“Mother, which shall I be—which would you rather have me be—an author or statesman?” said Arthur Harrington, a handsome boy of some twelve years of age, looking up from his Latin exercise to his mother, who sat reading at the same table where her son was studying.

The mother laid down her book, and smiling as she looked in the glowing face of her boy, answered,

“I hardly know, Arthur. The statesman who presides in his country’s councils, and guides at the helm of state, has a proud, a noble position. But the author, again, who influences a nation’s mind, and stirs up the heart of a people, is one of the benefactors of his race. I should wish, however, that you consult your own taste and genius in the choice of your future career, my son.”

“There was Sir Walter Scott, mother—he surely stirred up the heart of a people. To be read all over the world must be glorious! And yet to be William Pitt—prime minister at one-and-twenty!—I think, mother, I’d rather be William Pitt—”

“You had better study your lesson, Arthur,” said Frank Ashhurst, a youth of about the same age, in a low tone, without raising his eyes from the Greek page which lay open before him.

But Arthur, too intent upon the comparative merits of statesmen and authors, Sir Walter Scott and William Pitt, took little heed of his friend’s suggestion, but eagerly pursued the conversation with his scarce less interested mother, who gazed in his sparkling eyes and animated face, and thought every question the indication of aspiring genius and the prompting of proud ambition.

Mrs. Harrington was a woman of some reading, and lively imagination, and, full of theories, thought herself a genius; and so she delighted in what she called “cultivating Arthur’s mind;” and thus they talked on of heroes and authors and great men, while Arthur’s spirit soaring beyond his Latin exercise, and expanding in the region of castle building, (which his mother, not less than himself mistook for the land of inspiration,) quite forgot the studies of the morrow.

Francis Ashhurst, meanwhile, never raised his eyes from the book he so intently studied, while the silent but rapid movement of his lips, and earnest expression of his dark eyes, showed he had no ears for the discussion going on at his side. Presently drawing a long breath, he closed his book and put it one side.

“Have you finished your Greek already, Frank?” asked Arthur.

“Yes,” he replied, opening his mathematics. “You had better be studying. It is late.”

“We had better talk no more now, Arthur,” said Mrs. Harrington gently. “You do not know all your lessons yet.”

Arthur sighed, and studied a little while, and then yawned, and presently began again with,

“But, mother, do you think that literary fame is as great—as glorious—as political or—military even—Wellington and Napoleon were greater—”

“Arthur,” said Frank, in a low, quiet tone, “you have your Greek yet, and your problems—”

“Oh, I hate mathematics!” said the boy, impatient of his cousin’s sober interruption. “A mathematician is never a man of genius. And I have no genius for mathematics,” he added contemptuously, “though you have, I believe, Francis.”

Francis made no reply. He was deep in a problem, and did not look up to answer, or perhaps did not even hear his cousin’s taunt.

Mrs. Harrington had, however, the sense to follow Francis’s suggestion, and remind her son of the lateness of the hour; and taking up her own book, advised him to pursue his studies.

Silence reigned for half an hour perhaps in the little party, which was at last broken by Arthur’s throwing his book on one side, saying, “There—I’ve done with you. Frank, give me the Greek Lexicon.”

Francis complied with his request, saying with surprise, “Do you know it?”

“Yes—well enough—I’ll look it over in the morning.” And in the same way he skimmed through his remaining studies.

“Come, Frank,” said he, at last, “have you not almost done? How you do stick at those problems!” he continued impatiently.

“Presently,” replied the other. “Don’t speak to me now.” And after some minutes intense application, he raised his head with a bright, calm look and said, “I’ve finished. What now, Arthur?”

“You are studying for the mathematical prize, I suppose, Frank?” said Arthur.

“For the prize! No,” replied Francis, with surprise. “I never thought of such a thing. Harry Forrester will carry that off, of course. You know he is far ahead of me.”

“No—is he?” said Arthur. “I did not know it. What then makes you study so, if you have no chance of the prize?”

“Why, Arthur,” said Frank, laughing, “if we only study to gain prizes, most of us may as well close our books at once, for there are but half a dozen prizes, and over a hundred boys. What is your number?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Pretty low. If I can’t be head, I don’t care where I am. Mathematics is not the bent of my genius,” replied Arthur.

“Nor mine, that I know of,” said Frank—“but, hang it, my genius has got to bend to it for all that.”

And there was a resolute tone, and a look of determination that showed that Frank Ashhurst was one who did not look for “aid and comfort” to his “genius” always, in difficulties.

Mrs. Harrington smiled as she listened to the conversation. She said afterward to her husband—

“Frank is a boy of no ambition. But he is a steady, plodding lad, and a very safe companion for Arthur. He’s a heavy boy—no genius—very different from Arthur.”

