As the affairs of one drunken tailor's family could not afford me
complete occupation for my leisure hours, I began to find myself
insensibly drawn by Campion's unreflecting enthusiasm into all kinds of
small duties connected with Barbara's Building. Before I could realise
that I had consented, I discovered myself in charge of an evening class
of villainous-looking and uncleanly youths who assembled in one of the
lecture-rooms to listen to my recollections of the history of England.
I was to continue the course begun by a young Oxford man, who, for some
reason or other, had migrated from Barbara's Building to Toynbee Hall.
"I've never done any schoolmastering in my life. Suppose," said I, with
vivid recollections of my school days, "suppose they rag me?"
"They won't," said Campion, who had come to introduce me to the class.
And they did not. I found these five and twenty youthful members of the
proletariat the most attentive, respectable, and intelligent audience
that ever listened to a lecture.
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