 Swiss hotelkeeper
believes in the beauty of the scenery around him, and in the pleasure it gives
to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling believed in his method of
education: he had no doubt that he was doing the very best thing for Mr.
Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the miller talked of »mapping« and »summing« in
a vague and diffident manner, Mr. Stelling had set his mind at rest by an
assurance that he understood what was wanted; for how was it possible the good
man could form any reasonable judgment about the matter? Mr. Stelling's duty was
to teach the lad in the only right way - indeed, he knew no other: he had not
wasted his time in the acquirement of anything abnormal.
    He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad for though by hard
labour he could get particular declensions into his brain, anything so abstract
as the relation between cases and terminations could by no means get such a
lodgment there as to enable him to recognise a chance genitive or dative. This
struck Mr. Stelling as something more than natural stupidity: he suspected
obstinacy, or at any rate, indifference; and lectured Tom severely on his want
of thorough application. »You feel no interest in what you're doing, sir,« Mr.
Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tom had never found any
difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter, when once he had been told the
distinction, and his perceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they
were quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr. Stelling; for Tom could predict
with accuracy what number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a
stone right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction how
many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the playground, and
could draw almost perfect squares on his slate without any measurement. But Mr.
Stelling took no note of these things: he only observed that Tom's faculties
failed him before the abstractions hideously symbolised to him in the pages of
the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to
the demonstration that two given triangles must be equal - though he could
discern with great promptitude and certainty the fact that they were equal.
Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain being peculiarly impervious to
etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of being ploughed and
harrowed by these patent implements: it was his favourite metaphor, that the
classics