And Arthur was a boy, in truth, that would have gratified the pride, and flattered the vanity, of most mothers, for he was what most parents like, a precocious, showy boy. He was quick in abilities, handsome in person, tall of his age, with bright hazel eyes, and a round, glowing cheek; graceful, too, in his manners, and very fluent in speech—altogether a striking boy—somewhat forward, perhaps—but his good looks and cleverness made his peace with those who might have found fault with his want of diffidence.

Now Frank was a lad no one ever noticed. Perhaps now and then some one of unusual discernment might have said, “that youth has a fine countenance;” but it was a remark that always elicited surprise when it was made, for most persons would have said, with Mrs. Harrington, that he was a “heavy boy.” He was shorter by a head nearly than Arthur, and heavily moulded, and people generally are apt to take the body for the soul, and judge the spirit by the flesh. And, then, though Frank had a fine brow, and clear, well set, deep eye, there was nothing of what Mrs. Harrington called the “flash of genius in his look up.” It was a calm, earnest face, and when in study, there was an intensity of expression, a concentration of attention, that is rare—otherwise he was not a striking, and certainly not a handsome boy. He was rather shy, too, and awkward when brought forward, and one of those who never made a figure on “exhibition days.” In short, he was not one of the show boys, which Arthur was. Heads of schools, and teachers generally, are very quick to know the effect produced by such pupils as Arthur. They like to put them forward. All they know tells, and what they don’t know is not seen. Manner and appearance never go further than on such occasions. The human heart naturally warms to beauty, and to youthful beauty it is particularly indulgent; and when united to any thing like precocity of talent, it is sure to take the greater part of parents.

Consequently Arthur carried off more than one prize at the examinations, that, had he not been so highly endowed with external gifts, might not have been so readily awarded him.

But this exhibition, to Mrs. Harrington’s surprise and mortification, Arthur carried off none of the highest premiums. The boy himself was loud in his complaints of injustice and ill-treatment, and Mrs. Harrington lent a willing and indignant ear to all he said.

It never occurred to the loving mother that Arthur might not deserve the prizes. She did not remember that his application had rather relaxed than increased with the increasing difficulties of his studies, and that much of the time that should have been devoted to work had been passed in light reading, or quite as often, perhaps, in talking with herself. She only felt that Arthur had been most unjustly treated, and tried to soothe and console his wounded feelings, and talked of the “too frequent fate of unrewarded merit.” But the more she talked, the keener grew his sense of slighted talents. He grumbled and talked—and finally called his teacher names, and then his mother yielded; for as she afterward said to her husband—“When a boy loses his respect for his teachers, the moral influence that should work is destroyed.” And the good man assented, without very clearly understanding what she meant. He only comprehended that his wife was dissatisfied with Arthur’s school, and he himself was indignant at the idea of his boy’s being treated with injustice. He never inquired into Arthur’s studies, nor examined into his progress. “He had not time.” He was a hard-working, money-making man, and while he slaved body and soul to amass a fortune, he left the education, mental, moral and physical, of his only son to his wife. A not uncommon case, we are sorry to say; for the most intelligent and cultivated of mothers have rarely the firmness, and never the knowledge of men and the world, required in the education of boys. Not that we would disparage woman or her acquirements, nor lessen the influence due to mothers, but only suggest that she is not to be both father and mother, and hint that men have other duties beside the all-absorbing one of making money. Mr. Harrington was steeped to the very lips in commercial affairs. Business was his occupation—his pleasure—his life—the breath of his nostrils—everything in short.

He went early to the counting-house and came home late, and generally tired, and often perplexed, and did not want then to be worried with domestic matters.

He loved his boy, and was proud of him; and his wife told him he was a very uncommon boy, and he believed her. She talked a great deal of the peculiarities of his mind, and the traits of his character, and told many anecdotes indicative of his superiority, mental and spiritual, and much that the husband would have thought “great nonsense,” if it had been anybody but his wife talking, and his boy she was talking of. But as it was, it was amusing to see the complacence with which he listened. He paid the bills regularly, and left the rest to his wife; satisfied that he had put his money out to good interest, and never doubting that he had done his whole duty. So when at the present time she told him she thought they had better withdraw Arthur, and place him at a “select school, where only twenty boys were taken,” he assented, and told her to do as she thought best.

“The Rector of the Grammar School,” she said, “is not a man of enlarged mind. He does not enter sufficiently into the original capacities of boys, but makes them all go through the same mill, no matter how different their natural talents. Indeed, the school is so large, that it would be out of the question for him to do justice to them all, even if he were a man of more comprehensive and discriminating mind than he is. There are upward of a hundred boys there, I believe.”

“Ah! there it is,” said Mr. Harrington, indignantly; “they will take in such a crowd.” Quite forgetting that other men beside merchants may like to make money in their professions, too. So it was pretty well settled that Arthur was to go to this “select school,” of which Mrs. Harrington had heard a great puff from Mrs. Osborn, for many mothers beside Mrs. Harrington manage their sons’ education in this “work-day world” of ours. There are a good many moral “half orphans” in our community. And so Mrs. Harrington consulted some half-dozen of her friends, quite as deep as herself in the work of education, before she decided, and spoke at last to Mrs. Ashhurst, who replied—

“We have no idea of withdrawing Francis. His father is quite satisfied with his progress.”

