The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-10-30

beauty, -Watervillel-sinc I entered this
school! The town had then, | think,
ABOUT $500 Inhabitants. There was buu
one church then the Baptist There
were no streets west of Elm, or north of
the present railroad station; but tive or
SIX houses on Elm street and about
dozen on Silver street, and half dozen
on College street. There was but one
bank, the Ticonic, no bridge across the
kennebsc; and where now is Monument
Park, was q graveyard.
What changes have taken place in this
school since the old Wateryille Academy
with its unfinished upper story was dis
placed by this spacious, commodious and
beautiful buildingl What a contrast be-
tween the dingy text books of tauld lang
syne," the Latin and Greek books, with
hardly an English note, and their "ordo"
more difficult than the text the Latin
Dictionary of Ainsworth, with its rs and
Us, its US and VS. jumbled confusedly
together. the scanty grammars, the
Ireagre classical dictionaries, land the
well-printed text books of today, with
their abundant notes, maps, and illus
trations, and the lucid and copious lexi-
cons, and elaborate bulky dictionaries of
geography, biography, and mythology,
which the student may now consult with
the certainty of finding an answer to
j
ing gulf between the teachers of those
days, who adopted the business as a
make-shift, in order to earn money
enough to enable them to study law,
medicine, ETC., and the teachers of our
own day, who choose their calling from
an instructive heartfelt love OF it, design
ing and qualifying themselvest o follow 1t
for life! Not that the teachers OF those
days lacked natural ability; they simply
were not educated and trained for teach
ing.
Do not infer from all this that we boys
of 20 were dismal, lugubrious set. On
the contrary, we were happy dogs-the
jolliest, most mercurial and fun-lov1ng
young rogues Imaginable. Our pathway
up the steps of knowledge was strewn
with roses and noneysuckles, as well as
with thorns and brambles. How often
the monotony and stiff routine of the
recitation rooms were relieved by ring
ing laugh, provoked by some ludicrous
mistranslation, or INSTRUMENTATION, or
reply to a teachers question: "There are
stupidities," says French writer, lat
first sight Of the Infinite' Our plumbers
and gaucheries were of a lighter, rib-tick-
ling character. How we laughed one day
at boys translation of a phrase in
Caesars Commentaries: Sumna dill
gentia Caesar TRANSMIT Alpes, Caesar
crossed the Alps on top of diligenoel'
and, again, at another's version of Livy' s
Asaui in Romanem sgrem. inoursunt,
The horses make an incursion into the
Roman territory" "The horsesp ex-
claimed the teacher. ''No; the mares
How we exploded at a young Irishman' s
| "upsetting." as the Germans say, into
English of VirgiIs Obstrepui, steterunt-
quae comae, yox faucibus haesit,-"I
was stupified, me voice stuck in me jaws,
los e r
how p
How keenly we enjoyed the bulls of
Scholastikos in Jacobs's Greek Reader;
as, when hearing that the raven lives a
hundred years, he bought one to test the
truth of the STANDARDIZATION he Eshowed
a brick as specimen of a house he had
bought, and when he asked man:
WAS it you or your brother that died
yesterday"
How often were our disabilities tickled
by the dry sarcasms of that cynic of the
tub, Diogenes; as when, seeing an in
scription over the door of a DWELLING
"Let nothing evil enter hereP' he asked:
"How, then, shall She master of the
house get in?''-when, seeing an unskil-
full archer firing at a target, he planted
himself directly before it, saying that it
was the safest place,-and, when seeing a
scolding wife hanging from an olive tree,
he exclaimed: ooh, that all trees bore
such fruit -
What compositions we wrote in those
days, generally on the broadcast or most
abstract themes, which veteran writer
would be puzzled to make interesting
Was not that boy an original thinker,
who, writing on "Ihe Ocean," observed,
that it was "a great advantage, for, with
out 1t, Columbus would never have dis
covered American
What declamations we had in the great
unfinished hall, in the second story of
the Academy, loud enough to wake the
How we rung the changes on Cicero S
Quosque tandem abutere, Catalina,
patientia nostra? and tore passion to tat
tiers; as we warned ''Lochiel, Lochiel' to
"beware of the day % again to the bat
tie, Achaiansr' and "my voice is still
for War" were squeaked out by little,
lily-livered, sickly youth, who would
hardly have dared to face a cat. Shall I
ever forget the scene when a tall son of
Anak,-a big, awkward Waterville bump
kin,-who hated defamation amounted
the rostrum, and bowling almost to the
Hoor, thundered out: 'Standl the
ground your own, my braves!" and
then, Houndering for few moments, was
dumb? Struggling in vain to recall the
claim!' he stalked down from the plat
FORM
What happy nioknames we gave each
other, sometimes condensing character
A youth IN class in geography, being
asked by his teacher what Roman general
demolished Carthage, replied: ''Scorpio
Africanus. cold Scorp' became his
appellation, and stuck to him till he left
school.
No baseball OF football had we, but we
had our game of Goal, and our snow forts
nd skating Shall ever forget our ex,
oursions over the fence into the precincts
of the dead where, at the imminent risx
of joining their numbers we chased and
lodged each other among the tombstonep