The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-18
THE OLD "GUNNERY DAYS.
RECOLLECTIONS OFA ONCE FAMOUS B0YS' SCHOOL IN CONNECTICUT.
ISindliness and Peculiarities of the Master, Frederick William Gunn- Some Original Punishmcnts.


 Master, Frederick William Gunn- Some Original PunIshmcnts,
 In the pretty little town of Washing ton, Conn.,, among the Litchfield Hills, says the New York Tribune, there still exists a boys school which during the years from 1850 to 1881 was famous throughout the state for the peculiar genius and forceful character of Its master, Frederick William Gum. Af- ter Mr. Gunn's death in 1881, at the age of sixty-five, large number of his old pupils came together and testified to the love and respect in which they held him by forming the Gum Memorial as- sociation. This association erected a monument to the memory of the master and published a beautiful quarto vol tune of recollections of the school, writ ten by various "old boys" and illustrat- ed by William Hamilton Gibson, who was one of them. The title of the book was "The Master of the Gunnery."
 In it's early years the school was not known by this quaint title, but received it later from some of the old graduates who never ceased to feel a deep inter- est in the homelil1e place where they had spent many happy years The Gun nery is still a boys boarding school, with few pupils, as in the old days, but since MT. Gunn's death it has lost it's moving spirit and no longer differs greatly from the average institution of the kind. In looking over the pages or the memorial volume there are to be found so many interesting stories of the Gunnerv and it's methods that it is well worth while to recall some of them here, and thus gain an idea of the man to whom hundreds of Connecticut boys, now grown to manhood, owe their early educational training.
 Minimum of Government.
 It was always the firm belief of the master of the Gunnery that the best form of school government would be se- cured when there was actually as little government as possible on his part. To teach his boys self-control and respon- sibility for their own actions was his constant principle. He regarded his school in the light of miniature re- public, the pupils being the citzens. In accordance with this idea, each was en- titled to have a share in the govern ment, and close relations of mutual confidence were established between teachers and boys. MT. Gums principle of a liberal, kindly discipline prevented any of the ''nagging" supervision and multiple cast-iron rules which were common enough in other schools of the day. and which, unfortunately, have not yet altogether disappeared. He did not interefere in the boys affairs, eX- cept in cases where it became clearly his duty to do so, and no youngster ever asked for any reasonable privilege in vain. He recognized the necessity, in many instances, for allowing boys to settle their disputes in fair and open fight Even swearing, though he strong ly disapproYed of it, he condoned on a few occasions, as, for example, when he chanced one day to overhear one of the larger boys roundly cursing another for a series of petty annoyances to which the latter had persisted in subjecting him. The master, instead of making his presence known to the two, quietly stole away from the place, and, recog- nizing the justice of the swearer's prov ocation, permitted the matter to pass without notice. There were some ob- jections, of course, to the 'let alone system, and MT. Gum knew these as well as any one, but his opinion was that it's many advantages far more than made up for it's defects
 The Chief Objects of Education.
 The central objects of a boys edu- cational training, he believed, should be the cultivation of manliness, moral courage and fine physique-he set the development of character far above the mere training of the intellect. As con- sequence, perhaps, of this, the average of scholarship in the school was not high. There was no system of graded marks to create rivalry among the pu- pills, and the school did not prepare boys for college Mir. Gum detested the "cramming" process by which a pupil was enabled to pass entrance examin- ations. He taught his boys in the way he thought best suited to bring out their highest qualities, and without refer ence to what might be required of them later at college.
 His method of teaching the classics was Orlglnal. III a boy can once feaQ the text fiuently and correctly" he said, .'the syntax will come of itself.' Train ed under this system, his pupils could frequently recite and give a graceful translation of pages of Homer or Vir- gil, without being able to answer one half of the ordinary questions of gram mar which most teachers would pro- pound in the course of the reading. This state of things was sometimes rather inconvenient when the boys came later under hard-and-fast col lege requirements, but their unusual fiuency at translation generally carried them through in safety. The ability to read aloud in English, correctly and musically, was considered so desirable by the master that he taught it to the whole school for an hour each day. The text book was usually either Shake speare or Scott, and the pupils were able to recite page after page of Mar mion'' and "The Lady of the Lake, by heart. Often on his way through the hall to the schoolroom MT. Gum would begin reeiting aloud from some part of one of these poems, and as soon as he came near enough for the boys to catch Jis words they took up the lines and