CHAPTER V

I Become A "Scholar" In The Kenosha Public Schools

The first home of the Davison family in Kenosha was the parsonage of the Congregational Church, then experiencing a change of pastors. To this house father had been referred by Mr. F. W. Lyman, his old friend. It was located on Market, now Fifty-Sixth Street,--site obliterated by civic centre project. The fact that on this same street, about two blocks away, lived some old Paris neighbors, may have caused my parents to favor this place. They have all been mentioned in previous chapters. Mr. and Mrs. O. P. Hale had preceded us in migration to town, as had the family of Courtland A. Dewey and Delina Hale Dewey, the latter a beloved friend of mother. In passing, I will add that the only son of the latter, C. Ernest Dewey, who served as assemblyman from Kenosha in 1929, was then seven years old. Mr. Dewey had started in the hardware business in Kenosha.

My father, still crippled as previously related, was able to get about with the aid of two canes. Leaning upon these, he could move his feet slowly and painfully, and thus make progress forward, but the movement could hardly be called walking. He enjoyed meeting his old Kenosha friends and read much of the time.

The school building was only a block away from our first home. That historic old structure,1 which had been "dedicated on July 30, 1849, and opened the next day," was seventy feet long and forty-three feet wide and had on each floor a large assembly room fifty feet by forty feet, and two recitation rooms. The first annual report of September 1, 1849 says that it was valued at $5,000. Near by was a smaller building which was completed in 1856, and was known as "the new building," even when it was falling to decay and was still "the new building" when it was pulled down. After 1856 its predecessor, completed seven years before, lost its dignified appellation of "the brick edifice," and was referred to in the records and in common parlance as "the old brick building."

As soon as we were settled, mother began getting us ready to go to school. But these preparations were not elaborate--one dress apiece for four of us, those for the younger girls being "made over" ones inherited from older sisters. We listened to the school bell sounding from its belfry, and rather dreaded the time when we, too, like the children trooping by, must go when the "first bell" would ring for us.

That the time came on a January morning in 1869, and mother went with us. Hannah, Carrie, and I were all enrolled a scholars in the classes of Grammar Room No. 2; Isabel, my youngest sister, became a scholar in the primary grade in the "new building" whose erection has been previously mentioned.

When the Davison girls entered the old brick building, it had done service for twenty years, and deserved the epithet of "old" which circumstances had imposed upon it while it was still new. The upper floor had then, as always, a large assembly room. At the south end were the recitation rooms, each entered from the hall by a narrow door. But the lower floor had undergone considerable remodeling to "accommodate it to the system of separate departments," the grading of pupils having in 1859 succeeded the first ungraded school assemblage of younger scholars. The grammar school which we entered occupied the entire north end of the lower floor and would seat about fifty pupils. It had two large windows to the east and to the west, and was entered from the hall by a door near the southeast corner. Grammar school girls entered the building by a middle door, and the boys by a west door. The coats and caps of boys, and the hoods, scarfs, and wraps of girls were hung on hooks on opposite sides of the hall--an arrangement that made us country children feel, on that winter day, quite at home, as did certain out-of-door accommodations located between the two buildings. The latter differed only in extent, though little in condition, from those we had known in the district school.

It was not, however, the big building, or the resounding bell, that impressed me most on that memorable morning--it was the teacher. The crowds of staring children through which we had passed (and no doubt we were somewhat of a sight!) had embarrassed and scared me, but in the presence of Anna E. Gillett, I was awed. In charge of that roomful of boys and girls was a little woman very pale and frail looking, who spoke in a low voice, through dry, almost immobile lips. She wore a purple dress of soft wool fabric, and according to the fashion of the day, it was full-skirted and moderately well-crinolined. It had a white collar, and white lace showed beyond the edges of the wide sleeves. About her neck was a heavy, gold rope chain to which a small gold watch was attached. She wore a plain gold ring, also heavy, which played back and forth on her finger between joints. Her blonde hair was in curls reaching to her shoulders. Also, according to the fashion of the day, her waist was drawn in to a small compass and tightly belted--the common wasp, evidently, and not Venus of Melons being then ideal for such physical features. (Please don't charge the twelve-year-old girl with the pedantry of the letter allusion.) Miss Gillett wore the smallest shoes I had ever seen on adult feet. I was greatly impressed with it all. Now I can see that with a considerable streak of vanity in her make-up, she furnished a rather extreme example of the enslaving, unhygienic fashions of that day, when stiff corseting and tight lacing and shoeing, caused the victims of these fashions to be more appropriately compared, in grace, agility, and freedom, to a modern robot than to the young women of this untrammeled generation.

When my mother returned home and was asked by father how things had gone at the school, her reply was that she had never before seen such a white, sickly looking person trying to teach school; and she wondered whether it was really right for children to be taught by her. To the young Davisons, Miss Gillett was awful--in the literal and not in the colloquial sense of that word and this feeling was evidently shared by the other pupils. Hers was a very orderly school according to the strict standards of the day. When in a low tense voice she said "Joseph!" or "Thomas!" or "William!" Joe, Tom, and Bill immediately stopped the performance that had elicited the warning--usually the very serious school offense of whispering--and became intent upon their books, not even venturing a side glance or the return of a cautiously administered kick.

