Deep scarred by raps official;
The battered seats, the warping floor,
The jack knife’s carved initial.
“The charcoal frescoes on the wall,
The door’s worn sill betraying
The feet that creeping late to school,
Went storming out to playing.”
To fit the particular building in which our subject first tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, the picture needs but slight modification. If anything, it should be made even more simple and primitive. The “battered” seats were made of puncheon. Since this word is passing from common usage, it may be well to explain that puncheon is made by splitting a small log in two equal parts. The split edges are then trimmed down, and the pieces thus treated served as a rough substitute for sawed lumber. To make them into seats, two holes were bored near each end in the unhewn side. These being at proper angles, wooden pins were inserted into them for legs. The rude seat was then ready for service. It is not to be taken for granted that these seats were always made perfectly smooth. What was lacking to smooth them down by the workmen was expected to be completed by the pupils. They finished the task, but often it was a long and painful process, with many a protest from a new gown of homespun or a pair of “tow-linen,” home-grown breeches. Thus, with no rest for the arms or the back, with one side scorched by the heat from the great fireplace and the other chilled by the winter winds creeping through cracks in floor and walls and roof, the children wore away the dreary hours. The floor, being composed of this same puncheon, did not easily warp. The recess recreation consisted mainly in carrying fuel from the surrounding forest to feed the every-hungry fireplace.
Whatever dignity the schoolmaster may have possessed in the eyes of his pupils, certain it is he was not the original of Goldsmith’s creation in the “Deserted Village,” of whom the wonder was “that one small head could carry all he knew.” Beyond the traditional essentials of scholarship, consisting of reading, writing, and ciphering, with a specially intimate acquaintance with the spelling book, he did not pretend to lead. His chief business was to govern the school. He proved his divine right to his throne in the schoolroom by his ability to handle the most obstreperous cases the district could produce. The scholars were on hand as a challenge to his generalship. The hero of the school was the one who held out longest against his despotic authority. To lick the teacher was the height of his ambition. This realized, his place in the local hall of fame was secure. According to the philosophy of the times “lickin’ and larnin’” went hand in hand, lickin’ being essential, while larnin’ was incidental.