2-979-048 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Irish Schoolmaster - drawn by E. Fitzpatrick, 1857. '...as human nature is never perfect, even in the wisest of mankind, there is one failing inseparably allied with the Hedge Schoolmaster - he is a little too fond of "the drop"...there may be, as is often the case, a rival schoolmaster in the adjacent village...The meeting of those worthies is as "Greek to Greek". No two gamecocks could regard each other more fiercely, and the encounter of wits is often as decisive and deadly. Here lies the Hedge Schoolmaster's real danger. If in the opinion of the excited company he is put down in the discussion, even on such a point as the "Irish tutor" puzzled the great Dr. O'Toole, when he asked him the exact position Ballyragget occupied on the globe, his fame is gone. The cry is up through the country, "The master was beat in the 'larnin'", and in a day or two the schoolmaster is literally "abroad"...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.