The methods used in recitations and the direction of our studies were not exceptional, and practices similar to those experienced under Miss Gillett were already familiar from our country school days. To recite meant to repeat the words of a book; to study meant to commit to memory words for such a recitation. The one who possessed the best word-memory was the most satisfactory pupil. With commendable obedience her pupils memorized whole pages of history and geography without much thought about the reality of the places, people, and events described. It was in these studies that my father was such a help to us. There had to be much home study, and he would have us recite our lessons in geography to him, when out of his great fund of experience he would relate associated incidents or tell us something he had read. In grammar he heard us recite the definitions; in arithmetic he drilled us on the tables.

In school we had mental arithmetic--an excellent training in concentration. We also had to write out in full sentences the explanation of problems in arithmetic--statement, solution, conclusion, with "if," "since," and "therefore," in their proper places. I think now that the mental arithmetic and the written explanations were about the best things I got out of that term. Although at first the written solutions were copied, there finally developed an understanding of the thought back of this logical language, and thus it was conducive to independent arithmetic thinking. Exact word-for-word from may have been unduly stressed, but there can be no question about the value and the need of training in exact expression of thought. A child had made some advancement in thinking when he can see why it is wrong to say "If there are three feet in a yard," and permissible to say "If a man sells his wheat for a dollar a bushel." Whether or not Miss Gillett realized that through insistence upon truthfullness of expression, arithmetic becomes a means to character-training, I do not know; and if she did not, she was, in this lack of knowledge and consequent carelessness of expression permitted, like unto a great majority of the teachers of arithmetic whom I have since observed, even trained ones. It has long been my belief, and there may be among my readers one or more of my former teachers-in-training who remember it, that through arithmetic rightly taught, there may be fixed in children's minds, besides a working knowledge of numbers, and training in concentration, lessons in truth, honesty, and accuracy; and that by patient practice insisted upon generally, there may thus be strengthened the very warp and woof of character. It is not necessary to leave this to be done by higher mathematics, which so many pupils never reach, and I know of no better way to make arithmetic accomplish this valuable and desirable end than the full, truthful, carefully expressed, written explanations which this teacher required.

But this was composition, and the fault I have to find with it, is that it was not considered composition of an argumentative sort. Had it been so considered, much good would have resulted to both arithmetic and composition. Besides that, I would have been saved much tribulation of spirit. But written composition, according to the standards of that time, was a very different thing. It did not pertain to practical affairs. Children then had to write "essays"--erudite stuff beyond and outside of their natural interest and abilities. While near at hand boys and girls had a world of familiar objects about which they might have expressed their own thoughts, they were expected to write on a general subject like "The Beauties of Nature," or on an abstract subject such as "Kindness." When daily they played games, did or watched work, and saw many happenings, the narration or description of which would have stimulated real effort and developed genuine self-expression, they were required to write on "The Battle of Bunker Hill," or some allied subject.

I well remember my first real essay writing experience. I have the product still, which my mother evidently considered such an interesting thing, probably because of associated circumstances, that she preserved it and gave it to me many years after. It did, in one sense, mark a sort of crisis in my young life. This is the story of it, with some added comments, pedagogical and otherwise.

The school had Friday afternoon exercises, consisting chiefly of the reading of essays and "speaking of pieces." These rhetorical exercises were not left to the discretion of the teacher, but were required by a ruling of the school board to take place after recess on Friday afternoon. They were regarded as important, but they were not to interfere too much with the regular work.

In the course of events it became my turn to produce an essay. A command, today, for me to write a poem in Latin would hardly seem more appalling. The two weeks allowed me for its production were spent in unsuccessful attempts and in worry. The idea that a child might be encouraged to write about something in his experience, as I have already said, was "away in the offing"; while the still more modern idea that it is the duty of the teacher to help him find that something and, in preparation for writing, express orally his thoughts upon it, had not yet touched the pedagogy of composition work. I recall that my parents, who towards the end of my allotted time became involved in my misery, although the word "pedagogy" had probably never been heard by them, did very sensibly say, "Write about the first train of cars you ever saw, or about your visit to Chicago," but their suggestions were tearfully and somewhat scornfully rejected. Hadn't I heard, at school, what essays were! Finally, on a certain Friday afternoon, Miss Gillett told me that the essay due without fail on the following Monday morning. Saturday was joyless; Saturday night almost sleepless; Sunday a day of ceaseless worry by which the family were all more or less affected, and not in all cases sympathetically so.

We had that Sunday, as a guest a young woman who seemed to have some idea of what sort of a composition a child like me might be expected to produce. She was Miss Josephine Furman, a sister of Mrs. N. A. Pennoyer, and a beloved friend of the family. My parents had known her at the Pennoyer Water Cure. She was a woman of unusually attractive personality, of versatile talent, including readiness with her pen. Incidentally, I will add, she was charming in conversation, and for many years, although a semi-invalid, was a source of entertainment at the great new, north-side Pennoyer Sanitarium, where she resided until her death in 1916. In connection with that place she will be remembered by many who knew that popular and very excellent health resort.

She had known me for rotund, pink-calicoed childhood. Her first glimpse of me, when she visited our farm some years before, she often told me, had left that color-form impression. On that Sunday in the spring of 1869, she took pity on me and came to the rescue; or perhaps she wanted to get rid of my dejected presence. So after dinner she offered to help me and said she would write a composition just to show me that an easy thing it was to do.

In an astonishingly short time the wonderful feat was performed! She handed the paper to me, and I retired with it to the kitchen. It covered one page of common-sized note paper and was entitled "My First Ripe Cherries." It was a story, somewhat flowery in spots, about a child who had been watching some cherries ripen for several days. She planned to surprise her mother with them. It told how "One morning just as old Sol was peeping over the hills," she rose and hastened to the orchard only to see a "saucy robin flying away with the last of her ripe cherries." I pondered over this product of Miss Furman's pencil with very mixed feelings. Was this an essay? Barring some expressions, it seemed similar to what father had suggested and I had rejected.

