Gruber. "It is warm."

Myself. "Very warm."

Have you

Gruber. "Now that schoolmaster Hörler is going away from Gais, you have a chance to earn your bread a little more easily. no desire to offer yourself for his place!"

Myself. "Wishing will not help me much. A schoolmaster must have knowledge; and I have none."

Gruber. "What a schoolmaster among us needs to know, you at your age can very soon learn.”

Myself. "But how, and where? I see no possibility of it."

Gruber. "If you wish it, the means will be easily found. Consider the matter and decide upon it."

He left me. I now had abundance of matter for reflection. But no ray of light came into my mind, although the natural sunlight surrounded my body with brightness and warmth. I scarcely felt my load as I proceeded along the ascents and steeps of the road. Whatever has fallen to my lot since that moment, I look upon as the fruit of this conversation.

Since my leaving the day school, where I had learned and practiced only reading, learning by rote, and mechanical copying, and while I was growing up to adult age, I had so far forgotten to write that I no longer knew how to make all the capital letters; my friend Sonderegger therefore procured me a copy from a teacher in Altstättin, well known as a writing-master. This single copy I wrote over as often as a hundred times, for the sake of improving my handwriting. I had no other special preparation for the profession; but, notwithstanding, I ventured, when the notice was given from the pulpit, to offer myself as a candidate for the place. with but small hopes of obtaining it, but consoling myself with the thought that at least I should come off without shame.

The day of examination came. An elder fellow-candidate was first called before the committee. To read a chapter in the New Testament and to write a few lines, occupied him a full quarter of an hour. My turn now came. The genealogical register, from Adam to Abraham, from the first book of Chronicles, was given me to read. After this, chairman Schläpfer gave me an uncut quill, with the direction to write a few lines. "What shall I write?" I said. "Write the Lord's Prayer, or whatever you like," was the answer. As I had no knowledge of composition or spelling, it may be imagined how my writing looked. However, I was told to retire. After a short consideration, I was, to my wonder and pride, recalled into the room. Here chairman Schläpfer informed me that the whole committee were of the opinion that both candidates knew little; that the other was best in reading, and I in writing.

The other, however, being over forty years old, and I only eighteen,

they had come to the conclusion that I should learn what was necessary sooner than he, and as moreover my dwelling-house (the commune had then no school-house of their own) was better adapted for a schoolhouse than his, I should receive the appointment. I was dismissed with friendly advice, and encouraging hopes of increased pay, if my exertions should be satisfactory.

Much attention was excited by the fact that my fellow-candidate, eight days afterward, took a situation as policeman, in which he received three gulden a week, while the schoolmaster, who was obliged to furnish his own school-room, had to satisfy himself with two and a half.

235. The English Dame School described

(Poems by the Reverend George Crabbe, 1754-1832; Henry Kirke White, 17851806; and William Shenstone, 1714-63)

The English poet Crabbe was essentially a poet of the homely life of the people. In his description of the Borough, in speaking of the "Poor and their Dwellings," he pays a passing tribute of respect and gratitude to his first teacher, in the following lines describing the Dame School he attended:

At her old house, her dress, her air the same,

I see mine ancient letter-loving dame:

"Learning, my child," said she, "shall fame command; Learning is better than house or land

For houses perish, lands are gone and spent;

In learning then excel, for that's most excellent.”
"And what her learning?"—'T is with awe to look

In every verse throughout one sacred book
From this her joy, her hope, her peace is sought;
This she has learned, and she is nobly taught.

If aught of mine have gained the public ear;
If RUTLAND deigns these humble Tales to hear,
If critics pardon, what my friends approved;
Can I mine ancient Widow pass unmoved?
Shall I not think what pains the matron took,
When first I trembled o'er the gilded book?
How she, all patient, both at eve and morn,
Her needle pointed at the guarding horn;
And how she soothed me, when with study sad,
I labored on to reach the final zad?
Shall I not grateful still the dame survey,
And ask the Muse the poet's debt to pay?
Nor I alone, who hold a trifler's pen,

But half our bench of wealthy, weighty men,

Who rule our Borough, who enforce our laws;
They own the matron as the leading cause,

And feel the pleasing debt, and pay the just applause:
To her own house is borne the week's supply;

There she in credit lives, there hopes in peace to die.

