LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No, _ ShelfiAi.06 £>i UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. QBoofts fig Cftffon ^o^ncon \\/HAT THEY SAY IN NEW ENGLAND A book of superstitions, ghost stories, and other lore, with decorative illustrations by the author Price $1.25 JHE NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY Containing over one hundred views of New England scenery and life New edition Gilt top $2.00 A BOOK OF COUNTRY CLOUDS AND SUN- M SHINE Descriptions of New England farm and village life Very fully illustrated Cloth Gilt Boxed Price $2.50 THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS By Warren E. Burton New edition Edited by Clifton Johnson With illustrations Cloth $1.25 LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON Frontispiece THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS BY ONE WHO / WENT TO IT , . EDITED BY CLIFTON JOHNSON LEE AND SHEPARD BOSTON MDCCCXCVII li Copyright, 1897, by LEE AND SHEPARD All Rights Reserved THE DISTRICT SCHOOL AS IT WAS Nortoooti $rrsg J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. j&-A~j&-jL _- Contents Chapter Page Introduction ..... v I. The Old School-house . . . I II. First Summer at School — Mary Smith 6 III. The Spelling-book . . . .n IV. First Winter at School . . .15 V. Second Summer — Mary Smith again . 20 VI. Third Summer — Mehitabel Holt and Other Instructresses ... 24 VII. Little Books presented the Last Day of the School ... . .28 VIII. Grammar — Young Lady's Accidence — Murray — Parsing — Pope's Essay 34 IX. The Particular Master — Various Meth- ods of Punishment . . .42 X. How they used to read in the Old School-house in District No. V . 47 XI. How they used to spell . . • 5 6 XII. Mr. Spoutsound, the Speaking Master — the Exhibition ... 66 XIII. Learning to write . . . 7 8 XIV. Seventh Winter, but not Much about it — Eighth Winter — Mr. Johnson — Good Order, and but Little Punish- ing — a Story about Punishing — Ninth Winter . . . 87 iv Contents Chapter Page XV. Going out — making Bows — Boys coming in — Girls going out and coming in . . . . .94 XVI. Noon — Noise and Dinner — Sports at School — Coasting — Snow-ball- ing — a Certain Memorable Snow- ball Battle 101 XVII. Arithmetic — Commencement — Prog- ress — Late Improvement in the Art of Teaching . . . .110 XVIII. Augustus Starr, the Privateer who turned Pedagogue — his New Crew mutiny, and perform a Singular Ex- ploit 115 XIX. Eleventh Winter — Mr. Silverson, our First Teacher from College — his Blunder at Meeting on the Sabbath — his Character as a Schoolmaster . 122 XX. A College Master again — his Char- acter in School and out — our First Attempts at Composition — Brief Sketch of Another Teacher . . 130 XXI. The Examination at the Closing of the School 13 8 XXII. The Old School-house again — its Ap- pearance the Last Winter — why so long occupied — a New One at last . 147 A Supplication to the People of the United States 155 Pages from Old Spellers . . . .173 Introduction THE New England schools of the early part of the century had a primitive pictur- esqueness that makes them seem of a much more remote past than they really are. The wood-pile in the yard, the open fire-place, the backless benches on which the smaller scholars sat, and the two terms — one in winter under a master, and one in summer ruled by a mistress have the flavor of pioneer days. In this seeming remoteness, coupled with its actual nearness, lies the chief reason for the charm that this period has for us. The intervening seventy or eighty years have destroyed every vestige of the old school sights and customs. We have only fragmentary reminiscences left. But the more the facts fade, the more they allure us. We are bringing the old furniture down from the garrets, and setting it forth in the places of honor in our best rooms ; and the vi Introduction same feeling that prompts this love for an an- cient chair or "chest of drawers" makes us prize the reminiscences of bygone times as age gives them an increasing rarity. Here, then, is " The District School As It Was." I know of no brighter, more graphic impressions of the school-days of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The descriptions have an unusual degree of simplicity and charm, and at the same time are spiced with a sparkle of humor that makes them good reading, apart from any historic attraction. The book was first published in Boston, in 1833, where it was received "with unqualified favor." A little later it was brought out in New York, with equal success, and a few years afterward a London edition was issued as giving a faithful description of one of the institutions of New England. In 1852 "The District School," with several lesser works by the same writer, was published in a twelvemo volume of 364 pages, " to be dis- posed of to subscribers for the benefit of the Author." The longest of the additional writ- ings had been previously published as a separate book entitled " The Scenery Shower." But it was found that to the mystified mind of the average reader this title was understood to mean Introduction vii " The Scenery Rainfall," and a change was made in the reissue to " Scenery Showing." Aside from " The District School " and the in- genious " Supplication to the People of the United States," which makes a supplementary chapter in the present volume, the author's works in this twelvemo are mild, contemplative essays of no particular value. The idea of the "Sup- plication," just referred to, is so odd and the list of mispronounced words is so characteristic of the country folk of fifty or seventy-five years ago, that it is well worth preserving. These words can be heard even now among the old people of out-of-the-way villages, and they re- peat them with the same nasal twang that was familiar to the ears of our grandparents. The author of "The District School," Rev. Warren Burton, was born in Wilton, N. H., in 1800, and died at Salem, Mass., in 1866. The school he describes is the one he himself went to as a youth in his native town. His attend- ance began at the age of three-and-one-half in the summer of 1804 and ended with the winter term of 181 7-18 18, when he had arrived at the dignity of being one of the big boys on the back seat. Sixteen years later his book was published, describing the school "as it was," and the reader is given to understand that the shortcomings he viii Introduction pictured were no longer characteristic, so far as New England was concerned. It gives an odd impression to see the school viewed across this narrow space, as if in contrast with the enlight- enment of 1833 and the improvements by then accomplished, the teaching methods and school environment of the