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Thrice a year, on receiving form the Ministry of Education a list
containing the names of unsatisfactory scholars of either sex, it was
his custom to hoist a flag on a certain hill-top; this was a signal for
the Barbary pirates, who then infested the neighbouring ocean, to set
sail for the island and buy up these perverse children, at purely
nominal rates, for the slave-markets of Stamboul and Argier. They were
sold ignominiously--by weight and not by the piece--to mark his
unqualified disapproval of talking and scribbling on blotting-pads
during school hours.
It is recorded of the Good Duke that on one occasion he returned from
this scene looking haggard and careworn, as though the sacrifice of so
many young lives weighed on his fatherly spirit. Presently, envisaging
his duties towards the State, he restrained these natural but unworthy
emotions, smiled his well-known smile, and gave utterance to an
apophthegm which had since found its way into a good many copy-books:
"In the purity of childhood," he said, "lie the seeds of national
prosperity.


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