My good friend had probably not anticipated the use I decided to make of her sample composition. If I had only had the sense to take my cue from it and had written about a real experience, I would have escaped an act disastrous to my self-respect. But Monday morning was very near, and I dared not face Miss Gillett without an essay. So I copied the little story, naturally misspelling several words (this and some extra "ands" being the only original features), modified a little a clause about my "sick mother," which didn't seem to fit, but kept "old Sol," also something about the "refreshing dew" and the "night fairies" and handled the paper in, properly folded according to directions.

On Tuesday afternoon Mary Davison was asked to stay after school. In fear and trembling she did so, knowing intuitively that the essay was the cause. Holding out my little paper, she said, "Mary, did you write this?" And Mary answered, "Yes, ma'am." There was a pause. Mary glanced up to catch a penetrating look from Miss Gillett and a peculiar expression (could it have been a smile?) about her mouth, as she said in a low voice, "It is very good. See to it that your work of this sort in the future is as good." On the back of the paper is the mark the teacher placed there over sixty years ago, "100"--a compliment to Josephine Furman, but not contributing then much to my happiness. Did she really think I had told the truth, or did she know I had not? If the latter, it was certainly kind of her to spare me further questioning.

I tried to balm my conscience by thinking that my answer would have been different had Miss Gillett asked me if I had "composed" the essay. The suggestion of this quibbling to my father caused him to shake his head--no comfort there!

Then, on the following Friday, I had to read the thing to the school, which was a very brief, but very terrifying experience for the timid, bashful, country girl. But there resulted, I think, a little benefit from it all. I never again felt quite such a dread of essay writing. But the excellent send-off in the fiction line which Miss Furman had given me took on no momentum in that direction. I adopted the usual custom of choosing a regular bookish subject and perpetrated erudition.

When I became a pupil in the Kenosha public schools, the superintendent2 was Anthony Van Wyck, a prominent lawyer of the city, a man of superior culture and impressive presence. The principal of the high school was W. D. Hicks, whose supervision of lower grades was only nominal, and of whom I remember nothing except his reputation for being a poor disciplinarian. This probably mean that he was less given to the use of the rod than his predecessor had been.

Besides visiting schools and examining teachers, the superintendent served as clerk of the board.

Among the duties of the superintendent was that of examining all pupils for promotion. In this he was sometimes assisted by the principal of the high school. The old records occasionally give the names of the pupils examined for promotion to the high school. And so in my quest for other facts, I chanced upon a bit of personal history. It was in the report of a special meeting of the board held September 14, 1869. The lateness of the date seems to indicate that after the opening of the schools, it was found desirable to have more pupils in the high school than those added by the regular June promotion, which had put my older sister, Hannah, and her class there. The record says that the superintendent reported that he had examined several scholars for special promotion and that they had passed the examinations as indicated. Then came the names of nine girls and four boys with their standings in the special examination. Clarence Walker came out ahead with a mark of 88. M. Dodge, now Mrs. Medora Dodge Gammon of Chicago, and E. Thiers, (Edward C. Thiers of Pasadena, California), follow with 76, and L. Wood, now Mrs. Louise Wood Van Wyck of Pasadena, California, with 72. I feel sure that these will forgive me, should they ever chance upon this very personal disclosure, which seems the only appropriate approach to what follows. C. Davison, my sister Carrie, is credited with a 70, and M. Davison, myself, with 67 2/4. Below the list is a statement which says that on motion it was voted that all who had passed 70 per cent and had the legitimate studies3 might pass from grammar school to high school. This is followed by the signature of A. Van Wyck, clerk.

I remember nothing about the examination but recall that I needed some consolation after results were made known. But it was a lucky day for me when I got that 67 2/4 and was destined by it to continue in the grammar school, where another teacher succeeded Miss Gillett, she having been promoted to the high school.

This seems the appropriate place for comment on the latter. She was, I think now, a rather unusual woman. Keen in intellect, ambitious, and of indomitable will, she forged ahead in spite of the handicap of poor health. A graduate of the Kenosha high school in 1862, her name appears in 1864 upon the pay roll of the Kenosha school board, as receiving $225 for forty weeks, the regular pay then and for many years after for primary teachers. In 1865 in the regular annual examination given teachers by a committee of the school board, Anna Gillett won the highest standing and got another raised of $25. The advancement in pay was $25 a year until she got into the grammar school and received $450. When I came to know her, she was getting $500. These facts are included as possibly having some historic interest.

She came of educated parents. Her father, Gurdin Gillett, came to Kenosha in the early fifties and held different public offices for many years. The "Gillett School" on the north side commemorates his service on the school board. In Anna's work as teacher, she undoubtedly had been obliged to handle large schools.4 Here we may have revealed another cause of her broken health, since the excessive strain on a conscientious young woman to create a school out of a mob of children was enough to do that.

