Mr. Underwood had a certain liking for the man, and when tolerably
well, enjoyed the breaking a lance with him over his many crude
heterodoxies; but he did not love the school, and as long as he was
able had taught his boys himself, and likewise taken a few day-pupils
of the upper ranks, who were preparing for public schools. But when
his failure of health rendered this impracticable, the positive evil
of idleness was, he felt greater than any possible ones that might
arise from either the teaching or the associations of the town
school, and he trusted to home influence to counteract any such
dangers. Or perhaps more truly he dreaded lest his own reluctance
might partly come from prejudice in favour of gentlemen and public
schools: and that where a course seemed of absolute necessity,
Providence became a guard in its seeming perils. Indeed, that which
he disapproved in Mr. Ryder's school was more of omission than
commission. It was that secularity was the system, rather than the
substance of that secularity.
So Felix and Edgar went to school, and were in due time followed by
Clement and Fulbert; and their bright wits, and the educated
atmosphere of their home, made their career brilliant and successful.
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