CHAPTER VI

My First Teaching Experience

What was stated in the previous chapter about my being obliged to start out at sixteen years of age to earn my own living was not told for the purpose of eliciting sympathy. I am glad it so happened. My only regret about this period is that I did not graduate from the high school and have that valuable piece of paper, a diploma; not to possess it was a distinct handicap, but after a while the lack of it ceased to bob up and embarrass me.

Burbank, in one of his latest books, says something about the "hardships of youth" with which I am in perfect accord. He says, "I learned through them, and got experience out of them, and was made better and stronger and more self-reliant by them;--they were milestones on my road, and not mill stones around my poor bowed neck at all."

My "first milestone" on the long road traveled as a teacher was a country school, then described as District No. 2, Towns of Paris and Yorkville, a joint district in Kenosha and Racine counties. On the same site now stands the Jefferson School. As was related in Chapter V, my professional qualifications for this work consisted of a poor, third grade certificate the result of an examination held by the county superintendent, Tom Maguire, at the village of Woodworth in Pleasant Prairie.

One subject named in this certificate was Theory and Practice of Teaching in which I received a standing of seventy.

But I am quite sure of being at that time innocent of ever having read a book on pedagogy, and doubt very much if the word meant much to me. The questions in this subject were probably of a very general character, such as anybody with common sense and with recollections of one or two good teachers, could have answered. I knew nothing about teachers' magazines, and had never attended a teachers' institute.

No better measure of general educational progress can be found than that resulting from the comparison of what preparation is required today before a girl is allowed to try to teach, and what I have just described as my own. My chief qualifications then were those fundamental ones that now and ever will be needed for success as a teacher: good health, love of children, ambition to succeed, willingness to work, a small degree, then of what George Herbert Palmer calls "vicariousness" (ability to put myself in the child's place, and sense his point of view), and mental honesty,--that is, freedom from pretense of knowing what I did not know, coupled with the desire to really know,--these creditable chiefly to my home environment, as fundamental things in character always are. My inheritance from my father of a sense of humor--"the ability to see others as they fail to see themselves," has always been an angel of consolation in this work-a-day world. Teachers especially need it, for they last longer and their influence is enhanced by it.

How the school was secured for me I do not know, but probably through my father's acquaintance in that district, since our old Paris home was but four miles from it. The school began sometime in April and continued for three months. The salary was twenty-five dollars a month, a very poor salary, but I was a very poor teacher.

On sunday afternoon preceding the opening day, my father and mother drove me in our two-seated, one-horse buggy to the home of William Baker, whose son John was the clerk of the district, and who, with his wife, lived with the father. William Baker was an early settler, and my parents were acquainted with him and his family.

There was in this household an unfortunate sister, who made a deeper impression on me than any of the others. She was probably the victim of infantile paralysis--not named then--which had come upon her in early childhood. She was almost helpless and incapable of articulate speech. I was deeply affected by the sight of her bent body, bowed head and twisted neck, and was very conscious of the fixed gaze of her bright appealing eyes.

After a brief visit, the time came for the departure of my parents. I watched the somewhat difficult feat of getting my crippled father into the buggy, which my mother from long experience knew just how to do. Then with a unusually brief adieu to me, they drove away. They probably sensed the condition and knew that I was struggling with an emotional disturbance which had better not be rendered worse by any demonstration on their part. With an acute feeling of grief I watched them until they disappeared down the road; then, knowing that they would turn a corner and go southward, I stood until they re-appeared beyond a grove of trees, and again I watched them with bursting heart until they finally passed from my sight beyond a hill. I was experiencing my first homesickness. Realizing that my watching was being watched, I struggled for control, and as soon as possible, disappeared from sight within the little parlor bedroom where, I was told, my things had been put, and there gave vent to my feelings.

When the call to supper came, I responded with appetite completely gone. The invalid daughter seemed more interested than ever in me, and I discovered one thing that diverted my thought a little; it was that she did not deserve the dreadful epithet attached to her name in the neighborhood, She was not destitute of intelligence, and evidently understood all that was being said. A dispute over a date having arisen at the supper table, the question was referred to her, and she uttered a few vocal sounds unintelligible to me, upon which her father said, "There, I was right, it was March 20" (or some other special date). As this experience is recalled, I think of that beautiful building of which Kenosha is today so justly proud--the school for crippled children; and recall seeing there a child as badly off as was Roxanna Baker. She is being taught to read, and is receiving restorative help--thanks to this humane age which recognizes the rights of all children!

After the lights were lit, Mr. Baker brought out the old school register, a large, flat, black book, and explained to me how to keep it; a small school bell and a big iron key were also produced. Then I was told that it would be necessary for me to sign a contract, and the paper was placed before me. I immediately signed "on the dotted line" pointed out to me. I timidly raised the question as to where I would live and was somewhat relieved to learn that it could not be there, even though at the same time it raised a troublesome problem. I would have to find a boarding place and was told of different people in the district who had kept the teachers. As I knew none of these, nor where they lived, I retired with an added reason for wishing I was at home.

It was not necessary to call me the next morning. I put on the pretty, clean, brown and white striped calico dress designed for this occasion, and had a white apron wrapped in a paper to take to school with my other school equipment. The clerk kindly loaned me a big silver watch until I could get a timepiece of my own. I was furnished with a lunch in a tin dinner pail. The early farm breakfast permitted a prompt start, and before eight o'clock arrived, I was off on the half-mile walk to the school.

On the way I passed a house on the north side of the road; a woman with several children was at the gate, and I was surprised to hear her call name. I immediately recognized her as Sarah, who as a young woman had worked for my mother on the farm. Sarah! whom we had all liked for her warm Irish heart, pleasant smile, musical voice, and interesting stories. I felt better at once. I was no longer totally friendless. When she asked me where I was going to board, and I replied that I did not know, she evidently detected how I felt, and said soothingly, "You can come here. We are poor, my husband is sick, and there are four children; but if you can put up with it all, and want to come, we'll make room for you, somehow." I accepted forthwith, and went on somewhat lighter hearted. Sarah was a member of the Henderson family, North-of-Ireland emigrants, of excellent repute, who had settled in Paris not far from our old home, The parents with the eldest daughter, Sarah, and four younger children, Willie, George, Alex, and Johnnie had come to America the year of the famine, leaving three others to follow later. Mr. Henderson, a very kind, tender-hearted man, had told my father that he had left not because they were in danger of starvation, but that he could not bear to see the faces of starving people, and of hungry children looking through the windows of his cottage when his family were eating. He died in a year or two, unable to adjust himself to the new life. Sarah had much innate refinement and was a good woman.

