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.