Her reputation as a successful teacher rested largely on her ability to keep an orderly school; she had the ability to put on in the school room a presence that inspired fear in her pupils. This was probably one of the chief causes of her successive promotions. When she came to deal with older pupils, sarcasm was a ready and frequently used weapon, and incidents of cutting ridicule are remembered. She seemed to like me, and she certainly favored me; but candor moves me to say that as a pupil under her I never thought of her as a real human being, but as a distinct and different someone to be obeyed, feared, and avoided as much as possible. Of course, her pupils learned, but they were not left in love with learning, which is the real measure of success in a teacher. Those of independent spirit rebelled against this martinetism and brought their school days to a close as soon as possible. There were no compulsory attendance laws in those days to oblige them to attend school; only the clear vision of some future good held them voluntarily, or the authority of the home held them involuntarily in school, but frequently the former was lacking, and the latter was weak.

Now what justification can I present for this long dissertation on one teacher? My chief reason for singling her out for special comment is that she represents one of the two types under which teachers may be classified. She represented the formal, Procrustean type, who may be briefly described as "Purveyors of Information." They are "knowledge-centered." This type was doubtless more frequently found in the days of which I am writing than now, forced into it, perhaps, by the mass teaching they had to do. I regret to say, however, that the species is not extinct. They are more likely to be found in secondary than in elementary schools. Institutions higher than secondary schools are known to harbor this type, who there, as sometimes in secondary schools, not only wield the weapon of sarcasm, but use the sharper, more deadly one of ridicule--the mutilating implements of the Procrustean process. As these memoirs proceed, readers may find me alluding to this sort of teacher, and to the other one about whom I will now tell you.

I have previously said somewhere in this chapter, that it was a lucky thing for me to get that mark of 67 2/4. It gave me the opportunity to come under the influence of a teacher of the other type. She was not a martinet, her eyes were not fixed on the matter of instruction, with the dominating aim of making children indiscriminately take that course--she was not a mere "Purveyor of Information"; but she was one whose eyes were on the children, who thought of studies as a means to an end, and whose aim, therefore, was to cause the course of study, by adaptation and method of teaching, to minister to individual needs, or to find matter of instruction that would do so. Her type may be designated as "Developers of Souls." Her work was "child-centered."

The teacher of this second type, whom I had in the Kenosha grammar school in 1869-1870, was Millie S. Norton. Where Superintendent Anthony Van Wyck discovered her is not known. I find that the board voted, probably in anticipation of difficulty in school control, to employ a man to succeed Miss Gillett, but a man did not appear--the salary, doubtless, not being attractive to men. Anyway, when school opened in the fall of 1869, Miss Norton was there, a real human being, who treated her boys and girls as such. I do not recall that there was any difficulty with discipline. We immediately recognized her as a friend, instead of "a natural enemy" and acted accordingly. I imagine how completely she would have sympathized with James Whitcomb Riley's hired man, who is made to say: I believe all children's good,
Ef they're only understood,
Even bad ones, 'pears to me,
'S jes' as good as they kin be!

She evidently had an appreciation of real educational values and brought to us children a memorable educational experience outside the regular routine of studies. It seems worth telling about. My gratitude to her for it has grown with the years. She taught us some great poems and by repetition fixed them indelibly in my memory and, I trust, in the memory of all of my schoolmates. One of these was the "Nineteenth Psalm." This was before the time when the reading of such great literature, a part of everybody's spiritual heritage, was decided by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin to be a violation of a part of Article X, Section 3, of the State Constitution, which prohibited sectarian instruction. The whole school of boys and girls standing would repeat in concert the sonorous words from "The heavens declare the glory of God" to the closing prayer so appropriate for youth.

So, also, Miss Norton, an excellent reader, taught us Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," all of it--thirty-two quatrain stanzas. Morning after morning we would stand and repeat as far as we had learned, then have explained and interpreted to us the next stanza, and proceed to incorporate that. Of course, it was not all understood then, but experience took care of that lack, as it alone can do. I wonder if to others of Miss Norton's pupils of that long ago time, this great poem has meant as much as it has to me, and has helpfully served them as often when the trials and duties of life beset them. Let me tell how far, on my pathway, "that little candle" threw its beams.

It was the appreciation of the value of such school exercises that influenced my own teaching of literature in high school classes for which, as former pupils have repeatedly told me, I am best remembered. An finally, my belief in the highly cultural and character-making effects of having some appropriate memorization work as an accompaniment of literature study, developed into a sort of pedagogic doctrine, which for sixteen years was promulgated in teacher training schools and in teachers' institutes in Wisconsin. But it must be considered now much outdated--at least I do not hear of its being done. While the light of modern psychology has revealed to me better ways of doing things than I then knew, and while I sometimes groan under the huge pack of my past pedagogical sins, the belief and practice in literature teaching I have just described, are not in that pack.

Other memories recalled by thoughts of Miss Norton are those of a party arranged by her. It took me, with my classmates, into the finest, most attractive home I had ever seen--the Frederick Robinson home--a beautiful daughter, Ida, being one of our classmates.

The other memory is that of a class play, given at the Kimball Opera House. This play must have represented nationalities, for my part in it was that of a little Dutch girl for which part I was probably considered well adapted. Well do I recall the many skirts, the cap, and the wooden shoes. Graceful, golden haired Hattie Brande, in Scotch costume, sang with appropriate action "The Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee" and made a great success of it. She is the only one I distinctly recall as participating in this little drama although I am sure many others took part. Trivial things these may seem, but each made its contribution to my education. Moreover, the play had decidedly practical results. The school board minutes say that it netted Miss Norton $58.50, which with $56.50 voted by the board, purchased an organ for the grammar school. That is the only mention made of this teacher except that of her resignation. Why she was moved to leave I do not know. There is a suspicion in my mind that by being ahead of her time, she may have shocked some conservative school official or patron.

