The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-11-18


 and there pet him until he forgot his grief in sleep. Meanwhile lessons were heard as usual just as though the mas ter of the Gunnery were not playing nurse as we'll as teacher. ....
 Among the most amusing recollec- tions of the Gunnery are those Of the droll punishments which the master in vented for curing his boys of minor faults. Instead of the ordinary school penances he devised grotesque reme- dies of his own, which were effectual because they impressed themselves on the memories of the boys who once eX- perienced them. A lad who persisted in being unreasonably noisy and rough might be sent out to take brisk walk of three or four miles or to run around the chruch on the green ten or dozen times, sounding at each corner blast on the tin dinner-horn, Pounding log with heavy club and pulverizing brick were other cures for supertluous energy Occasionally, working upon an other theory; the noisy boy might be made to sit still and hold a chip in his mouth for an hour. If the master caught two small boys fighting when he considered the provocation had not been sufficient to warrant a resort to blows, he would order them to take turns at sitting in each others lap for an hour or two. Needless to say, this compulsory attitude of affection was highly distasteful to the young bellig- erents, and led them to resolve never to invite it again.
 A Cure for likeness.
 Plugging trees was form of punish ment in great vogue in the case of idle boys The youngster whose laziness prevented him from studying in the classroom repented of his wasted time when he was sent outdoors to stand with his arms stretched around the trunk of a great oak or elm for stated period. One of the townspeople Of Washington tells of an occasion when coming to place where the road fork ed near the school, h. found the sign post being embraced in anything but a sentimental way by a most unhappy looking Gunnery boy, whose only reply to sympathetic questions was, I'm a poor miserable sinner" This was the penitential formula prescribed by the master as an answer to possible ln- quiries.
 Several boys who had been guilty of stealing apples from a neighboring or chard were once required to draw up a formal address of apology, to bear this to the owner of the orchard and to de- liver it humbly, upon their knees. A clumsy little lad, noted throughout the school for his awkwardness, who had for the second time killed young chicken by stepping on it, had to wear the bird suspended from string around his neck for an entire day. MT. Gum had once cured dog of killing chickens by adopting this method, and he evidently thought it ought to work equally well with boy Cruelty to ami mals was never allowed, and a young culprit convicted one day of stoning the cows was sent that evening into the barnyard to deliver a penitential ora tion in loud voice to the assembled herd.
 Thus, if there were space, story after story like these, related by the former Gunnery boys, might be retold here. There was the incident of the dirty boy, who was sent to the washerwoman with instructions to offer her a quarter for washing him up properly-if she were willing for so small a sum to un- dertake so large a contract! Then there was the time of the epidemic of sham illness, invented to escape lessons, but bitterly regretted when the master or dered each of the invalids to receive a good dose of boneset from Mrs. Gum, and then to go straight to bed.
 For a final specimen of the Gunnery punishments-and one which, moreover, illustrate the kindly nature of the mas ter-may be mentioned an occasion when a caller, approaching the house, saw MT. Gum sitting upon the piazza holding in his lap little fellow whose mouth was securely bandaged up. Has he a toothache?" asked the sympathet- ic visitor. "Oh, mo-" replied MT. Gum calmly, "but his mouth is disabled so that he cannot speak the truth, and we are trying to see if this will cure it." Lying, in fact, was to the master s mind the worst sin of which his boys could be guilty. He punished it often- times with considerable severity, and if he found, as occasionally happened, that he could not break boy of the habit, he dismissed him from the school. Drinking and smoking he held in great ahhorrence as well, and seized every opportunity to point out their evil effects to his pupils.