AND BECOMES A PLURALIST.

27

the sum of £360. A second course, only producing about one half of this amount, he sailed with his apparatus for Calcutta, where he experienced 'the most gratifying reception.' Lord Cornwallis invited him to his table, and allowed him the use of his court-house for his lectures. The course brought him nearly £500. 'In less than a month after his return to Madras he was appointed deputy chaplain to the 74th, being the fifth appointment conferred upon him in little more than a year and a half.' This was, indeed, to use his own phrase, found in an early letter, 'encouragement in the line of the church.'

But even this was not enough. Three other appointments shortly followed, all of which were accepted by the greedy pluralist without compunction. Kehama,' says Dr. Southey, with quiet, but biting sarcasm, 'who was in eight places at once, was a type of Dr. Bell at this time. Some of these offices may have been sinecures; but there is good proof among his papers that none of them were sine-salaries. One of the appointments, that of undertaker-general, was a strange one to be held by a clergyman, and curious' indeed are the instructions' drawn up by him, in his new character of furnisher of funerals, for the lower functionary who did all the work, and received from the doctor a graduated per centage on the cost of the interment.

28

HAS CHARGE OF THE ASYLUM,

In the spring of 1793, he delivered a third course of lectures at Madras, in one of which 'he performed the experiment of making ice, which was the first time it had been exhibited in India.' He had previously been elected a member of the Asiatic Society, and he now realized about 600 pagodas.

Scarcely had the lectures been concluded, before the governor in council appointed him to do duty as chaplain to the army assembled before Pondicherry, with an allowance of one hundred pagodas per mensem, to defray his extraordinary expenses while so employed.' Here, (when not engaged in some of the mournful offices which he was called upon to perform,) his time passed pleasantly.' When the batteries were opened, he was rash enough to go into the trenches, and Colonel Floyd, who was the most intimate of his friends, when he took possession of the fort, ordered him to walk into it by his side.'

6

A new and altogether different scene now opens. The Military Orphan Asylum at Madras is at length established, and Dr. Bell offers his services as superintendent without salary, a step which some of his friends thought he had taken with 'far too little consideration of his own interest.' But the Doctor, wiser in his generation than they suspected, adhered to his own judgment, and

AND MAKES DISCOVERIES.

29

declined receiving any compensation out of the subscription.

To this important work he devoted himself with a zeal and assiduity highly creditable. Struggling manfully against the difficulties of his situation, hindered rather than helped by obstinate and incapable teachers,-distressed by the want of discipline, and painfully conscious of the unreasonable time consumed in imparting to the children a knowledge even of the letters of the alphabet, he pondered much and deeply on the perplexities of his position, and amid surrounding gloom looked anxiously, but in vain, in all directions, for a single ray of light. Mr. Southey's words will best describe the breaking of the day.

Things were in this state, when, happening on one of his morning's rides to pass by a Malabar school, he observed the children seated on the ground, and writing with their fingers in sand which had for that purpose been strewn before them. He hastened home, repeating to himself as he went, 'Euρnkа I have discovered it; and gave immediate orders to the usher of the lowest classes to teach the alphabet in the same manner, with this difference only from the Malabar mode, that the sand was strewn upon a board. These orders were either disregarded, or so carelessly executed, as if they were thought not worth regarding; and after

30

HE TEACHES BY MONITORS,

frequent admonitions, and repeated trials, made without either expectation or wish of succeeding, the usher at last declared it was impossible to teach the boys in that way. If he had acted on this occasion in good will, and with merely common ability, Dr. Bell might never have cried 'Evpnка a second time.

But he was not a man to be turned from his purpose by the obstinacy of others, nor to be baffled in it by their incapacity; baffled, however, he was now sensible that he must be, if he depended for the execution of his plans on the will and ability of those over whose minds he had no command. He bethought himself of employing a boy, on whose obedience, disposition, and cleverness he could rely, and giving him charge of the alphabet class. The lad's name was John Friskin; he was the son of a private soldier, had learned his letters in the asylum, and was then about eight years old. Dr. Bell laid the strongest injunctions upon him to follow his instructions; saying, he should look to him for the success of the simple and easy method which was to be pursued, and hold him responsible for it. What the usher had pronounced to be impossible, this lad succeeded in effecting without any difficulty. The alphabet was now as much better taught, as till then it had been worse than any other part of the boys' studies; and Friskin, in conse

AND THE SCHOOL IMPROVES.

31

quence, was appointed permanent teacher of that class.

Though Dr. Bell did not immediately perceive the whole importance of this successful experiment, he proceeded in the course into which he had been as it were compelled. What Friskin had accomplished with the alphabet class, might, in like manner, be done with those next in order, by boys selected as he had been, for their aptitude to learn and to teach. Accordingly, he appointed boys as assistant teachers to some of the lower classes, giving, however, to Friskin the charge of superintending both the assistants. and their classes, because of his experience and the readiness with which he apprehended and executed whatever was required from him. This talent, indeed, the lad possessed in such perfection, that Dr. Bell did not hesitate to throw upon him the entire responsibility of this part of the school. The same improvement was now manifested in these as had taken place in teaching the alphabet. This he attributed to the diligence and fidelity with which his little friends, as he used to call them, performed his orders. To them a smile of approbation was no mean reward, and a look of displeasure sufficient punishment. Even in this stage he felt confident, that nothing more was wanting to bring the school into such a state as he had always pro