The district school as it was

Preface

This volume contains such productions only as have already appeared in print. Two of them, — those named in the title page, — have been published as books by themselves, and in this form are still for sale. The publishers have kindly permitted them to be included in this collection, which is to be disposed of to subscribers, for the benefit of the Author.

'The District School as it Was,' is thus presented to the public by the publishers of the last edition, in an advertisement prefixed to the work.

" The following work was first published in Boston in 1833, and was received with unqualified favor. A second and larger edition was issued in New York, with equal success. Several hundred of this edition were purchased by a distinguished friend of education, in a neighboring State, (Henry Barnard, Esq., of Conn.) and distributed for the purpose of suggesting ideas of reform.

" It was republished in London a few years ago, as giving a faithful description of one of the Institutions of New England.

"It is hoped that it will be deemed particularly appropriate to School Libraries, and not unsuited to others ; that it will be sought as an agreeable gift-book from Teachers to Pupils ; and lastly, that it will ever be of historical use to rising generations, educated tmder better auspices, as exhibiting a true and graphic picture of ♦ The District School as it Was.'

'Scenery-Showing' was published in Boston in 1844, under tlie title of the Scenery- Shower, the last word being

4 PREFACE.

derived from the verb to shoio. As, however, it is liable to be mispronounced, so as to bear an entirely different meaning, or rather in this connection, no meaning at all, a new but similar title has been adopted. In respect to the object of the work, the reader is referred to its introductory matter in the proper place.

The other pieces, with one exception, have appeared in periodicals. Some of the titles have been slightly changed. The narrative and descriptive portions are more likely to attract readers, while the more solid matter may be neglected ; for this reason, attention is especially asked to the article headed, ' The Divine Agency in Nature.' In this, some views are presented. respecting God's presence and immediate action in the material universe, which are not entertained at all by some minds, and which, though believed, are not clearly apprehended by others.

The closing effusion was the first production of the author that ever appeared in print. It was sent to a religious periodical in 1824, in such a way as to leave the writer unknown. It has been sought and found among the things gone by, as perad venture, by revision, it might make an appropriate conclusion. It was, however, committed to the press, word for word, as it was originally penned by the inexperienced and diffident writer, nearly twenty-eight years ago.

Finally, it is hoped that in this volume will be found not only entertainment but instruction, and that it will be considered a desirable addition to the Family Library.

Boston, May 7, 1852.

Contents

The District School as it Was, 13

A SirpPLICATION TO THE PeOPLE OF THE UnITED StATES, . 155

A Traveler's Story, for the Perusal of Parents, . . 177

Chapter I. The Old School-house

The Old School-house, as it used to be called, how distinctly it rises to existence anew before the eye of my mind ! Here was kept the District School as it was. This was the seat of my rustic Alma Mater, to borrow a phrase from collegiate and classic use. It is now no more ; and those of similar construction are passing away, never to be patterned again. It may be well, therefore, to describe the edifice wherein and whereabout 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 2*

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 from the homes of those who resorted to it, was this : — Here was the centre of the district, as near as surveyor's chain could desig,- nate. 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. So here it was placed ; and this continued to be literally the " hill of science " to generation after generation of learners, for fifty years.

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 changeful 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. It was never painted by man ; but the clouds of manyyears had stained it with their own dark hue. The nails were starting from their fastness, and fellowclapboards were becoming less closely and warmly intimate. There were six windows, which here and there stopped and distorted 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 convenient screens against the summer sun, were it not that their shade was inconvenient darkness. Some of these, from loss of buttons, were fastened 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.

We will now go inside. First, there is an entry which the district were sometimes provident 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 garments 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 accommodation 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 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 condition and many other inconveniences will be noticed hereafter.

Chapter II. First Summer At School Mary Smith

I WAS three years and a half old when I first en* tered the Old School-house as an abecedarian. 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 j 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 did not extend, according to present recollection.

I shall never forget my first day of scholarship, as it was the most important era which had yet occurred to my experience. Behold me on the eventful morning of the first Monday in June, arrayed in my new jacket and trousers, 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 — (not of soft drab-colored fur, ye city urchins, but of coarse and hard sheep's wool) — my Sunday hat 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 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 inexperienced childhood. My mother led me to Mr. Carter's, to commit me to my guardian and instructor for the summer. I entertained the most extravagant ideas of the dignity of the school-keeping vocation, and it was with trembling reluctance that I drew near the presence of so lovely a creature as they told me Mary Smith was. But she so gently took my quivering little hand, and so tenderly stooped and kissed my cheek, and said such soothing and winning words, that my timidity was gone at once.

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 ; but with a cheerful smile and a softening eye, as if she were at a pastime, and wished me to partake of it.

