■•HI
• il I
say the only school of any kind—in the whole
island, intended for the education chiefly of young
men destined for the church, which was at no great
distance from Havnefiord, at a place called
Bessestad. We found, on our arrival there, that
this was vacation time, when all the students go to
their respective homes, where they are useful in
assisting their parents in getting in the hay for the
winter provender of the cattle, cutting and getting
in turf, &c.; for these young pupils, like their forefathers,
do not disdain to undertake any manual
labour for which they are fitted.
We were received on our arrival by the person
who, I think, is called the Inspector, and who keeps
the house, and has charge of victualling the establishment.
This gentleman, according to the
custom of the country, set before us wine ivhich he
told us was champagne, but ivhich we declined,
preferring a cup of coffee in lieu. He ivas civil
and communicative. He took ns over the schoolroom
and the sleeping apartments. The whole was
in a very miserable and filthy state, to all appearance
not having been ivashed or cleaned out for
several years.
The sleeping-room might have been mistaken for
a menagerie. There were wooden recesses on either
side of it (filled with hay and straw and some
dirty bedding), each having a sliding-door which
completely shuts up the berth. I was astonished
and heard with disgust that each of these cribs or
berths is occupied by two hoys, and that till recently
each bed-place contained three young men.
This may be thought lightly of in Iceland, as I
believe it is in Norway, but to us it appears a barbarous
practice.
The number of scholars is forty. Before the
Sees of Skalholt and Hoolum were united in one, in
the year 1797, by order of the Danish Government,
Skalholt reckoned forty scholars and Hoolum
thirty-four, and landed property was appropriated
for thesupport of these institutions, sufficient fortheir
maintenance, and the pay of their instructors. At
the union of the sees, the united schools were transferred
to Reikiavik, the very worst place that could
have been chosen on every account, as it was shortly
found to be; and in consequence they were removed
to Bessestad, where there was a good house th a t had
formerly been the residence of the Governors of
Iceland, and close to it the best church in the island.
There are three masters: the one, Professor of
Theology, instructs the pupils in Hebrew and
Greek, as far as the Greek Testament and Xenophon
; the second is the Lecturer, and instructs the
pupils in the Latin language, in history, mathematics,
and arithmetic; and the third, in the
Danish, Norwegian, German and Icelandic languages.
They are all but poorly paid ; that is to
say, according to our ideas of ihe nature of their
situation and the value of money, but this is not