The school building stood close to the road, and was a dirty, forlorn looking place, not much like the one I had known so well in District No. 5, told about in previous chapters. When I got to it, I discovered that the doorstep was broken down. There was lacking in me the poetic insight of Whittier, who saw in such a building "a ragged beggar, sunning"--although the metaphor is an apt one for what I saw on that April morning in 1872. But I hoped for something better within. Did not the people of a district always see to it that cleaning had been done, and that soap and hot water had cleared away the effects of the winter's usage, and made the room fit for teacher and children?

Not "always," as I saw as soon as the door, after some urging had yielded, and the interior of the room was revealed. The sight that met my eyes will never be forgotten. A deserted old cabin, never again intended to be used as a habitation, could not have been much worse than that school room--"the temple of learning" for the children of Joint District No. 2, Paris and Yorkville!

The first object I saw was a large, oblong box-stove which stood on a raised platform made of brick laid edgewise, and kept in place by a frame of narrow boards. The boards extended a little above the brick, and had evidently served as a scraper for men's muddy boots. Chunks of dried mud bordered the brick platform, and more of it was on the floor all about. The platform itself was dotted with tobacco quids; another product of the chewing process had left abundant traces on platform, stove sides, hearth, and floor. Ashes crowded out of the stove upon the hearth; some sticks of wood and accompanying litter were on the floor near the stove. Strewn about the room were innumerable pieces of paper. A thick coat of dust, the accumulation since the winter term had closed two months or more ago, was over window sills, seats, desks and chair, except that the last named article had been more recently dusted, as had some of the pupils' desks, by the clothes of those who had used them as seats.

Before I had fully taken in the situation, one of the older boys arrived and in reply to my inquiry as to what had happened here, said, "They held the spring caucus here."

"When?"

"Oh, several weeks ago."

He did not seem surprised at conditions, and had probably seen the same on previous opening days. Other children were now arriving happy, eager, bright, all with slates, some with books--every one ready to begin school.

When I asked if anybody knew where a broom could be found, several dashed to a corner of the room, where I, for the first time, observed a door opening into small closet. A boy brought forth what had once been a broom. Had he found there, instead of this object, a hoe, it could have been put to effective service. When I said to the children that we could not begin school until the room was cleaned up a little, everybody wanted to help. Two boys set to work with the old stub of a broom to clean up around the stove, using an old geography cover in lieu of a dustpan. Another boy volunteered to borrow a broom and dustpan from the woman living across the road. A girl said she would run home and get some dust cloths. Since it was evident that the old wooden pail found in the closet would not hold water, it was suggested by someone, where a pail could be borrowed, so he and a companion set forth gleefully to fetch it, with the suggestion added by the teacher to borrow also a tin cup or dipper. My request to have a windows raised as high as possible sent several scurrying to the yard to find sticks to prop up the windows. Very soon a draft was carrying out into the sunlight a cloud of dust arising from a vigorously used broom. Dusting duly followed, some of the older girls insisting upon helping in this work.

When it was all over, alas for my clean dress and apron, and the heavy braid of hair hanging below my hat. My hands looked like those of a coal heaver, and my face likewise. Little mirrors were not then an inseparable part of a young woman's toilet equipment; but I could judge something of how I looked from the appearance of my most ardent helpers who had insisted upon keeping in the thickest of the fray. A rather rough acting boy came up now and said, "Teacher, I'll pour water on your hands." We went to the back of the schoolhouse where the rite was performed, the ablution including not only hands but face. Then turning my back on my helper, I did the only thing I could under the circumstances, dried my face and hands on an article of feminine apparel not then obsolete or even obsolescent--my white cotton petticoat.

With my self-respect somewhat restored, I rang the bell with considerable dignity, and about sixteen boys and girls took their seats. Names and ages were taken down, later to be transferred to the register with pen and ink. I remember having a peculiar sensation when a big girl who had kept aloof during the janitorial performance gave her age as nineteen. She was Sarah Slater and among other things she wanted to study algebra. Algebra! i had only begun to study it in high school that year. I was a little scared but tried not to let her know it. She had brought a textbook, and Oh Joy! it was the one I knew. Another pupil was a nine-year-old girl named Julia Meyers, daughter of Philip J. Meyers of that district.1 My predecessor had left no record, and with the help of the various textbooks brought by the children I made as good a classification as I could. There was one beginner, and at that time this meant starting out with teaching him his A B C's.

This is a true story of my first day as a teacher. When it was over, I wended my way to Sarah's house, accompanied proudly by three of her children, Esther, Jane, and Willie, two of whom went gladly to fetch my things from Mr. Baker's. All day I had been too busy to think of home, but now the cloud settled down upon my spirits. Sarah noticed my dejected appearance, and wise as she was, knew the cause and asked me to sew up a rip in Jane's dress, which I gladly did, and felt the restorative effect which occupation brings.

The domestic economy made it necessary for Esther to be my bed-fellow, but this was not objectionable; she was a well-behaved, interesting child, and besides, what else was there to do? I could not leave Sarah now, even if another place had offered, after she had worked all day changing things to accommodate me. She was worried because I did not eat, but the difference between her food and mother's was not the real cause of my lack of appetite. At night I felt that I could walk that fourteen miles to Kenosha and that I must do it. It is pretty hard when emancipation of youth from the home, an absolutely necessary thing to normal manhood and womanhood, has to be brought about at one fell stroke! in the morning the sight of Sarah's children and of what was expected of me brought me to my senses, and I did not run away from duty.

One day I found a new broom beside the school door. On another day, about the middle of the forenoon, when everything was moving quietly, and all were intent upon their work, the door was suddenly pushed open, and an article tossed in upon the floor with a startling clatter. A rough voice bellowed, "Dares yer doostpon!" and the door slammed before I could possibly make acknowledgment.

laughed and the children with me. Who he was I did not know; someone delegated by a member of the board perhaps, to get the desired article. His manner of delivery suggested impatience at the trouble caused him, and that he considered the purchase of a dustpan a waste of the district's money when there was a wide door out of which dust could be swept. These articles were used, and we soon had a floor which although quite unacquainted with soap and water was, at least, "broom clean."