earlier period were a part of the dark ages. After he left the district school Mr. Burton prepared himself for Harvard College, where he graduated in 1821. Then followed several years of teaching. Next we find him taking the Harvard Theological Course, and in 1828 he was ordained as a Unitarian minister at East Cambridge. As a preacher he served in Wash- ington, Keene and Nashua in New Hampshire, and in Hingham, Waltham, Worcester, and Boston in Massachusetts. But as time went on he preached less and devoted himself more and more to objects of reform. He was a fre- quent contributor to periodicals, and in both writing and lecturing he labored to promote home culture and to improve the conditions of the schools. Friends speak of him as being rather tall, with a most benevolent countenance and gentle manners. His published works in- clude several volumes on religion and education, and, in lighter vein, these recollections of his Introduction ix school-days and a little book printed anony- mously entitled " The Village Choir " — a humorous description of the ways and manners, quarrels and jealousies of an old-time choir in a country church. The text in the present edition of " The District School" is practically what it was in the original. Nothing is changed, and the edit- ing consists in a slight condensation, effected by cutting out unnecessary asides and digres- sions. With the exception of a few special drawings, the illustrations are cuts from old spellers and other books of the period. I have a number of these books before me as I write. The arith- metics, grammars, and readers are sober volumes bound in full sheep. The stiff bindings are warped and battered now, the pages yellow and spotty, and they have a musty odor of age and of long years spent in dusty garret corners. The old spellers are not much gayer. They have thin sides of light, splintery wood pasted over with dull gray paper. But inside there is a good deal of variety, — words from one syllable up to ponderous sixes, wise maxims, religious instruction, and many little stories with never- failing morals under their sugar coats. Lastly, there is a sprinkling of curious pictures. Both Introduction pictures and text have an unconscious humor that would put a professional wit to shame. No one by forethought could make more quaint distortions of fact and human nature. It gives the same feeling as if one were looking out on the world through the flaws of an old-time window-pane. In the body of the book are various fac- simile reproductions from the old spellers ; but in closing my introduction I would like to re- print a few more bits here. For instance, take this, which is from a speller lesson for beginners. Pigs can dig in the side of a hill. A pig drinks swill. Let him drink his fill of swill and milk. The lesson following the above is this: — Ships sail on the sea. A ship will hold ten nags, ten hens, for-ty cats and pigs, six beds, six-ty men, and much more. A dozen pages farther on we come to some- thing more serious — the " Story of a Bad Boy." Jack lov-ed to play more than he lov-ed to go to school. So he stop-ped by the way to slide on a pond. He had not slid long when he slipt into a hole cut in the ice. There he Introduction xi was left to hang by his hands on the cold ice, and his feet and legs in the cold water. O how sor-ry that he ran a-way from school ! How glad and yet how sha-med, when his pa came and took him home in his arms ! Then here is a lesson designed to teach the child in an agreeable way something of natural history. Of Sheep, Horses, and Birds. What has Charles got to keep him warm ? Charles has got a frock and warm petticoats. And what have the poor sheep got ; have they petticoats ? The sheep have got wool, thick, warm wool. Feel it. Oh, it is very comfortable ! That is their clothing. And what have horses got ? Horses have got long hair; and cows have hair. And what have pigs got ? Pigs have got bristles and hair. And what have birds got ? Birds have got feathers ; soft, clean, shining feathers. Birds build nests in trees ; that is their house. Can you climb a tree ? xii Introduction No. I am afraid I should fall and break my bones. Ask puss to teach you ; she can climb. See how fast she climbs ! She is at the top. She wants to catch birds. Pray, puss, do not take the little birds that sing so merrily ! She has got a sparrow in her mouth. She has eaten it all up. No, here are two or three feathers on the ground, all bloody. Poor sparrow ! Finally, here are a few sentences from the latter part of the spellers, apparently put in to fill a blank space at the bottom of a page. A wise child will not learn to chew tobacco, smoke the pipe, or cigars, or take snuff", for the four following reasons : — They are dirty habits ; useless habits ; costly habits ; slavish habits. It is pitiful to see a strong, healthy looking man a slave to a quid of tobacco, or a puff" of smoke ; or a beautiful, sensible lady stuffed up or bedaubed with snufF. Clifton Johnson, hadley, mass. The District School As It Was Chapter I The Old School-house THE Old School-house, how distinctly it rises to existence anew before the eye of my mind ! It is now no more ; and those of similar construction are passing away, never to be patterned again. It may be well, there- fore, to describe the edifice wherein and where- about occurred many of the scenes about to be recorded. I would have future generations acquainted with the accommodations, or rather dis-accommodations, of their predecessors. The Old School-house, in District No. 5, stood on the top of a very high hill, on the north side of what was called the County road. The house of Capt. Clark, about ten rods off, was the only human dwelling within a quarter of a mile. The reason why this seminary of letters was perched so high in the air, and so far The District School from the homes of those who resorted to it, was this : — Here was the center of the district, as near as surveyor's chain could designate. The people east would not permit the building to be carried one rod further west, and those of the opposite quarter were as obstinate on their side. The edifice was set half in Capt. Clark's field, and half in the road. The wood-pile lay in the corner made by the east end and the stone wall. The best roof it ever had over it was the change- ful sky, which was a little too leaky to keep the fuel at all times fit for combustion, without a great deal of puffing and smoke. The door- step was a broad unhewn rock, brought from the neighboring pasture. It had not a flat and even surface, but was considerably sloping from the door to the road ; so that, in icy times, the scholars, in passing out, used to snatch from the scant