My first business was to master the ABC, and no small achievement it was ; for many a little learner waddles to school through the summer, and wallows to the same through the winter, 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 knowledge 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 dilatory and usually unpleasant task was to me a pleasure, and consumed not so much precious time as it generally does in the case of heads as stupid as mine. By the close of that summer, the alphabet was securely my own. That hard, and to me unmeaning, string of sights and sounds, were bound forever to my memory by the ties created by gentle tones and looks.

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 comfortable position to drop into sleep and forgetfulness 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.

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 WiUiam Perry, Lecturer of the English Language in the Academy of Edinburgh, and author of several valuable school-books." What a magnificent title ! To what an enviable superiority had its author arrived! The Only Sure Guide! Of course, the book must be as infaUible as tlie catholic creed, and its author the very Pope of the jurisdiction of letters.

But the contents of the volume manifested most clearly the pontifical character of the illustrious man ; for, from the beginning to the end thereof, faith and memory were all that was demanded of the novice. The understanding was no more called on than that of the devotee at his Latin mass-book. But let us enter on particulars. In the first place, there was a frontispiece. We little folks, however, did not then know that the great picture facing the title-page was so denominated. This frontispiece consisted of two parts. In the upper division, there was the representation of a tree laden with fruit of the largest description. It was intended, I presume, as a striking and alluring emblem of the general subject, the particular branches, and the rich fruits of education. But the figurative meaning was above my apprehension, and no one took the trouble 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 ; but of this I was ignorant. 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 ripeness. 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, according to the figurative meaning, as the others

28 THE DISTRICT SCFIOOL

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 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 of the frontispiece below it. This was the representation 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 a sort of half-way look, or rather, perhaps, a compound look, made up of an expression of perplexity at a sentence in parsing, or a sum in arithmetic, and a frown at the playful urchins in the distant 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 young, might be contrasted with stupefying confinement and longing palates in the presence of crabbed authority. Indeed, the first thing the Only Sure Guide said to its pupil was, " Play truant and be happy; " and most of the subsequent contents were not of a character to make the child forget this preliminary advice. These contents I was going on to describe in detail ; but on second thought I forbear, for fear that the description might be as tedious to my readers as the study of them was to me. Sufiice 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 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 no where to be found except in fragments in some dark corner of a country cupboard or garret. All vestiges of it will soon disappear for ever. 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 ?

3*

Chapter IV First Winter At School

How I longed for the winter school to begin, to which I looked forward as a relief from my donothing days, and as a renewal, in part at least, of the soft and glowing pleasures of the past summer ! But the schoolmaster, the thought of him was a fearful looking-for of frowns and fernlings. 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 preceding winter visit together at our house, one evening, and did I not think the schoolmaster far the more awful man of the two ? The minister took me in his lap, gave me a kiss, and told me about his own little Charley at home, whom I must come and 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 me. He was as stiff and unstooping as the long kitchen fire-shovel, and as solemn of face as a cloudy fast-day. A trifling incident happened which increased my dread, and darkened my remembrance of him by another shade. I had slily crept to the table on which stood the hats of our visitors, and in childish curiosity had first got hold of a glove, then a letter, which reposed in the crown of the magisterial headcovering. The owner's eye suddenly caught me at the mischief, and he gave me a look and a shake of his upper extremity, so full of " Let it alone or I will flog you " in their meaning, that I was struck motionless for an hour with fright, and had hard work to dam up, with all the strength of my quivering lips, a choking baby cry. Thenceforth, schoolmasters to my timid heart were of all men the most to be dreaded.

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 nothing 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 a6, eh, ib, ob, ub, &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, with the additional drawback of not having Mary Smith's sweet manners to win me up to the stand, help me cheerfully through the task, and set me down again, pleased with her, if with nothing else.

There was one circumstance, however, in the daily routine, which was a matter of some little excitement and pleasure. I was put into 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 — h ah 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, '*Iam 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. Tt 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 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 concentrated 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. Those forty — I should say eighty eyes (for most of them had two apiece,) glancing up from their books as I opened the door, were as much of a terror to me as so many deadly gun-muzzles would be to a raw military recruit. I tottered into the room and toward my seat with a palsying dismay, as if every one was aiming an eye for my destruction.

The severest duty I was ever called to perform was sitting on that little front seat, at my first winter school. My lesson in the Abs conveyed 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, 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 season 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.

AS IT WAS.

Chapter V. Second Summer — Mary Smith Again

The next summer, Mary Smith was the mistress again. She gave such admirable satisfaction, 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 any body else. Her edication had cost enough any how. She had been to our school summer after summer, and winter after winter, ever since she was a little gal, and had then been to the 'cademy three months besides. She hSd moreover taught three sunimers 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, notwithstanding her loaf of brains had been three months in that intellectual oven called by her mother the 'cademy.