THE EXAMINATION AT CRAWFORD'S SCHOOL.
Examination-day is an important time in country schools, and it excited more interest seventy years ago than now. Andrew Crawford was always ambitious that this day should do credit to his faithful work, and his pupils caught his inspiration.
There were great preparations for the examination at Crawford's this spring. The appearance of the German school-master in the place who could read Latin was an event. Years after, when the pure gold of fame was no longer a glimmering vision or a current of fate, but a wonderful fact, Abraham Lincoln wrote of such visits as Jasper's in the settlement a curious sentence in an odd hand in an autobiography, which we reproduce here:
With such a "wizard" as Jasper in the settlement, who would certainly attend the examination, it is no wonder that this special event excited the greatest interest in all the cabins between the two Pigeon Creeks of southern Indiana.
"May we decorate the school-house?" asked a girl of Mr. Crawford, before the appointed day. "May we decorate the school-house out of the woods?"
"I am chiefly desirous that you should decorate your minds out of the spelling-book," said Mr. Crawford; "but it is a commendable thing to have an eye to beauty, and to desire to present a good appearance. Yes, you may decorate the house out of the woods."
The timber was green in places with a vine called creeping Jenney, and laurels whose leaves were almost as green and waxy as those of the Southern magnolia. The creeping Jenney could be entwined with the laurel-leaves in such a way as to form long festoons. The boys and girls spent the mornings and recesses for several days in gathering Jenney, and in twining the vines with the laurel and making decorative festoons.
They hung these festoons about the wooden walls of the low building and over the door. Out of the tufts of boxberry leaves and plums they made the word "Welcome," which they hung over the door. They covered the rude chimney with pine-boughs, and in so doing filled the room with a resinous odor. They also covered the roof with boughs of evergreen.
The spelling-book was not neglected in the preparations of the eventful week. There was to be a spelling-match on the day, and, although it was already felt that Abraham Lincoln would easily win, there was hard study on the part of all.
One afternoon, after school, in the midst of these heroic preparations, a party of the scholars were passing along the path in the timber. A dispute arose between two boys in regard to the spelling of a word.
"I spelled it just as Crawford did," said one.
"No, you didn't. Crawford spelled it with a i."
"He spelled it with a y, and that is just the way I spelled it."
"He didn't, now, I know! I heard Crawford spell it himself."
"He did!"
"Do you mean to tell me that I lie?"
"You do—it don't need telling."
"I won't be called a liar by anybody. I'll make you ache for that!"
"We'll see about that. You may ache yourself before this thing is settled. I've got fists as well as you, and I will not take such words as that from anybody. Come on!"
The two backwoods knights rushed toward each other with a wounded sense of honor in their hearts and with uplifted arms.
Suddenly a form like a giant passed between them. It took one boy under one of its arms and the other under the other, and strode down the timber.
"He called me a liar," said one of the boys. "I won't stand that from any man."
"He sassed me," said the other, "and I won't stand any sassin', not while my fists are alive."
"You wouldn't be called a liar," said the first.
"Nor take any sassin'," said the second.
The tall form in blue-jean shirt and leather breeches strode on, with the two boys under its arms.
"I beg!" at last said one of the boys.
"I beg!" said the other.
"Then I'll let you go, and we'll all be friends again!"
"Yes, Abraham, I'll give in, if he will."
"I will. Let me go."
The tall form dropped the two boys, and soon all was peace in the April-like air.
"Abraham Lincoln will never allow any quarrels in our school," said another boy. "Where he is there has to be peace. It wouldn't be fair for him to use his strength so, only he's always right; and when strength is right it is all for the best."
The boy had a rather clear perception of the true principles of human government. A will to do right and the power to enforce it, make nations great as well as character powerful.
The eventful day came, with blue-birds in the glimmering timber, and a blue sky over all. People came from a distance to attend the examination, and were surprised to find the school-house changed into a green bower.
Abraham as a Peace-maker.
The afternoon session had been assigned to receiving company, and the pupils awaited the guests with trembling expectation. It was a warm day, and the oiled paper that served for panes of glass in the windows had been pushed aside to admit the air and make an outlook, and the door had been left open. The first to arrive was Jasper. The school saw him coming; but he looked so kindly, benevolent, and patriarchal, that the boys and girls did not stand greatly in awe of him. They seemed to feel instinctively that he was their friend and was with them. But a different feeling came over them when 'Squire Gentry, of Gentryville, came cantering on a horse that looked like a war-charger. 'Squire Gentry was a great man in those parts, and filled a continental space in their young minds. The faces of all the scholars were turned silently and deferently to their books when the 'Squire banged with his whip-handle on the door. Aunt Olive was next seen coming down the timber. She was dressed in a manner to cause solicitude and trepidation. She wore knit mits, had a lofty poke bonnet, and a "checkered" gown gay enough for a valance, and, although it was yet very early spring, she carried a parasol over her head. There was deep interest in the books as her form also darkened the festooned door.
