PART II ENGLISH- THE VILLAGE SCHOOLMASTER

The Village Schoolmaster

"The Village Schoolmaster" is an extract from a longer poem by Oliver Goldsmith called “The Deserted Village”. It conveys the speaker's sentiments about a teacher. The poem also reflects the changes that occurred in rural communities when land was divided and property was abandoned or claimed by private landowners. Many inhabitants then emigrated to find a home elsewhere.

            The village Goldsmith is writing about an imaginary ideal village called “Auburn”. The village he imagined is now deserted because all the people have emigrated, the main reason being the “enclosure”. There was a lot of land in eighteenth-century England that was either owned in common, or which didn’t have clear ownership, or which was just “waste” land. Gradually lots of it was taken into private ownership and fenced off, and in this process poor people could lose their precarious livelihoods or be displaced to towns, or overseas.

            Goldsmith returns to the village that he knew as vibrant and alive, and finds it deserted and overgrown. The poem first describes an abandoned schoolhouse that was once noisy and led by a stern schoolmaster who took education and teaching seriously. He remembers the good things of village life, including this affectionate if humorous portrait of the schoolmaster. The schoolmaster is a big presence in the village. In an age when literacy and numeracy were powerful things, when many were illiterate and innumerate, then the “rustics”, the ordinary working-class people of the village, look up to the school-teacher. He seems a kind of god. The children are quite scared of him. Yet, for all his severity, the schoolmaster was known to be kind. If he was an uncompromising teacher, it was only due to his commitment to education. They laugh at his jokes, even if they are not funny.

“Full well they laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he: …”

            The village people stood in awe of him. He was literate and knowledgeable. He could write, do mathematics, and predict weather patterns and tides. It was also assumed that he was an accurate surveyor who could determine borders easily. It is apparent that he could also debate intelligently and be involved in discussions with the village parson, a person who was greatly respected by his parishioners. The teacher seemed to be a fierce opponent in such discourse, for he would continue arguing a point even after he had already lost the dispute. "In arguing too, the parson own'd his skill,/ For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still". The master would use difficult words and emotive language to sound convincing and impress the poorly educated village folk.

            In one sense, of course, Goldsmith is gently mocking the schoolmaster. It’s very easy for him to impress the villagers with his learning, just because he can read a bit of Latin and knows how to do his sums. The parson, as the religious leader of the village, is of course the most respected man, but the schoolmaster loves a good argument with him, and keeps arguing even when he’s obviously lost.

            He is really modest and doing a good job in a quiet and simple place: helping to spread a little literacy and numeracy among the ordinary people of the village, helping them out in doing calculations about “terms” and so forth. He’s at the centre of a community – and Goldsmith is mourning the passing away of that community, the passing away of the village itself, now deserted. That’s why the lovely yellow flowers on the furze are “unprofitably gay” (2) – there is now no-one about to enjoy their beauty. The schoolmaster is gone long ago, with all the children of his school. A fine community has been lost.

            The schoolmaster is, no doubt, a little pompous, but – though he mocks that – Goldsmith shows us a good man, doing a good job and being quietly useful to the community about him. People in this rural community were in awe that the teacher could know so much. They could not understand how his small head could contain so much knowledge. The poem ends, however, on a sad and emotional note. The final couplet tells us that all the teacher's achievements have become a thing of the past. The place where he had enjoyed so much success has ceased to exist and has been forgotten.