THE SCENE OF THE SCHOOL FIGHTS
The proof that a robust, daring, well-fed boy starts by being a sort of
half domesticated little animal as well as a Sunday school immortal is
set out in his school fights. These best illustrate how hard it is to
eradicate the savage, hereditary traits of our early barbaric ancestry.
It is suggested that all fully domesticated animals dislike children.
They have an instinctive fear of their tricks and their thoughtlessness.
The rude jostle, pretty nearly instinctive with boys coming from school,
breaks the peace. There is the quick impulse to resist aggression with
violence, particularly on the part of an impulsive unrelenting temper,
not adverse to battle. Wrestling and boxing were very much in vogue, a
generation ago, which made the average boy very ready with his fists and
anxious if there was to be a clinch, to get "the underholt." This
preparedness increased the likeliness of a clash. If a boy took occasion
to state the events that led up to Armageddon, we used to hear, He
called me names. His budding sense of honor, an exaggerated feeling of
obligation to take care of his better self, his name, was the most
frequent incentive to try conclusions.
_Precipitating a Fracas_
The tendency to give a nickname, to remind a boy in a word of the color
of his hair, or the cut of his clothes, or of some unfortunate incident
in his life or that of his family was painfully wide-spread, and it hurt
like a blow and started resentment. A boy, that by his disposition and
taste, was too proud to fight could not always keep out of it as the
active belligerent might be overbearing or might be, at the time,
imposing on some helpless party. This is an unprovoked declaration of
war when peace can only be had by conquering it. It is interesting to
study a man's life in terms of those early scuffles. In Pilgrim's
Progress the fight of Christian and Apollyon was the kernel of the
story. Henry Higginson, "Bully Hig," a business man of remarkable
success in Boston, was the leader of the Latin school forces and
engagements which were as fiercely fought as some in which the same boys
later took part on the battle fields of the South. A boy's anger and a
boy's pain pass away like clouds on a summer morning and leave the sky
purer and fairer than before. Boy's fights often began with
snow-balling. They were implied by the use of the word snow-forts, on
the old site of which we took occasion to stand. For days the boys would
roll up immense snow-balls to form the redoubt. They worked, like the
ants, those sociologists of the insect-world who combine their efforts
to move an object toward the ant hill, approach the thing to be moved,
using all their strength wherever they can apply it, causing the object
to stagger along, and the small, industrious, courageous creatures by
frantic partisan effort landed it where individual work never could have
so well located it. Those who built the fort were determined to defend
it. They talked over their grievances until they seemed bigger than they
were. Trouble would soon begin to boil, like the witches' brew into
which all kinds of ingredients entered and the situation soon forced all
boys to take sides.
_Sectional and Factional Fights_
It was common to hear the inquiry, Are you on my side? It started a
campaign. There was no neutral zone. There were no pacifists. If a snow
fort was to be stormed the snow-balls were dipped in water and were as
hard as canister. The contending forces were under boy commanders. The
volatile spirit of the organization lasted after the snow was gone. The
contending parties were easily provoked. Boys used to take off their
coats and lay them aside like those that stoned Stephen. The question
to be settled was Who is bigger? The custom was to place a chip upon the
shoulder and flatly dare a fancied antagonist to knock it off, which
being done, hostilities were let loose with a spring. The other boys
would gather about and witness the excitement, their only concern being
to see that there was every way a square deal. Until such a time as one
or the other would say, Hold, enough, I am through. Things were then
deemed settled. An incidental indication that boys before re-birth were
little animals, was the use of their nails. The face of him that was
worsted would bear a diagram of the battle.
_Suffering From Personal Collision_
On reaching home his mother's consternation and sympathy and displeasure
at the injury he had received, causing her haste to apply a soft sponge
and remedial lotions, would displace all effort to ascertain if her boy
was in any degree at fault in bringing on the fray. It is no wonder that
there is an enormous increase in the number of physicians in these days
if boys thus settle who is the best man. The doctors, we are told, got
rich upon small pay, yet now they flourish in treble numbers, as they
are required, upon all foot-ball grounds, in particular, and upon all
athletic fields in general. Life in miniature is exhibited by the petty
incidents of a school boy's history. A single bold adventure is
decisive sometimes of a campaign. A challenge to fight two boys at once
has been known to give a courageous youngster reputation. The opposition
did not want to fight but was intent to discover if the new lad in
school would keep his ground saying, like the Scotch thistle, Don't
touch me.
* * * * *
There has been during a generation such a fine growth of sentiment that
many of the former things, like corporal punishment, have passed away.
In school Luther was flogged every day. We have no other right to
associate ourselves with a great reformer except in the matter we are
now considering. The school thrashing was shown to be a method of
separating the chaff from the wheat.
_Birch, Beech, and Willow Were the Branches Taken_
It certainly was not the custom in our day for the teacher to get down
on his knees to the pupils and offer them peppermints if they would only
consent to behave. In the government exhibit at Omaha, in a World's
Fair, was a series of framed pictures, filled with painful suggestions,
illustrating what may be termed, the evolution of the disuse of the
switch. The world has moved on to some new conception of moral suasion.
