Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1850-03-09
THE IANTI-SLAVERY BUGLE.
Schools and Teachers.

Last winter we had seven chill
drcn in our family, oil of whom very much
required schooling. We fixed up the older
ones, girls and boys, in long boots and start
ed them to walk the two miles, long meas
llrc, that lie between us and the school
house. When they got there, there were
eighteen panes of glass broken in the win
dows, a hole in the floor aud no stove. The
school-house is down in a ravine, with run
close by. The school was in charge of n
man who could not make any of the scholars
come into school after recess, except those
who pleased TO come. One of the popular
amusemcuts was running TO the Mononga-
hela, that is but few rods off, and playing
at the water edge, uutil il wus time to 20
home; another was stamping in the run to
sec who could make the water splash farth-
est and highest, aud hallooing through the
broken window to amuse those inside. We
have always discouraged tales from school,
and in two weeks our little foster son, a
great, stout, healthy boy of nine years, was
attacked with inflamntory rheumatism. For
three months Inc had TO be lifted and laid
and we never knew an unbroken nights
rest. He has not yet recovered from the
effects, and we fear never will. This teacher
was kept until nearly all the school fund was
exhausted, without his learning how TO GET
his pupils into school. We had taught the
same children some three years before
when the grass and grain were growing in
the adjoining fields, and had said to them
Boys, do not go over the fence. You will
spoil MIR. Ms grass Play on the road and
( up on the bank !" and no instance came to
our knowledge of the request being disre-
gardcd. If ball flew over, some one ran
to us to ask special permission TO go seek it,
We give this account TO show the kind OF
teachers often employed. The Superintcn-
dent complains of the amount of salary but
most of them get more than they could earn
shelling peas; they are fit for nothing else, I'M
less il is teaching ns directors are apt to think
In the district adjoining us, there has
been no school for two years; yet the taxes
are regularly collected. That schoolhouse
and the one adjoining, j. e., two and hall
miles away--up at Beuah church, are in SO
ruinous condition that it is thought to bc
dangerous TO be in them. The children oI
this township nre growing up in ignorance
regular South Carolina ignorance. Not
more than one half of them, at twelve years
of age, can read a chapter in the New Tes.
lament, aloud, so as 10 he understood; We,
the people subscribe money to build and
support cnuICneS plenty, theological semi
naries and colleges, where worthy young men
are to be taught Latin, Greek, and all the
knotty points Of Theology, by professors Z;
fifteen hundred dollars year, TO enable
them to instruct the hcathcn; while their
own children are denied the benefits of a
common, English education" The school
houses of our township are little brick edi-
fees, hastily put up, about twenty by thirty
feet, eight feet ceiling, 10 ventilation at the
top, seven small windows, one door, and two
smoky chimneys, miserable, dingy, dirty
walls, no maps, no apparatus, no books, but
such as are changed at the option of every
blockhend that Is put into strut his six
months, or until the scholars turn him out,
on the stage as teacher. In Williamsburg
they have had think two, but am sure OF
one, teacher who would take little children
by the hair, or by the ear, and lift them
quite oft heir seats, and If our memory does
not fail, he was kept, by the directors, until
the public money was exhausted. These
facts may be unpalatable in some quarters,
but they are Pittsburgh Tisiier.