declivity the transitory pleasure of a slide. But look out for a slip-up, ye careless ; for many a time have I seen an urchin's head where his feet were but a second before. And once, the most lofty and perpendicular pedagogue I ever knew, became suddenly horizontalized in his egress. But we have lingered round this door-step long enough. Before we cross it, however, let us just glance at the outer side of the structure. As It Was It was never painted by man ; but the clouds of many years had stained it with their own dark hue. The nails were starting from their fast- ness, and fellow-clapboards were becoming less closely and warmly intimate. There were six windows, which here and there stopped and dis- torted the passage of light by fractures, patches, and seams of putty. There were shutters of board, like those of a store, which were of no kind of use, excepting to keep the windows from harm in vacations, when they were the least liable to harm. They might have been con- venient screens against the summer sun, were it not that their shade was inconvenient darkness. Some of these, from loss of buttons, were fas- tened back by poles, which were occasionally thrown down in the heedlessness of play, and not replaced till repeated slams had broken a pane of glass, or the patience of the teacher. To crown this description of externals, I must say a word about the roof. The shingles had been battered apart by a thousand rains; and, excepting where the most defective had been exchanged for new ones, they were dingy with the mold and moss of time. The bricks of the chimney-top were losing their cement, and looked as if some high wind might hurl them from their smoky vocation. The District School We will now go inside. First, there is an entry which the district were sometimes provi- dent enough to store with dry pine wood, as an antagonist to the greenness and wetness of the other fuel. A door on the left admits us to the school-room. Here is a space about twenty feet long and ten wide, the reading and spelling parade. At the south end of it, at the left as you enter, was one seat and writing bench, making a right angle with the rest of the seats. This was occupied in the winter by two of the oldest males in the school. At the opposite end was the magisterial desk, raised upon a platform a foot from the floor. The fire-place was on the right, half way between the door of entrance and another door leading into a dark closet, where the girls put their outside gar- ments and their dinner baskets. This also served as a fearful dungeon for the immuring of offenders. Directly opposite the fire-place was an aisle, two feet and a half wide, running up an inclined floor to the opposite side of the room. On each side of this were five or six long seats and writing benches, for the accom- modation of the school at their studies. In front of these, next to the spelling floor, were low, narrow seats for abecedarians and others near that rank. In general, the older the As It Was 5 scholar, the further from the front was his location. The windows behind the back seat were so low that the traveler could generally catch the stealthy glance of curiosity as he passed. Such was the Old School-house at the time I first entered it. Its subsequent condi- tion and many other inconveniences will be noticed hereafter. The District School Chapter II First Summer at School — Mary Smith I WAS three years and a half old when I first entered the Old School-house as an abece- darian. I ought, perhaps, to have set foot on the first step of learning's ladder before this; but I had no elder brother or sister to lead me to school, a mile off; and it never occurred to my good parents, that they could teach me even the alphabet ; or, perhaps, they could not afford the time, or muster the patience for the tedious process. I had, however, learned the name of capital A, because it stood at the head of the column, and was the similitude of a harrow frame ; of O, also, from its resemblance to a hoop. Its sonorous name, moreover, was a frequent passenger through my mouth, after I had begun to articulate ; its ample sound being the most natural medium by which man, born unto trouble, signifies the pains of his lot. X, too, was familiar, as it seemed so like the end of the old saw-horse that stood in the wood- shed. Further than this my alphabetical lore As It Was did not extend, according to present recollec- tion. I shall never forget my first day of scholar- ship, as it was the most important era which had yet occurred to my experience. Behold me on the eventful morning of the first Mon- day in June, arrayed in my new jacket and trowsers, into which my importance had been shoved for the first time in my life. This change in my costume had been deferred till this day, that I might be " all nice and clean to go to school." Then my Sunday hat of coarse and hard sheep's wool adorned my head for the first time in common week-day use ; for my other had been crushed, torn, and soiled out of the seemliness, and almost out of the form, of a hat. My little new basket, too, bought expressly for the purpose, was laden with 'lection-cake and cheese for my dinner, and slung upon my arm. An old Perry's spelling-book, that our boy Ben used at the winter school, completed my equipment. Mary Smith was my first teacher, and the dearest to my heart I ever had. She was a niece of Mrs. Carter, who lived in the nearest house on the way to school. She had visited her aunt the winter before ; and her uncle, being chosen committee for the school at the 8 The District School town-meeting in the spring, sent immediately to her home in Connecticut, and engaged her to teach the summer school. During the few days she spent at his house, she had shown herself peculiarly qualified to interest, and to gain the love of children. Some of the neighbors, too, who had dropped in while she was there, were much pleased with her appearance. She had taught one season in her native State ; and that she succeeded well, Mr. Carter could not doubt. He preferred her, therefore, to hundreds near by ; and for once the partiality of the relative proved profitable to the district. Now Mary Smith was to board at her uncle's. This was deemed a fortunate circumstance on my account, as she would take care of me on the way, which was needful to my inexperi- enced childhood. She used to lead me to school by the hand, while John and Sarah Carter gamboled on, unless I chose to gambol with them ; but the first day, at least, I kept by her side. All her demeanor toward me, and indeed toward us all, was of a piece with her first introduction. She called me to her to read, not with a look and voice as if she were doing a duty she disliked, and