If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a successful career.
We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all went merry as a marriage bell.
My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life.
I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for myself and pupils.
One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W—Battalion of uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my men realized this, they rushed upon my captors en masse; many heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the shoulders of my heroic defenders.
If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never have left W——, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a much larger salary from N——, and I foolishly accepted.
The change from W—to N——, was like that from breezy, sunny green fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board.
In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial orthodox church.
I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name:
"Old Aunt Dunk
Is a mean old skunk."