Here I met the children of the so-called middle class, the very bone and sinew of the Republic; here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator.  E and duco is the etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of the mind.  I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all were intent upon acquiring thorough, practical education.

When I saw their enthusiasm lagging from want of physical exercise, at the tap of the bell, we would all rush out upon the beautiful campus and kick football, or run races until, with glowing faces and invigorated energies, they would follow me back to our studies, sometimes into the cheerful academy hall, sometimes under the shade of the noble oaks, where we would study botany close to nature’s heart amid the songs of birds and the sublime chanting of the tree-tops.

We gave musical and dramatic entertainments, securing ample funds to decorate the walls of our hall with works of art; we went on rides together in barges, drank in long draughts of inspiration from the glorious scenery, and studied geology, practically, like, if not equal to Hugh Miller, among the rocks and boulders.  I was doing good, and here I should have remained; but the old unrest came back to me, and I unwisely accepted a much larger salary in teaching in my native county of Essex.

As soon as I took command of my two hundred boys and girls in B——­, I realized how vast is the contrast between free and unrestricted educating, and the grind of cramming according to the ironclad rule of the public school system.

Many children are so crammed with everything that they really know nothing.  In proof of this, read these veritable specimens of definitions, written by public school children that very year in another school of this town.

  “Stability is the taking care of a stable.”

  “A mosquito is the child of black and white parents.”

  “Monastery is the place for monsters.”

  “Tocsin is something to do with getting drunk.”

  “Expostulation is to have the smallpox.”

  “Cannible is two brothers who killed each other in the
  Bible.”

“Anatomy is the human body, which consists of three parts, the head, the chist and the stummick.  The head contains the eyes and brains, if any; the chist contains the lungs and a piece of the liver.  The stummick is devoted to the bowels, of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w, and y.”

Every teacher was rated according to his ability to secure from his pupils a high percentage in examinations for promotion.

I grew restless under the restraints imposed by a committee of incompetents; besides, the minister who was chairman of the Board, considered a Unitarian to be an infidel, demoralizing the religious life of the young.  I grew tired of his malicious peccadillos, and accepted a “louder” call from that quaint town where the historic Lloyd Ireson “with his hord horrt was torrd and futhered und Korrid in a Kort by the wimmun o’ Marrble ed.”