At the end of two weeks, two of my sisters drove from town to take me home "for the week-end," but instead of that handy phrase, "for over Saturday" was used. I was very happy to see them and interested, as we drove along, to learn what had happened during the past two weeks. When I got home, my mother exclaimed upon her first sight of me, "What is the matter? Have you been sick?" Rather hollow-eyed and pale, and about ten pounds lighter than when I left home, my appearance was startling to her. But the worst discovery had not yet been made. After supper when my experiences were being related, mother said, "Mary, why do you scratch your head?"

My answer was the very natural one, "Because it itches."

An investigation of causes was immediately started and more exclamations from mother were heard. This is what had happened--a grand migratory movement had taken place from the land of Esther to the newly discovered land of Mary. Entirely satisfied with the change, the migrating tribes had settled down and had already abundantly prospered. There was no limiting quota system in operation. That evening the work of extermination began, and the following day may engagements with my mother were rather frequent, my heavy curly hair making the accomplishment of her purpose rather difficult.

On Sunday afternoon, as two weeks before, father and mother drove me back to my school district. I sat alone on the back seat, my face covered by a thick green beige veil, the chief use of which was not to keep off the dust or even to preserve my complexion, but rather to conceal my state of mind, in which there was a mingling now of self-pity, caused by comparison of my experience with the good times my sisters were having in Kenosha. My parents sensed the situation, and finally mother could stand it no longer, and I heard her say, "Andrew, I don't think we should take her back. She'll be sick."

Then father answered quietly, "Kate, that wouldn't do. I know it's hard, but if she gives up this job, because she is homesick, it will affect her whole life. It is best for her to go through with it. Besides, Kate, you know that she has already been through the worst of this spell, and that it will never be quite so bad again." Then over his shoulder he said, "Daughter, I've got a surprise for you," and mother handed me a box in which was a small silver watch, with a black silk cord attached, ready to put around my neck. This evidence of father's tender thoughtfulness and the significance of what I had overheard him say to mother, checked my self-pity, made me ashamed of myself, and helped greatly to restore my self-control. Let me add that the watch was not my only new acquisition. Among my clean clothes and other belongings was a fine-tooth comb!

When we arrived at Sarah's, mother found occasion to take her aside for a friendly interchange on a very timely subject. And it surely was friendly, for mother had said, "Poor Sarah, with a sick husband and her family of little children trying to run a farm with the help of one hired man!" One effect of the interview was that Esther was withdrawn from my company for a few nights. By my faithful performance of what mother directed me to do, a normal condition finally ensued. But now another more painful experience overtook me. I began to cut my wisdom teeth. That was an eventful summer, bringing as it did not only the experience of cutting my wisdom teeth metaphorically, but also that of cutting four real ones!

As the days went by, my interest in my work grew and my energy increased. One Monday morning the children came to school to find the desks, seats, and window sills scrubbed clean and the window panes admitting more light. But the floor I did not attempt to scrub, although had I even proposed it in the presence of the pupils, a riot would have precipitated among the boys eager to help. This had happened when it was suggested that the school yard should be cleaned up, and the outhouses made a little more decent. Such willing youngsters, they!

There was one piece of school equipment that defied improvement--the blackboard. It covered about two-thirds of the rear wall of the room, the remainder of the space containing a window in front of which was the teacher's desk and chair. This blackboard began about two feet above a narrow platform and extended to the ceiling. At the top, which could only be reached by a ladder, there were fully two feet of well preserved surface; but the lower part was as smooth as a window pane, and about as suitable for writing purposes, even with very soft chalk. By wetting the chalk, figures and letters could be made readable, but then there was the aftermath of erasing. A boy whose father was a carpenter brought some sandpaper one day, and an abrasive surface was created, on which legible writing and "figuring" could be done. One Saturday, Jim, Sarah's hired man, took a short ladder to school, and mounting that, I was able to write on that perfectly good stretch of previously unused blackboard. The result was a permanent exhibit, consisting of four alphabets, one below another--capitals and small letters in printed form, and the same in my best script.

I am not going to continue the details of my story throughout that term. I made several trips to Kenosha, and my family were not always obliged to come after me. Among the mistakes one is remembered always with keen regret. I punished a boy because I thought him stubborn, when the real cause of his irresponsiveness was nearsightedness, which I afterward discovered. I recall no difficulty with the problem of "keeping order." Although I knew little about teaching, the children made some advancement, and we had a rather happy time together. My nineteen-year-old pupil made satisfactory progress in algebra, with a wonderfully reciprocal effect upon the teacher, who, being unable to bluff, had to study to a state of clearness in order to teach her. The same was true of grammar, which involved difficult back pages, Sarah being desirous of "finishing" this subject. I did the best I could and "muddled through."

When the last day finally came in sight, we began making preparations for it. A program of songs and "pieces to speak" was prepared. When in town for the last time preceding the close, I had bought some pretty "Reward of Merit" cards, and had prepared for the anticipated happy occasion another little surprise of candy for each.

On the Thursday afternoon preceding, when rehearsals were in progress, the clerk, Mr. Baker, entered the schoolroom. He said, "I hear that you are planning on closing school tomorrow."

"Yes," I replied, "this is the twelfth week, and the term is ended."

"You're mistaken, there are six days more due from you. The contract you signed specified twenty-two days a month."

The paper was taken from his pocket and the specification pointed out, which I read for the first time. I was dumb with amazement, and probably mistaking this for some other feeling, he said that if I wanted my money I'd have to teach those six days. I reacted immediately to the sting of this implied insult.

"Of course, I will fulfill the contract, but why didn't you tell me earlier and thus have spared the children and myself this disappointment?"

He replied, "Why didn't you know? That's your signature!"

I was silent, and then, knowing that I was effectively squelched, he grew magnanimous and said, "You may keep school this Saturday and the five days of next week, closing a week from tomorrow."

The children dispersed to carry the news home. "Keeping school" was an appropriate phrase for those six days. Interest and zest were gone. Several of the older boys and girls had to leave for it was now about the middle of July, and their help was needed at home. They had done well to come to school as long as they had. About all of the sixteen came together on the postponed last day and helped in the program as planned, but nothing could restore the festive spirit that would have animated that other lost "last day of school."