I take out of its place on a special bookshelf a small, well-worn, fine print copy of Burns' Poems, Diamond Edition. On the flyleaf is the date "January 5, 1870," and the name "Millie S. Norton," with a brief note of presentation that caused my young heart to swell with pride and gratitude. She must have reciprocated my liking for her. On another flyleaf are the words "see p. 69." There is found the poem entitled "Epistle to a Young Friend," with the penciled words, "My favorite." You who are familiar with Burns' poems will remember how it goes, and if you don't, it will repay your search for it. Here is the first stanza:

I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend,
A something to have sent you,
Though it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind memento;
But how the subject-theme may gang,
Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps, turn out a sermon.

I read it and it became my favorite. Dear little book! How my invalid father enjoyed it--his own Scotch inheritance reacting warmly. Dear giver, and inspiring teacher!

It had become necessary for two months or more before the close of this school year for us to walk a mile to get to school. Father, with the urge upon him as strong as ever to work, to be busy at something, had bought a place just within the city limits on the west side of Kenosha, and the family had moved there in the spring. The new property consisted of three acres of land, with a pasture for his horse and cow; and orchard, and a garden. There was a barn and an old house. My mother seemed destined to make a home for her family out of a poor, old, inconvenient house, as she had done before in the country. But father found the desired occupation, always with much needed assistance from her, and he was happier than before. The owner of land adjoining us and just outside the city was Samuel T. Rice, a former resident of Paris. It was during the long summer vacation of 1870 or 1871 that I earned my first money by picking strawberries for a neighbor across the way, and picking raspberries for Mr. Rice, in which enterprises Carrie participated. We spent this money for a pretty white fabric, of which mother made us dresses. The experience was a good one, even though it did involve sunburn and scratches, for these soon wore off, and we had the satisfaction of being dressed like other girls at a coming Sunday School social.

Here I will say, that soon after settling in town my family affiliated with the Unitarian Church, being attracted there not only by its liberal religious teachings, with which my parents sympathized, but because old friends from Paris had already found there a congenial church home--the Bakers, Deweys, and Hales. Father was not able to go, but the others of us became very regular church attendants, and the children interested members of the Sunday School.

Now comes the next step in my advancement as a "scholar" in the Kenosha public schools. Here I will let the old record book of school board proceedings introduce the story. Under date of June 30, 1870, it says: "Scholars examined and promoted to the upper room from Grammar Room, [signed] J. B. Jilson, Supt." Standings are this time omitted (thanks due probably to the good judgment of the superintendent). There follows in separate columns headed "South Side" and "North Side," a total of thirty names; ten boys and eight girls from the former school, and ten girls and two boys from the latter. All but three of the names in this list recall distinctly these classmates, and this with a very mixed emotional reaction, as personal peculiarities, and miscellaneous incidents are imaged and come across the memory stretch of sixty years. According to present knowledge, all but four besides myself have experienced that final goal promotion to the great school beyond, which goal some reached early, others later, a few but recently. Yet I am not sad at the thought of it--not sad for them, but a little sorry for myself. It seems strange indeed, that it should have fallen to me to tell of those days--as strange, as it is at times difficult for me to believe that what I am telling about those old times will be interesting to readers today.

Nearly all of those named by Superintendent Jilson entered the high school in the fall of 1870. Since we found ourselves in that historic room, being the first free public high school assembly room in Wisconsin, I will tell something about it as it was in 1870. At the time of which I am now writing, 1870, the platform in the front end had been the rostrum from which at least twelve principals in succession had ruled the school, some for a short time, others for a period of years; on it had stood school orators of such great promise as Chauncy Baldwin, and of as distinguished achievement as Joseph V. Quarles, of whom Mrs. Addie Winslow Stewart5 of Evanston, now 89 years of age, wrote me under date of May 25, 1930, "Joe Quarles was one of my school boy friends-- we were always proud of his elocution." Another was George Warvelle, now a prominent Chicago lawyer. It had caught the vibrations from the trembling knees of many others undergoing their first platform performance; on it had sat the much-dreaded committees who, selected by the board, came according to custom to take part in the annual or semi-annual public examinations of high school classes.

Along the sides of this room on a raised platform extending its whole length, next the windows and blackboards, were benches for visitors. Once, so it is said, they were filled with members of the County Board of Supervisors, and of the Grand Jury, who came at the invitation of Principal Thomas J. Conatti to witness some special programs. Mrs. Jessie Nelson Luther of Madison, who was a "scholar" in the Kenosha high school at that time, and who wrote about it in 1891, says: "Think of it! 748 visitors during the first four weeks of a term, 211 visitors in one week!" And these, she says not for special exercises, but to observe school work. How teachers were able to do their work under these circumstances is difficult to understand.

The walls were decorated with busts and pictures--one of the former over every window, and of the latter, most of them steel engravings of historic events, in the spaces between, and on the front wall. And, a remarkable thing to observe in a school room, these pictures were hung low, as if it were really believed that they should be seen as nearly face to face as possible, and the names of them clearly visible without a step ladder or a spyglass! It interested me to know who did all this. I searched and found that in 1858 the school board voted to "loan the young men of the High School fifteen dollars to be expended, under the direction of the Superintendent and Principal in purchasing busts for the adornment of the High School room." The superintendent at that time was Michael Frank, and the principal, Thomas J. Conatti. Things out of the ordinary seem to have been happening! As to how the pictures came to be there, I cannot say, but I find that when Mr. Conatti left in 1862 to become a soldier in the Civil War, there was some discussion in the school board meeting about paying him for the pictures belonging to him in the high school room. Although the bill "was laid over," the pictures remained.

