Laverne had a great deal to tell Uncle Jason. She was so bright and happy, and had seen so much. And then there was the procession for Monday. Could she go?
Certainly, it was not possible to deny the eager, appealing face and pleading voice.
After supper, when she was in bed and Uncle Jason reading his papers, Miss Holmes broached the subject of school.
The first schools, as happens in most new places, were private enterprises. The earliest of all had been among the old residents before the great influx, and in 1847 the old plain little schoolhouse was erected on Portsmouth Square. It was used for many purposes. Religious bodies held their first meetings here, and the early public amusements were given, even political and benevolent assemblies. It was dignified as a Court House under Judge Almond, and at length turned into a station house until it went the way of transitory things. To this effort for education succeeded a real public school, with a board of trustees of prominent men, there being sixty children of school age in a population of a little over eight hundred, including Indians. Then suddenly the gold fever swept the town like wildfire, the public-school project was dropped, and the Rev. Albert Williams collected twenty-five pupils into a pay-school. In the spring of 1850, Mr. and Mrs. Pelton, who had succeeded the clergyman, and gathered in a large number of pupils, applied to the city for adequate recompense, and it was virtually made a public school. In January, a beautiful lot at Spring Valley, on the Presidio Road, was purchased, and a school was built in a delightful road of evergreens.
Soon after this the city started again and in time had seven schools, though several private schools were in a very flourishing condition. But many children were sent East to finishing academies, or to Monterey and other Southern towns to convent schools. Still the cause of education began to demand more attention, as the necessity for good citizenship became more strenuous.
Uncle Jason glanced up from his paper when Miss Holmes spoke of the school.
"Not that I find it at all troublesome to teach her, and she is the most tractable child I ever saw. Then she is so eager to get to the very foundation of things. Why, you would hardly believe how much she knows about botany. I found an old book—but the flowers here are so different. And I really love to teach now that I am well and strong. I could almost go in school again."
"Oh, don't think of such a thing. We couldn't do without you," he exclaimed earnestly. "But you think—a school——" and he paused, his eyes fixed on the floor as if he was ruminating.
"Laverne needs the companionship of children, comparing thoughts with them, playing, the harmless rivalry of studying together. When it comes to that, I could have a small school. You see she will be growing older all the time."
"Frankly, which would be best? You are more capable of deciding, since you have had a wider experience in this matter."