I realize that I was the one chiefly to blame for this unhappy turn of affairs. At the same time, it seemed to me that a perfectly honest man, knowing my greenness, would have called my attention to the "twenty-two days." Out of this experience came a very practical lesson, which I have passed on to hundreds of young teachers in training; know what a contract says before you sign it. Burbank was right when he said that the hardships of life teach us.

A few years ago, I had occasion to examine an old file of the Kenosha Telegraph covering the early seventies, and there under date of June 13, 1872, I found among a number of district school reports published monthly by the county superintendent, one of my own, made that summer. I give it here, just to show what items were required as the basis for judging a school and its teacher--or was there some other reason for publishing these reports?

District No. 2, Towns of Paris and Yorkville. Whole number enrolled 16, Present 15, Percent of attendance 88. Number cases of tardiness 21, Number of recitations 9, Communications 6, Number of days taught this month, 20, Number of visits from Board, 0, others, 4. Perfect in deportment, Eunice Seymore. [signed] Mary L. Davison, Teacher. V. V. Barnes, County Superintendent.

I had known Mr. Barnes as a teacher in the Kenosha high school, but do not recall feeling at all grieved or slighted because he did not visit my school. That item "communications," as you see, was again prominent, as in the high school already described. The teacher's ability as a disciplinarian was evidently judged by his or her success in repressing the natural social propensities of the pupils. How absurd for me to have reported that during twenty school days, a dozen or more bright, active children with the normal urge of social beings had communicated, that is, openly "whispered," but six times! I wish that I might believe that at early stage of my career I was wise enough to notice only disturbing things, which mere "communications" among pupils may or may not be. But I did have the sense then and later to stop a custom seemingly quite well established, of a child's raising his hand, and eagerly exclaiming: "Johnny whispered"--a custom not only with serious ethical implications not needing to be pointed out, but showing that the real offense was the whispering and not the disturbance of conditions necessary for study. I have long wished that some pedagogic relic-hunter would dig up the origin of that idea. It is one that has always puzzled me since I began to think about the "why's" of existing school customs.

About the extreme indifference which existed in that school district, I will say in closing that it must have been exceptional, although Mrs. Hattie Northway Burgess, whom I quoted in a previous chapter, and who began her teaching a decade before I did, once told me when we were swapping stories about early experiences as country school teachers, that she could match this one of mine, and add a few items to it. However, the remembrance of our home school district in Paris, and of others, causes me to believe that the prevailing conditions in Kenosha County were much better than I have described both as to school property and school administration--although in the former of these conditions I was destined later, in another town, to find something nearly as bad as that described in District No. 2, Paris.

School District No. 2 lacked interested leadership. This prerogative expected to be exercised by the school board, which in those days was usually composed of native Americans. When these were indifferent or decadent, or chiefly concerned with the question of cost, the school suffered. There were then no meetings at the county seat, of all school board members of the county, called by the State Department of Public Instruction, at which meetings the duties of these district officers were made known, and desirable improvements discussed by educational leaders of state and county.

The average intelligence and education of the people of District No. 2 was probably not below that of many other districts. I recall several fine German families. They had not been brought to a sense of their responsibilities as is being done today, and they trusted too much to others. Moreover, that was a time when the rights of children were not regarded as they are today. There was not a farmer of any repute in that district, or of any other similarly neglected one, who, if obliged by circumstances to find with a neighbor accommodations for some of his young stock--valuable pigs, lambs, calves, or colts--would have thought of placing them there until the prospective housing place for his property had been examined, and its suitability in every way determined; but the place where his children and those of his neighbor would spend six or seven hours a day for a period of three months received no thought from him. Hence, the filthy, unsanitary, unattractive old room which I entered on my first day as a country school teacher.

But a new force is operating today which renders less and less possible the old-time neglect. This is the Association of Parents and Teachers, which is doing a great piece of educational work by quickening the sense of responsibility in school patrons. Throughout this organization the significance of a great democratic principle is coming to be realized, to-wit, that the management of and the conditions existing in any school situation are never any worse than the people allow them to become; and will never be any better than the people demand that they shall be. This principle cannot, it seems to me, be reiterated, expounded, and illustrated too forcefully. When its application not alone to schools but to other public institutions is clearly seen, we will move rapidly toward the better day.

I taught two other country school "milestones" in the Burbankian sense, but my new hardships were comparatively few, and I had learned how to cope with other ones. So the story of each of these will be brief.

Part Two My "second milestone" and previous interim

I came to this second school in the spring of 1873. I was better prepared for it by a full year of maturing experience. First in influence stand the excellent high school teachers to whom tribute has already been paid. But out of school I was affected in a helpful way by other influences which it seems appropriate to mention. One was the inspiring friendship of my pastor, Rev. Henry M. Simmons of the Unitarian Church, to whose advice and direction I feel myself immeasurably indebted. One of the enthusiasms of H. M. Simmons was public libraries, and in this he had the backing of another like-minded man, Zalmon G. Simmons Sr., one of the founders, in 1865, of the Kenosha Unitarian Church, and the philanthropic promoter of public movements in general. These two men, although not united by the ties of blood, as their names might imply, we bound by the ties of strong friendship and common interest in all progressive causes; both were independent thinkers.

In 1872, Rev. H. M. Simmons having done the selecting of about one thousand books, and Z. G. Simmons having footed the bills for books and cases, a public library, the first in Kenosha, was installed in the Unitarian Church. It was open to the public for an hour on Sunday, at first from twelve to one o'clock, and later before church. It was immediately patronized by all those who did not consider the movement a desecration of the Sabbath, and, let me say, some who did so aver were willing to risk damaging the soul of another by privately engaging some one to draw books for them. This library of the best books of varied interests attracted many readers, as the old record book now in the custody of the Kenosha County Historical Society shows. I well remember watching the people come in for books; the procession of fashionably dressed ladies especially interested me. H. M. Simmons left Kenosha in 1879 to take charge of the Unitarian Church in Madison, but the library continued to be opened as usual for a number of years.

It is not uncommon today for patrons of the beautiful Gilbert M. Simmons Memorial Library to find a book bearing the old Unitarian Society label, as 927 volumes--what was left of the first library--were in 1896 donated to a publicly supported public library opened then; and again in 1901 these were transferred and made a part of the greater library named above, the gift of Z. G. Simmons to the city as a memorial to his eldest son.

