There were fourteen pupils. They were all assembled in the school-yard when we arrived. The boys were playing baseball, and the girls, perched on the stone wall, were watching them. The moment they saw the teacher boys and girls alike came to escort her to her place in the school- house. When she was in it, they took their own places—those they had occupied during the former term. There was one "new" pupil, a small boy. He had been so frequently a "visiting scholar" the previous year that his newness was not very patent. There was a desk that he also claimed as his.
"We will sing 'America,'" were the words with which the teacher commenced the new school year, "and then we will go on with our work, beginning where we left off in the spring."
We hear a great deal at the present time concerning the education of the "particular child." In the very best of our private schools in the city each pupil is regarded as a separate and distinct individual, and taught as such. This ideal condition of things prevailed in that little district school in the farming region of New Hampshire. That teacher had fourteen pupils; practically, she had fourteen "grades." Even when it happened that two children were taught the same lesson, each one was taught it individually.
"They are all so different!" the teacher said, when I commented upon the difference of her methods with the various children. "That boy, who hopes to go to college and then teach, needs to get one thing from his history lesson; and that girl, who intends to be a post-office clerk as soon as she finishes school, needs to get something else."
She did not aim to prepare her pupils for college. The district school was only a "grammar school." There was a high school in the nearest village, which was three miles away; she made her pupils ready for entrance into that. In order to attend the high school, more than one child in that neighborhood, year after year, in sunshine and storm, walked two and three miles twice daily. Many a child who lived still farther away was provided by an interested father with a horse and a conveyance with which to make the two journeys a day. No wonder the teacher of that district school felt that the people in the neighborhood were "thoroughly awake to the importance of education"!
As for the children—she had said that they were "such dears!" They were. I remember, in particular, two; a brother and sister. She was eight years old, and he was nine. They were inseparable companions. On bright days they ran to school hand in hand. When it rained, they trudged along the muddy road under one umbrella.
The school-teacher had taught the little girl George Eliot's poem "Brother and Sister." She could repeat it word for word, excepting the line, "I held him wise." She always said that, "I hold him tight." This "piece" the small girl "spoke" on a Friday afternoon. The most winning part of her altogether lovely recitation was the smile with which she glanced at her brother as she announced its title. He returned her smile; when she finished her performance, he led the applause.
Before the end of my visit I became very intimate with that brother and sister. I chanced to be investigating the subject of "juvenile books."
"What books have you?" I inquired of the little girl.
"Ever so many of all kinds," she replied. "Come to our house and look at them," she added cordially.