was determined I should do mine too, like it or not, as is often the manner of teachers j As It Was but with a cheerful smile, as if she were at a pastime. My first business was to master the ABC, and no small achievement it was ; for many a little learner waddles to school through the sum- mer, and wallows to the same through the win- ter, before he accomplishes it, if he happens to be taught in the manner of former times. This might have been my lot, had it not been for Mary Smith. Few of the better methods of teaching, which now make the road to know- ledge so much more easy and pleasant, had then found their way out of, or into, the brain of the pedagogical vocation. Mary went on in the old way indeed ; but the whole exercise was done with such sweetness on her part, that the dila- tory and usually unpleasant task was to me a pleasure, and by the close of that summer, the alphabet was securely my own. That hardest of all tasks, sitting becomingly still, was rendered easier by her goodness. When I grew restless, and turned from side to side, and changed from posture to posture, in search of relief from my uncomfortableness, she spoke words of sympathy rather than reproof. Thus I was won to be as quiet as I could. When I grew drowsy, and needed but a com- fortable position to drop into sleep and forget- IO The District School fulness of the weary hours, she would gently lay me at length on my seat, and leave me just falling to slumber, with her sweet smile the last thing beheld or remembered. Thus wore away my first summer at the district school. As I look back on it, faintly traced on memory, it seems like a beautiful dream, the images of which are all softness and peace. I recollect that, when the last day came, it was not one of light-hearted joy — it was one of sadness, and it closed in tears. I was now obliged to stay at home in solitude, for the want of playmates, and in weariness of the passing time, for the want of something to do ; as there was no particular pleasure in saying A B C all alone, with no Mary Smith's voice and looks for an accompaniment. As It Was ii Chapter III The Spelling-book AS the spelling-book was the first manual of instruction used in school, and kept in our hands for many years, I think it worthy of a separate chapter in these annals of the times that are past. The spelling-book used in our school from time immemorial — immemorial at least to the generation of learners to which I belonged — was thus entitled: "The Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue, by Wil- liam Perry, Lecturer of the English Language in the Academy of Edinburgh, and author of several valuable school-books. " In the first place, there was a frontispiece. This frontispiece consisted of two parts. In the upper division, there was the representation of a tree laden with fruit of the largest descrip- tion. It was intended, I presume, as a striking and alluring emblem of the general subject, the particular branches, and the rich fruits of edu- cation. But the figurative meaning was above my apprehension, and no one took the trouble 12 The District School to explain it. I supposed it nothing but the picture of a luxuriant apple-tree ; and it always made me think of that good tree in my father's orchard, so dear to my palate, — the pumpkin- sweeting. There ran a ladder from the ground up among the branches, which was designed to represent the ladder of learning. Little boys were ascending this in pursuit of the fruit that hung there so temptingly. Others were already up in the tree, plucking the apples directly from their stems ; while others were on the ground, picking up those that had dropped in their ripe- ness. At the very top of the tree, with his head reared above all fruit or foliage, was a bare-headed lad with a book in his hand, which he seemed intently studying. I supposed that he was a boy that loved his book better than apples, as all good boys should, — one who in very childhood had trodden temptation under foot. But, indeed, it was only a boy who was gathering fruit from the topmost boughs, accord- ing to the figurative meaning, as the others were from those lower down. Or rather, as he was portrayed, he seemed like one who had culled the fairest and highest growing apples, and was trying to learn from a book where he should find a fresh and loftier tree, upon As It Was [3 which he might climb to a richer repast and a nobler distinction. This picture used to retain my eye longer than any other in the book. It was probably more agreeable on account of the other part ot the frontispiece below it. This was the repre- sentation of a school at their studies, with the master at his desk. He was pictured as an elderly man, with an immense wig enveloping his head and bagging about his neck, and with a face that had an expression of perplexity at a sentence in parsing, or a sum in arithmetic, and a frown at the playful urchins in the dis- tant seats. There could not have been a more capital device by which the pleasures of a free range and delicious eating, both so dear to the youns might be contrasted with stupefying con- finement and longing palates in the presence ot crabbed authority. The subsequent contents I was going on to describe in detail; but on sec- ond thought I forbear, for fear that the descrip- tion might be as tedious to my readers as the study of them was to me. Suffice it to say, there was talk about vowels and consonants, diphthongs and triphthongs, monosyllables and polysyllables, orthography and punctuation, and even about geography, all which was about as intelligible to us, who were obliged to commit 14 The District School it to memory year after year, as the fee-faw- fum uttered by the giant in one of our story- books. Perry's spelling-book, as it was in those days, at least, is now out of use. It is nowhere to be found except in fragments in some dark corner of a country cupboard or garret. All vestiges of it will soon disappear forever. What will the rising generations do, into what wilds of barbarism will they wander, into what pits of ignorance fall, without the aid of the Only Sure Guide to the English tongue ? As It Was x 5 H Chapter IV First Winter at School OW I longed for the winter school to begin, to which I looked forward as a relief from my do-nothing days, and as a re- newal, in part at least, of the soft and glowing pleasures of the past summer ! But the school- master, the thought of him was a fearful look- ing-for of frowns and ferulings. Had I not heard our Ben tell of the direful punishments of the winter school ; of the tingling hand, black and blue with twenty strokes, and not to be closed for a fortnight from soreness ? Did not the minister and the schoolmaster