THE SCHOOL.
Good teachers and proper conveniences for study, tend very much, it
is true, to facilitate the progress of pupils in all attempts for
the acquisition of knowledge. But where these advantages cannot be
enjoyed, it is astonishing how far a little ingenuity, and resolution,
and earnestness, on the part of the pupil, will atone for the
deficiency. No child need ever be deterred from undertaking any
study adapted to his years and previous attainments, for want of
the necessary implements or apparatus, or the requisite means of
instruction. The means of supplying the want of these things are
always at the command of those who are intelligent, resolute, and
determined. It is only the irresolute, the incompetent, and the
feeble-minded that are dependent for their progress on having a
teacher to show them and to urge them onward, every step of the way.
When Mary Bell and Bella returned home they found that Mary Erskine
had made all the preparations necessary for the commencement of the
school. She had made a desk for the two children by means of the
ironing-board, which was a long and wide board, made very smooth on
both sides. This board Mary Erskine placed across two chairs, having
previously laid two blocks of wood upon the chairs in a line with the
back side of the board, in such a manner as to raise that side and
to cause the board to slope forward like a desk. She had placed two
stools in front of this desk for seats.
Upon this desk, at one end of it, the end, namely, at which Bella was
to sit, Mary Erskine had placed a small thin board which she found in
the shop, and by the side of it a piece of chalk. This small board and
piece of chalk were to be used instead of a slate and pencil.
At Mary Bell's end of the desk there was a piece of paper and a pen,
which Mary Erskine had taken out of her work-table. By the side of the
paper and pen was Bella's picture-book. This picture-book was a small
but very pretty picture-book, which Mary Bell had given to Bella for a
present on her birth-day, the year before. The picture-book looked,
as it lay upon the desk, as if it were perfectly new. Mary Erskine
had kept it very carefully in her work-table drawer, as it was the
only picture-book that Bella had. She was accustomed to take it out
sometimes in the evening, and show the pictures to Bella, one by one,
explaining them at the same time, so far as she could guess at the
story from the picture itself, for neither she herself, nor Bella,
could understand a word of the reading. On these occasions Mary
Erskine never allowed Bella to touch the book, but always turned over
the leaves herself, and that too in a very careful manner, so as to
preserve it in its original condition, smooth, fresh, and unsullied.
Mary Bell and Bella looked at the desk which Mary Erskine had prepared
for them, and liked it very much indeed.
"But where are _you_ going to study?" asked Mary Bell.
"I shall study at my work-table, but not now. I can't study until the
evening. I have my work to do, all the day, and so I shall not begin
my studies until the evening when you children are all gone to bed.
And besides, there is only one pen."
"Oh, but you will not want the pen," said Mary Bell. "You are going to
learn to read."
"No," said Mary Erskine. "I am going to learn to write first."
"Not _first_," said Mary Bell. "We always learn to _read_,
before we learn to write."
"But I am going to learn to write first," said Mary Erskine. "I have
been thinking about it, and I think that will be best. I have got
the plan all formed. I shall want you to set me a copy, and then this
evening I shall write it."
"Well," said Mary Bell, "I will. The first copy must be straight
marks."
"No," said Mary Erskine, "the first thing is to learn to write my
name. I shall never have any occasion to write straight marks, but I
shall want to write my name a great many times."
"Oh, but you can't _begin_ with writing your name," said Mary
Bell.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "I am going to begin with _Mary_: only
_Mary_. I want you to write me two copies, one with the letters
all separate, and the other with the letters together.
"Well," said Mary Bell, "I will." So she sat down to her desk, taking
up her pen, she dipped it into the inkstand. The inkstand had been
placed into the chair which Mary Bell's end of the ironing-board
rested upon. It could not stand safely on the board itself as that was
sloping.
Mary Bell wrote the letters M--A--R--Y, in a large plain hand upon
the top of the paper, and then in a same line she wrote them again,
joining them together in a word. Mary Erskine stood by while she
wrote, examining very attentively her method of doing the work, and
especially her way of holding the pen. When the copy was finished,
Mary Erskine cut it off from the top of the paper and pinned it up
against the side of the room, where she could look at it and study the
names of the letters in the intervals of her work during the day.
"There," said she in a tone of satisfaction when this was done. "I
have got my work before me. The next thing is to give Bella hers."
It was decided that Bella should pursue a different method from her
mother. She was to learn the letters of the alphabet in regular order,
taking the first two, _a_ and _b_, for her first lesson.
