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THE MANHOOD 77
ears and minds among his scholars, inasmuch as he is a debtor to them all. But as first emotions are not in our power, if the master is conscious of getting a little angry, let him, after Plato's example, pass over the boy who is annoying him and ask some other scholar the question or think of a new question to ask, till his temper is a little cooled, for it does not become a teacher who is to plant good morals in his pupils to be lame in his own moral conduct. It is vulgar and base when the fault that a teacher reproves can be charged against himself. The mind in infancy is like a blank tablet, its blindness must be enlightened by reason rather than force. The teacher should therefore carefully scrutinise the intellect of each boy, and exercise it gradually, beginning with the lighter tasks, and acting on the traditional dictum of Hippocrates, the physician, that nature should be led along the path on which it started ; if the intellect is lively the instructor may venture to load it a little more heavily. The master should be with his pupils as a father with his sons, and Sherburne anticipated Roger Ascham in pointing out the value of hearty commendation.
Everything we hear about the bishop is not to his praise, an instance of which is supplied by his forgery of a papal bull appointing himself to the See of St. David's. His was not the fire of Wilfrid, nor the saintliness of Richard, nor, perhaps, the learning of Pecock ; a careful prelate rather of the Parker type rises before our eyes as we study his life. He had held offices of many kinds, and always sedulously taken care not to get into any unnecessary difficulties. We see in him much of the caution that so marked a later generation of prelates (now happily passing away), who intensely |
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