of the pre- ceding winter visit together at our house, one evening, and did I not think the schoolmaster far the more awful man of the two ? The min- ister took me in his lap, gave me a kiss, and told me about his own little Charley at home, whom I must come to see •, and he set me down with the impression that he was not half so terrible as I had thought him. But the schoolmaster condescended to no words with 1 6 The District School me. He was as stiff and unstooping as the long kitchen fire-shovel, and as solemn of face as a cloudy fast-day. The winter at length came, and the first day of the school was fixed and made known, and the longed-for morning finally arrived. With hoping, yet fearing heart, I was led by Ben to school. But my fears respecting the teacher were not realized that winter. He had noth- ing particularly remarkable about him to my little mind. He had his hands too full of the great things of the great scholars to take much notice of me, excepting to hear me read my Abs four times a day. This exercise he went through like a great machine, and I like a little one ; so monotonous was the humdrum and regular the recurrence of ab, eb, ib, ob, nb, &c, from day to day, and week to week. To recur to the metaphor of a ladder by which progress in learning is so often illustrated, I was all summer on the lowest round, as it were, lifting first one foot and then the other, still putting it down in the same place, without going any higher ; and all winter, while at school, I was as wearily tap-tapping it on the second step. There was one circumstance, however, in the daily routine, which was a matter of some little excitement and pleasure. I was put into As It Was 17 a class. Truly my littleness, feelingly, if not actually and visibly, enlarged itself, when I was called out with Sam Allen, Henry Green, and Susan Clark, to take our stand on the floor as the sixth class. I marched up with the tread of a soldier; and, thinks I, " Who has a better right to be at the head than myself ? " so the head I took, as stiff and as straight as a cob. My voice, too, if it lost none of its treble, was pitched a key louder, as a — b ab rang through the realm. And when we had finished, I looked up among the large scholars, as I strutted to my seat, with the thought, " I am almost as big as you now," puffing out my tiny soul. Now, moreover, I held the book in my own hand, and kept the place with my own finger, instead of standing like a very little boy, with my hands at my side, following with my eye the point of the mistress's scissors. There was one terror at this winter school which I must not omit in this chronicle of my childhood. It arose from the circumstance of meeting so many faces which I had never seen before, or at least had never seen crowded together in one body. All the great boys and girls, who had been kept at home during the summer, now left axes and shovels, needles and spinning wheels, and poured into the winter c 1 8 The District School school. There they sat, side by side, head after head, row above row. For this I did not care ; but every time the master spoke to me for any little misdemeanor, it seemed as if all turned their eyes on my timid self, and I felt petrified by the gaze. But this simultaneous and con- centrated eye-shot was the most distressing when I happened late, and was obliged to go in after the school were all seated in front of my advance. The severest duty I was ever called to per- form was sitting on that little front seat, at my first winter school. My lesson in the Abs con- veyed no ideas, excited no interest, and, of course, occupied but very little of my time. There was nothing before me on which to lean my head, or lay my arms, but my own knees. I could not lie down to drowse, as in summer, for want of room on the crowded seat. How my limbs ached for the freedom and activity of play ! It sometimes seemed as if a drubbing from the master, or a kick across the school- house, would have been a pleasant relief. But these bonds upon my limbs were not all. I had trials by fire in addition. Every cold forenoon, the old fire-place, wide and deep, was kept a roaring furnace of flame, for the benefit of blue noses, chattering jaws, and aching toes, As It Was 19 in the more distant regions. The end of my seat, just opposite the chimney, was oozy with melted pitch, and sometimes almost smoked with combustion. Judge, then, of what living flesh had to bear. It was a toil to exist. I truly ate the bread of instruction, or rather nibbled at the crust of it, in the sweat of my face. But the pleasures and the pains of this sea- son at school did not continue long. After a few weeks, the storms and drifts of midwinter kept me mostly at home. Henry Allen was in the same predicament. As for Susan Clark, she did not go at all after the first three or four days. In consequence of the sudden change from roasting within doors to freezing without, she took a violent cold, and was sick all winter. 20 The District School Chapter V Second Summer — Mary Smith Again THE next summer, Mary Smith was the mis- tress again. She gave such admirable satis- faction, that there was but one unanimous wish that she should be re-engaged. Unanimous, I said, but it was not quite so ; for Capt. Clark, who lived close by the school-house, preferred somebody else, no matter whom, fit or not fit, who should board with him, as the teachers usually did. But Mary would board with her Aunt Carter, as before. Then Mr. Patch's family grumbled not a little, and tried to find fault ; for they wanted their Polly should keep the school and board at home, and help her mother night and morning, and save the pay for the board to boot. Otherwise Polly must go into a distant district, to less advantage to the family purse. Mrs. Patch was heard to guess that " Polly could keep as good a school as anybody else. Her education had cost enough anyhow. She had been to our school summer after summer, and winter after winter, As It Was « ever since she was a little gal, and had then been to the 'cademy three months besides. She had moreover taught three summers already, and was twenty-one; whereas Mary Smith had taught but two, and was only nineteen." But the committee had not such confidence in the experienced Polly's qualifications. All who had been to school with her knew that her head was dough, if ever head was. And all who had observed her school-keeping career (she never kept but once in the same place) pretty soon came to the same conclusion, notwith- standing her loaf of brains had been three months in that intellectual oven called by her mother the 'cademy. So Mary Smith kept the school, and I had another delightful summer under her care and