It was a beautiful room that the thoughtfulness of those early school officials, teachers, and pupils had created for the benefit and enjoyment of many, many successive classes in that high school. The room impressed me deeply and deserves mention in these memoirs, not only on account of its historic significance, but for its influence on young people. What if the busts were only plaster of Paris? Washington and Franklin (the only ones I recognized when I first gazed about the room), Milton, Shakespeare, Byron, Plato, Virgil were there, as true likenesses as if cut in marble; and there was also the bust of a woman, showing a strong, attractive countenance, not less interesting because no one seemed sure whom it protrayed--some thinking her Sappho, others Mrs. Browning. These busts and pictures were silent influences, as good, appropriately selected art always is, and to a child in my circumstance, they meant much. I am grateful that they were mine to gaze at.

The principal of the high school was H. O. Durkee, then in his second year in that position, he having succeeded the unfortunate Mr. Hicks in the fall of 1869--"unfortunate" because he, Mr. Hicks, had succeeded George S. Albee, who was principal from 1865 to 1868. Mr. Albee had built up in the public mind an ideal of efficiency very difficult for his successor to attain. Mr. Hicks had performed the very kind of service which many very worthy public officials have done, of letting down that ideal a little. He, as it were, "reduced the grade" and so caused Mr. Durkee's course to be somewhat easier, smoother and more secure.

There were two assistant teachers in the high school then, and one of these was Anna E. Gillett. At that time the principal had quite a full teaching program, as his supervising duties outside of high school were limited. The impression remains with me that I liked Mr. Durkee's classes. He was a quiet-voiced, scholarly man, an Easterner, I think. He had some peculiarities of phraseology, soon caught up and imitated by the pupils in their private comments, and of course, his initials immediately suggested his cognomen, "Hod." I had Miss Gillett as teacher in history again, and her methods had not changed. I was successfully "conditioned"--to use a Behaviorist term--against United States history.

Had I studied Latin, I would have had this teacher at her best; in that branch she was regarded as a great success. Her repute as a teacher of Latin finally won for her a place in one of Chicago's great high schools, where she taught this subject many years. She commuted week ends from there to her home in Kenosha while her aged parents lived.

Even to a very feeble old age this remarkable woman taught, until with all members of her family departed long before, she finally left the school room and was taken care of in the Pennoyer Sanitarium, where she died in 1914.

Now, going back to my high school days, there are two practices I desire to tell about. At the opening exercises in the morning Mr. Durkee always read a brief passage from the Bible and delivered a short extemporaneous prayer, to both of which pupils gave respectful attention. This had been the practice from the first, and it continued in this school and probably in many other Wisconsin schools until 1888.

At the end of the school day there were closing exercises. The roll was called, from A to Z, and each pupil was expected to respond by saying "perfect" or imperfect." By the former response the pupils declared, that during the school hours of that day, they had not communicated; by the latter word, "imperfect," that they had been guilty of doing that forbidden thing. Whether or not the term "communicated" connoted conversing with eyes, nudges, and kicks, as well as whispering and passing notes, I do not know. But I remember that frequently when "perfect" was the response of a boy or girl, there would be heard a very audible drawing in of breath in their respective vicinity, and that the perfect ones would advertise their joke to their neighbors by winks and sly looks. If this roll call were designed as a disciplinary measure, it certainly was a failure. Instead of making for self-control, it encouraged lawlessness and untruthfulness. The whole emphasis placed at that time on the seriousness of whispering as a school offense, seems so foolish to us today. Boys and girls knew that the act itself was not wrong, and there seemed to be no one to make it clear to them that it was the disturbance of right study conditions in the school room that was wrong and should stop-- a rational handling of the question that even very young children can readily understand, and one that is really conducive to self-control and regard for the rights of others; for even little children know what school is for.

Another practice which, however, was not left to the discretion of the principal, but which had been a school board regulation from early times, and seemed to be a highly prized prerogative, was that of having public examinations in the high school at the close of the term, which custom has already been mentioned. The examiners were members of the school board assisted by others invited in to participate in the performance , "scholarly laymen joining with the teachers in questioning classes." Ministers seemed to have been considered especially well qualified for the committee on classical languages, and doctors for that on the natural sciences. How the pupils dreaded those examinations! There on the front platform sat the dignified examiners, and on the side lines the relatives and friends to witness the ordeal. Such an examination in physical geography is still clear in my memory. Scared out of my wits, to a degree that rendered doubtful my ability to tell my own name if asked, I blundered on the questions asked me, with the consequent harrowing effects.

In my second year in the Kenosha high school there was a change of teachers. Miss Gillett failed of reëlection, and in her place came Mrs. Kate Deming Wheeler. The second assistant was a young man named V. V. Barnes.

Since I have previously described and named the two classes into which teachers may be divided--types they were called--and since I have taken some space to illustrate these types, especially the first one, the "knowledge-centered," it seems to me appropriate that Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Barnes, who like Miss Norton were of the other, the "child-centered" type, should received more than mere mention.

Mrs. Wheeler, born in 1839, was a daughter of one of the most distinguished and most loved of the early settlers in Southport, Rev. Reuben H. Deming. He was a Methodist lay minister with a strong missionary spirit. My first church-going in a schoolhouse in Paris, mentioned in a previous chapter, was occasioned by Elder Deming's coming into the country to preach. "Father Deming" as he was affectionately and familiarly called, was an abolitionist, and his home in Kenosha was a station on the "underground railroad" as was that of Deacon Quarles just across the park. The National Hotel on the north side was another station.

