His learning was very various, and of course mixed up, useful and useless, new and ancient, dogmatic and rational,--like his library, in short; for a library gathered like his is a looking-glass in which the owner's mind is reflected.
The common people about the village did not know what to make of such a phenomenon.

He did not preach, marry, christen, or bury, like the ministers, nor jog around with medicines for sick folks, nor carry cases into court for quarrelsome neighbors.

What was he good for?
Not a great deal, some of the wiseacres thought,--had "all sorts of sense but common sense,"-- "smart mahn, but not prahctical." There were others who read him more shrewdly.

He knowed more, they said, than all the ministers put together, and if he'd stan' for Ripresentative they 'd like to vote for him,--they hed n't hed a smart mahn in the Gineral Court sence Squire Wibird was thar.
They may have overdone the matter in comparing his knowledge with that of all the ministers together, for Priest Pemberton was a real scholar in his special line of study,--as all D.D.'s are supposed to be, or they would not have been honored with that distinguished title.

But Mr.
Byles Gridley not only had more learning than the deep-sea line of the bucolic intelligence could fathom; he had more wisdom also than they gave him credit for, even those among them who thought most of his abilities.
In his capacity of schoolmaster he had sharpened his wits against those of the lively city boys he had in charge, and made such a reputation as "Master" Gridley, that he kept that title even after he had become a college tutor and professor.