instruction. I was four years and a half old now, and had grown an inch. I was no tiny, whining, half-scared baby, as in the first sum- mer. No, indeed; I had been to the winter school, had read in a class, and had stood up at the fire with the great boys, had seen a snow-ball fight, and had been accidentally hit once by the icy missile of big-fisted Joe Swagger. I looked down upon two or three fresh, slob- bering abecedarians with a pride of superiority, greater perhaps than I ever felt again. We 22 The District School read not in ab, eb, &c, but in words that meant something ; and, before the close of the sum- mer, in what were called the " Reading Les- sons," that is, little words arranged in little sentences. Mary was the same sweet angel this season as the last. She was forced to caution us younglings pretty often ; yet a caution from her was as effectual as would be a frown, and indeed a blow, from many others. At least, so it was with me. She used to resort to various severities with the refractory and idle, and in one instance she used the ferule ; but we all knew, and the culprit knew, that it was well deserved. At the close of the school, there was a deeper sadness in our hearts than on the last summer's closing day. She had told us that she should never be our teacher again, — should probably never meet many of us again in this world. She gave us much parting advice about loving and obeying God, and loving and doing good to everybody. She shed tears as she talked to us, and when we were dismissed, the customary and giddy laugh was not heard. Many were sobbing with grief, and even the least sensitive were softened and subdued to an unusual quiet- ness. As It Was 23 The last time I ever saw Mary was Sunday evening, on my way home from meeting. As we passed Mr. Carter's, she came out to the chaise where I sat between my parents, to bid us good-by. The next morning she left for her native town ; and before another summer, she was married. As Mr. Carter soon moved from our neighborhood, the dear instructress never visited it again. 24 The District School Chapter VI Third Summer — Mehitabel Holt and Other Instructresses THIS summer, a person named Mehitabel Holt was our teacher. It was with eager delight that I set out for school on the first morning. I longed for the companionship and the sports of school. I had heard nothing about the mistress, excepting that she was an experi- enced and approved one. On my way, the image of something like Mary Smith arose to my imagination ; a young lady with pleasant face and voice, and a winning gentleness of manner. This was natural ; for Mary was the only mistress I had ever been to, and in fact the only one I had ever seen, who made any impression on my mind in her school-keeping capacity. What, then, was my surprise when my eyes first fell on Mehitabel Holt ! I shall not describe how nature had made her, or time had altered her. She had been well-looking, indeed rather beautiful once, I have heard ; but, if so, the acidity of her temper had diffused As It Was 2 5 itself through, and lamentably corroded this valued gift of nature. She kept order; for her punishments were horrible, especially to us little ones. She dun- geoned us in that windowless closet just for a whisper. She tied us to her chair-post for an hour, because sportive nature tempted our fin- gers and toes into something like play. If we were restless on our seats, wearied of our posture, fretted by the heat, or sick of the unintelligible lesson, a twist of the ear, or a snap on the head from her thimbled finger, reminded us that sitting perfectly still was the most important virtue of a little boy in school. Our forenoon and afternoon recess was allowed to be five minutes only ; and, even during that time, our voices must not rise above the tone of quiet conversation. That delightful exercise of juvenile lungs, hallooing, was a capital crime. Our noonings, in which we used formerly to rejoice in the utmost freedom of legs and lungs, were now like the noonings of the Sabbath, in the restraints imposed upon us. As Mehitabel boarded at Capt. Clark's, any ranging in the fields, or raising of the voice, was easily detected by her watchful senses. As the prevalent idea in those days respecting a good school was, that there should be no more 26 The District School sound and motion than was absolutely neces- sary, Mehitabel was, on the whole, popular with the parents. She kept us still, and forced us to get our lessons; and that was something un- common in a mistress. So she was employed the next summer to keep our childhood in bondage. Had her strict rules been enforced by anything resembling Mary Smith's sweet and sympathetic disposition and manners, they would have been endurable. But, as it was, our schooling those two summers was a pain to the body, a weariness to the mind, and a disgust to the heart. I shall not devote a separate chapter to all my summer teachers. What more I may have to say of them I shall put into this. They were none of them like Mehitabel in severity, nor all of them equal to her in usefulness, and none of them equal in any respect to Mary Smith. Some were very young, scarcely six- teen, and as unfit to manage that " harp of a thousand strings," the human mind, as is the unskilled and changeful wind to manage any musical instrument by which science and taste delight the ear. Some kept tolerable order; others made the attempt, but did not succeed ; others did not even make the attempt. All would doubtless have done better, had they As It Was 27 been properly educated and disciplined them- selves. After I was ten years old, I ceased to attend the summer school except in foul weather, as in fair I was wanted at home on the farm. These scattering days, I and others of nearly the same age were sent to school by our parents, in hopes that v/e should get at least a snatch of knowledge. But this rainy-day schooling was nothing but vanity to us, and vexation of spirit to the mistress. We could read and spell better than the younger and regular scholars, and were puffed up with our own superiority. We showed our contempt for the mistress and her orders, by doing mischief ourselves, and leading others into temptation. If she had the boldness to apply the ferule, we laughed in her face, unless her blows were laid on with something like masculine strength. In case of such severity, we waited for our revenge till the close of the school for the day, when we took the liberty to let saucy words reach her ear, especially if the next day was likely to be fair, and we of course were not to re-appear in her realm till foul weather again. 