But it was for its relation to my education that this historical reminiscence is inserted. The church library afforded the opportunity to supplement my school work by books on history, suggested by Mrs. Wheeler, my high school teacher. In fiction she recommended some of Scott's novels, besides a few others, at the best age for such a cultural undertaking. Mr. Simmons sometimes helped me select books suited to my understanding, which he thought profitable reading for me. To my house-bound father this library was a godsend.

Another important educational privilege came to me that winter and is well remembered, probably because it was a unique experience for me. This was nothing more than a course of Sunday evening lectures given by Henry M. Simmons in the church. I say "nothing more" because it expresses what some may think in this day when the air is ready to render up lectures on all sorts of subjects: strange they may think that special educational importance should be attached simply to one course. But such lectures were rare then. It was on astronomy, with special emphasis upon the solar system, and was illustrated by the use of homemade apparatus and lantern slides. Everything informative, broadening, or cultural, is or should be, "grist" to a teacher's mill, and these lectures, although considerably beyond my full comprehension, were apperceptively valuable.

So this year of my life, including as it did what I learned from the hardships and other experiences of my "first milestone," my high school study under unusually inspiring teachers, and the privileges just described, was for me a period of unprecedented growth--a period of "awakening"; and I went to my second school with more to give to the boys and girls of that district, although still seriously lacking in device and method, that is, in teaching technique.

This second school was at Liberty Corners, Town of Salem. In the re-naming of schools throughout the country, this old designation has very sensibly been retained. My pay at Liberty Corners was thirty-five dollars a month. I had been obliged that spring to get another third grade certificate, but recall nothing about the examination. My next older sister, Caroline, taught her first school that summer at Salem Centre, two and a half miles to the north of Liberty Corners--a very convenient arrangement, allowing as it did for week-end visits back and forth. There were railroad connections to Kenosha at Salem Station on the Rockford Division.

My induction into my new environment was made easier and pleasanter by the friendly aid of a Kenosha schoolmate, Ella Stewart, now Mrs. Bliss of Flint, Michigan, whose family were residents of the district. Her father, David Stewart, engaged in the live stock business, was well known throughout southeastern Wisconsin. The home under the efficient management of Mrs. Stewart was noted for its hospitality, in which the teachers of their school were always included. I went out on Saturday by train and spent my first night in Salem at the Stewart home. On Sunday we all went to church at the "Corners" where were located also the schoolhouse and several residences. Liberty Corners was almost a village.

While to a certain degree my self-consciousness had been overcome, I was not entirely at ease among strangers and was quite aware on that Sunday of being "sized up" by the fathers and mothers of my future pupils, as word was passed along that this was the new teacher. My own earnings, with the assistance of my home folks in the making, had enabled me to have a new outfit of clothing. I could not be charged with vanity. There had been instilled into me by my mother, who came from a long line of Puritan ancestry, a maxim that "pretty is as pretty does"; but the feeling of being becomingly dressed was decidedly helpful on this occasion; besides that, it was advantageous for "first impression" purpose.

After church I was introduced to a number of people, among them a Mrs. Robbins, who was desirous of having me live with her. There was pointed out to me the home of Mrs. Robbins just across the road, a large, white house in a pleasant setting of trees, with well-conditioned barns and out-buildings. No danger there from parasitic migrations! The view of the schoolhouse and its surroundings was also reassuring. I felt myself to be, indeed, fortunate. I have mentioned all this just by way contrast with what I found in the Town of Paris the year before. How lucky it was for me that the order of these experiences was not reversed! In passing I will mention a fact that may be interesting to some readers. The Robbins' place is now owned by a Chicago Country Club. The commodious house become the club house, and an expensively laid out golf course covers this fine old farm.

Transferred from Ella's home to Mrs. Robbins' little parlor bedroom, and without a touch of homesickness. I was the next morning ready for work. The children gathered in a schoolhouse which was as ready as recent thorough cleaning could make it--another contrast. The room was larger, and the seats ad desks comfortable. I was gladdened by the sight of a decent dictionary, some maps still on their rollers, a globe, and a reading chart. There were more pupils than in my first school, and most of them came from American homes. Of the following names which I recall some suggest that nationality: Munson, Kingman, Smith, Brown, Stewart, Robbins, and Cronk. This part of Kenosha County, like the Plank Road section, had been settled by a better educated, more prosperous class.

From the Stewart home came Maud, Sam, and a little curly-headed girl nicknamed "Topsy." There were Ida and Ada Kingman, identical twins, who seemed to look and act exactly alike, and whom I could not tell apart until by an agreement with their mother they wore hair ribbons of different colors. Had pink Ada and blue Ida chosen to exchange hair ribbons, the joke would never have been detected by me, although their young schoolmates with keener observation and longer acquaintance would have known it. They were the children of Michael and Hannah Kingman. Not to be forgotten in this partial enumeration were several very bright promising children from the Gaggin family of Irish origin, whose later success fulfilled the promise of their childhood. At the Corners was the home of Clarence of M. Smith, then a well-known teacher in the county who, going West, became a prominent and wealthy business man of San Francisco. His younger sisters, Mary and Nellie, went to my school.

I recall no difficulty with discipline that term, and think I could be credited with an orderly school, even though there was greater freedom among the pupils than the old standards might have thought proper. Plain common-sense, everyday obedience had been built into the conduct of these children by their parents, and they, thee parents, having done their important part, the school was better able to perform its function, which is primarily that of teaching and not disciplining--at least not that of laying the foundations of right conduct. So "hardships" in the direction of keeping order were light in the Liberty Corners School. The principle, "Order, but not for order's sake alone" was unconsciously beginning to actuate me.

But I did have some hardships that term, not of the physical sort as in the preceding year, but in carrying out the school program. A state law, passed in 1871, had provided for the teaching of the constitution of the United States and of Wisconsin in the common schools of the state. I knew nothing then about the causes operating to bring this about, but have interested to find that it was the result of an agitation started by teachers who had been "boys in blue." At the first meeting of the State Teachers' Association after their return from the Civil War the discussion waxed warm upon political education, and a resolution was passed declaring that "It is the serious duty of every true teacher to instruct his pupils in the political history and civil government of our state and nation, so that the people may preserve their own rights and liberties and have just regard for those of others, and make the state in fact, as it is in theory, an organization for the highest good of the people."2John G. McMynn, one of the "boys in blue," was then state superitendent, and probably supported, if he did not help in shaping that fine resolution. The discovery of this bit of history and its analogy to the interest in education which our present "boys in khaki," the American Legion, are evincing, seems to show that experiences in war and contact with soldiery produce an enlivened sense of the importance of education to national welfare and security.

