The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1876-12-08

The boys Of the generation 10 which I
belonged-that is to say, who were born
in the last years of the last century or
/ the earliest of this-ware brought up
under a system of discipline which put
a far greater distance between parents
and their children than now exists. The
/ parents seemed to think this necessary
I in order to secure obedience. They were
believers in the old maxim that famil-
iarity breeds contempt. Ny own par
ents lived in the house with my grand
father and grandmother on the mothers
side. My grandfather was a discipline.
rian Of the stricter sort, and can hardly
find words to express the awe in which
l stood Of him-an awe 50 great as al.
most to prevent anything like affection
on my part, although he was in the
main kind, and, certainly, never thought
Of being severe beyond what was neces-
sary to maintain a proper degree of order
in the family.
The other boys in that part of the
country, my schoolmates and playfeHows,
were educated on the same system. Yet
there were at that time some indications
that this very severe discipline was be-
ginning to relax. With my father and
mott er I was on much easier terms than
with my grandfather. If a favor was to
be asked Of my grandfather, it was asked
with fear and trembling; the request
was postponed to the last moment, and
then made with hesitation and bushes
and q confused utterance.
One Of the means Of keeping the boys
Of that generation in order was a little
bundle of birchen rods, bound together
by small cord, and generally suspended
on a nail against the wall in the kitchen.
This was esteemed as much a part Of the
necessary furniture as the crane which
hung il the kitchen freslace- or thasl
shosel and tongs. It sometime-A
pened that the boy suffered a fate 81 :
lar 10 that of the eagle in the fable,
wounded by an arrow hedged with
feather from his own wing in other
words, the boy was made to gather the
twigs intended TOR his own castigation. /
1t has never been quite clear to me
why the birch was chosen above all other .
trees of the wood to yield its twigs for
this purpose. The beech Of our forests
produces sprays as slender, as flexible .
and as tough and farmers, wherever the I
beech Is common, cut its long and plant .
branches for driving oxen. Yet the use
Of birchen rods for the correction of
children IS Of very great antiquity. In
his - Discourse on Forest Trees" writ (
ten three hundred years ago, Evelyn (.
speaks OF birchen twigs as an implement
Of the schoolmaster; and Loudon. in his .
''Arboretum," goes yet further back.
He says: FThe birch has been used as
the instrument Of correction in schools
from the earliest ages" The English
poets of the last century make frequent
mention of this use OF birchen twigs:
but in Loudon's time, whose book was
published thirty years since, he remarks
that the use Of these rods, both in schools
and private families, was fast passing
away-a change on which the boys both
Of England and the United States NAV
well be congratulated-for tie birchen
rod was, in my time, even more freely
used in the school than IN the house
hold William Cullen Bryant, IN ST. Nick
1Jcs for December.