The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-11-14
NEIHART, MONTANA. NOVEMBER IA, 1896.
SCHOOL 100 YEARS AGO.
The Rigid Discipline Little Mary Fairfnz
Was Called Upon to Undergo.

The Rigid Discipline Little Mary Fairfax
Was Called Upon to Undergo.
1t was not in this joyous fashion,
however, that school presented it,
self to another and far brighter lit
tie girl, Mary Fairfax, who was
born over 100 years ago, and who
afterward became Mrs. Somerville
and one of the most learned women
In England. Mary was fortunate
enough to live the first ten years of
her life by the seashore. the happi-
est, widest, shiest child that ever
played all day long on the yellow
sands and made huge collections of
shells, and weeds, and pebbles. and
other treasures brought her as play
things by the waves. When it rain
ed and her mother would not per-
NIT her to run out, she read over
and over again the three books
which formed her library-'The
Arabian Nights. " Robinson Cru
soc" and "Pilgrim Progress. ="
Now and then her father, who was
an officer in the English navy, came
home from sea, and finding his lit
tie daughter as ignorant as child
could be he made her read aloud to
him every morning chapter of
Hume's History of England.
This was all her education until
she was 10 years old, when one
dreadful day her parents sent her
to a boarding school, a small and
very expensive boarding school, kept
by Miss Primrose, who was so state
~ and so severe that her pupils used
to say they never saw her smile.
Thanks to the healthy outdoor life
she had always led, little Mary was
straight and strong as young In
dian, but that did not save her from
the ingenious tortures designed for
STOPPING children and which she de-
scribes for us in her memoirs:
IA few days after my arrival
was inclosed in stiff stays with a
steel busk in front, while, above my
frock, bands drew my shoulders
back till the shoulder blades met.
Then steel rod, with semicircle
which went under the chin, was
clasped to the steel busk in my
stays. In this constrained state I
and most of the younger children
had to prepare our lessons.
Think of it, you luxurious little
people who prepare your lessons
lolling on, rocking chairs, nesting
In sofa corners or lying comfortably
on warm hearth rugs before cheer
full fires! Think of studying a whole
page of Johnson 8 Dictionary every
day, spelling, definitions, even the
very position of each word in the
long columns, and all the while un-
able to lean backward or forward
or turn your head from side to side,
unable even to see what the girl
next to you was doing. That was
discipline which must have made
home and the dear shining ocean
sands a picture of paradise-of para
disc lost-to poor, tired, timid Mary
Fairfax. And the worst of it was
she learned so little at Miss Prim-
roses sohoCl that, when she escaped
for her first holidays, she covered
herself with disgrace by writing
"bank knot" for bank note and was
severely scolded for being so idle
and wasting such golden opportuni-
ties.
She was taught to sew, however,
very neatly, and in after yeqrs she
grew so passionately fond of study
of real, hard, severe, uncompromis-
ing study-tl1at it was necessary,
when she was Is, to take away her
so that she might not sit
up half the night over her books.
Even then she used to arise at day.
break, wrap herself in a blanket
not being allowed a fre-and work
away at algebra and Latin until
breakfast time. She wrote number
Of valuable works on scientific sub.
jects, and she lived to be 90 years old,
proving that neither hard schools
nor hard study is certain to short
on our days. Agnes Repplier in St.
Nicholas.