It is amusing in the light of later numerous additions to the common school course to learn that the delay of possibly three or four years in passing a law to accord with the resolution given above was due to the position taken by the legislature "that the curriculum was already overcrowded and that to introduce history and civics into the course of study would result in consuming time which should be devoted to the 'three R's.'"3 Just when American history became a required subject, I do not know, but it was listed on my first third grade certificate of 1872. The state, in order to promote the carrying out of this laudable and important law of 1871, went into the textbook business. Books containing the constitution of the United States and of Wisconsin were printed by the state printer, and substantially bound in "half calf."

To every one-room district school in Wisconsin six copies of this book were sent. The Liberty Corners school had received its quota. There were several boys and girls nearing the end of their schooling and class in civil government was wanted. What was I to do? Somehow I had got through the county examination, but was not prepared to handle this subject. It worried me, but I started in doing the best I knew. I succeeded as well, probably, as the city-bred girls did with "agriculture' when it was added to the district school curriculum. Country school children bore an immense amount of imposition before public opinion demanded adequate preparation of teachers for that work, and legislation requiring it was passed. But it is a far cry from the present situation to the remote time when I essayed to teach civil government in 1873. There was one thing done that I am sure was right--the "preamble" was committed to memory. But even after such discussion and elucidation as I was capable of, it was to a greater or lesser degree according to the capability of the pupil, just "words, words, words,."

An incident is well remembered in this connection that was not so amusing at the time as it seemed later. An important visitor was present when the class in civil government was called. He asked to have the preamble recited, and was told to call on any pupil for it. A little girl was selected. She began bravely, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure," a pause--visitor sympathetically prompted, "do-do"--further hesitation, further prompting, "mes-mes," then, "do-mes." At this she caught on and exclaimed "domestic tranquillity" (a proud tongue achievement!). Then she started anew and sprinted toward her goal--"domestic tranquillity, provide-for-the common defence - promote - the - general - welfare - and - secure - to - ourselves - posterity-do ordain and establish-this Constitution for the United States of America." She, breathless, her adult auditors with very mixed emotions, her classmates eager to criticise the performance! Their hands were immediately waving and eyes sought the teacher's face for recognition. But they intuitively saw that for some reason she was not inviting criticism, and hands came down. Had one of them been allowed to say what he was just bursting to deliver himself of, it would have been, "She left out the words 'the blessings of liberty.'" The little girl got a word and a smile for her brave performance, and the visitor discreetly asked John to name the departments of government.

I suppose that the teaching of this important subject is much better handled today when all teachers must have been trained for their work. Other incidents come to mind, but the need of curtailing these reminiscences allows for but one more.

This, also, may be called a "hardship." Mrs. Robbins' only son, Herbert, a boy of fourteen or fifteen, was my most advanced pupil in arithmetic. His mother wanted him to "finish" the textbook, "Robinson's Complete." There were certain topics at the end of the book, and pages upon pages of miscellaneous problems yet to be studied, and she seemed to want him to make a thorough job of it. Since most of these topics no longer appear in arithmetics, and the review problems have a more practical bearing, I will describe as briefly as possible what I was "up against" in Herbert's case. Having no old textbook at hand, I must depend for this on my memory. The topics were simple and compound proportion (not difficult to teach) and mensuration, involution and evolution, which sound worse than they really were; then came arithmetical and geometrical progression, permutation, and a queer sort of thing called alligation. Why queer? Well, it seemed to suggest unethical practices, as for instance, in a problem like this: "How much water would a grocer [or 'may' a grocer] mix with vinegar worth 'x' cents a gallon that he may sell the mixture for 'y' cents, [a lower price] and still make a profit of 'z' cents, a gallon?" Then there were problems about mixing teas of different values. There were rules for solving such problems.

But the real trouble came with the miscellaneous problems. These were mostly invented puzzles, which would have no practical value in any life condition that one could conceive. There was, for example, one about a spherical ball of yarn of given diameter. One-third of the volume was owned by each of three women, Mrs. A, Mrs. B, and Mrs. C. Mrs. A had the first chance of unwinding her share, then came Mrs. B, for her share, and Mrs. C had what was left--the other third, provided all had gone properly. The problem was to determine at what point on the radius measured from the surface Mrs. A must stop, to take no more than her share; a similar question was asked about Mrs. B's handling of this yarn-merger.

There were many, many additional arithmetical topics of various sorts. I would surely have lost my reputation with Mrs. Robbins as a teacher qualified for my job, and perhaps my standing in the district would have been seriously impaired if I had been discovered lacking in ability to show Bert how to work those problems. And that would surely have been my fate had not a friend loaned me his key to those problems (please observe gender of the pronoun). No one ever knew how I worked over them. Mrs. Robbins may have wondered how the kerosene in my little lamp got so slow; but that "midnight oil" was burned in no other pursuit than that of qualifying properly for her son's benefit or supposed benefit.

Early in this part my story I mentioned the fact that Carrie and I exchanged visits at week-ends. Sometimes we walked the two and a half miles to get to respective destinations. I am sure that I had a more interesting time when I visited her than she had when she visited me. She lived at Salem village with the family of Daniel Maynard. He had been a schoolmate of my mother back in Chautauqua County, New York, and this was an association that counted towards the home-likeness of the situation for both of us. The Maynard home was on the west bank of Hooker Lake and near it was the cheese factory which Mr. Maynard owned and operated. The back porch of the house almost overhung the lake border, then thick with bullrushes. At the present date its border has receded considerably which is the fate of all such small bodies of water.

Before our schools closed, it became evident to me that a young man of Salem village, named Eugene M. Bailey, who had been showing my sister considerable attention, had deeply engaged her interest. He was the son of Alexander Bailey, an early settler of Salem, from New York state, an old time teacher and prosperous farmer, who had later taken up his residence in the village, and was serving as station agent there for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway. After that first term of teaching in Salem, my sister's interest in further schooling or in teaching suddenly waned.

