The average juvenile Canadian made, no doubt, a much more merciful, and often much more efficient, teacher than the ex-soldier, or broken-down tradesman from the Old Country. One of the first duties of the newly-fledged teacher would be to go carefully over his treasured list of subscribers and ascertain, by a careful arithmetical calculation, the exact number of weeks and days for which he was entitled to board and lodging at the house of each of his respective patrons. The next step would be to find out, by personal or written enquiries, at what time it would be most convenient for each family to open its doors to him. This process, and the subsequent installation in each home would, it may well be imagined, be trying ordeals to the young and bashful pedagogue.... The receptions accorded the poor itinerant would be, of course, as various as the feelings, dispositions and circumstances of the householders, or, more strictly speaking, of the presiding divinities of the parlor and the kitchen, especially the kitchen. In many cases he would quickly feel at home. The welcome would be cordial, the hospitality ungrudging, the companionship agreeable. In such cases the bashful beginner would soon be able to shake off the intolerably humiliating dread of being regarded as an intruder, an interloper, or half-mendicant. But in numerous instances, as may readily be conceived, the situation would be most galling to a sensitive nature. The over-worked, perpetually tired and fretful mistress of the house would receive him with an ill-concealed frown or an involuntary sigh. To her he represented just so much addition, for so long a time, to her hourly toils and cares, already too heavy to be borne.
Unwashed specimens of "the heritage of the poor" would swarm in every corner. The fear and awe which secured him immunity for a time would soon wear away, and as they were replaced with the familiarity that breeds contempt, he would be exposed to all manner of well-meant advances and indignities. The scorn at the roughly-spread supper table would be a scramble, and the twilight hour, which, if he happened to have a spice of romance in his composition, he would fain have consecrated to quiet thought or fancy, would be made hideous by a juvenile pandemonium, as amidst stripes and cuffs and yells and tears the unruly flock would finally be got to bed. These, of course, were the ill-regulated householders, but they exist.