But ’tis to John Cushan that I give the credit for my schooling. When I went to his National school, I wasn’t much beyond my A-B-C, if I was out of it at all; because I recollect one day that I was in his class, and the master teaching us. He had a rod called a pointer, and he was telling a little boy from Maoil what to call the letters. The little boy could not speak any English; he knew nothing but Irish, and the master, putting the tip of the pointer to the letter A on the board, would say to him, “Glao’g A air sin,” then he’d move the pointer to B, and say, “Glao’g B air sin,” and so on to the end of the lesson.
Another recollection satisfies me I had not much learning when I went to John Cushan’s school. I was in my class one day, that one of the monitors had charge of it. All the small classes were up in the hallways around the school, reading their lessons off the boards that hung on the walls. It was a day that the Inspector visited the school, and with the Inspector was the priest, Father Ambrose. Each boy in my class was to read one sentence of the lesson, until the lesson was ended; then the next boy would commence again, at the top of the card. It came to my turn to commence, and after commencing I did not stop at the end of the first sentence. I read on—
“John threw a stone down the street. He did not mean to do any harm. But just as the stone slipped out of his hand, an old man came in the way, and it struck his head and made him bleed.”
I read on to the end of that lesson, which is about the last one in the A-B-C book, or “First Book of Lessons of the National Schools.” I forgot myself; I was thinking of birds’ nests, or marbles, or something else; when I got out of my reverie, there were the boys tittering, and the master and the priest and the Inspector looking at me with a smile-turn on their faces.
My memory would do those times what I cannot get it to do now. It would get into it by heart, and retain it for some time—a pretty long time indeed—every lesson I got to learn. Those lessons hold possession of it to-day, to the exclusion, perhaps, of memories that are more needed. Yet, I find them no load to carry, and I use them occasionally, too, to some effect. A year ago in giving some lectures to my people in Ireland and England, I made audiences laugh heartily, by telling them how much they needed learning some of the lessons I learned at school. They’d understand the application of my words, when I’d repeat for them these lines that were in my second book at John Cushan’s school:
“Whatever brawls disturb the street,
There should be peace at home,
Where sisters dwell and brothers meet
Quarrels should never come.