In closing I will say that this summer when the date of the "last day of school" was figured out, made known, and planned for, I was sure it was right.

Part Three Another interim and my "third milestone"

The fall of 1873 found me again in the high school, with the settled purpose of going on without interruption to graduation. I have previously told how these plans were spoiled by circumstances beyond my control.

It was during this winter that I had the benefit of another course of lectures that left as deep an impression as did those on astronomy of the previous winter. These privileges illustrate what was said in an earlier chapter, that what we do not call education is more precious that what we call so. This time Rev. Henry M. Simmons gave a series of carefully prepared lectures on the burning topic of the time, Darwinism. In 1859 Darwin had published his first noted book, the Origin of Species, in which his discovery of one of the great laws of nature was made known. Greater than the profound effect of this book upon scientific thought was that of his second, published in 1871, the Descent of Man. It was probably the publication of the latter book that occasioned this course of lectures in Kenosha. A untruthful and mischievous interpretation of the discovery of Darwin as applied to mankind, on that was readily caught up by the ignorant and those willing to let others do their thinking, was being spread by those who feared its damaging effect upon what they regarded as fundamental in religion. Mr. Simmons desired by his lectures to help correct this misunderstanding and as fully as possible to let people know what Darwinism really meant.

It has been said that the Descent of Man shook the world like an earthquake. This is an appropriate smile to express the effect upon the Kenosha of H.M. Simmons' lectures in the winter of 1873-74 in the Unitarian Church. Every pulpit in the city assailed him and his supporters. In an old Kenosha newspaper I once found a sermon preached at that time from a local pulpit. Congregations were warned against the dangerous heresy, and it surely did not add to one's popularity to be identified with it, as l well remember. But how I rejoice now that this came into my experience!

Although I make no pretense to having gained through these lectures anything like a comprehensive idea of the scientific principles of evolution advanced by Darwin, which are now universally accepted by biologist and all thinking laymen, it has meant much to me to have been introduced to this thought at an early age--to have been at least exposed to it, and to have caught enough of it to escape having a closed mind on this whole subject, and in having a well-established interest for further study along that line in later life. We know it to be true that adolescence or early maturity is the best time to fix ideas, and that with the overwhelming majority of persons ideas are fixed then, whether passed on to them by parents or teachers, or gained by casual contact with the minds of their fellows. I am glad to have known all through years that Darwin never taught that man descended from the monkey any more than he taught that the dog descended from, instead of with the wolf ( that is, in accordance, with the same laws) from a remote common ancestor, or that the cat descended from instead of with the tiger or other members of the cat family, from a remote common ancestor. I feel that it has been no small advantage to me, to have been helped in my youth to think straight on this much disputed question. Was my character in any way affected by it? Surely it was, but not in a damaging way, unless open-mindedness to truth is an undesirable trait of character.

Right here, before resuming the theme of my early country school teaching, I am going to take my readers in thought ahead of 1925--a little more than a half century after the experiences of my youth just related, when again the theory of evolution rose up to engage my attention and, this time, to arouse feelings with patriotic implications. I beg the indulgence of my readers, while as briefly as possible, I tell about it.

That summer I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, to attend the First Biennial meeting of the World Federation of Educational Associations. I arrived there at the end of a world cruise that had for five months cut me off from news of current happenings in America. On the first evening of that convention, before a great audience composed of delegates from every civilized nation on the face of the earth and having in it a large contingent of Scotch and English, I heard a noted speaker say, "We will still believe that the law of evolution operates here, notwithstanding the decision of Tennessee,"--and that great audience laughed aloud! What did it mean? The next morning my eye caught this heading in the Scotsman, the leading paper of Edinburgh: "Monkey Trial, Dayton, Tennessee." I appealed to American friends just arrived, and got details of the Scopes case. Morning after morning we saw reports similarly headed which were being read by Presbyterian Scotland with very evident amusement. Several allusions by speakers to Dayton, Tennessee, always with the same effect upon their audience, were heard during the meeting. This "rubbing in" of the news about the doings at the Scopes trial began to develop a different reaction with some of us.

From Edinburgh, in company with Katherine D. Blake of New York City, I went to Oxford to see this famous educational center. Some very interesting courses that seemed adapted to my degree of understanding were offered that summer, one of which was by Gilbert Murray on the Greek drama. So to sight-seeing was added this other purpose. In pursuit of the Murray course I happened to run upon another on "The Bible and Modern Thought" by W. B. Selbie, principal of Mansfield College, an orthodox institution of Oxford. What was being said there also captured my interest. In one of his lectures Dr. Selbie alluded to traces of primitive religion in the church today and said that this persistence of ancestral traces was greater in America than in England. "The soil of America," he said "seems to foster that sort of thing, as was recently shown by the Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee." Here it was again, and again my resentment rose!

We know that among foreign people, visited as they are today by multitudes of American travelers, the act of one of these travelers may cause a million of his fellow countrymen to be misjudged; and here was an instance of our country being judged as to its educational advancement by a condition of thought known to exist in only a small section of it. It disturbed me, and further, I deplored the failure of education in our country during the passage of sixty years to remove in some measure at least the ignorance and the bigotry, which when played upon by an eloquent political leader, with this streak of religious fanaticism in him, had caused all this trouble, and had influenced the legislation that restricted the rights of youth to know scientific truth. Perhaps I took too seriously this English criticism. When one morning I expressed to an English woman sitting next me my feeling about it, she smiled and replied, " Well, we know you had a Phillips Brooks." The suggestiveness of this was somewhat palliative.

Out of the entire experience came an expansion and a deepening of my appreciation of the opportunities of my youth which have been related here, and which by association were the reasons for this digression. Now comes a return to my regular theme.

Since the previous summer I had stepped up a little in my professional qualifications and now possessed a second grade certificate, good for two years. This I had obtained after an examination in which I remember to have seen for the first time James Cavanaugh, of Kenosha County, then a teacher who was assisting in the examinations. Mr. Cavanaugh left teaching to study law and for many years practiced in Kenosha, where he was prominent in the civic life of the community.

