Reminiscences of the happy life of a teacher

Preface

After my children had teased me for many years to write out the incidents of my life, and I had demurred, it was suggested by one of them : "Why, papa, wouldn't you like to have the life of your father, with his experiences?" "Most assuredly." "Then think how your children and grandchildren will prize your experiences and your triumphs."

To this I succumbed, and set about writing these " reminiscences."

They may or may not be valuable, or interesting to some of my seventy thousand pupils. I hope they may.

Writing amid the pressure of business cares, I have endeavored to introduce such facts as may exemplify my theory of Education, of Teaching and School Management. Possibly the narrations of those difficulties, common more or less to all teachers, and the ways by which such difficulties were converted into means of my continued success, may arouse some discouraged teacher " to take heart again" and feel that he' can use similar plans to save and bless his pupils, to establish his own goings.

For my innovations upon the general plan of education, I have come in for the personal denunciations and maledictions of many college men from time to time. I can safely say that -while I have freely attacked the usages and abuses so prevalent in colleges, I have never permitted myself to speak disrespectfully or unkindly of any college man. On the other hand, there are very few college men that I do not most thoroughly respect, and among my best friends I have always numbered many college graduates. But they are those who have acquainted themselves with my work, and who have discovered more good than evil in my efforts to do my duty in my own Tvay.

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Chapter I. Genealogy

How I found the line of my ancestry — Descent and descendants — Of good Puritan stock — Conj ugal devotion — My first recollections of Melissa Pierson — Holbrooks and Piersons settle on, the Western Reserve — Melissa's return in after years — Melissa Craft and Melissa Pierson two rare examples of piety — Their influence on my life.

CHAPTER n.

AT GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

A pupil under Elizur Wight — My father's Scientific Lectures — John Todd's story-telling — Early mechanical training — A coincidence.

Chapter III. Liee In Boston

My father a Yale graduate ; a student under Prof. Silliman — - Failure of Colleges in scientific training then and now — The first Manual Labor School — Lyceum System introduced — The origin of Holbrook's apparatus — Why I did not go to College — Day's Algebra mastered in morning hours — My experience in the best school in Boston — Lowell Mason and his sons — Daniel Webster in a storm — Dr. Lyman Beecher's church burned — His power — A remarkable snow-storm — A sad love story — My father's educational labors— He secured the first geological survey in the United States.

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CONTENTS. V

Chapter IV. My Teachers

I am taught to read a chapter in the Bible at three years of age — Early punishments — Old time district school — My father a good Normalite — Victims of the College fetich — My only whipping at school — Distinguished teachers : Elizur Wight, Dr. John Todd, Dr. Samuel Beech, Zephaniah Swift — The Puritan Sabbath — Repeal of the Blue Laws — I am guilty of breaking the Sabbath - Grandfather Swift's home a " Ministers' Tavern" — Signing the Temperance pledge — Rum-drinking deacons — A sad case — My childhood recollections of College Professors — Puritan customs — Grandfather Holbrook's high moral character and business energy — My father as my teacher — PI is "drawing out" system — Our familiarity with prominent places, men and books — Sights in the Boston Museum — Reading, and reading — (A story to tell) — Object-lesson teaching— My father's advanced views of Education — My attitude toward colleges and college men — My educational views an inheritance — Some lessons in mechanics and business practices.

Chapter V. Stamford

A short chapter of stories.

Chapter VI. My First School

Engaged at seventeen years of age, on my own conditions, to teach a country school — My examination quickly accomplished — Efficacy of muscular Christianity shown in my first day's teaching — Pouring in and drawing out methods tested — The ^x^t preliminary drill in class-work — The first blackboard used — Ami the teacher or my patrons? — Boarding 'round — How we enjoyed it — Teaching a delight in its triumphs — Our Literary Society — School Directors' dodges — A lesson in learning and teaching the modern languages.

VI CONTENTS.

CHAPTER Vir.

MY EXPERIENCES IN NEW YORK CITY.

