Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1871-06-08
MILLERsBURG HOLMES COUNTY, O.. THURSDAY JUNE 1871

immigrant been steadily movin
westward, until at last over tn
Plains, they had entered Californi:
There were maps and geographic:
which had apparently sailed aroun
Cape Horn, and bearing marks o
usage on ship-board. Every pup
brought a different grammar. L
" this matter of text books, especial,
grammars, my school became an ed
: ucational Tower of Babel. At last
l rose equal to the emergency.
captured all the grammars, stacked
u them in a pile, hid them away, an
taught the science orally.
' Several parents in jamestown
were ambitious, and particular a
to the education of their sons. On
wished his boy taught Latin; an
other, in the mathematical educa
tion of his Oldest olive branch
wished vulgar fractions ignored en-
tirely: ''Cos we don't make any us,
Of 'em in business, now, you know,
said he; when We make change, any
thing that's over half cent goe.
for a cent, and any thing under w
don't make any account of it AT all
But l want him grounded well il
tare-and tret.'
| l said nothing in reply to the pa
ternal request, altleagh opiRed thai
mathematically the father was
grounded and stranded long be
fore arriving at tare and tret. How
ever, the son was nurtured arith
metically without fractions, and
. still lives. They sent me also a boy
who stammered, with orders to cure
him. | sent word back by his
brother, who did not stammer. that
the remedying Of lingual defects
did not as yet come within the
province of a common school teach
er's vocation. The parents were in
dignant. They sent me Mexican
children guileless of any knowledge
in the English tongue: There was
work enough daily laid out for me
in that hot, little church to have
kept busily employed the whole fac
ulty of Yale College.
Sturdy, muscular. fast-growing
boys, the sons of ranchers, would
drop in two days in the week to be
educated. The Importance of reg
ularity in attendance did not seem
to be realized at jamestown. Two
days in the week will not tone down
farmers boy to the response neces-
sary for the school-room. They
were restless; their nerves over
flowed with rough vitality-vitality
Of that sort which comes into play
in the fields, behind the plow, on the
mustang chasing cattle, or on the
drivers seat. In school, they could
not keep quiet; they turned, and
twisted restlessly on their seats;
they plowed their grimy hands into
their copy-books; they upset ink,
and involuntarily rubbed in and on
their faces; they twisted their limbs
in snake-like contortions about their
desk-legs; when writing, their
tongues protruded from their
mouths, and followed the curve of
every letter with involuntary and
painful effort; in class, they stood
first on one leg, then on the other,
and trod on toes, and fell over each
other. They were prolific in spit
balls; they infected the whole school
with their atmospere of restlessness,
and generally capped the climax of
their unrest by bringing a bull-ter-
rier to school with them.
The very common dog constituted
another great annoyance. Dogs, my
pupils would bring with them to
school. Dogs of high and low de-
gree, ours, mastiffs, Newfoundlands,
and terriers swarmed on the out
side of the University, and at every
opportunity sneaked in to lay them
selves lovingly under their masters
desks. To drive them out involved
disturbance and confusion, for the
brutes took the longest route pos
sible to the door, scuttling around
under the desks, and receiving gra-
tuitous kicks from hostile boys,
while my harassed, pedagogical soul
mathematical Noah for ever having
allowed the chosen canine pair to
enter the Ark.
There was one little girl, five years
of age. could never teach that
child the alphabet. Four times a
day did agonize with her through
the twenty six signs. At the expira-
ton of eighteen months, she could
not be relied upon for a single letter
after A.. Her parents of course were
not satisfied, and held her up to the
community as a bright and shining
example of the school-master's in
efficiency. Her eyes were bright,
black, and bead-like; and in my daily
alphabetical wrestlings with her,
they looked at me as if innocently
wondering what l was taking all that
trouble for. That child will never
realize the pain and anxiety she cost
me. After two years labor at the
jamestown Institute, left her un-
certain as to the identity of B. l
left her, a legacy of infantile stu
pidity, to my successor. She was
ever willing to be taught. She ever
came dutifully to my call. That
proved the most discouraging fea-
ture of the case. Her stolid docili-
ty exasperated me. Month after
month did she repeat those twenty
six letters after me, as if it were a
labor of love. She liked it. Once
in a great while, she went through
the whole correctly. A load would
be lifted from me. l would not test
her again that day. l rejoiced in
the thought that, for twenty-four
hours at least, she was alphabet
cally perfect. Alas! invariably the
next morning the fogs had gathered
over her little brain, and she gave
out at d.
My geography classes became
wonderfully proficient. Owing to
the geographical drill and discipline,
my children would stand before the
large outline-charts of the world,
and correctly name thereon all the
continents, oceans, seas, lakes, riv-
ers, islands, capes, sounds, bays, the
countries and their capitals, the
zones and their characteristics of |
climate. Visitors, who Game occa-