28 The District School Chapter VII Little Books presented the Last Day of the School THERE was one circumstance connected with the history of summer schools of so great importance to little folks, that it must not be omitted. It was this. The mistress felt obliged to give little books to all her pupils on the closing day of her school. Otherwise she would be thought stingy, and half the good she had done during the summer would be canceled by the omission of the expected donations. If she had the least generosity, or hoped to be remembered with any respect and affection, she must devote a week's wages, and perhaps more, to the purchase of these little toy-books. My first present, of course, was from Mary Smith. It was not a little book the first summer, but it was something that pleased me more. The last day of the school had arrived. All were sad that it was now to finish. My only solace was that I should now have a little book, for I was not unmoved in the general expecta- As It Was 29 tion that prevailed. After the reading and spelling, and all the usual exercises of the school, were over, Mary took from her desk a pile of the glittering little things we were look- ing for. What beautiful covers, — red, yellow, blue, green ! All eyes were now centered on the outspread treasures. Admiration and ex- pectation were depicted on every face. Pleas- ure glowed in every heart ; for the worst, as well as the best, calculated with certainty on a present. The scholars were called out one by one to receive the dazzling gifts, beginning at the oldest. I, being an abecedarian, must wait till the last ; but as I knew that my turn would surely come in due order, I was tolerably patient. But what was my disappointment, my exceeding bitterness of grief, when the last book on Mary's lap was given away, and my name not yet called ! Every one present had received, except myself and two others of the ABC rank. I felt the tears starting to my eyes ; my lips were drawn to their closest pucker to hold in my emotions from audible outcry. I heard my fellow-sufferer at my side draw long and heavy breaths, the usual prelimi- naries to the bursting out of grief. This feel- ing, however, was but momentary ; for Mary immediately said, " Charles and Henry and 30 The District School Susan, you may now all come to me together" : at the same time her hand was put into her work-bag. We were at her side in an instant, and in that time she held in her hand — what ? Not three little picture-books, but what was to us a surprising novelty, viz., three little birds wrought from sugar by the confectioner's art. I had never seen or heard or dreamed of such a thing. What a revulsion of delighted feeling now swelled my little bosom ! " If I should give you books," said Mary, " you could not read them at present ; so I have got for you what you will like better perhaps, and there will be time enough for you to have books, when you shall be able to read them. So, take these little birds, and see how long you can keep them." We were perfectly satisfied, and even felt ourselves distinguished above the rest. My bird was more to me than all the songsters in the air, although it could not fly, or sing, or open its mouth. I kept it for years, until by accident it was crushed to pieces, and was no longer a bird. But Susan Clark — I was provoked at her. Her bird was nothing to her but a piece of pep- perminted sugar, and not a keepsake from Mary Smith. She had not left the school-house before she had nibbled off its bill. As It Was 31 The next summer, my present was the " Death and Burial of Cock Robin." I could then do something more than look at the pictures. I could read the tragic history which was told in verse below the pictured representations of the mournful drama. How I used to gaze and wonder at what I saw in that little book ! Could it be that all this really took place ; that the sparrow really did do the murderous deed with his bow and his arrow ? I never knew before that birds had such things. Then there was the fish with his dish, the rook with his book, the owl with his shovel, &c. Yet, if it were not all true, why should it be so pic- tured and related in the book? I had the impres- sion that everything that was printed in a book was surely true ; and as no one thought to explain to me the nature of a fable, I went on puzzled and wondering, till progressive reason at length divined its meaning. But Cock Robin, with its red cover and gilded edges — I have it now. It is the first little book I ever received, and it was from Mary Smith ; and, as it is the only tangible memento of her goodness that I possess, I shall keep it as long as I can. I had a similar present each successive season, so long as I regularly attended the 3 2 The District School summer school. What marvels did they con- tain ! How curiosity and wonder feasted on their contents ! They were mostly about giants, fairies, witches, and ghosts. By this kind of reading, superstition was trained up to a mon- strous growth ; and, as courage could not thrive in its cold and gloomy shadow, it was a sickly shoot for years. Giants, fairies, witches, and ghosts were ready to pounce upon me from every dark corner in the daytime, and from all around in the night, if I happened to be alone. I trembled to go to bed alone for years ; and I was often almost paralyzed with horror when I chanced to wake in the stillness of midnight, and my ever-busy fancy presented the grim and grinning images with which I supposed darkness to be peopled. I wish I had all those little books now. I would bequeath them to a national Lyceum, as a specimen, or a mark to show what improve- ment has been made. Indeed, if improvement has been made in anything, it has been in re- spect to children's books. When I compare the world of fact in which the " Little Philoso- phers " of the present day live, observe, and enjoy, with the visionary regions where I wandered, wondered, believed, and trembled, I almost wish to be a child again, to know the As It Was 33 pleasure of having earliest cariosity fed with fact, instead of fiction and folly, and to know- so much about the great world, with so young a mind. 34 The District School Chapter VIII Grammar — Young Lady's Accidence Murray — Parsing — Pope's Essay /^N my fifth summer, at the age of seven ^-^ and a half, I commenced the study of grammar. The book generally used in our school by beginners, was called the Young Lady's Accidence. I had the honor of a new one. The Young Lady's Accidence ! How often have I gazed on that last word, and wondered what it meant ! Even now, I can- not define it, though, of course, I have a guess at its meaning. Let me turn this very minute to that oracle of definitions, the venerable Web- ster : " A small book containing the rudiments of grammar." That