Preparatory work in engineering — Social environments — Religious discussions — Theater-going — Five Points — 111 health — Horace Greeley — Evenings employed in reading — Attendance upon lectures — Conversation with an intelligent Catholic — Arthur Tappan — New York fire, 1S36 — Mr. Finney's preachings effects upon me.

CHAPTER Vin.

MELISSA AND I.

Our early training — Our love story — Her character and work, CHAPTER IX.

A REMINISCENCE IN BEREA.

First Institutes in Ohio — My first Institute — Eastern and "Western hospitality forty years ago — Melissa's prophets' chamber,

CHAPTER X.

SOME REMINISCENCES OF JOHN BALDWIN.

Berea community — Lyceum village — Discovery and sale of Berea grindstone — I am entrapped — Resignation — Removal to Chardon — Gifts of house and lot — A characteristic incident of Mr. B — Hit, keen appreciation of good school management — Encounter with the doctors — Our last meeting.

CHAPTER XI.

EXPERIENCES AT CHARDON, O.

Self-reporting system discussed — A woman's enterprise-^-Gov, Corwin's oratory — Providential interference in my behalf — Dishonesty a growing evil among teachers — Purchase of J5S2,500 worth of apparatus — 111 health the cause of closing school — Partnership with Dr. Nicholls.

( Contents continued on p. 3^8.)

Reminiscences of Alfred I^olbrooL

Chapter I. Genealogy

In tumbling over the rubbish, one rainy day, in the garret of the house in which I was born, built by my great-great-grandfather, early in the eighteenth century, I found a copy-book, written by my grandfather, Daniel Holbrook. Besides many pages of manuscript, written from copies apparently, at school, there were other pages of miscellaneous matter, chiefly historical, relating to the settlement of Derby, Connecticut, and the part the Holbrook family had had in the growth of the town.

My grandfather wrote a large, round., beautiful hand, more legible than print. The manuscript was probably over sixty years old, and it is nearly sixty years since I found it.

The genealogy of the Holbrooks was given thus, somewhat: Among the twenty-three families that formed the first organization of the township of

Derby, I find Stephen Pierson and Deacon Abel Holbrook. This was in 1675. These twenty-three families had already settled a minister, built him a house, also a meeting-house, costing ;^ioo, pledged him a support by taxation on their lands, besides paying their proportion in supporting a minister at Milford, whence most of them had removed.

This ancestor, Abel Holbrook, had previously been accustomed to worship at Milford, taking his wife and baby there and back every Sabbath, a distance of eight miles through the woods. Their custom was to ride one horse ; the couple taking turns in riding and walking, the one riding carrying the child. This method of traveling was called "to ride and tie."

Our family comes from John Holbrook, (one of three brothers), who emigrated from Derby, England, and settled at Oyster Bay, Long Island, 1652. Deacon Abel Holbrook settled on the farm extending over Sentinel Hill and through Pleasant Valley in Derby, Connecticut, 1676. Deacon Daniel Holbrook married 1729. Deacon Daniel Holbrook, second, my grandfather, married 1766. He was a Colonel in the Revolutionary War. Josiah Holbrook married Lucy Swift, 181 5; children: Alfred (the writer of this) and Dwight. Alfred married Melissa Pierson, March 24, 1843- children: Josiah, R. Hcber, John B., Agnes Irene, Anne Lucy, and Alfred Holbrook. The youngest, Alfred Holbrook, was drowned when

GENEALOGY. 9

fifteen years of age. The others are living, and engaged with their father in the National Normal University. The mother died, May, 1884.

My grandfather, Colonel Holbrook, states that Captain Bradley, in his regiment, was shot through the head, in the defense of East Haven. I have often seen the hat he wore, penetrated with the bullet-holes, hanging in the house of his son. Captain Bradley, of Derby.

The present Holbrooks may consider themselves as coming from good Puritan stock, an unbroken line of deacons. Some of my Derby recollections may be interesting to my family and other immediate friends. My mother died when I was two years old, consequently I do not remember her. I only remember hearing my father speak of her once: 'T never came into the house or into her presence, anywhere, that she did not welcome me with her sweet and beautiful smile."