These pictures, however, were from real life, as many of us can
testify. If any one wanted glimpses of the good old time, there they
were. First was a small boy being flogged by a pretty lady teacher. I
know that picture to be correct. In the next instance the boy was curled
up in bitter anticipation of what was going to happen to him. Next a boy
was holding out a ruler at arm's length. Then followed very properly the
dunce cap and the fool stool. Then we witnessed the process of shaking
or churning where the churner grasps the lapels of the churnee's coat
and proceeds to violently agitate the latter with many oscillations. The
most suggestive picture of an old-fashioned school was where the
discipline appeared to be founded on Solomon's warning. The master
stands near the stove with his book in one hand and switch in the other
with only one eye on the book. New Jersey now prohibits by law corporal
punishment in schools. Eight states prescribe a penalty for excess
amounting to cruelty. In Arizona alone the law gives authority to whip.
In ten states the courts have decided that, as flogging has been the
commonest mode of discipline from time immemorial, the teacher requires
no permission to use the birch. In Providence a teacher in the primary
grade has to get the written consent of the parents to whip a boy and
have it filed with the city superintendent. All these formalities have
been developed since the period that we are canvassing.
_America's Unhappy Hour_
The incident of flogging a pupil did not seem to disturb the school nor
seem to interrupt the studies appreciably except when it was one of the
big boys that had incurred the master's displeasure. When it was obvious
that there was to be a battle royal it became the custom for the
tender-hearted, larger girls to rise, without a word or sign from them
or the teacher, and pass quietly out of the room at the instant it
became plain that hostilities were to begin. The ruler, introduced into
the school as an aid in drawing, was often used as a punitive
instrument. When the old attendants upon the school get together as
jolly good fellows, their word being now unquestioned on any matter of
fact, it is noticeable that in reciting their sufferings, it was never
the master's fortune to get hold of the guilty party. According to their
testimony, the boy that introduced the disorder was not the one that
stood for the infliction of punishment. There is usually one boy in
school that can on occasion, look cross-eyed and another boy that can
move his ears. This comes to the attention of the apple-cheeked girl,
who laughing, showed all her teeth like a row of white piano keys. Her
fear of discipline made her press the palm of her hand over her pretty
mouth, in a sudden, forced attempt to suppress a giggle. The boy, who
came next into the comedy, was likeliest to meet the frown of him who
must, at once, rule his little empire into a terrified silence.
_Putting on the Character with the Coats of Gentlemen_
The gymnasium, organized athletics, the ambition of boys to gain a place
on the various teams has brought in a milder reign. Another influence is
the reflex effect of wearing better clothes. Dress strangely changes the
person and curiously affects the character. One of the best preventives
of rude Sabbath breaking is a nicely folded, well-fitting Sunday suit.
With a rough, coarse, untearable suit goes rough usage all around, and
with fine clothes goes politeness of manner. The clothing worn used to
be much thicker and heavier. About the neck was a comforter, tippet,
scarf, or even a small sized shawl. Men wore fur standing collars,
cow-hide boots, and tucked the lower ends of their trousers' legs into
them, in rough weather and when engaged in rough work. A bootjack was
the commonest kind of household furniture. Boys wore heavy calf-skin
boots with attractive red tops, which they desired to have seen, and
this foot-wear was copper-toed so that a boy could lie on his face on
his sled and steer it in its swift descent of the hill, by ploughing
first one toe and then the other into the icy roadway. Any one's
feelings will indicate to him, that he must treat himself, and that he
must be treated differently by others, when he is clad in light woolens
and in thin foot-wear. He must have more civilized walks, a more even
warmth in the house, and a more genteel order of life. It shows the
reflex influence of refined dress.
_New Facings to Old Opinions_
On revisiting the earth it is an amazement to find, that in so short a
time, most boys are made millionaires. They sit in a building at school,
that cost scores of thousands of dollars. In their own right, they walk
into a library, worth tens of thousands, housed in a building that is
high priced. The latest books are added to their library. Money has been
expended to have a card catalogue made. It used to be tiresome to get
about town, and to visit the metropolis, but great stores of money have
been used to give them ease and save the wear and tear. Boys have parks
to play in and have artificial skating rinks and table luxuries and new
forms of furniture and free text-books. Boats drop down the James river
loaded with melons. At Norfolk one negro tosses a watermelon to another
colored man and he to another until they are loaded in a car which
starts express at night, when it is cool, for the northern cities. Boats
and trains and service cost money, but it seems very little to a boy in
his new circumstances, who has luxuries which we used to do without. Not
much was done for us children, compared with present home furnishings,
which have Hawthorne's "Wonder Books" and Longfellow's "Evangeline" and
pictured illustrations of the world and of life. In our early days most
of our picture books were brought from England. If boys then lived in a
poor part of the city it was a chosen location for saloons but now boys
do not have to live in a location where they have saloons. This
improvement of a boy's environment is greatly to his advantage.
_Fair to Illustrate by the Best Examples_
The most frequent question asked the visitor is how things, taking the
years together, seem to be going. The improvement in conditions is
glaring. This is not, and cannot be, without result. This of itself
makes a showing in men. It was the same quality of seed that fell among
thorns and by the way-side and upon stony places. In visiting the field,
the first observation is not touching the seed, but outside conditions,
and their direct relation to the product. Men reveal even more plainly
the effect of extraneous influences. It is said that on hearing the
younger Silliman lecture, an enthusiastic auditor exclaimed, "Why, he
beats the old gent!" The elder Silliman, who had been listening to the
lecture, overheard the remark, and gaining the attention of its author,
quietly observed, "Of course he does. He stands upon my shoulders." The
old stock was good and stood high but the new generation has the
advantage of better position and of a finer outlook.