Mary Bell made copies of those two letters for her, with the chalk,
upon the top of the board. She made these letters in the form of
printed and not written characters, because the object was to teach
Bella to read printed books.
"Now," said Mary Erskine to Bella, "you must study _a_ and
_b_ for half an hour. I shall tell you when I think the half hour
is out. If you get tired of sitting at your desk, you may take your
board and your chalk out to the door and sit upon the step. You must
spend all the time in making the letters on the board, and you may say
_a_ and _b_ while you are making the letters, but besides
that you must not speak a word. For every time that you speak, except
to say _a_ and _b_, after I tell you to begin, you will have
to pick up a basket of chips."
Picking up baskets of chips was the common punishment that Bella was
subjected to for her childish misdemeanors. There was a bin in the
stoop, where she used to put them, and a small basket hanging up by
the side of it. The chip-yard was behind the house, and there was
always an abundant supply of chips in it, from Albert's cutting. The
basket, it is true, was quite small, and to fill it once with chips,
was but a slight punishment; but slight punishments are always
sufficient for sustaining any just and equitable government, provided
they are certain to follow transgression, and are strictly and
faithfully enforced. Bella was a very obedient and submissive child,
though she had scarcely ever been subjected to any heavier punishment
than picking up chips.
"Shall I begin now?" said Bella.
"No," replied her mother, "wait, if you like, till Mary Bell has taken
her lesson."
"I don't see how I am going to draw," said Mary Bell, "without any
pencil."
"You will have to draw with the pen," said Mary Erskine. "I am very
sorry that I have not got any pencil for you."
So saying, Mary Erskine took up the picture-book, and began turning
over the leaves, to find, as she said, the picture of a house. She
should think, she said, that the picture of a house would be a good
thing to begin with.
She found a view of a house in the third picture in the book. There
was a great deal in the picture besides the house, but Mary Erskine
said that the house alone should be the lesson. There was a pond near
it, with a shore, and ducks and geese swimming in the water. Then
there was a fence and a gate, and a boy coming through the gate, and
some trees. There was one large tree with a swing hanging from one of
the branches.
"Now, Mary," said Mary Erskine, speaking to Mary Bell, "you may take
the house alone. First you must look at it carefully, and examine all
the little lines and marks, and see exactly how they are made. There
is the chimney, for example. See first what the shape of the outline
of it is, and look at all _those_ little lines, and _those_,
and _those_," continued Mary Erskine, pointing to the different
parts of the chimney. "You must examine in the same way all the other
lines, in all the other parts of the picture, and see exactly how fine
they are, and how near together they are, so that you can imitate them
exactly. Then you must make some little dots upon your paper to mark
the length and breadth of the house, so as to get it of the right
shape; and then draw the lines and finish it all exactly as it is in
the book."
Bella looked over very attentively, while her mother was explaining
these things to Mary Bell, and then said that _she_ would rather
draw a house than make letters.
"No," said her mother, "you must make letters."
"But it is harder to make letters than it is to make a house," said
Bella.
"Yes," said her mother, "I think it is."
"And I think," said Bella, "that the littlest scholar ought to have
the easiest things to do."
Mary Erskine laughed, and said that in schools, those things were not
done that seemed best to the scholars, but those that seemed best to
the teachers.
"Then," said Mary Bell, "why must not you write marks."
Mary Erskine laughed still more at this, and said she acknowledged
that the children had got her penned up in a corner.
"Now," said Mary Erskine, "are you ready to begin; because when you
once begin, you must not speak a word till the half hour is out."
"Yes," said the children, "we are ready."
"Then _begin_," said Mary Erskine.
The children began with great gravity and silence, each at her
separate task, while Mary Erskine went on with her own regular
employment. The silence continued unbroken for about five minutes,
when Bella laid down her chalk in a despairing manner, saying,
"O dear me! I can't make a _a_."
"There's one basket of chips," said Mary Erskine.
"Why I really can't," said Bella, "I have tried three times."
"Two baskets of chips," said her mother. "Make two marks on the corner
of your board," she continued, "and every time you speak put down
another, so that we can remember how many baskets of chips you have to
pick up."
Bella looked rather disconsolate at receiving this direction. She
knew, however, that she must obey. She was also well aware that she
would certainly have to pick up as many baskets of chips as should
be indicated by the line of chalk marks. She, therefore, resumed her
work, inwardly resolving that she would not speak another word. All
this time, Mary Bell went on with her drawing, without apparently
paying any attention to the conversation between Bella and her mother.
