This was a long low building, ridged
with mossy slabs, and ribbed with green, where the drip oozed down
the buttresses. But the long reach of the front was divided by a gable
projecting a little into the broad high-road. And here was the way,
beneath a low stone arch, into a porch with oak beams bulging and a
bell-rope dangling, and thence with an oaken door flung back into the
dark arcade of learning.
This was the place to learn things in, with some possibility of keeping
them, and herein lay the wisdom of our ancestors. Could they ever have
known half as much as they did, and ten times as much as we know, if
they had let the sun come in to dry it all up, as we do? Will even the
fourteen-coated onion root, with its bottom exposed to the sun, or will
a clever puppy grow long ears, in the power of strong daylight?
The nature and nurture of solid learning were better understood when
schools were built from which came Shakespeare and Bacon and Raleigh;
and the glare of the sun was not let in to baffle the light of the
eyes upon the mind. And another consideration is that wherever there is
light, boys make a noise, which conduces but little to doctrine; whereas
in soft shadow their muscles relax, and their minds become apprehensive.
Thus had this ancient grammar school of Stonnington fostered many
scholars, some of whom had written grammars for themselves and their
posterity.
The year being only at the end of March, and the day going on for five
o'clock, the light was just right, in the long low room, for correction
of manners and for discipline.
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