In passing I will say that both the Deming and Quarles homes, which were the scene of such thrilling events in the days of the anti-slavery agitation, are still standing in Kenosha, although removed from their original sites. Kenosha has not yet got around to the appreciation of these historic buildings. Kate Deming undoubtedly witnessed what was recently related to me by her niece, Mrs. Mary Martin Strong, who remembers the stories told by her mother, a stepdaughter of Elder Deming. This was the opening of a trap door covered by a rug in the sitting room, and seeing emerge from there a negro, who had come by the secret "underground" in the night, had been safely kept out of sight in the cellar and now came out, at some risk of being detected, to participate in the family devotions. The next night, or the next, there might come into the harbor a vessel whose captain was a trusted member of this secret organization, into whose care the negro would be put by Elder Deming, Deacon Quarles, or Mr. Bullen, whose hotel was nearest the harbor, and by this captain the escaping slave would be duly landed at a Canadian port.

Reuben H. Deming was from the first a friend of public education and after the arrival of Colonel Frank in 1840, was his strong supporter. His identity with the cause of the high school is shown by the derisive name, "Deming's Castle," applied to the building by the opponents of the free school cause. His name is perpetuated by a small school building. It is hoped that to those in Kenosha who read this, the name "Deming School" will now have a greater significance and suggestiveness.

Kate Deming was ten years old when the "new brick edifice" was completed, and became a scholar in the lower room. In the winter of 1851 she passed with others to the upper room, where John M. Coe was principal, and was there when John G. McMynn had charge from 1851 to 1853, and later. When she attended, the school was considered as consisting of individuals instead of classes. "There was nothing in the organization that prevented the development of the individuality of the pupil. Classification was subordinated to the ability and progress of the members," a plan of operation that is being recognized today in higher institutions and some school systems which have broken loose from the lock step, mass teaching plan long followed, notably Winnetka, Illinois.

We have no record as to when Kate Deming left the high school as a pupil, but find her teaching in that school in the fall of 1856. After two or more years she resigned to marry Jerome Wheeler, a druggist of the city. When she left, the following very significant resolution was passed by the school board. It is dated February 5, 1860, Resolved, that the faithfulness and devotion of Mrs. Wheeler to the best interests of this school since her connection with it, and the good influences she has imparted to the pupils with whom she has been associated, will be held in grateful remembrance by parents and scholars. [Signed] M. Frank, Clerk."

Mr. Wheeler died in 1866, leaving his widow with two small sons. While attending to their rearing, she opened a private school in her own home. It was very popular and was filled with the boys and girls of the first families, some of whom still living in Kenosha refer to this school with love and gratitude. She was repeatedly offered a position in the high school by the school board, but the salary paid was not enough. Finally, the board in 1871, when Joseph V. Quarles was the clerk and superintendent of schools, had the good sense to break with precedent and offer her the high salary of $700 and she accepted. Thus there came to the public school pupils again the privilege of knowing this exceptional teacher and this fine, impressive, ideal-shaping personality. I remember how she opened up vistas never dreamed of; how inspiring her classes in literature and English history were; how, conditioned as I had been against history, I now began to read and enjoy it. She justified the title "Soul Developer" which I have given teachers of her type.

The other assistant, V.V. Barnes, was a native of Kenosha County. He had made a reputation in the country schools, and the board was fortunate to secure his service as second assistant. His salary was $450 a year, the same as successful young women teachers in his place had received. I will say in passing that that school board seem to be deserving of special praise for paying Mrs. Wheeler what she demanded, the traditional belief then being that it is worth much more to have grammar, arithmetic, science, etc., taught in a bass voice than in a soprano voice. If, also, the importance of rare personality counted with them, greater be the praise!

Mr. Barnes was a man of fine character, and a good teacher. Under his treatment grammar took on a new aspect for me, and a right start in algebra was made. He did not rank with Mrs. Wheeler, but was too sympathetic and too kind not to be included in the class to which she belonged.

Before passing to my next topic, I desire t say that both of Mrs. Wheeler's sons, now deceased, became distinguished men. The elder one, Arthur D., was a prominent lawyer in Chicago, and president of the Chicago Telephone Company. The younger, Jerome Winthrop Wheeler, called in Kenosha "Win Wheeler," was a successful banker in St. Paul, Minnesota.

I did not have a full year's benefit of such excellent teaching as that of Mrs. Wheeler and Mr. Barnes, for in the spring of 1872 it was necessary for me to start out to earn my living. It seems to have always been a settled thing in the minds of my parents and of myself, that I would be a teacher. So in the spring of my second year in high school, it was decided that I should write for a teacher's certificate. The examination was held in Woodworth, the first station west of Kenosha on the Rockford branch of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. Hannah and Carrie, my older sisters, also planned to take the examination. It was April and the roads were impassable with mud and mire, so on Sunday we walked the six miles to Woodworth on the railroad track, and spent the night with the Barters, old friends of the family. The examination took place in the district school house. The subjects I wrote on were those prescribed by the law for a third grade certificate, namely, orthoepy, orthography, reading, penmanship, mental and written arithmetic, primary grammar, geography, United States history, civil government, theory and practice of teaching. My certificate bears the date of April 12, 1872, and is signed by T. V. Maguire. Properly qualified teachers must have been scarce, or superintendent would never have granted even a third grade--the lowest grade--certificate on such standings as are thereon recorded.