Then the pupils breathed freer. But only for a moment. Sarah Lincoln, Abraham's sister, looked out of the window, and beheld a sight which she was not slow to communicate.
"Abe," she whispered, "look there!"
"Blue-nose Crawford," whispered the tall boy, "as I live!"
In a few moments the school was all eyes and mouths. Blue-nose Crawford bore the reputation of being a very hard taskmaster, and of holding to the view that severe discipline was one of the virtues that wisdom ought to visit upon the youth. He once lent to Abraham Lincoln Weems's "Life of Washington." The boy read it with absorbing interest, but there came a driving storm, and the rain ran in the night through the walls of the log-cabin and wet and warped the cover of the book. Blue-nose Crawford charged young Lincoln seventy-five cents for the damage done to the book. "Abe," as he was called, worked three days, at twenty-five cents a day, pulling fodder, to pay the fine. He said, long after this hard incident, that he did his work well, and that, although his feelings were injured, he did not leave so much as a strip of fodder in the field.
"The class in reading may take their places," said Andrew Crawford.
It was a tall class, and it was provided with leather-covered English Readers. One of the best readers in the class was a Miss Roby, a girl of some fifteen years of age, whom young Lincoln greatly liked, and whom he had once helped at a spelling match, by putting his finger on his eye (i) when she had spelled defied with a y. This girl read a selection with real pathos.
"That gal reads well," said Blue-nose Crawford, or Josiah Crawford, as he should be called. "She ought to keep school. We're goin' to need teachers in Indiana. People are comin' fast."
Miss Roby colored. She had indeed won a triumph of which every pupil of Spencer County might be proud.
"Now, Nathaniel, let's hear you read. You're a strappin' feller, and you ought not to be outread by a gal."
Nathaniel raised his book so as to hide his face, like one near-sighted. He spread his legs apart, and stood like a drum-major awaiting a word of command.
"You may read Section V in poetry," said Mr. Crawford, the teacher. "Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk. Speak up loud, and mind your pauses."
He did.
"I am monarch of all I survey," he began, in a tone of vocal thunder. Then he made a pause, a very long one. Josiah Crawford turned around in great surprise; and Aunt Olive planted the chair in which she had been sitting at a different angle, so that she could scrutinize the reader.
The monarch of all he surveyed, which in the case of the boy was only one page of the English Reader, was diligently spelling out the next line, which he proceeded to pronounce like one long word with surprising velocity:
"My-right-there-is-none-to-dispute."
There was another pause.
"Hold down your book," said the master.
"Yes, hold down your book," said Josiah Crawford. "What do ye cover yer face for? There's nuthin' to be ashamed of. Now try again."
Nathaniel lowered the book and revealed the singular struggle that was going on in his mind. He had to spell out the words to himself, and in doing so his face was full of the most distressing grimaces. He unconsciously lifted his eyebrows, squinted his eyes, and drew his mouth hither and thither.
"From the cen-t-e-r, center; center, all round to the sea,
I am lord of the f-o-w-l and-the-brute."
The last line came to a sudden conclusion, and was followed by a very long pause.
"Go on," said Andrew Crawford, the master.
"Yes, go on," said Josiah. "At the rate you're goin' now you won't get through by candle-light."
Nathaniel lifted his eyebrows and uttered a curiously exciting—
"That boy'll have a fit," said Aunt Olive. "Don't let him read any more, for massy sake!"
"O—What's that word, master? S-o-l-i-t-u-d-e, so-li-tu-de. O—So-li-tu-de."
"O Solitude, where are the charms?" read Mr. Andrew Crawford,
"That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms
Than reign in this horrible place."
Nathaniel followed the master like a race-horse. He went on smoothly until he came to "this horrible place," when his face assumed a startled expression, like one who had met with an apparition. He began to spell out horrible, "h-o-r-, hor—there's your hor, hor; r-i-b-, there's your rib, horrib—"
"Don't let that boy read any more," said Aunt Olive.
Nathaniel dropped his book by his side, and cast a far-away glance into the timber.
"I guess I ain't much of a reader," he remarked, dryly.
"Stop, sir!" said the master.
Poor Nathaniel! Once, in attempting to read a Bible story, he read, "And he smote the Hittite that he died"—"And he smote him Hi-ti-ti-ty, that he did" with great emphasis and brief self-congratulation.
In wonderful contrast to Nathaniel's efforts was the reading in concert by the whole class. Here was shown fine preparation for a forest school. The reading of verses, in which "sound corresponded to the signification," was smoothly, musically, and admirably done, and we give some of these curious exercises here:
Felling trees in a wood.
Loud sounds the axe, redoubling strokes on strokes;
On all sides round the forest hurls her oaks
Headlong. Deep echoing groan the thickets brown,
Then rustling, crackling, crashing, thunder down.
