The Lexington progress. (Lexington, Tenn.) 1884-current, 1921-07-22
ANOTHER WHO LIVES IN THE
PAST"

Judge W. H. Lancaster,
Lexington, Tennessee.
My Dear Teacher
1t may appear strange to you for
me to address you in this manner at
this date, but | never think of school
or talk of school but what my mind
runs back to the time you taught me
in the little schoolhouse" in SCOTS
Hill Other teachers have taken in
terest in their pupils and you took in
terest in different ones of your pu-
pills, but no teacher ever took more in
terest in one pupil than you did in me.
Why you did it | do not know, for
could never feel that | deserved the
especial attention that | received
from you while in your school. The
days that spent in that school are as
fresh on my mind as if the school
had closed yesterday. | remember
many of the sentences you gave me
to diagram; | remember my mistakse
in trying to diagram these sentences.
| remember how you taught US our
first lesson in History. 1t was you
that introduced Ridpath's HieteYv
one of the best Of the United States
ever written. 1t was you that put It
into my mind to study the history Of
my own country and then the rest Of
the world. After | left school, | gave
about Is years of my off hours in the
study of history, and when asked why
| gave so much attention to that i'm
portant study, | always told them it
was you who started me. You also
taught me to love good literature and
started me on that study also.
One of the things that stand out
before me more precious than any
other one event in all my life is this:
On the day after your school closed
in SCOTS Hill | had not yet gone
to my home, little blue-eyed, light
haired girl came up from Decaturville
to visit girl friend of hers in SCOTS
Hill. saw her for the first time as
she drove down the main street in
this little town. She attracted my at
tention in way that no young lady
ever had before. | at once asked who
she was and | was told that it was
Miss Bette p. Roberts, from Decatur
vile, and | want to say here that it
was she that took up the work with
me where you left off. So you see
there are many fond memories that
still linger in my mind when | think
of you and that school that you taught
in SCOTS Hill, which closed in June,
1886.
But those boys and girls of yours
have separated. They have moved to
different states. Many of them have
been called to the Beyond and are
sleeping beneath the sod. Francis
Brawley and Woodward Holmes, two
of my classmates have been called
away and are numbered with those
who sleep.
If you and | should go down to dear
old Scots Hill together and you should
call the roll again as | have so often
heard you do it, there would be but
few to answer, and those who did
answer would not have that same
young look on their face they did the
last time you called the roll. They
would not talk in the light hearted
way that they did the last time you
called the roll, but they would tell you
of the companion that they lost some
years ago. Others would tell you of a
dear little child they had lost and still
others would tell you of a sweet
little grandchild of theirs which had
passed to the Beyond.
If we should walk over this little
town together we would find that
most all of the fathers and mothers
of your pupils had passed to the Be-
you'd.
Suppose that you and | were in that
little town together and suppose that
someone had preserved that dear old
bell, with which you so often called
US together, and suppose we should
hear 1t ring, just as it did the last
time you called US together with it.
would cry-what would YOU do?
Hoping that you viii be one of the
lawyers that viii meet with US on
next Thursday. ard that | will have
the privilege of taking you to my
home where my two daughters may
have the privilege of meeting you and
talking with their fathers teacher.
who they have so often heard about.
am,
Your friend,
W. W. POWERS.
Judge Powers is but one among the
public men OF Tennessee, who We're
pupils of Judge ". H. Lancaster. for
Tr11ra nach,,ar ~ the State c.