Ella, a little schoolgirl of the sixties

by Eva March Tappan

Three days of the term had passed, and the principal had not appeared. All sorts of rumors were floating about. It was said that he had leave of absence, that he was sick, and finally, that he had resigned and that a new principal might step in at any moment. The assistant was quite equal to the management of the school, and everything was going on well.

The superintendent introduced the stranger to her; then, turning toward the pupils, he introduced to them their new principal. Fortunately it was near the close of the session, for no rules against “communicating” or even whispering could have long suppressed the comparing of notes that was all ready to burst forth. There was no playing on the homeward way that noon; the children were too eager to tell the great news.

Ella was an ardent little partisan. Whatever the principal was to others, he had always been kind to her, and she wrote forlornly in her little diary, “Another king arose which knew not Joseph.”

Of course some different ways of doing things were introduced, and Ella was certain that the older ways were far better. In arithmetic, it had been forbidden to preserve any written work. What was wanted was the ability to do a problem; why preserve it then, if you have the ability to do it at any time? The new way was to keep your problems in a blank book, each one fenced off from the others by a carefully ruled double line, and have them to refer to at any moment. There were good reasons for both ways.

The plan of map-drawing had been to study a map till you had a picture of it in your mind, then to draw that picture on paper or on the blackboard. The new way was to make as nearly an outline of the country to be drawn as could be made with straight lines, and then fit the true outline of the country around it. This worked very well if one happened to remember just how many “measures” long each line of the outline should be; but if the proper length of any one line was forgotten, the pupil was all at sea. The numbers had gone from his mind, and he had no mental picture of the map. Ella’s diary called it “a queer, conglomerated way of drawing Europe.”

Gradually the new principal made his way. Every lesson had to be learned as carefully as ever, but there was a margin to the work. When strange kinds of woods appeared in the list of “productions” that was the children’s horror, the new principal was quite likely to bring some specimens of them to school, and perhaps to invite a group of those children who seemed most interested to spend the evening at his house to see the rest of his cabinet of woods. With him a company went not only to the asbestus ledge, but to a coal mine not far away where they could collect some fossils. He had a valuable microscope, and this he brought to school to reveal the marvels of little things.

So passed the spring term. In those days the spring term began the school year, so that when Ella returned to school in September, she had only three terms more before going to the high school.

It was soon plain that much of the rest of the year would be given to preparation for the high school examinations. Every study was reviewed most thoroughly, from the beginning of the book to the end. For a while geography was recited twice a day, once to the new principal and once to the assistant. Every question in the little pink geographical question book was asked by the teacher and answered by the pupils. The principal exports of Europe, fifty-three articles, were recited over and over. A table of the latitude and longitude of fifty-six places, a thing to give one bad dreams, was repeated in chorus and in solo. More than once the time sacred to the reading class was given to going over the United States or some other country, naming boundaries, rivers, and cities. Maps were drawn until the children could almost have drawn them with their eyes shut. The new principal said it was never his way to offer prizes; but if it had been, he would have offered one long ago for the best map of Europe. “Draw just as good a map as you can,” he said to the First Class, “and we will see about the prizes afterwards.”

The other studies were reviewed in much the same way as the geography. There was more teaching than the teachers could do, and some of the pupils were pressed into the service. Ella hardly recited at all, she was so busy hearing others. Among these were two girls who were sent to her in the office every day. “See if you can possibly make them understand how to analyze a sentence,” said the assistant almost hopelessly.

There were written examinations without end. Surely the children ought to have been well used to them, for they lived and breathed examinations every few days, especially in grammar and arithmetic. Among these examinations were full sets of the questions used for entrance to the high school for the last twelve years, and every one of these was given to the class in hand. The children of the sixties must have been tough little things, for not one of them had nervous prostration.