The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1896-10-15
SCHOOL A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
Rigid Discipline Little Mary Fairfax
Was Called Upon TO Undergo.


Was Called Upon TO Undergo.
1t was not in this joyous fashion,
however that school presented itself
to another. and far brighter, little gir',
Mary Fairfax, who was born over a
hundred years ago. and who afterwari
became Mrs. Someryille 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 happlest, widest, shyest 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 ii rained.
and her mother would not permit her II
run out, she read over and over again
the three books which formed her L.
brary-'rhe Arabian Nights" Robin
son Crusoe" and Pilgrims Progress.
Now and then her father, who was an
officer in the English navy, came home
from sea; and finding his little daugh-
ter as ignorant as a child could be, he
made her read aloud to him every morn
| ing a chapter of Humes History OF
/ England"
This was all her education until she
was ten 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 stately and so severe that
her pupils used to say they never saw
her smile. Thanks to the healthy, out
door life she had always led, little
Mary was straight and strong as 4
young Indian, but that did not save her
from the ingenious tortures designed
for STOPPING children, and which she
describes for us in her memoirs.
"A few days after my arrival was
enclosed in stiff stays with a steel busk
in front, while, above my frock, bands
drew my shoulders back till the shout
der blades met. Then steel rod, with
a semi-circle which went under the
chin, was clasped to the steel busk in
my stays. In this constrained state
and most of the younger children had
to prepare our lessons"
Think of it, you luxurious little peo-
pie who prepare your lessons lolling on
rocking chairs, nesting in sofa corners
or lying comfortably en- warm hearth
rugs before cheerful fires! Think oil
studying a whole page of Johnson,
dictionary every day, spelling, defini
tions, even the very position Of eacf
word in the long columns, and all thu
while unable to lean backward or for
ward, or turn your head from side t
side-unable even to see what the CIR
next to you was doing! That was {
discipline which must have made home
and the dear shining ocean sands pic
ture Of Paradise, Of Paradise Lost, t
poor, tired, timid Mary Fairfax. Ant
the worst Of it was, she learned so LITTLE
at Miss Prlmrose's school that, wheI
she escaped for her first holidays, sh'
covered herself with disgrace by writ
Ing bank knot for bank note, and wa
severely scolded for being so idle, ant
wasting such golden opportunities.
She was taught to sew, however, yer!
neatly, and in after years she grew s.
passionately fond of study, of real
hard, severe, incorporating study
that it was necessary, when she wa
fifteen, to take away her candles, s.
that she might not sit up half the nigh
over her books. Even then she use'
to arise at daybreak, wrap herself in
blanket-not being allowed a fire-an
. work away at algebra and Latin unit
breakfast time. She wrote number o
valuable works on scientific subject
, and she lived to be ninety-two year
old, proving that neither hard school
nor study are certain to shorten GU
: days.-St. Nicholas.