The Indianapolis journal., 1886-11-27
INDIANA In ITS EARLY DAYS.
DIR. Ryland 7. Browns Entertaining De-
scription of the Pioneer HoOsier's Life.
The FrOlics and the CoUrtships of BackwOods
YOuths-A Pen Picture Of the Pioneer
School and Its Master.

DIR. Ryland T. Brown, though in his eightieth
year. has not lost the art of amusing and in
structing the young, as his lecture to the school
children at Plymouth Church yesterday after
noon plainly proved. His subject was "The
Pioneer Girl of Indiana" which naturally
enough included the contemporaneous Indiana
boy. He described the pioneer houses, the log
cabins of rude exterior, but interlorly rife with
coarse but ealth-giving comforts and host and
hostess ever ready to welcome the guest with
hearty hospitality. His description of the broad
fre-places, high-post and trundle beds. and the
primitive manner of retiring where one room and
the loft furnished all the accommodations for
family and guests, was very amusing. He told
of spinning fax and wool, of corn -huskngs,
quilting bees and other ancient frolics. of old
fashioned courtships and the way the young men
and damses rode to meeting both on one horse,
the damsel behind. with her arms round
the gallant, who, to make her squeeze
him tighter, would frequently tickle
the horse to make him skittish Sometimes the
damsel herself would syly touch the horse in the
flank with her dainty heel to get excuse to
hold on tighter. When ''corn-tending" was over
about the 1st of July, the pioneers went to work
to clear up more ground. Six or seven acres
would be the amount usually cleared before the
time for gathering corn came on. '"fhe brush
was dried with the leaves on" said the Doctor,
"and when we got out to burn it, before brush
heap was lighted, the news all over the
neighborhood, and the girls and boys were there
And then up into the air would shoot hundred
pyramids of fame. brush fire! tell you no
Brush electric light of to-day can compare with
that light. And then the girls had to be taken
home afterwards, every one of them, and
the boys with hickory torches took them one
by one along the narrow paths beneath the tall
old trees of the forest"
The Doctor concluded with description of
pioneer schools. 'In the Western States. at
the beginning of the present century" he said,
"the business of school teaching monopo-
lized, almost exclusively, by the Irish school
master l am sorry that some genius has not
photographed him for the instruction and
amusement of future generations. Washing
ton Irving has delineated the Yankee school
master in his inimitable portrait of Ichahod
Crane. Though nearly threequarters of a cen
tury intervenes, vet to-day have most vivid
recollection of Master Samson and his school.
Whether he was descendant of Dominic Samp-
son, or of some less noted family / never
learned, for as yet the Dominic had not sat be-
fore the great Scotchman for his portrait. The
Dominic was myth-the mere embodiment of
an idea: but Michael Samson was reality-to
me stern reality. There was an atmosphere of
awe about the very name; perhaps because it
was associated in my mind with the first Bible
character that ever won its way to my admirs-
tion
early in the morning Master Samson made
his advent into the humble cabin where we
dwelt pen was stuck In one side of his hat,
and an uncut goose-quill in the other From
buttonhole of his vest was suspended mysterl-
Gus inkstand made of the point of a cows horn,
and from an ample side pocket protruded his
school article illuminated with many flourish
in chirography. Its chief merit however, con-
sisted in a proposal to teach the mysteries of
reading, writing and arithmetic for the term of
thirteen weeks of five days each, for the sum of
ST. 90 per scholar, provided, however, that Master
Samson should board round among the schol-
ars, and should be secured in the peaceable pos
session of comfortable school house and fuel
suf6cient to warm it. This last provision
was a flank movement in anticipation
of raid of the big boys to turn the master out
at the holidays The requisite twenty-five
scholars obtained, and Master Samson is
duly installed, the absolute monarch of his little
kingdom. Behind the throne ian unpainted
split bottom chair), on two pins driven into the
wall, reposed in solemn grandeur the scepter of
his power-the traditional birch-which. in plain
prose. was nothing but beech limb, half an
inch in diameter and some five feet long. If in
Goldsmith school master,
''You could trace
The days disaster in his morning face
in Master Samson's scowling counteDance were
delineated a whole weeks disasters, and woe be-
tide the luckless wight who fell within the orbit
of his wrath. The administration of his govern
ment conducted with great energy,
promptness and decision. II it lacked the
element of justice, he cOnsoed himself with the
reflection that If the culprt did not deserve the
flogging then. he certainly would deserve il at
some future time His mode of teaching WAS as
absolute and as energetic as his government
Before him on his desk lay q ponderous fools
cap folio in which we're all the examples of Dill
worths and Pixies arithmetics fully worked
~ 1l~11s
subiect.of his presume to venture on a more
simple analysis. or by more direct route reach
the solution of the problem, he would soon be
taught the folly of assuming to know more than
the man that made the Arithmetic
"His school was literally loud one. Reading
spelling and arithmetic, in one swelling volume
of sound. rose with the early morning
sun and rolled away through the dark
aises of the old forest that surrounded
the little log school house. But intensity is
never compatible with persstence so as the day
advanced the clamor of the morning would sink
down into drowsy hum. Then Master Samson
would erect his majestic form and. with the
voice of a Stentor, issue the command, mind
your buks," enforcing the mandate with crash |
ing blow of his ferule on his desk. But as the
ten hours of his daily task rolled on, there came
a period when even this would longer wake
the low murmur into full chorus, and sterner
measures had to be resorted to. The scholars
sat on backless benches, arranged far enough
opeAAs ~ 0iA"" "u easy pnSonSO AOA VITO iuhSCoE,
who. ever and anon, rod in hand, passed around
on tours of inspection. Occasionally he would
make brisk application Of the rod to the backs
of whole ranks of drowsy lads and lasses. which
fell with the impartiality of the sunshine and
the shower on the good and the bad-the indus
trious and the lazy.
However defective these schools may have
been as instruments of mental culture, they
were certainly very efficient in developing the
vocal organs. These were the pioneer schools
of the West, and, strange as it appears now. yet
it is true, that shrewd men and lovely misses
were schooled in such way as this is"
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