Mr. Hale met with several pupils, recommended to him by Mr. Bell,

or by the more immediate influence of Mr. Thornton. They were

mostly of the age when many boys would be still at school, but,

according to the prevalent, and apparently well-founded notions

of Milton, to make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught

young, and acclimated to the life of the mill, or office, or

warehouse. If he were sent to even the Scotch Universities, he

came back unsettled for commercial pursuits; how much more so if

he went to Oxford or Cambridge, where he could not be entered

till he was eighteen? So most of the manufacturers placed their

sons in sucking situations' at fourteen or fifteen years of age,

unsparingly cutting away all off-shoots in the direction of

literature or high mental cultivation, in hopes of throwing the

whole strength and vigour of the plant into commerce. Still there

were some wiser parents; and some young men, who had sense enough

to perceive their own deficiencies, and strive to remedy them.

Nay, there were a few no longer youths, but men in the prime of

life, who had the stern wisdom to acknowledge their own

ignorance, and to learn late what they should have learnt early.

Mr. Thornton was perhaps the oldest of Mr. Hale's pupils. He was

certainly the favourite. Mr. Hale got into the habit of quoting

his opinions so frequently, and with such regard, that it became

a little domestic joke to wonder what time, during the hour

appointed for instruction, could be given to absolute learning,

so much of it appeared to have been spent in conversation.

Margaret rather encouraged this light, merry way of viewing her

father's acquaintance with Mr. Thornton, because she felt that

her mother was inclined to look upon this new friendship of her

husband's with jealous eyes. As long as his time had been solely

occupied with his books and his parishioners, as at Helstone, she

had appeared to care little whether she saw much of him or not;

but now that he looked eagerly forward to each renewal of his

intercourse with Mr. Thornton, she seemed hurt and annoyed, as if

he were slighting her companionship for the first time. Mr.

Hale's over-praise had the usual effect of over-praise upon his

auditors; they were a little inclined to rebel against Aristides

being always called the Just.

After a quiet life in a country parsonage for more than twenty

years, there was something dazzling to Mr. Hale in the energy

which conquered immense difficulties with ease; the power of the

machinery of Milton, the power of the men of Milton, impressed

him with a sense of grandeur, which he yielded to without caring

to inquire into the details of its exercise. But Margaret went

less abroad, among machinery and men; saw less of power in its

public effect, and, as it happened, she was thrown with one or

two of those who, in all measures affecting masses of people,

must be acute sufferers for the good of many. The question always

is, has everything been done to make the sufferings of these

exceptions as small as possible? Or, in the triumph of the

crowded procession, have the helpless been trampled on, instead

of being gently lifted aside out of the roadway of the conqueror,

whom they have no power to accompany on his march?




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