The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-13
THE OLD SCHOOL-MAST,ER.

In this edition an effort has been
made to get some word about as many
of the old time school teachers as pos
sible, preferably from those who knew
and were taught by them. In the old
years the number of these quaint and
worthy pedagogues was legion. OF
course there were many whose work
has been done So quietly that 1t has
been forgotten, albeit it yet endures in
the lives of the boys they taught and
in their descendants. Others, yet liv-
ing, are too modest to write them
selves and no one of their pupils has
been reached ..t
In the history of the State there has
been no finer class than that of the
old fashioned master, nearly always a
man of force and striking personality,
frequently of the ripest scholarship
and highest order of ability. In the
beginnings of popular education they
did a grand work in preparing the
rough ground. They led hard lives
under hard conditions. They labored
in poverty at a calling which returned
them but a scant reward for their
work They followed their faith with
a noble unselfishness which in the end
has justified the inspiration which
prompted it,
BY reason of his picturesqueness, of
the tales and traditions of his methods
that have been handed down from
generation to generation. the old-time
teacher has come to seem in popular
imagination an uncouth and an inlet
tered character, product of primitive
days. That conception is only partly
true. AS a matter of fact these teach
ers of a by-gone time held among
them souls of mighty flight. In their
administration, they faced a people
who were not used to education, who
did not understand it's necessity. AS
a consequence the teacher was poorly
paid as a sort of experiment on the
youth. Once in his school he was fair
game for any who cared to engage In
the contest. The boys he taught were
rude, strong, in many cases, men. Thelr
attitude towards the teacher was one
of traditional hostility. Such learn
ing as they got was put into them
willy-nilly by the force of the master
of the school. Naturally the old-time
pedagogue was made of stern stuff.
Otherwise he could not have held his
school. He was hard hitter, a plain
talker, a man without shams or pre-
tensions That he should have faith
fully followed such life and done
the great work that he did, showed
that he had heard the message and
followed it with an eye single to
high purpose.
One hears of the cruelty" of these
old teachers. Ask any man who was
taught by one of them his opinion of
the old master Invariably. as the
forgotten scenes and incidents of his
boyhood crowd back into his mem
ory, there will come at first a look Oh
amusement into his face, he. will tell
some quaint joke illustrative of the
"old mans" eccentricities and his re-
collections will end always on note
of admiration and affection for the
man he swore in his youth to kill when
he grew up-with almost down right
tenderness at the thought of the cruel
pedagogue who had so often tanned
his hide" Great old times, those"
he will say. and you can watch the
summer shining through the years of
toll and trouble at the thought of the
log house and the square jawed man
with the hickory.
Nos the old master was not cruel.
He was usually a severe man, unf1inch-
ingly just. He knew that he could
not do his work without discipline,
and he accommodated the character
of his discipline to the material on
which he worked. He gave himself
unsparingly and added to the good
in the world an unmeasured part.