a year would not have
been sufficient. Indeed, that made by the parents was considered to be
exclusively appropriated to the expenses of lodging and boarding, and the
education provided for by the subscriptions. Twelve trustees were
appointed; Mr. Wilson being not only a trustee, but the treasurer and
secretary; in fact, taking most of the business arrangements upon
himself; a responsibility which appropriately fell to him, as he lived
nearer the school than any one else who was interested in it. So his
character for prudence and judgment was to a certain degree implicated in
the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and the working of it was
for many years the great object and interest of his life. But he was
apparently unacquainted with the prime element in good
administration--seeking out thoroughly competent persons to fill each
department, and then making them responsible for, and judging them by,
the result, without perpetual interference with the details.
So great was the amount of good which Mr. Wilson did, by his constant,
unwearied superintendence, that I cannot help feeling sorry that, in his
old age and declining health, the errors which he was believed to have
committed, should have been brought up against him in a form which
received such wonderful force from the touch of Miss Bronte's great
genius.
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