My parents were both good singers, and led their parts in the church-choir of Derby. My aunts have told me that "my father sang my mother's favorite hymn at her burial by himself," but he was never heard to sing afterward. He never married again, though, in my opinion, he was a very handsome and attractive man, and might have married a fortune at several different times, as I was told.

When my father had built a house on Sentinel Hill, and had moved into it, Aunt Irene Pierson occupied the Holbrook homestead in Pleasant VallO REMINISCENCES.

ley, while her husband was at work on the home farm. It thus happened, that my wife, Melissa, and I, were born in the same room in the Holbrook mansion. My first recollection of her is that I was seated by a little, flaxen-ringletted girl in school for punishment, when about seven years old. The punishment thus given by Miss Julia Ann Tomlinson, was not severe ; whether it proved effectual I am unable to state.

Melissa left Derby with her parents when eight years old. They came to Kirtland, Ohio, and settled on a farm the mother had received as her patrimony from the Holbrook estate. The farm is still occupied by her son, Julius Pierson.

Some forty years after the family left Derby, my wife and I returned. I was continually surprised at the familiar acquaintance which she exhibited with every street, brook, bridge, every old house and old family in Derby. I had left Derby twelve years later. This was the first time either had returned to Derby since coming West. My recollections of my childhood are very pleasant. My aunt, Mrs. Melissa Holbrook Craft, had taken me when my mother died, and provided for, and trained me, till my father called me to Boston.

She was a woman of most implicit trust in her Savior. With small means she rendered help and sympathy to all who were in want or distress. Such self-denial in all personal comforts for increasing the means of helping others, I have never seen in any other, excepting one. Besides feed-

GENEALOGY. 1 1

ing and clothing me, her house was the home at different times for various others who had been unfortunate. She was often told that she would scarcely eat or wear anything which she could give away. She lived to an. advanced age, and never wanted for any good thing, was always thankful, and never was entirely deprived of the privilege of giving consolation and aid to some whom she thought more needy than herself.

The only other woman I ever knew whom I thought as self-sacrificing, as trustful, as devoted in her piety, as ready in her sympathy, and earnest in her benevolence, was her namesake, Melissa Holbrook Pierson Holbrook, my wife.

The influence of two such Melissas, one in childhood, the other in manhood, was surely of divine appointment, and has ever been regarded as such.

CHAPTER 11.

EXPERIENCE IN GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

In 1827, my father sent for me to meet him in Groton, Massachusetts. He was giving a course of scientific lectures there, and I was entered as a pupil in the Groton Academy. Elizur Wright was the Principal. We boarded with Rev. John Todd, the noted preacher and evangelist. The competition of Mr. Todd and father in story-telling was amusing and exciting. It was a common saying in the streets of Groton, "Did you go to hear Todd tell stories last Sunday ? " The question had reference to his preaching. I was eleven years old, and Mr. Todd was the first preacher I had ever listened to with interest or profit. His sermons abounded in illustrations, anecdotes, humor and wit, and were just as interesting' to children as to adults. He had gathered the orthodox members of the old Congregational Church, who had virtually been expelled by the Unitarians from the church their fathers had erected, and was building a new edifice. The dedication was noted by the harnesses of the members being cut, their linchpins being removed, and bv kegs of sulphur being (12)

EXPERIENCE IN GROTON, MASS. 1 3

rolled into the vestibule. All of which were evidences of Mr. Todd's power as a preacher and organizer. I will give one of Mr. Todd's Andover experiences as related by him at the dinner table.

A senior student returning to the seminary from a village, where he had supplied a pulpit, related to his room-mate and others that he had been waylaid in a patch of woods just out of the village, and had been robbed of his watch and pocketbook. It was all the worse that his pocketbook contained all the money he had — the five dollars he had received for preaching.

Several of the students volunteered to go with him the next morning to the place of his misadventure, hoping to aid in tracking and apprehending the highwayman.

