But the first school that I saw, _en masse_, gave
a startling impetus to the train of observation and influence into
which I was unconsciously falling. It was a Sunday school in the
little town of Wolfville, which lies between the Gaspereau and
Cornwallis Rivers, just beyond the meadows of the Grand Pre, where
lived Gabriel Lajeunesse, and Benedict Bellefontaine, and the rest of
the 'simple Acadian farmers.' I arrived too early at one of the
village churches; and, while I was waiting for a sexton, a door
opened, and out poured the Sunday school, whose services had just
ended. On they came, dividing in the centre, and falling to the right
and left about me, thirty or forty boys and girls, between the ages of
seven and fifteen. They all had fair skins, red cheeks, and clear
eyes; they were all broad-shouldered, straight, and sturdy; the
younger ones were more than sturdy,--they were fat, from the ankles
up. But perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the quiet,
sturdy, unharassed expression which their faces wore; a look which is
the greatest charm of a child's face, but which we rarely see in
children over two or three years old. Boys of eleven or twelve were
there, with shoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen,
and yet with the pure childlike look on their faces.
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