Over twenty years ago I was circulating an anti-slavery petition among women. I carried it to the house of a neighboring farmer, who was a miller also, and well to do. His wife signed the petition (all women did not in those days), but she signed it with her mark. I have understood that it is about twenty years since the school law was made universal here, and that our township of Upper Leacock wanted to resist by litigation the establishment of public schools.[6] It is the school-tax that is onerous. Within about twenty years a great impetus has been given to education by the establishment of the county superintendency, of normal schools, and of teachers’ institutes. I think it is within this time, however, that the board of directors met, in an adjoining township, and, being called upon to vote by ballot, there were afterward found in the box several different ways of spelling the word “no.”
At the last institute, a worthy young man at the blackboard was telling the teachers how to make their pupils pronounce the word “did,” which they inclined to call dit; and a young woman told me that she found it necessary, when teaching in Berks County, to practise speaking “Dutch,” in order to make the pupils understand their lessons. It must be rather hard to hear and talk “Dutch” almost constantly, and then to go to a school where the text-books are English.
There is still an effort made to have German taught in our public schools. The reading of German is considered a great accomplishment, and is one required for a candidate for the ministry among some of our plainer sects. But the teacher is generally overburdened in the winter with the necessary branches in a crowded, ungraded school. Our township generally has school for seven months in the year; some townships have only five; and in Berks County I have heard of one having only four months. About thirty-five dollars a month is paid to teachers, male and female.
My little boy of seven began to go to public school this fall. For a while I could hear him repeating such expressions as, “Che, double o, t, coot” (meaning good). “P-i-g, pick.” “Kreat A, little A, pouncing P.” “I don’t like chincherpread.” Even among our “Dutch” people of more culture, etch is heard for aitch (h), and chay for jay (j), and these are relics of early training.
The standard of our county superintendent is high (1868), and his examinations are severe. His salary is about seventeen hundred dollars. Where there is so much wealth as here, it seems almost impossible that learning should not follow, as soon as the minds of the people are turned toward it; but the great fear of making their children “lazy” operates against sending them to school. Industrious habits will certainly tend more to the pecuniary success of a farmer than the “art of writing and speaking the English language correctly.”
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
My dear old “English” friend, Samuel G., had often been asked to stay and eat with David B., and on one occasion he concluded to accept the invitation. They went to the table, and had a silent pause; then David cut up the meat, and each workman or member of the family put in a fork and helped himself. The guest was discomfited, and, finding that he was likely to lose his dinner otherwise, he followed their example. The invitation to eat had covered the whole. When guests are present, many say, “Now help yourselves;” but they do not use vain repetitions, as the city people do.
Coffee is still drunk three times a day in some families, but frequently without sugar. The sugar-bowl stands on the table, with spoons therein for those who want sugar; but at a late “home-coming” party I believe that I was the only one at the table who took sugar. The dishes of smear-case, molasses, apple-butter, etc., are not always supplied with spoons. We dip in our knives, and with the same useful implements convey the food to our mouths. Does the opposite extreme prevail among the farmers of Massachusetts? Do they always eat with their forks, and use napkins?
On many busy farm-occasions, the woman of the house will find it more convenient to let the men eat first,—to get the burden of the harvest-dinner off her mind and her hands, and then sit down with her daughters, her “maid” and little children, to their own repast. But the allowing to the men the constant privilege of eating first has passed away, if indeed it ever prevailed. At funeral feasts the old men and women sit down first, with the mourning family. Then succeed the second, third, and fourth tables.
Among the children of well-to-do parents, the unmarried daughter will sometimes go into the service of the married one, receiving wages regularly, or allowing them to accumulate. An acquaintance of mine in Lancaster had a hired girl living in his family who was worth twelve thousand dollars in cash means, her father having been a rich farmer. Among our plain farmers, such persons are considered more praiseworthy than the reverse.