On arriving at the place, they found an orchard on one side of the road, a pump standing by the fence, with the handle projecting toward the road. The pocketbook and watch were lying on the ground, near the pump, where the frightened theologue had thrown them as he started to run from the robber.

Besides giving me the advantages of school, my father hired a watchmaker to give me daily training in the use of tools. The knowledge and skill there obtained, and the practical economy there acquired, in making poor tools and defective materials accomplish their ends, have been of the greatest possible advantage in every position in which I have since been placed.

14 . REMIMSCENXES,

I there learned there was excitement and interest in overcoming difficulties, rather than in being overcome by them.

I remember hearing my father say for my encouragement : ' 'Anybody can work with good tools, but it takes pluck to manage poor ones, and a genius to perform his work with none at all."

The pluck was developed, if anything. My worthy mechanic teacher gave me his poorest tools to work with, until I had demonstrated that I would not spoil his good ones.

At the same time, father bought me a box of drawing instruments, and set me to work in mechanical drawing. I was much interested in this, and have ever since made use of the power there and then acquired in the training of the hand, eye and mind together, in all demands for mechanical calculation and invention. The calls for just such skill and contrivance as that early training gave me, have been varied and numberless, all my life long. It was just the training that a good Providence only could foresee was necessary in the independent, revolutionizing course I have been led to pursue in all matters pertaining to education. It was this practical combination of mechanism and science, which my father still continued in Boston, that has made it possible for me to sustain myself amid the poverty, and against the maledictions and denunciations of otherwise good men, in developing a practical system of training, which has, to a large extent, in my humble

EXPERIENCE IN GROTON, MASS. I 5

opinion, already done much to modify educational work everywhere, and which will, with other providential means, speedily revolutionize the entire scope and plan of college instruction.

My father, about this time, commenced the manufacture of the apparatus in Boston, Massachusetts, which has since borne his name.

While attending school in Groton, my room*- mate and I occasionally took walks in the country. There is a beautiful lake east of Groton, some three miles, as I recollect it. 'One evening, returning from this lake, around which we had been picking huckleberries, we passed an orchard full of fine fruit. The ground was covered under many of the trees. We concluded to enter the orchard and help ourselves to some of the apples. Passing around among the trees, we filled our pockets, eating the meanwhile. Being just ready to return to the road with our supplies, we heard a voice angrily calling after us. My first impulse was to run, but being too plucky for that, I walked toward the man who was bawling at us. He met me half way, saying: "My boy, why didn't you run away like a thief, with that other fellow?" My roommate had scampered away down into the cranberry swamp, adjoining the orchard.

"I would rather pay for the apples I have taken. "

''Pay for them ? No, no. Come and get all the apples you want ; only come and ask me, and I will find the best ones for you."

'Thank you, sir."

"But you -tell that little rapscallion if he ever comes this way again, I'll horsewhip hirn."

More than fifty years after, a Miss Shattuck entered school here, from Groton, Massachusetts. Enquiring of her one day whereabouts- in Groton she lived, she replied : "About two miles, east of the old church." On the road out to the lake?" *'Yes. " "Did your house stand on the north side of the road, with an orchard and cranberry swamp on the south side?" "Yes. Why?" Then I told her the story of Charley Richards and myself stealing apples, and what the farmer said. "That is just like my grandfather ; I have heard many such things of him, though I do not remember him."

Chapter III. Experience In Bostoi

My father, Josiah Holbrook, was a graduate of Yale in 1814. He Avas engaged with Professor Silliman as a student and laboratory worker in introducing chemistry as a practical science to his classes. He thus became interested in practical scientific work. The difficulty was, that as treated in Yale and other colleges, it was entirely beyond the public schools, where it was most needed. In fact, to this day, laboratory work is, in most colleges, deferred to the senior year, and even then hardly five per cent, of any graduating class engage in it. The class as a class listen to the lectures and witness the experiments, with what results is well known. Not one college graduate now in twenty really knows anything certainly or practically of the natural sciences, or is able to converse technically or intelligently on scientific subjects. On leaving college, father began applying his scientific knowledge to farming, in the training of about twenty young men to the application of scientific principles in their daily labor. They were also pursuing the ordinary college cur- 2 (17)

riculum. This was the first manual labor school that I have any knowledge of. The young men obtained such a power in study on this practical plan, that several of them afterward became emi nent in the different professions.