[Illustration: THE SCHOOL.]
Bella went on, too, herself after this, very attentively, making the
letters which had been assigned her for her lesson, and calling the
names of them as she made them, but not speaking any words.
At length Mary Erskine told the children that the half hour had
expired, and that they were at liberty. Bella jumped up and ran away
to play. Mary Bell wished to remain and finish her house. Mary Erskine
went to look at it. She compared it very attentively with the original
in the picture-book, and observed several places in which Mary Bell
had deviated from her pattern. She did not, however, point out any of
these faults to Mary Bell, but simply said that she had done her work
very well indeed. She had made a very pretty house. Mary Bell said
that it was not quite finished, and she wished to remain at her desk a
little longer to complete it. Mary Erskine gave her leave to do so.
Bella, who had gone away at first, dancing to the door, pleased to be
released from her confinement, came back to see Mary Bell's picture,
while her mother was examining it. She seemed very much pleased with
it indeed. Then she asked her mother to look at her letters upon the
board. Mary Erskine and Mary Bell both looked at them, one by one,
very attentively, and compared them with the letters which Mary Bell
had made for patterns, and also with specimens of the letters in the
books. Bella took great interest in looking for the letters in the
book, much pleased to find that she knew them wherever she saw them.
Her mother, too, learned _a_ and _b_ very effectually by
this examination of Bella's work. Mary Erskine selected the two best
letters which Bella had made, one of each kind, and rubbed out all the
rest with a cloth. She then put up the board in a conspicuous place
upon a shelf, where the two good letters could be seen by all in the
room. Bella was much pleased at this, and she came in from her play
several times in the course of the day, to look at her letters and to
call them by name.
When Bella's board had thus been put up in its conspicuous position,
Mary Bell sat down to finish her drawing, while Bella went out to
pick up her two baskets of chips. Mary Bell worked upon her house for
nearly the whole of another half hour. When it was finished she cut
the part of the paper which it was drawn upon off from the rest, and
ruled around it a neat margin of double black lines. She obtained a
narrow strip of wood, from the shop which served her as a ruler. She
said that she meant to have all her drawing lessons of the same size,
and to put the same margin around them. She marked her house No. 1,
writing the numbering in a small but plain hand on one corner. She
wrote the initials of her, name, M.B., in the same small hand, on the
opposite corner.
Mary Erskine did not attempt _her_ lesson until the evening. She
finished her work about the house a little after eight o'clock, and
then she undressed the children and put them to bed. By this time it
was nearly nine o'clock. The day had been warm and pleasant, but the
nights at this season were cool, and Mary Erskine put two or three dry
sticks upon the fire, before she commenced her work, partly for the
warmth, and partly for the cheerfulness of the blaze.
She lighted her lamp, and sat down at her work-table, with Mary Bell's
copy, and her pen, ink, and paper, before her. The copy had been
pinned up in sight all the day, and she had very often examined it,
when passing it, in going to and fro at her work. She had thus learned
the names of all the letters in the word Mary, and had made herself
considerably familiar with the forms of them; so that she not only
knew exactly what she had to do in writing the letters, but she felt a
strong interest in doing it. She, however, made extremely awkward
work in her first attempts at writing the letters. She, nevertheless,
steadily persevered. She wrote the words, first in separate letters,
and then afterwards in a joined hand, again and again, going down the
paper. She found that she could write a little more easily, if not
better, as she proceeded,--but still the work was very hard. At ten
o'clock her paper was covered with what she thought were miserable
scrawls, and her wrist and her fingers ached excessively. She put her
work away, and prepared to go to bed.
"Perhaps I shall have to give it up after all," said she. "But I will
not give up till I am beaten. I will write an hour every day for six
months, and then if I can not write my name so that people can read
it, I will stop."
The next day about an hour after breakfast Mary Erskine had another
school for the children. Bella took the two next letters _c_ and
_d_ for her lesson, while Mary Bell took the swing hanging from
the branch of the tree in the picture-book, for the subject of her
second drawing. Before beginning her work, she studied all the touches
by which the drawing was made in the book, with great attention and
care, in order that she might imitate them as precisely as possible.
She succeeded very well indeed in this second attempt. The swing made
even a prettier picture than the house. When it was finished she cut
the paper out, of the same size with the other, drew a border around
it, and marked it No. 2. She went on in this manner every day as long
as she remained at Mary Erskine's, drawing a new picture every day.
At last, when she went home, Mary Erskine put all her drawings up
together, and Mary Bell carried them home to show them to her mother.