Still using my opening Burbank quotation, I proceed to say that my "third milestone" was the school at Salem Centre, taught in the summer of 1874. My sister Carrie, who had taught here the summer before, had married Eugene Bailey the November following and was settled in her home on the Bailey homestead to the north of the village. It was planned that I would live with her. The schoolhouse was three quarters of a mile to the south. It was just a nice walk when the road was good, but after a rain rather bad in a spots. In one of these, where the road run through a swampy place, I was obliged sometimes to take the board fence to get across. By standing on the lower board and clinging to the top one, I side stepped along until past the wet place. Rubber boots would have helped greatly. Not long ago when riding along that same road, I met a group of children and their teacher walking homeward to the village along the side of a good cement road. Of course it reminded me of long ago, and furnished evidence of a school benefit which the automobile has brought to us. The old one-room schoolhouse I had known had been replaced by a fine, graded school building.

But fifty-seven years ago, what did I find there? A schoolhouse that must have been of about the same vintage as the one already described in District No. 2, Paris. It had, however, been cleaned. Here is what I said about it, twenty years after. I find this in a clipping from a Kenosha newspaper reporting in full a talk or essay read by me at a Farmers' Institute held at Salem in 1893:

The first Salem Centre audience I ever addressed consisted of some twenty bright boys and girls of various ages in that little old schoolhouse to the south. I well remember those pupils, and that old schoolhouse, with its dingy, cracked walls, out desks and worn floor--so worn that when the good old minister visited my school, I failed to find four places in it where the four legs of his chair could stably rest, with consequences somewhat embarrassing to me, exciting for the children, and disturbing to his dignity.

The school had some usable equipment, a dictionary, maps, and so on, but there was one piece of expensive equipment which could very well have been dispensed with. It was a set of beautiful black walnut blocks illustrating the process of extracting cube root. This was the first time, but by no means the last, when I have found in country or in other schools, evidence of good salesmanship. Someone had made clear to the school official or officials some arithmetical or other notion never perhaps understood by them before, and this had made such an impression that they were an easy mark for the salesman; or he had convinced them that this thing was needed by this school and as usual, a teacher had not been conferred with. A big price had been paid out of the public funds for an almost useless piece of apparatus, one that could benefit but very few, when the expenditure of the same amount for well-selected, adapted books would have been to the whole school as water to a desert place.

Those pupils are not recalled today with the clearness I professed in the speech quoted, but the names of some of them have stayed by. My oldest and largest pupil was Mary Curtis, agreeable, kind, and exercising a helpful influence in the school. She was one of the unfortunate victims of that terrible smallpox epidemic, spread in the way I have previously related--the same that affected somewhat the course of my own life. Another victim was Alexander Bailey, already mentioned, who suffered a serious illness. Mary was keenly sensitive to the disfigurement of face, which she had suffered; but her interesting personality soon caused all that to be forgotten by those who knew her. She married, and one of her sons is a business man and valued citizen of Kenosha today. It was a pleasure to me to help all I could with her studies. Her pretty, blond little sister Grace, is also remembered, and by the law of opposites in association, there comes to mind a little black-eyed, dark-complexioned boy, named Homer Hollister.

These and others were from old Salem families. But there were several pupils who came from a newly-arrived family of different extraction and of very different history--a history involving varied experiences in distant lands. The head of this family was Christopher Browne. The children were Christopher, Della, William, Sarah, and John, and all but the first named attended my school. The name was pronounced in two syllables--"Browne-e," to distinguish this family from the Yankee "Browns" in that vicinity. Both parents were well educated and their refined speech and manners indicated social experiences of a very different sort from that afforded by a western country neighborhood. Mrs. Browne was an accomplished musician. They were of Irish origin, and had lived in Australia, where the children were born, and where, it was said, a fortune had been made and lost. Finally coming to America, Mr. Browne had been inveigled by someone into buying a poor, old, worn-out place, with dilapidated and farm buildings; a place where an experienced American farmer could scarcely have made a living. It was known in Salem as the Dale place. But this "ill wind" blew much good to hundreds of boys and girls, and young men and women in Salem and in other townships. Mrs. Browne, to help support the family, began to give music lessons. Her fame spread, and driving her own horse and buggy, she went day after day, and year after year upon her mission of spreading right ideals of piano and organ practice, and of improved musical taste among the country folk of Kenosha County. No county history that I can find says anything about this interesting woman, and this "frail memorial" is contributed with the purpose and the hope or perpetuating her memory.

My troubles must have been few in passing this milestone of my teaching road, and what there were could not be called hardships. I was coming to love teaching. There seems to be but one thing more to tell about: the celebration at the close of the term. Just how it was carried out in the little room I do not know; but we had a play, with a raised stage and a curtain! The name and character of the play are forgotten, but not the thrilling it had for the performers. As was customary, the pupils on that "last day" all came in the morning dressed in their very best. That of itself was a distracting show. In the afternoon, visitors came until the room was crowded. The program included not only the dramatic performance, but singing and "speaking pieces," and no one was left out of it.

After it was all over, there happened something very thrilling, especially to the children. For several days I had been conscious of much suppressed excitement, and secret whisperings. This afternoon I felt that "something was in the air." Wise smiles were being exchanged that plainly said, "We know something, don't we?" A plot of some sort was brewing. When I arose at the end of the program for some final remarks, the great dénouement of this important, mysterious plotting came. All eyes were centered on a girl, who rose and came forward bearing an object concealed under paper. She rattled off a little formal, carefully coached speech, and then with both hands thrust the object towards me. It was an album! I trust that my words of acceptance did justice to the lovely act of those children and their parents.

But I was not quite through. It was proposed by one of the visitors that the show be repeated on Saturday evening so that the men folks could attend. I recall a very busy Saturday, adding new features to the program, and borrowing kerosene lamps. Such was the dearth of entertainment of any sort in the country that this poor little school exhibition brought a crowd.

A city grade occupied me next, and since it was distinctly different in several ways from my country schools, it appropriately begins the next chapter.

1 She is now Mrs. Joseph Meyers of Lincoln, Nebraska, the wife of a prosperous business man, and the mother of several successful sons and daughters. She writes very commendable poetry. Recently when visiting relatives in Kenosha, she called on me and reminded me of the time when I was her teacher. She gave a very interesting account of her later schooling in a Nebraska dugout, and of herding sheep on a Nebraska prairie.

2 C. E. Patzer, public Education in Wisconsin (Madison, 1924), 69-70.

3 Ibid., 70