Reveries of a Schoolmaster

by Francis B. Pearson

There is a picture show just around the corner, and I'm in a quandary, right now, whether to follow the crowd to that show or sit here and read Ruskin's "Sesame and Lilies." If I go to see the picture film I'll probably see an exhibition of cowboy equestrian dexterity, with a "happy ever after" finale, and may also acquire the reputation among the neighbors of being up to date. But, if I spend the evening with Ruskin, I shall have something worth thinking over as I go about my work to-morrow. So here is another dilemma, and there is no one to decide the matter for me. This being a free moral agent is not the fun that some folks try to make it appear. I don't really see how I shall ever get on unless I subscribe to Sam Walter Foss's lines:

"No other song has vital breath
Through endless time to fight with death,
Than that the singer sings apart
To please his solitary heart."

CHAPTER XXVI

RABBIT PEDAGOGY

As I think back over my past life as a schoolmaster I keep wondering how many inebriates I have produced in my career. I'd be glad to think that I have not a single one to my discredit, but that seems beyond the wildest hope, considering the character of my teaching. I am a firm believer in temperance in all things; but, in the matter of pedagogy, my practice cannot be made to square with my theory. In fact, I find, upon reflection, that I have been teaching intemperance all the while. I'm glad the officers of my church do not know of my pedagogical practice. If they did, they would certainly take action against me, and in that case I cannot see what adequate defense I could offer. Being a schoolmaster, I could scarcely bring myself to plead ignorance, for such a plea as that might abrogate my license. So I shall just keep quiet and look as nearly wise as possible. It is embarrassing to me to reflect how long it has taken me to see the error of my practice. If I had asked one of my boys he could have told me of the better way.

When we got the new desks in our school, back home, our teacher seemed very anxious to have them kept in their virgin state, and became quite animated as he walked up and down the aisle fulminating against the possible offender. In the course of his sulphury remarks he threatened condign punishment upon the base miscreant who should dare use his penknife on one of those desks. His address was equal to a course in "Paradise Lost," nor was it without its effect upon the audience. Every boy in the room felt in his pocket to make sure that it contained his knife, and every one began to wonder just where he would find the whetstone when he went home. We were all eager for school to close for the day that we might set about the important matter of whetting our knives. Henceforth wood-carving was a part of the regular order in our school, but it was done without special supervision. Of course, each boy could prove an alibi when his own desk was under investigation. It would not be seemly, in this connection, to give a verbatim report of the conversations of us boys when we assembled at our rendezvous after school. Suffice it to say that the teacher's ears must have burned. The consensus of opinion was that, if the teacher didn't want the desks carved, he should not have told us to carve them. We seemed to think that he had said, in substance, that he knew we were a gang of young rascallions, and that, if he didn't intimidate us, we'd surely be guilty of some form of vandalism. Then he proceeded to point out the way by suggesting penknives; and the trick was done. We were ever open to suggestions.

We had another teacher whose pet aversion was match heads. Cicero and Demosthenes would have apologized to him could they have come in when he was delivering one of his eloquent orations upon this engaging theme. His vituperative vocabulary seemed unlimited, inexhaustible, and cumulative. He raved, and ranted, and exuded epithets with the most lavish prodigality. It seemed to us that he didn't care much what he said, if he could only say it rapidly and forcibly. In the very midst of an eloquent period another match head would explode under his foot, and that seemed to answer the purpose of an encore. The class in arithmetic did not recite that afternoon. There was no time for arithmetic when match heads were to the fore. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I was admitted to such a good show on a free pass. The next day, of course, the Gatling guns resumed their activity; the girls screeched as they walked toward the water-pail to get a drink; we boys studied our geography lesson with faces garbed in a look of innocence and wonder; our mothers at home were wondering what had become of all the matches; and the teacher—but the less said of him the better.

We boys needed only the merest suggestion to set us in motion, and like Dame Rumor in the Aeneid, we gathered strength by the going. One day the teacher became somewhat facetious and recounted a red-pepper episode in the school of his boyhood. That was enough for us; and the next day, in our school, was a day long to be remembered. I recall in the school reader the story of "Meddlesome Matty." Her name was really Matilda. One day her curiosity got the better of her, and she removed the lid from her grandmother's snuff-box. The story goes on to say:

"Poor eyes, and nose, and mouth, and chin
A dismal sight presented;
And as the snuff got further in
Sincerely she repented."

Barring the element of repentance, the red pepper was equally provocative of results in our school.