The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1886-09-01
IN A MEXICAN SCHOOL Ho USE

Ragged Urchins Shouting Their Lessons
in Singing Chorus-The Small Boy.
While the mules were resting and the
drivers enjoying their usual siesta, we wan
dered out to view the village, whose low
rooted and no-roofed casas are nestled at the
foot of dark hills It's quaint church-as
usual, tic prominent feature Of the place
rcioices under fresh coat of sky-blue plaster
without and much gliding within, spread
over the mold and cracks of centuries, which
gives it the appearance Of wrinkled octose..
marian fashionably bewigged The weedy in
closure behind that serves as q campo sante,
or graveyard, has rows Of grinning skulls
ranged all along its adobe walls. picked up
one of these with the intention Of adding it to
my somewhat varied collection Of "recuerdas
de Mexico" but it crumbled to dust at
touch and filed the air with fine powder.
Then we strayed into the school house, where
bevy Of ragged urchins were shouting their
lessons in sing-sonS chorus. In Mexican
schools children never study silently, but oil
tasks arc committed to memory by loud repi-
tition, making, as may he imagined, the
vicinity of these temples Of Minerva by no
means desirable places of abode. Here the
noise was dcafening, and the poor, pale,
shabby-Ioolsing old woman who presided
seemed half distracted, as no doubt she was.
The dog-eared books which these children were
using had been selected by some local
priests years and years before. The girls
were also taught needlework to the extent
OF cnbroidering altar cloths for the village
sanctuary and vestments for the Virgin, while
upon the blackboard were some lessons in
spelling and arithmetic, which werc given by
tho preceptrcss "out of her own head" as she
explained to us.
It was immensely hot, with the tropic sun
beating upon tho roof without tree to inter-
cept its rays, and streaming into the uncur-
tained windows, everybody was sleepy, the
teachers cross and the pupils irredcemably
stupid. A fat centipede was slowly dragging
his loathsome, greenish-yellow body and hum
dretl legs, sllrcharged with poison, along the
floor in corner, and counted more than
dozen scorpions darting about the walls; but
nobody minds such trilcs as these in Mexico.
I observed that the "innate cusscdness" of the
small boy seems to bc about the same the
wide world over, for little Mexican urchin,
who had evidently been made to stand up i'll
the corner for some misdemeanor, was de-
nSntlnS nllllSelI UcJOilu ilettSuie Wy vi WI
ing a small lizard, which lie had fastened to
the wall by the tail, sticking pins into it and
otherwise proving tho doctrine Of total de-
pravity, at least so far as small boys are con-
cerned.
We left the little Babel reluctantly, know
ing full well by the vicious clutch of the
schoolmnrm's thin claw upon the stout stick
she carried, and by an ominous snap III her
beady eyes, that she only awaited our de-
parture to urge certain lettering steps up the
thorny sleeps Of learningby vigorous switch
suasion. Poor little ragamufflns!- The nerv-
GUS irritability of that ancient maiden vented
upon their half naked and poorly fed bodies
must be hard, indeed, to bear. And the
small amount of useless knowledge which
may be beaten into them will not abate, by
one jot or tittle tho utter hopelessness of their
lives, nor even result in so much as improving
their apparel, as tho first taste of ''the tree of
good and evil" is said to have donc by our
earliest ancestors.-Fannie B. Ward In
Boston Globe