is it, then. But what an intelligible and appropriate term for a little child's book ! The mysterious title, however, was most appropriate to the contents of the volume; for they were all mysterious, and that for years, to my poor understanding. Well, my first lesson was to get the Parts of Speech, as they are called. What a grand As It Was 3$ achievement to engrave on my memory these ten separate and strange words ! With what ardor I took my lesson from the mistress, and trudged to my seat ! It was a new study, and it was the first day of the school, moreover, before the bashfulness occasioned by a strange teacher had subsided, and before the spirit of play had been excited. So there was nothing at the moment to divert me from the lofty enterprise. Reader, let your mind's eye peep into that old school-house. See that little boy in the second high seat from the front, in home-made and home-dyed pea-green cotton jacket and trowsers, with a clean Monday morning collar turned out from his neck. His new book is before him on the bench, kept open by his left hand. His right supports his head on its palm, with the corresponding elbow pressed on the bench. His lips move, but at first very slowly. He goes over the whole lesson in a low whisper. He now looks off his book, and pronounces two or three of the first, — article, noun, pronoun ; then just glances at the page, and goes on with two or three more. He at length repeats sev- eral words without looking. Finally, he goes through the long catalogue, with his eye fastened on vacancy. At length, how his lips flutter, 36 The District School and you hear the parts of speech whizzing from his tongue like feathered arrows ! There, the rigmarole is accomplished. He starts up, and is at the mistress's side in a moment. " Will you hear my lesson, ma'am ? " As she takes the book, he looks directly in her face, and repeats the aforementioned words loudly and distinctly, as if there were no fear of failure. He has got as far as the adverb ; but now he hesitates, his eye drops, his lips are open ready for utterance, but the word does not come. He shuts them, he presses them hard together, he puts his finger to them, and there is a painful hiatus in his recitation, a discon- nection, an anti to the very word he is after. " Conjunction," says the mistress. The little hand leaves the lips, at the same time that an involuntary " Oh ! " bursts out from them. He lifts his head and his eye, and repeats with spirit the delinquent word, and goes on without hesi- tation to the end of the lesson. "Very well," says the teacher, or the hearer of the school ; for she rather listened to than instructed her pupils. " Get so far for the next lesson." The child bows, whirls on his heel, and trips to his seat, mightily satisfied excepting with that one failure of memory, when that thundering word, conjunction, refused to come at his will. As It Was 37 But that word he never forgot again. The failure fastened it in his memory forever. This pea-green boy was myself, the present historian of the scene. My next lesson lagged a little ; my third seemed quite dull ; my fourth I was two days in getting. At the end of the week, I thought that I could get along through the world very well without grammar, as my grandfather had done before me. But my mistress did not agree with me, and I was forced to go on. I con- trived, however, to make easy work of the study. I got frequent, but very short lessons, only a single sentence at a time. This was easily committed to memory, and would stay on till I could run up and toss it off in recitation, after which it did not trouble me more. The recol- lection of it puts me in mind of a little boy lugging in wood, a stick at a time. My teacher was so ignorant of the philosophy of mind, that she did not know that this was not as good a way as any; and indeed, she praised me for my smartness. The consequence was, that, after I had been through the book, I could scarcely have repeated ten lines of it, excepting the very first and the very last lessons. Had it been ideas instead of words that had thus escaped from my mind, the case would have been 38 The District School different. As it was, the only matter of regret was, that I had been forming a bad habit, and had imbibed an erroneous notion, to wit, that lessons were to be learned simply to be recited. The next winter this Accidence was com- mitted, not to memory, but to oblivion; for, on presenting it to the master the first day of the school, he told me it was old-fashioned and out of date, and I must have Murray's Abridgment. So Murray was purchased, and I commenced the study of grammar again, excited by the novelty of a new and clean and larger book. But this soon became even more dull and dry than its predecessor ; for it was more than twice the size, and the end of it was at the most dis- couraging distance of months, if not of years. I got only half way through the verb this winter. The next summer I began the book again, and arrived at the end of the account of the parts of speech. The winter after, I went over the same ground again, and got through the rules of syntax, and felt that I had accomplished a great work. The next summer I reviewed the whole grammar; for the mistress thought it necessary to have " its most practical and im- portant parts firmly fixed in the memory, before attempting the higher exercises of the study." On the third winter, I began to apply my sup- As It Was 39 posed knowledge in the process of passing, as it was termed by the master. The very pronun- ciation of this word shows how little the teacher exercised the power of independent thought. He had been accustomed to hear parse called pass; and, though the least reflection would have told him it was not correct, that reflection came not, and for years the grammarians of our district school passed. However, it was rightly so called. It was passing, as said exercise was performed ; passing over, by, around, away, from the science of grammar, without coming near it, or at least without entering into it with much understanding of its nature. Mode, tense, case, government, and agreement were ever flying from our tongues, to be sure ; but their meaning was as much a mystery as the hocus pocus of a juggler. At first we parsed in simple prose, but soon entered on poetry. Poetry — a thing which to our apprehension differed from prose in this only, that each line began with a capital letter, and ended usually with a word sounding like another word at the end of the adjoining line. But, unskilled as we all generally were in the art of parsing, some of us came to think our- selves wonderfully acute and dexterous never- theless. When we perceived the master himself 4