The story of this first experience as a school teacher will be postponed and given with that of the two following springs.

The fall of 1872 found me back in high school matured by the teaching experience, and with a new dress or two, which helped greatly. Mrs. Wheeler was still teaching, with Mr. Spence in the place of Mrs. Barnes. It took hard work to overcome the handicap caused by the loss of the spring term. But teachers and principal were patient and kind, and by dint of hard study I got pretty well caught up. Then the spring 1873 came, and I had to leave to take another examination and get another certificate and find another school.

When I returned in the fall of this, my last or senior year in high school, it was with the plan of remaining the entire year. With difficult new senior studies, catching up was a very discouraging experience, and when among the new books I had to buy, I encountered a thick black-covered one labeled Mental Philosophy, and found that my class was ready for solid geometry when my knowledge of plane geometry was very shaky, I was about ready to give up. But Mr. Durkee encouraged me to keep on and I did.

It was during that fall that I came to know another teacher, who I desire to mention, Miss Marie Bacot, niece of the rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church. She was very different from any I had as yet known. Well educated, cultured, vivacious, her French blood showing here, perhaps, with the manners and speech inflections of the South, she was a captivating person to me. She had none of the mannerisms that teachers unconsciously acquire; she had traveled, she was interesting. She had, I think, taught before, although not in a public school, and I recall how my ire rose when troublesome boys disturbed her by their conduct. I studied rhetoric under her with great enjoyment and profit.

The fall term ended, the holidays were over, and I had just started on my last lap when father was taken ill, as was also my sister Hannah. The doctor diagnosed the sickness as varioloid. The family was, of course, quarantined and my schooling was cut off. The disease was traced to a vacation occurrence. A woman with smallpox in its most contagious stage had escaped from a Chicago hospital, had arrived at the depot in Kenosha early in the morning, and there waited for an afternoon train to take her West. With her head covered by a thick veil, her condition was not detected. My father and sister were at the depot. The victims of this woman's terrible deed were many, for the germs of this dread disease in a virulent form were scattered all along the way from Chicago to Harvard, Illinois. Several deaths resulted, and many were left disfigured for life. Our cases, due to vaccination, were very light, and by care in isolating them, no other members of the family were affected, although rumor had us all in a fatal condition. When, after a lapse of six weeks or more I was free, it was impossible to catch up in school.

And so it came to pass that I never graduated from the Kenosha high school, never had a high school diploma, the lack of which proved a real handicap to me. I took another country school, this time with a second grade certificate. When the time came for the graduation of my class, I secured a substitute and went to the exercises, which were held in the old assembly room already described. It was not an especially happy occasion for me. My good friend and pastor, the Rev. Henry M. Simmons, had then been elected the superintendent of schools, and gave the commencement address.

The class consisted of five girls. Although five is a small number, I am moved to say in defense of it that this was the largest class that had graduated from that old school since 1865, the class of '67 having had four girls, and that of '71, two girls, while in '66, '68, '69, '70, '72, '73, not a boy or girl went on to the end. While the effects of the Civil War are seen in the first of the years in the above list, it seemed later not to be a popular thing to graduate. No boys' names are found after 1863, until 1876, when two appear. This seems to have been a period of educational depression in Kenosha, the very trough of the sea following the lofty swell of public sentiment in the decade of the fifties and early sixties.

The names of my classmates who did graduate in 1874 are as follows: Sarah Adamson, Jennie Tarbell, Fannie Whitaker, Emma Thiers, and Louise Wood. The last two have been previously mentioned in another connection and they are still living. Sarah Adamson, a rare student and a zealous soul, joined the Dominican Sisterhood of the Roman Catholic Church, and for many years was a teacher at Sinsinawa College, where she was known as Sister Mary George. She became a linguist of superior ability. Occasionally one of her classmates would get a letter from her. One summer when in that part of Wisconsin, I called at the college to see her, but learned that she was in Europe pursuing her studies, a quite regular vacation custom with her. She will be remembered by many as an inspiring teacher. Jennie Tarbell became a teacher in Kenosha, married Alfred Curtiss, and died in 1914, leaving one son. Fannie Whitaker, also a teacher, married Cephas H. Leach, principal of the Kenosha high school, 1880-1888. He left for Chicago where he served as principal of several schools in succession, in which service he continued until 1926. His death occurred in October 1927, and hers in the previous April. They left a grown up family of two daughters and a son.

Mr. Durkee closed his five years of work in Kenosha in 1874, and left the city for another field. I respect his memory, and have come to realize more clearly his trials.

Thus is brought to a close, after many digressions, the recital of my experiences as a "scholar" in the Kenosha public schools; but my experience as a learner in these schools, and through those schools did not stop there.

1 "Whether we date it from 1845, when the basis was laid for it, or from 1849, when the plan was completely put in force, it was the earliest school of that type in Wisconsin." Joseph Schafer, Four Wisconsin Counties, 204.

2 "Shortly after the system of graded schools at Kenosha was established, one person was designated as the Superintendent of the place. ... Racine, Milwaukee, Beloit, Janesville, Madison, Sheboygan, and Waukesha soon followed this example of Kenosha." Lyman C. Draper (State Supt. 1858-1860) Wisconsin Historical Collections, v, 804.

3 The "legitimate studies" were grammar, arithmetic, geography, and history.

4 Enrollments of 53, 60, 72, and 90, under one teacher, are recorded.

5 Died Dec. 19, 1981, aged 90 years.