This was the beginning of Mary Bell's drawing.
As for Mary Erskine, her second lesson was the word _Erskine_,
which she found a great deal harder to write than Mary. There was one
thing, however, that pleased her in it, which was that there was one
letter which she knew already, having learned it in Mary: that was the
_r_. All the rest of the letters, however, were new, and she had
to practice writing the word two evenings before she could write it
well, without looking at the copy. She then thought that probably by
that time she had forgotten _Mary_; but on trying to write that
word, she was very much pleased to find that she could write it
much more easily than she could before. This encouraged her, and she
accordingly took Forester for her third lesson without any fear of
forgetting the Mary and the Erskine.
The Forester lesson proved to be a very easy one. There were only
three new letters in it, and those three were very easy to write. In
fine, at the end of the four days, when Mary Bell was to go home, Mary
Erskine could read, write, and spell her name very respectably well.
Mrs. Bell came herself for Mary when the time of her visit expired.
She was very much pleased to learn how good a girl and how useful her
daughter had been. She was particularly pleased with her drawings. She
said that she had been very desirous to have Mary learn to draw, but
that she did not know it was possible to make so good a beginning
without a teacher.
"Why I _had_ a teacher," said Mary Bell. "I think that Mary
Erskine is a teacher; and a very good one besides."
"I think so too," said Mrs. Bell.
The children went out to get some wild flowers for Mary Bell to carry
home, and Mrs. Bell then asked Mary if she had begun to consider what
it was best for her to do.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine. "I think it will be best for me to sell
the farm, and the new house, and all the stock, and live here in this
house with my children."
Mrs. Bell did not answer, but seemed to be thinking whether this would
be the best plan or not.
"The children cannot go to school from here," said Mrs. Bell.
"No," said Mary Erskine, "but I can teach them myself, I think, till
they are old enough to walk to the school-house. I find that I can
learn the letters faster than Bella can, and that without interfering
with my work; and Mary Bell will come out here now and then and tell
us what we don't know."
"Yes," said Mrs. Bell, "I shall be glad to have her come as often
as you wish. But it seems to me that you had better move into the
village. Half the money that the farm and the stock will sell for,
will buy you a very pleasant house in the village, and the interest
on the other half, together with what you can earn, will support you
comfortably."
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "but then I should be growing poorer, rather
than richer, all the time; and when my children grow large, and I want
the money for them, I shall find that I have spent it all. Now if I
stay here in this house, I shall have no rent to pay, nor shall I lose
the interest of a part of my money, as I should if I were to buy a
house in the village with it to live in myself. I can earn enough here
too by knitting, and by spinning and weaving, for all that we shall
want while the children are young. I can keep a little land with this
house, and let Thomas, or some other such boy live with me, and raise
such things as we want to eat; and so I think I can get along very
well, and put out all the money which I get from the farm and the
stock, at interest. In ten or fifteen years it will be two thousand
dollars. Then I shall be rich, and can move into the village without
any danger.
"Not two thousand dollars!" said Mrs. Bell.
"Yes," said Mary Erskine, "if I have calculated it right."
"Why, how much do you think the farm and stock will sell for?" asked
Mrs. Bell.
"About eight hundred dollars," said Mary Erskine. "That put out at
interest will double in about twelve years."
"Very well," rejoined Mrs. Bell, "but that makes only sixteen hundred
dollars."
"But then I think that I can lay up half a dollar a week of my own
earnings, especially when Bella gets a little bigger so as to help me
about the house," said Mary Erskine.
"Well;" said Mrs. Bell.
"That," continued Mary Erskine, "will be twenty-five dollars a year.
Which will be at least three hundred dollars in twelve years."
"Very well," said Mrs. Bell, "that makes nineteen hundred."
"Then," continued Mary Erskine, "I thought that at the end of the
twelve years I should be able to sell this house and the land around
it for a hundred dollars, especially if I take good care of the
buildings in the mean while."
"And that makes your two thousand dollars," said Mrs. Bell.
"Yes," replied Mary Erskine.
"But suppose you are sick."
"Oh, if I am sick, or if I die," rejoined Mary Erskine, "of course
that breaks up all my plans. I know I can't plan against calamities."
"Well," said Mrs. Bell, rising from her seat with a smile of
satisfaction upon her countenance, "I can't advise you. But if ever I
get into any serious trouble, I shall come to you to advise me."
So bidding Mary Erskine good-bye, Mrs. Bell called her daughter, and
they went together toward their home.