long added to the
community before I had executed a rude pen and
ink sketch of a spacious turreted castle with
four corner towers of such height as it would
enter only into the mind of Mr. Barry to
conceive, and had confidently displayed it
to some young German and French friends,
even to Brother Mieth and a few teachers, as
a sketch from memory of my native halls in
Gower-street, London. An English boy who
had been my companion at home bore witness
to the accuracy of the picture, and obtained
from me, as his reward, the decision that his
father's park must be about three times
larger than the principality of Unkrant.
Brother Mieth never doubted us, or never
seemed to doubt. When, during a long walk
on the allée bordered with apple-trees that
led from New Unkrant to Schneiderdingen,
I described to Brother Mieth a domestic
ceremony that I had lately witnessed at
home, taking the whole mass of my very
startling details out of a tale in the Romance
of Spanish History, the good brother
manifested not a trace of doubt. He had seen
strange things in Greenland; and in England
things might possibly be stranger. Against
this quiet trustfulness, no child's spirit of
untruth could maintain itself. I remember
only one or two in our whole mass who did
not become, under its influence, completely
candid and trustworthy.

I seem to have wandered from the subject
of the dead bodies that we went to see, and
yet have not wandered very far. Brother
Mieth disappeared from his desk and joined
the men and children, tenanting a portion
of our building called the sick-room.
What pleasure we all thought it to be
sick! A battered old soldier was the
ministering nurse—no woman could be
gentler in the office than he was,—and
then what tales of battles and the deadly
perilous breach he liked to tell! We did not
pity Brother Mieth for being in the sick-
room, till the rumour grew among us that
some best authority had said that he
would die. We began then to pay him visits,
and I do not think we were the worse for the
short texts he used to show us in his
unaffected way. We all kept albums, little
boxes of loose coloured leaves, on each of
which a friend was to inscribe some syllables
in token of his love. We went to Brother
Mieth with blank leaves in our hands. It
must have been solemn, yet not sad
work for him, sitting at his little table in the
sick-room, strewn with blank leaflets, pink
and blue, and white, and yellow, and crimson,
to write upon each one his farewell to a child
who loved him, and whom he had loved.
O brother Mieth, brother Mieth! Glad am
I that I have my leaflet still.

Our friend died, and they took his
body, as they took the body of every brother
who died, to a little room in a garden,
built against the chapel wall: a place to which
we went between the garden flowers, by a trim
walk, under trellissed vines. In that building,
on certain days, according to the custom of
the school in such cases, we were permitted
(not compelled) to go and be with our friend
for the last time. And with what full hearts
we passed the threshold of the little room,
to find Brother Mieth placidly sleeping in
a pretty bed, one of his hands lying on the
counterpane with roses in it. We felt no
horror at the stillness and whiteness of his
face; our thoughts of Death and Heaven were
allied too closely for that.

Then came the funeral. Before we
journeyed to the graveyard, all met in the quiet
chapel, where there was a short service, and a
hymn: sung to stirring music of wind instruments,
stringed instruments, and organ. The
minister then opened a small paper, and read
from it a brief memoir of our friend, through
which we heard for the first time what had
happened to him, and what work he had found
time to do in all the years before his grave was
ready. Knowing then, better than ever, whom
we followed, all the men of the brotherhood,
and all the boys in the school, two by two,
with no pomp but the pomp of numbers,
followed the bearers of a simple coffin. Arrived
at the churchyard we there formed a great
square that almost corresponded to the
square of its four hedges. Brother Mieth
was committed to the earth with blessings,
and to this day I can tell by the thrill in my
heart how we felt when, immediately afterwards,
the trumpets were blown over his grave.
Aided by that music, presently our funeral
hymn rose from the voices of many men and
boys, and spread through the silence of the
country round about.

Of course English teachers cannot bury
one another for the edification of schoolboys.
It is obvious that I am not here recommending
any rule of practice for adoption; I suggest
only a principle. I had been used at English
schools to strictness of rule with laxity of
principle: at New Unkrant we had strictness
of principle with laxity of rule. At New
Unkrant the discipline was (in consequence)
beyond comparison the most real and
complete. I had been taught in England to stick
by my slate and dictionary, to keep my collar
clean on Sunday, and to learn the collect. I
was taught at New Unkrant to give free play to
all my faculties; the heart was stirred, the
soul was roused, the affections were satisfied,
no check was set upon the fancy, and we were
abundantly provided with material for
voluntary exercise of thought. What if we did
learn little algebra and little Greek! Every
one of us was being humanised in the best
way, and trained to become a thinker and a
student for himself thereafter. Scarcely a boy
was there who had not his case of butterflies