But the manual labor system was a financial loss to the originator. It has been a failure in the hundreds of attempts made since my father's experience.

His next enterprise was the organizing of lyceums, and to this end he invented and constructed simple and inexpensive articles of chemical and philosophical apparatus, reducing the price of an outfit from thousands to tens of dollars, thus bringing the actualities of scientific laboratory work within the reach of lyceums and the pupils of public schools. The apparatus now in use in our public schools, and in many colleges, was invented by my father, and first manufactured in his shops in Boston. Very few additional articles comparatively have been introduced since he left the business, even in electricity.

It thus will be seen that Josiah Holbrook was a practical educator, and was among the first to advocate the study of natural science. This training of the mind and hand together he urged as the most effectual method of mental and manly development.

When fifteen years of age, and all my schoolmates were going to college, I asked my father when I was going to college. He replied: " Al-

EXPERIENCE IN BOSTON. I9

fred, I do not expect to send you to college. You are getting a better education now than any college can give, as colleges are now managed. I can give you double the amount of money required for a college course in some other way; but I do not wish you to waste so much time, and run such a risk of ruin as I did. I barely escaped, and I am not willing to expose my son to the temptations and dangers that I experienced in college life."

So I did not go to college, though I could not but think then that I was not very well used. I have since, however, fully concurred in my father's judgment.

Soon after this conversation, he proposed, as I was working ten hours per day in his apparatus manufactory, that I should rise at five o'clock and study an hour or two before breakfast, promising that he would make a room comfortable for me to study in, i.e., lighted and warmed. Said I, "Pa, will you call me?" "No," he replied, "you will have to wake yourself; but when you have mastered Day's Algebra I will make you a present of a watch." "Will you help me?" "No, you can master it yourself" "I don't know; I'll try," said I, and accepted the proposition.

So in about a month I was wearing my watch. This was in the winter of 1830-31. I wore that watch for ten years or more.

No stimulus but the power of study has ever been needed since that time to rouse me at any fixed time in the morning to pursue my studies;

It encouraged me greatly when one day I overheard my father say, in advocating his plan of education (manual labor), that "Alfred was making better progress in his studies while working ten hours daily in the shop than most boys who were attending school and doing nothing else."

It was in the second year of my Boston life that I asked father to let me attend Mr. Pile's school. It was the most popular school in Boston at that time, for fitting boys for Harvard or Yale. More than this, I had become acquainted with Lowell Mason's two boys, about my age, and they were attending there. Father smiled, saying, "Alfred, you will not like it there; it will only be a hindrance to you." "But pa, I would like to try it, and if I don't like it, I won't be obliged to continue, I suppose." "Well, all right; here are ten dollars to pay your tuition ; the experience you will get there may be worth something to you."

I attended one week, and asked father if I might quit, saying, "Why, I can learn more in one day, besides doing my work, than they go over there in three." "I am glad you are satisfied," said father; "the ten dollars were a good investment." I was studying Virgil at the time, with no regular recitation to father. He, however, occasionally quizzed me, to satisfy himself that my progress was safe and thorough. On

EXPERIENCE IN BOSTON. 21

such occasions, though his criticisms were rigid and exacting, I enjoyed them, and not unfrequently asked him to examine me in my studies. His reply was almost always something like this: "You are doing well enough. I want you to become independent of me as a student, just as far and as soon as possible."

