‘The Village School Master’ is an extract from Goldsmith’s famous long poem ‘The Deserted Village’ in which he describes the decline of a village in Ireland in the nineteenth century. The extract describing the school master is said to have been inspired by one Thomas Byrne, an ex-soldier, who taught Goldsmith when he was a boy.
The village school master ran his little school in a small village. It was situated next to the irregular fence that fringed the village path with full blossomed, beautiful but ornamental furze.’ He was a very strict disciplinarian. He was familiar to the poet and all other truants because they had endured the master’s rage. His face was a thing of careful scrutiny. The students were afraid of him and would gaze at his face to sense his present frame of mind. The day’s misfortunes were written on his forehead or in between the eyebrows.
The school master was a contradiction. Although he was stern, he was kind-hearted and good-humoured. He had a store of jokes. When he told them, the children burst out in fake laughter, under the pretext that the jokes were awfully hilarious. If the children observed a frown on his forehead, they circulated the gloomy news throughout the classroom in an undertone. But he was in essence a kind man. If at all he had any fault, it was his intense love for learning. He wanted his pupils to become genuine scholars and hence, he had to be demanding with them.
The villagers were unanimous in their opinion that he really was an erudite man. He, without doubt, could write and also work out sums in arithmetic. He could also survey land, forecast weather and tides. Besides, he was able to measure the content of a vessel. He was master at argument, too. Even the parson approved of his skill in debate. Even if defeated, the school master would keep on arguing.
He would become more fervent and would fling booming words at his adversary. The uncomprehending villagers would be convinced that the school master was establishing his standpoint very thoroughly. They stood round the two debaters and witnessed the verbal duel. They were awestruck when they heard the high-sounding and incomprehensible words used by the school master. They stared at him and wondered how his small head could hold such an enormous hoard of knowledge.
