ABSTRACT

You may be familiar with the poem, ‘The Village Schoolmaster’ by Oliver Goldsmith. It is about a ‘village schoolmaster’ who ‘taught his little school’ and the village ‘all declar'd how much he knew’. In the poem we come across the well-known lines:

While word of learned length and thund' ring sound

Amazed the gazing rustics rang'd around;

And still they gaz'd and still the wonder grew,

How one small head could carry all he knew.

(Oliver Goldsmith, 1728–1774)