The cheerfulness of their conversation being interrupted
by this accident, in which the guests could be of
no service to their kind entertainer; and as the mother
was taken up in administering consolation to the poor
girl, whose disposition was too good hastily to forget
the sudden loss of her little favourite, which had
been fondling with her a few minutes before; and as
Joseph and Fanny were impatient to get home and begin
those previous ceremonies to their happiness which
Adams had insisted on, they now offered to take their
leave. The gentleman importuned them much to
stay dinner; but when he found their eagerness to
depart he summoned his wife; and accordingly, having
performed all the usual ceremonies of bows and curtsies
more pleasant to be seen than to be related, they
took their leave, the gentleman and his wife heartily
wishing them a good journey, and they as heartily thanking
them for their kind entertainment. They then
departed, Adams declaring that this was the manner
in which the people had lived in the golden age.
[A] Whoever the reader pleases.
CHAPTER V.
A disputation on schools held on the road between
Mr Abraham Adams and Joseph; and a discovery not unwelcome
to them both.
Our travellers, having well refreshed themselves at
the gentleman’s house, Joseph and Fanny with
sleep, and Mr Abraham Adams with ale and tobacco,
renewed their journey with great alacrity; and pursuing
the road into which they were directed, travelled
many miles before they met with any adventure worth
relating. In this interval we shall present our
readers with a very curious discourse, as we apprehend
it, concerning public schools, which passed between
Mr Joseph Andrews and Mr Abraham Adams.
They had not gone far before Adams, calling to Joseph,
asked him, “If he had attended to the gentleman’s
story?” He answered, “To all the former
part.”—“And don’t you
think,” says he, “he was a very unhappy
man in his youth?”—“A very unhappy
man, indeed,” answered the other. “Joseph,”
cries Adams, screwing up his mouth, “I have found
it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes
which befel him: a public school, Joseph, was
the cause of all the calamities which he afterwards
suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of
all vice and immorality. All the wicked fellows
whom I remember at the university were bred at them.—Ah,
Lord! I can remember as well as if it was but
yesterday, a knot of them; they called them King’s
scholars, I forget why—very wicked fellows!
Joseph, you may thank the Lord you were not bred at
a public school; you would never have preserved your
virtue as you have. The first care I always take
is of a boy’s morals; I had rather he should
be a blockhead than an atheist or a presbyterian.
What is all the learning in the world compared to his
immortal soul? What shall a man take in exchange
for his soul? But the masters of great schools
trouble themselves about no such thing. I have
known a lad of eighteen at the university, who hath
not been able to say his catechism; but for my own
part, I always scourged a lad sooner for missing that
than any other lesson. Believe me, child, all
that gentleman’s misfortunes arose from his
being educated at a public school.”
