Reveries of a Schoolmaster

by Francis B. Pearson

I concede with enthusiasm the joys of bygone days, and would be glad to repeat those experiences with sundry very specific reservations and exceptions. That thick bread with its generous anointing of apple butter discounted all the nectar and ambrosia of the books and left its marks upon the character as well as the features of the recipient. The mouth waters even now as I recall the bill of fare plus the appetite. But if I were going back to the good old days I'd like to take some of the modern improvements along with me. It thrills me to consider the modern school credits for home work with all the "57 varieties" as an integral feature of the good old days. Alas, how much we missed by not knowing about all this! What miracles might have been wrought had we and our teachers only known! Poor, ignorant teachers! Little did they dream that such wondrous things could ever be. Life might have been made a glad, sweet song for us had it been supplied with these modern attachments. I spent many weary hours over partial payments in Ray's Third Part, when I might have been brushing my teeth or combing my hair instead. Then, instead of threading the mazes of Greene's Analysis and parsing "Thanatopsis," I might just as well have been asleep in the haymow, where ventilation was super-abundant. How proudly could I have produced the home certificate as to my haymow experience and received an exhilarating grade in grammar!

Just here I interrupt myself to let the imagination follow me homeward on the days when grades were issued. The triumphal processions of the Romans would have been mild by comparison. The arch look upon my face, the martial mien, and the flashing eye all betoken the real hero. Then the pride of that home, the sumptuous feast of chicken and angel-food cake, and the parental acclaim—all befitting the stanch upholder of the family honor. Of course, nothing like this ever really happened, which goes to prove that I was born years too early in the world's history. The more I think of this the more acute is my sympathy with Maud Muller. That girl and I could sigh a duet thinking what might have been. Why, I might have had my college degree while still wearing short trousers. I was something of an adept at milking cows and could soon have eliminated the entire algebra by the method of substitution. Milking the cows was one of my regular tasks, anyhow, and I could thus have combined business with pleasure. And if by riding a horse to water I could have gained immunity from the Commentaries by one Julius Caesar, full lustily would I have shouted, a la Richard III: "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

One man advocates the plan of promoting pupils in the schools on the basis of character, and this plan strongly appeals to me as right, plausible, and altogether feasible. Had this been proposed when I was a schoolboy I probably should have made a few conditions, or at least have asked a few questions. I should certainly have wanted to know who was to be the judge in the matter, and what was his definition of character. Much would have depended upon that. If he had decreed that cruelty to animals indicates a lack of character and then proceeded to denominate as cruelty to animals such innocent diversions as shooting woodpeckers in a cherry-tree with a Flobert rifle, or smoking chipmunks out from a hollow log, or tying a strip of red flannel to a hen's tail to take her mind off the task of trying to hatch a door-knob, or tying a tin can to a dog's tail to encourage him in his laudable enterprise of demonstrating the principle of uniformly accelerated motion—if he had included these and other such like harmless antidotes for ennui in his category, I should certainly have asked to be excused from his character curriculum and should have pursued the even tenor of my ways, splitting kindling, currying the horse, washing the buggy, carrying water from the pump to the kitchen and saying, "Thank you," to my elders as the more agreeable avenue of promotion.

If we had had character credits in the good old days I might have won distinction in school and been saved much embarrassment in later years. Instead of learning the latitude and longitude of Madagascar, Chattahoochee, and Kamchatka, I might have received high grades in geography by abstaining from the chewing of gum, by not wearing my hands in my trousers-pockets, by walking instead of ambling or slouching, by wiping the mud from my shoes before entering the house, by a personally conducted tour through the realms of manicuring, and by learning the position and use of the hat-rack. Getting no school credits for such incidental minors in the great scheme of life, I grew careless and indifferent and acquired a reputation that I do not care to dwell upon. If those who had me in charge, or thought they had, had only been wise and given me school credits for all these things, what a model boy I might have been!

Why, I would have swallowed my pride, donned a kitchen apron, and washed the supper dishes, and no normal boy enjoys that ceremony. By making passes over the dishes I should have been exorcising the spooks of cube root, and that would have been worth some personal sacrifice. What a boon it would have been for the home folks too! They could have indulged their penchant for literary exercises, sitting in the parlor making out certificates for me to carry to my teacher next day, and so all the rough places in the home would have been made smooth. But the crowning achievement would have been my graduation from college. I can see the picture. I am husking corn in the lower field. To reach this field one must go the length of the orchard and then walk across the meadow. It is a crisp autumn day, about ten o'clock in the morning, and the sun is shining. The golden ears are piling up under my magic skill, and there is peace. As I take down another bundle from the shock I descry what seems to be a sort of procession wending its way through the orchard. Then the rail fence is surmounted, and the procession solemnly moves across the meadow. In time the president and an assortment of faculty members stand before me, bedight in caps and gowns. I note that their gowns are liberally garnished with Spanish needles and cockleburs, and their shoes give evidence of contact with elemental mud. But then and there they confer upon me the degree of bachelor of arts magna cum laude. But for this interruption I could have finished husking that row before the dinner-horn blew.

CHAPTER III

BROWN

My neighbor came in again this evening, not for anything in particular, but unconsciously proving that men are gregarious animals. I like this neighbor. His name is Brown. I like the name Brown, too. It is easy to pronounce. By a gentle crescendo you go to the summit and then coast to the bottom. The name Brown, when pronounced, is a circumflex accent. Now, if his name had happened to be Moriarity I never could be quite sure when I came to the end in pronouncing it. I'm glad his name is not Moriarity—not because it is Irish, for I like the Irish; so does Brown, for he is married to one of them. Any one who has been in Cork and heard the fine old Irishman say in his musical and inimitable voice, "Tis a lovely dye," such a one will ever after have a snug place in his affections for the Irish, whether he has kissed the "Blarney stone" or not. If he has heard this same driver of a jaunting-car rhapsodize about "Shandon Bells" and the author, Father Prout, his admiration for things and people Irish will become well-nigh a passion. He will not need to add to his mental picture, for the sake of emphasis or color, the cherry-cheeked maids who lead their mites of donkeys along leafy roads, the carts heaped high with cabbages. Even without this addition he will become expansive when he speaks of Ireland and the Irish.

But, as I was saying, Brown came in this evening just to barter small talk, as we often do. Now, in physical build Brown is somewhere between Falstaff and Cassius, while in mental qualities he is an admixture of Plato, Solomon, and Bill Nye.

When he drops in we do not discuss matters, nor even converse; we talk. Our talk just oozes out and flows whither it wills, or little wisps of talk drift into the silences, and now and then a dash of homely philosophy splashes into the talking. Brown is a real comfort. He is never cryptic, nor enigmatic, at least consciously so, nor does he ever try to be impressive. If he were a teacher he would attract his pupils by his good sense, his sincerity, his simplicity, and his freedom from pose. I cannot think of him as ever becoming teachery, with a high-pitched voice and a hysteric manner. He has too much poise for that. He would never discuss things with children. He would talk with them. Brown cannot walk on stilts, nor has the air-ship the least fascination for him.