Mrs. Harrington was surprised at hearing a father cited as authority, but she turned and applied herself to Mr. Ashhurst, for she was one of those who rather liked to have others do as she did, and patronize a school, or withdraw their children, according as she inclined, but Mr. Ashhurst said—

“I am perfectly satisfied, my dear madam, where Frank is. He studies hard, which is the great point, and I think the general system of the establishment good. I am always unwilling to make a change in a child’s school, without I see strong reasons for doing so, for much time I think is lost in changing studies and teachers. New systems, new books, are always introduced, and not often for the better, and as long as Frank studies well, and has time for exercise, I am satisfied where he is.”

“The scholarship may be equal,” replied Mrs. Harrington, “in these great schools, although even that I doubt, but what I chiefly object to for my son, Mr. Ashhurst, is the contaminating influence of such a crowd of all sorts of boys.” (Now Mrs. Harrington had a holy horror of “all sorts” of people, at any time of life.) “Now the moral influence must be so much purer, so much healthier, of a select number of boys, whose families you know.”

“There, my dear madam, I differ from you,” said Mr. Ashhurst, smiling. “I look upon the moral influence of a public school as decidedly—not perhaps what you would call purer—but healthier than that of a ‘select few.’ Indeed, if it were not for the languages, I had rather Frank went to a district school than any other.”

“Oh, Mr. Ashhurst! A district school! You surely are not in earnest. Pray, what advantage can they or any public school have over a private one?”

“Just the one,” said Mr. Ashhurst, smiling, “that you seem so much to dread—‘all sorts of boys.’ Manliness of character, that first point in education, is only to be acquired by throwing a boy early on himself. Of course it is a parent’s duty to watch over his child; and to cultivate the higher moral feelings is the home part of the business. But to make him hardy and vigorous in mind as well as body is the great object of out-door education.”

“But, my dear sir, you would not wish your son to acquire unrefined habits and boorish manners, which he must, if you condemn him to mix with his inferiors, by way of making him hardy, as you call it.”

“By no means,” replied Mr. Ashhurst. “But I am very far from thinking that I condemn him to mix with his inferiors, when I let him find his own footing among his equals, and perhaps superiors. And I look to the influence of home for the refinement of his habits and manners.”

Mrs. Harrington had been a little annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken—not that it altered her views and opinions in the least, what conversation ever does—but that her husband happened to be present; and as he occasionally indulged in some slap against the “white-kid gentry,” she feared Mr. Ashhurst’s arguments might meet a more ready acquiescence than she desired, so saying,

“Well, we must talk this over another time,” hastily turned the subject, and there the matter dropped.

“Ashhurst is a sensible man,” observed Mr. Harrington to his wife as they walked home.

“Yes,” she replied, well knowing the track her husband’s mind was on, and shaping her answer to meet it. “Yes, he’s a sensible, though a coarse man.”

Mr. Harrington’s countenance changed.

“I am sorry,” she continued, “that he is unwilling to give Francis the best advantages; but I presume he cannot afford it very well. He has a large family. And though he did not like to acknowledge it, the terms are an object to him.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Harrington, in a tone of approbation that alarmed her.

“I am satisfied,” she continued, “that the ‘Institute’ is the best place for Arthur. The Howards, and the Harpers, and the Astleys and Langdons all speak of it in the highest manner, and their boys have been there several years.”

Mr. Harrington could not withstand this. The names his wife had mentioned, and purposely mentioned, were those of some of the wealthiest men in the community. They were men after whose names he took pride in placing his on a subscription list—or seeing them lovingly associated in the papers as bank directors, or as trustees for life, fire, trust, or any other monied institutions, and so, on the same principle, he relaxed at once, and saw with complacency his Arthur placed among the select few, the dimes fresh from the mint of “good society.”

Mrs. Harrington, satisfied of having gained her point, never stopped to question herself as to the means. She never paused to inquire as to whether she had done her part, as woman and wife, when she roused her husband’s weakness to take advantage of the failing. She never asked whether it was womanly or wise—if she could only “put her finger on fortune’s pipe, and sound what stop she pleased,” she did not look much higher.

And yet Mrs. Harrington was a woman of fine theories, exalted views, rather a transcendentalist—till it came to action, and then what she wanted she must have—if she could get it.

With some imagination, considerable enthusiasm, and a something mixed of the two, that she called romance, she had yet married Mr. Harrington, who was the opposite of every thing to her taste. And why? Because, though she would have been glad to have united the ideal with the real in her choice, she had yet no idea of sacrificing luxury to feeling. And with all her poetry she had an intense appreciation of well being. She found she could not gratify romance, ambition, and ease, too, and so between the body and soul she preferred the body. But the love and ambition she had sacrificed in her marriage she now centered in her son. The wife was nothing, the mother all in all.

——