In another poem, describing "The Schools of the Borough where he became a curate,' he pictures the Dame School in the following words:

To every class we have a school assign'd,

Rules for all ranks and food for every mind:
Yet one there is, that small regard to rule
Or study pays, and still is deem'd a School;
That where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits,
And awes some thirty infants as she knits;
Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay
Some trifling price for freedom through the day.
At this good matron's hut the children meet,
Who thus becomes the mother of the street.
Her room is small, they can not widely stray,-
Her threshold high, they can not run away:
Though deaf, she sees the rebel-heroes shout, —
Though lame, her white rod nimbly walks about;
With band of yarn she keeps offenders in,
And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin;
Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds,
Her power they dread and reverence her words.

Another English poet, Henry Kirke White (1758-1806), also describes his school in a somewhat similar vein:

In yonder cot, along whose mouldering walls,
In many a fold the mantling woodbine falls,
The village matron kept her little school
Gentle of heart, yet knowing well to rule.
Staid was the dame, and modest was the mien,
Her garb was coarse, yet whole and nicely clean;

Her neatly border'd cap, as lily fair,

Beneath her chin was pinn'd with decent care;
And pendent ruffles of the whitest lawn,

Of ancient make her elbows did adorn.

Faint with old age, and dim were grown her eyes;
A pair of spectacles their want supplies.

1 See Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. IV, pp. 582-90, for the poem in full.

These does she guard secure in leather case,

From thoughtless wights in some unweeted place.
Here first I entered, though with toil and pain,
The low vestibule of learning's fane

Entered with pain, yet soon I found the way,
Though sometimes toilsome, many a sweet display.
Much did I grieve on that ill-fated morn
When I was first to school reluctant borne;
Severe I thought the dame, though oft she tried
To soothe my swelling spirits when I sighed,
And oft, when harshly she reproved, I wept -

To my lone corner broken-hearted crept

And thought of tender home, where anger never kept;

But, soon inured to alphabetic toils,

Alert I met the dame with jocund smiles

First at the form, my task for ever true,

A little favorite rapidly I grew;

And oft she strok'd my head, with fond delight

Held me a pattern to the dunce's sight;

And, as she gave my diligence its praise,
Talked of the honors of my future days.

The English poet, William Shenstone, has immortalized, in a poem of three hundred and fifteen lines entitled The Schoolmistress, his early dame-school teacher, and has also given a detailed description of the school. This has been said to rank in poetry with the paintings of Teniers and Wilkie for its truthfulness of portrayal. The poem' opens with the following lines:

Ah, me! full sorely is my heart forlorn,

To think how modest worth neglected lies;
While partial fame doth with her blasts adorn
Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise;
Deeds of ill-sort and mischievous emprize;
Lend me thy clarion, goddess! let me try
To sound the praise of merit ere it dies;
Such as I oft have chanced to espy,
Lost in the dreary shades of dull obscurity.
In every village mark'd with little spire,
Embowered in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed and mean attire,
A matron old, whom we schoolmistress name,
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame;

1 See Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. III, pp. 449-55, for the full

text of the poem.

They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Awed by the power of this relentless dame,
And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,

For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.

236. A Parochial-School Teacher's Agreement

(Ruttenber, Edw. M., History of the Town of Newburgh, p. 245. Newburgh, 1859)

The following agreement, under date of 1790, between the trustees of this Church-of-England school, located at Newburgh, New York, and the minister and teacher, is interesting as showing the support of the school from the income of old endowment lands and tuition fees, and also as picturing the church-charity type of education provided for the poor of the parish.

(The Trustees) Agreed that the Reverend George H. Sperin shall be entitled to receive the whole of the rents and benefits arising from the Glebe lands, while he continues to officiate as minister, and teaching the inhabitants of the German patent on the following terms, viz.: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography, History and English Grammar at 12 shillings per quarter; Reading, Writing and Arithmetic at 8 shillings per quarter.

Provided always that no children incapable of studying the above branches shall be admitted or received into the school.

And should a poor child come properly recommended as such, he shall be received into the English school gratis.

And if a youth of strong natural ability of the like description offer, he shall be received into the Classical school, also gratis.

Provided also that should the rents and privileges of the Glebe hereafter become more valuable, that then, in such cases, the terms of teaching the children living in the patent shall be reduced in such manner as to be equivalent to said advantages, so far as may relate towards supporting of a school and as the trustees shall deem proper.

237. The Beginnings of an Early English Charity-School (Minutes of Meetings of Managers. Reproduced in Cardwell, J. H., The Story of a Charity School, Appendix A. London, 1899)

The school of Saint Anne, Soho, was founded in 1699 by five earnest laymen for the "Poore Boys of the Parish." This was the sixth such school in England, the first having been founded. in Whitechapel, in 1680. The following extracts from the Minutes give the early history of the school, and the reasons actuating the founders in establishing it.

Certain persons of this Parish understanding the Reasons, that first