By this kind and happy management my father aroused in me a controlling devotion to study and love of work. It has been my own salvation, and, I trust, the effectual means of saving and blessing thousands of others.^

Speaking of the''^sons of Lowell Mason, Mr. Winthrop B. Smith, the founder of tJie Schoolbook House of the West, before he retired from business, told me the following (he was a roommate of mine in Boston) : —

"I always stop with William Mason, one of the firm of Mason Bros., when in New York. Once, on arriving about lO a. m., I went directly to Dr- Mason's room, where he was sitting at his piano, composing a piece of music. He welcomed me pleasantly, inquired how long I would remain in the city, etc. I went out about my business, but returned to dinner. As we were sitting at the table the doctor came down and greeted me most cordially, saying, ' It is a long time, Mr. Smith, since I have seen you ; I fear you don't always call when in New York,' showing that he was unconscious of having welcomed me earlier in the day. On mentioning this to William, who was not at dinner, he replied : * Oh, father is very much absorbed in music. It was only last month, when the panic (of 1857) struck us, and we were unable to meet our engagement at the bank, that I went to father's room, saying, "Father, I want you to go to Boston and get twenty thousand dollars; we are not able to raise the money here, and we must have it or have our note protested." Father replied: "Well, William, please don't interrupt me; I have an idea here that I am trying to work out; don't disturb me, I am afraid I shall lose it. " "But father, we have to have the money, or we are all ruined. You must go to Boston and get it for us. We can't do anything there, and you can." (The doctor had been a bank director in Boston.) 'So,' continued William, ' I had to get father's coat and boots, and almost drag him to the cars. ' He returned in due time with the money. Handing it to me, he said: "There, William, I hope you will never disturb me again ; I have lost the idea, and fear I can not recover it. Never do it again, William." '"

The second centennial of the settlement of Boston occurred in 1830. It was celebrated as Boston only can do such things. A procession was formed at the State House-; the Governor and his staff led on horseback ; and were followed by the "ancient and honorable artillery. " Distinguished citizens and invited guests then came in carriages. Two bands furnished music for the march. John Quincy Adams was the speaker of the day. The

EXPERIENCE IN BOSTON. 23

Old South Church was jammed to its utmost capacity ; there Avas no more standing-room even in the second gallery. The long stanchions, extending from the floor thirty feet to support these galleries on three sides of the house, possibly gave the idea of insecurity. The Old South was the oldest church then standing in Boston. This fact was taken into consideration also. After the oration, which I heard standing near the pulpit on the lower floor, an anthem was being performed, accompanied by the great organ — the largest then on the continent. One of the back seats in the upper gallery, on which six or eight men were standing, broke with a crash. A panic ensued. Everybody rushed for the nearest door. Screams of women were heard as they were crushed in the stairways. The organist, by some fortuity, intensified the general fright by placing both his arms on the keys, several heavy stops of the organ being in connection. In the midst of all this chaos and rage of the elements, a thundering voice was heard — "There is no danger; the house is as firm as the everlasting hills ! " Quiet was instantly restored ; . the panic was over; all returned to their places; the anthem proceeded, and the exercises closed as usual. It was the voice of the god-like that stilled the storm — it was Daniel Webster's.

My father's office was at the corner of Washington and School Streets. His office and salesrooms for his apparatus occupied the whole of the second story. Carter & Hendee occupied the ground floor as a book-store. It was tJic bookstore of Boston then ; it is a book-store still. The same old two-story building stands there now, while contiguous, and all around in every direction, are seen immense structures of five and six stories. This old corner is an interesting locality to me and my children when we visit Boston. All who visit Boston take in the Old South, corner of Washington and Milk Streets, as one of the sights. It is now the repository of all the odd, queer, out-of-date articles gathered from old garrets and other stowaway places, illustrating the social usages and bygone customs of earlier days. It is an interesting place to spend an hour in.

The first Sabbath night after I arrived in Boston, being then 14 years of age, I was aroused by the clang of the Old South bell, about midnight. My room was as light as day, though it was a stormy and moonless night. I had never seen a "fire" before. The cry of "fire" ringing through the streets, the jingle of the bells on the fireengines, and the bawling of the trumpets all contributed to my alarm ; but I had nothing else ta do than to He quiet till my father, sleeping in another room, should order me out; though I thought the room felt hot already. No father's voice was heard. I began to think he had gone out and forgotten his boys, and was just about to get up and take care of myself and get out if the fire would let me, when I heard some one say, who had just entered the house, that Dr. Beecher's