College
Dungannon
August 13 1846

Dear Sir,

I have recd your letter, containing £29.8.3 the amount of my acct for James for which I feel much obliged. I trust the decision you have come to in removing him at once from my school will be for his advantage. I have paid him all the attention, and shown him all the kindship in my power, and if he has not improved in his studies, as in all candour I let you know, I can only attribute the cause of it to his own idleness and inattention.

I should be the first to blame the assistant who thaught his class, were it not that four boys,viz Stewart, Blacker, Stokes and Tatton, out of a class of six, improved remarkably under his care and answered every repetition exceedingly well in their Greek grammar. Richards, a very idle boy, made some progress, and James, the sixth made none.

I cannot therefore blame the assistant.

Charles Campbell, who got first sizarship from 106 candidates is a proof of the care taken of my pupils and he will tell you, if you ask him, the unremitting pains and attention and labour bestowed, not only by myself, but by my assistants, on all my boys.

The enclosed list shows what my boys do in college.

I find, on looking at my repetition Book, that James never learned the contracted verbs. The farthest point his class went to in Greek grammar was to the end of the middle …page 70 in … about six weeks before vacation. I then desired them to begin the grammar again, and they had arrived at page 31 at their last repetition, about a week before the vacation. They said a page each day, going over it a second time, and if you look at the grammar you will find that on an average, a page nominally is about half a page really, as generally half the page is taken up by notes, which they did not read. This was little enough for diligent boys, going over their grammar a second time, and it would not be fair to keep them back on account of James inability or unwillingness to peruse it. I am sure that you will not blame me for James’ ignorance of the contractive verbs which he never learned, and, I must in justice to myself, say that on his return after the last vacation at his first repetition he missed the formation of almost every tense, a subject in which you thought you had made him perfect.

You, who have, been a teacher must know the painful and thankless office a teacher holds and that inattentive boys will miss over and over again what he thought he had made them perfect in.

I conscientiously did everything in my power for James’ improvement, and if he improves more under another, I shall be sincerely glad of it.

I am, dear sir,

Yours very truely,

John. R. Darley

(Paper cutting of Royal School of Dungannon results June 1846 are enclosed)