JOHN'S GOVERNOR VISITS DAME EUROPA'S SCHOOL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 96, 25 April 1871, Page 2

JOHN'S GOVERNOR VISITS DAME EUROPA'S SCHOOL.

I. — R EPLECTION". Well, a very pretty row there was, you may be sure, at Dame Europa's Schq^fc4 which, like all other rows, great and st^St got on to an extent, and into a mess, out of all reasonable comparison with what had first brought it on. It frightened the little boys, and sorel ■ bothered the big boys ; in short, it tas difficult to find half-a-dozen of them rho cojjrfff come' to any exact understan ing^ogether ■as to what it had been all rirout, and what was to be done to mead^ t, It was clear the monitors themg^es sould make neither For remainder of ne >s see fourth page.

head nor tail of it. Whether they were 'themselves a little slow to begin with, or •whether Dame Europa expected more than was to, be got out of them, or whatever was the reason,, it seemed that they were .the wrong boys in the wrong placed or the place was too much for. them. Neither William -nor Eouis would give in a bit ; the more Louis was beaten the more his division of the school took up the quarrel ; and it was plain that neither the monitors nor the awful Dame herself had the least power to stop the scandal and disgrace to the school. ' As for poor Johnnie, who had been singled out as the monitor most to blame, he was in a state of mind I hope you may never feel. He was more than worried ; he was, as he thought, very unjustly hurt. Dame Europa's public homily rang hardly in his ears. He did not much like even a lot of little boys crying out that he " sucked up 1o both of thenV' when in his sound, honest, old heart he knew he had never" cared a rap what either of them wanted^ or what, so far as he was concerned, they choose 10 do to get it. But when the angry-old Dame charged him with caring nothing about the good of the school, with breaking- trust, adding something about coward, and leaving everything to go to the dogs so long as he could keep his own place and his own interests all right, he thought this, in schoolboy phrase, was har"d. : lines. He had a real respect for the : old Dame, and her high desk and stool ; but he had a strong feeling that this time she had not been quite just or fair. So monitor John turned the thing over in his mind. He scratched his head, and cudgelled his brains (though ill-natured people said he hadn't many), and tried to think of something for the best. At last a bright thought came across him. That's the very thing to do ; I wonder none of us ever thought of that before. I'll write to the Governor ! I daresay some of the fellows will think it sheepish and oldfashioned ; perhaps the other monitors may turn up their noses at a Governor's authority and advice,\and proper control, and all that kind of thing. .Well, I don't care. They can go to him, any of them, when it suits them, because he holds the reins, and keeps the purse ; my notion is (and it is a notion older than any of us), that he ought often to be consulted more than he is. Yes, I'll write ■ to ' the Governor. He will be sure to take it well, and may very likely come out: rather strong about it. Since I came to school this half, I recollect hearing something from home that makes me think he is not quite so satisfied about these Dame's schools as he used to be ; or about some of the bigger schools either. He has been talking rather loud about Government inspection, whatever that means ; and routing them out of their old groove, and bringing them to book, and making them show up what the work is they have really done every school time. So Dame Europa had better look out. She is a good old lady, and has done her best a long time, I daresay. But she was rather hard upon me with her tongue the other day ; and I should like to try whether she rightly knew what she was talking about, or whether the Governor would be of the same mind or not. Any way, he is the right man to be told the truth of the story, and; have the chance of speaking his mind if he likes. ;So here goes. And so the letter was written and sent. It just referred in John's plain way to the quarrel. between Louis and^William, which had become too well known already ; and then described what happened when the matter i came up at the school dinner-time, and how Dame Europa had lectured him publicly, and held him up before all the boys, big and iittle,'in a way he thought he had not deserved. He said he thought if ""best not to have any more words with the Dame at the time ; but to let her hear of •it again' in another way.