Sounds of a bow-string.
The string let fly
Twanged short and sharp, like the shrill swallow's cry.
The pheasant.
See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings.
Scylla and Charybdis.
Dire Scylla there a scene of horror forms,
And here Charybdis fills the deep with storms.
When the tide rushes from her rumbling caves,
The rough rock roars; tumultuous boil the waves.
Boisterous and gentle sounds.
Two craggy rocks projecting to the main,
The roaring winds' tempestuous rage restrain:
Within, the waves in softer murmurs glide,
And ships secure without their hawsers ride.
Laborious and impetuous motion.
With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone:
The huge round stone resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground.
Regular and slow movement.
First march the heavy mules securely slow;
O'er hills, o'er dales, o'er crags, o'er rocks they go.
Motion slow and difficult.
A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
A rock torn from the brow of a mountain.
Still gath'ring force, it smokes, and urged amain,
Whirls, leaps, and thunders down impetuous to the plain.
Extent and violence of the waves.
The waves behind impel the waves before,
Wide-rolling, foaming high, and tumbling to the shore.
Pensive numbers.
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns.
Battle.
Arms on armor clashing brayed
Horrible discord; and the madding wheels
Of brazen fury raged.
Sound imitating reluctance.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned;
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?
A spelling exercise followed, in which the pupils spelled for places, or for the head. Abraham Lincoln stood at the head of the class. He was regarded as the best speller in Spencer County. He is noted to have soon exhausted all that the three teachers whom he found there could teach him. Once, in after years, when he was asked how he came to know so much, he answered, "By a willingness to learn of every one who could teach me anything."
"Abraham," said Master Crawford, "you have maintained your place at the head of the class during the winter. You may take your place now at the foot of the class, and try again."
The spelling for turns, or for the head, followed the method of the old Webster's "Speller," that was once so popular in country schools:
ail, to be in trouble.
ale, malt liquor.
air, the atmosphere.
heir, one who inherits.
all, the whole.
awl, an instrument.
al-tar, a place for offerings.
al-ter, to change.
ant, a little insect.
aunt, a sister to a parent.
ark, a vessel.
arc, part of a circle.
All went correctly and smoothly, to the delight and satisfaction of Josiah Crawford and Aunt Olive, until the word drachm was reached, when all the class failed except Abraham Lincoln, who easily passed up to the head again.
The writing-books, or copy-books, were next shown to the visitors. The writing had been done on puncheon-desks with home made ink. Abraham Lincoln's copy-book showed the same characteristic hand that signed the Emancipation Proclamation. In one corner of a certain page he had written an odd bit of verse in which one may read a common experience in the struggles of life after what is better and higher. Emerson said, "A high aim is curative." Poor backwoods Abe seemed to have the same impression, but he did not write it down in an Emersonian way, but in this odd rhyme:
"Abraham Lincoln,
His hand and pen,
He will be good,
But God knows when."
The exercises ended with a grand dialogue translated from Fénelon between Dionysius, Pythias, and Damon, in which fidelity in friendship was commended. After this, each of the visitors, Aunt Olive included, was asked to make a "few remarks." Aunt Olive's remarks were "few," but to the point:
"Children, you have read well, and spelled well, and are good arithmetickers, but you ain't sot still. There!"
Josiah Crawford thought the progress of the school had been excellent, but that more of the rod had been needed.
(Where had all the green bushes gone in the clearing, but to purposes of discipline?)
Then good Brother Jasper was asked to speak. The "wizard" who could speak Latin arose. The pupils could see his great heart under his face. It shone through. His fine German culture did not lead him away from the solid merits of the forest school.
"There are purposes in life that we can not see," he began, "but the secret comes to those who listen to the beating of the human heart, and at the doors of heaven. Spirits whisper, as it were. The soul, a great right intention, is here; and there is a conscience here which is power; and here, for aught we can say, may be some young Servius Tullius of this wide republic."
Servius Tullius? Would any one but he have dreamed that the citizens of Rome would one day delight to honor an ungainly pupil of that forest school?
One day there came to Washington a present to the Liberator of the American Republic. It looked as follows, and bore the following inscription:
"To Abraham Lincoln, President, for the second time, of the American Republic, citizens of Rome present this stone, from the wall of Servius Tullius, by which the memory of each of those brave assertors of liberty may be associated. Anno 1865."
It is said that the modest President shrank from receiving such a compliment as that. It was too much. He hid away the stone in a storeroom of the capital, in the basement of the White House. It now constitutes a part of his monument, being one of the most impressive relics in the Memorial Hall of that structure. It is twenty-four hundred years old, and it traveled across the world to the prairies of Illinois, a tribute from the first advocate of the rights of the people to the latest defender of all that is sacred to the human soul.