I survived the fiery ordeal after a fashion, and that winter entered a college in the state of Maine. The same old unrest came to me there, wearied with the dry-as-dust lectures by the faculty of superannuated ministers, but I graduated after a two weeks' course, and vainly endeavored for three weeks to catch the divine afflatus at the Theological Institution, which was supposed to be necessary to enable me to rescue the perishing as a preacher of the gospel. Then at the suggestion of the president, who quickly discovered my mental deficiencies, I was matriculated as a student at another university founded by the brethren of the same "Hard-shell Persuasion." I was but a dreamer, in the middle of my teens, dazed by conflicting opinions, but anxious to walk "quo dews vocat."
"Here I stood with reluctant feet,Where the brook and the river meet,Manhood and childhood sweet.
"I saw shadows sailing by,As the dove, with startled eye,Sees the falcon downward fly.
"To me, a child of many prayers,Life had quicksands, and many snares,Foes, and tempters came unawares.
"Oh, let me bear through wrong and ruth,In my heart the dew of youth,On my lips the smile of truth."
With this prayer of the poet upon our lips, many of us entered these "classic halls," hoping to find there in communion with the good and great of the past and the present, that mental and spiritual "manna" from heaven which would inspire us to lead ourselves and others to the sublime heights of heroic endeavor.
Previous to my arrival at this ancient seat of learning, founded and endowed for the perpetuation and propagation of the doctrines of our denomination, I had never entertained the faintest shadow of doubt as to the infallibility of our creed; but now all faith in it vanished like the baseless fabric of a dream. Here at the fountain head of wisdom, from which streams were supposed to flow for the healing of the nations, my faith in the beliefs of my ancestors fled, nevermore to return; here, where lived the great high priests of the sect, I had expected to find the whole air roseate with divine love and grace, all souls lifted to sublime heights on the breath of unceasing prayer and praise.
The disenchantment was appalling; my brothers in Christ, the grave and reverend professors, were cold as icebergs, evidently caring nothing for the souls or bodies of their Christian or pagan students; the preacher at the college church was an ecclesiastical icicle, who, in his manner at least, continually cried: "Procul, procul, oh,Profani!"
The prayer meetings were dead and formal, no enthusiasm; it was like being in a spiritual refrigerator—with perhaps one exception, when, through the cracks in the floor from the room of a frugal freshman who boarded himself, came the overwhelming stench of cooking onions, and a wag brother who was quoting scripture to the Lord in prayer, suddenly opened his eyes, and sniffing the unctuous odors, shouted: "Brethren, let us now sing 'From whence doth this onion (union) arise?'" and roars of laughter would put an end to the solemn farce.
Within the dismal college dormitories were herded a few hundred youths, entirely free from all moral and social restraints, abandoned to all orgies into which many characters in the formative state are most likely to drift. I frequently saw a professing Christian teacher torture with biting sarcasm his brother church-member, who had done his best, though he failed to grasp some intricate mathematical problem, until the poor fellow abandoned the college in despair.
Is it strange that I and many others lost all faith in a religion that brought forth such bitter fruit? When I strayed from the lifeless dulness of the college church into the light and warmth of the "liberal sanctuary," where the old man eloquently discoursed of the ascent instead of the descent of man, and pictured the sublime development of the race by heroic endeavor from the animal to the archangel; when this good man welcomed us warmly as brothers to his hearth and home and loaned me his silken surplice to cover my seedy clothes when I delivered my orations at the class exhibitions, is it strange that I embrace his Darwinian theory instead of the mythological story of the fall of man tempted by a snake in the garden of Eden?
I usually preached on Sundays, during my four years' course, in the pulpits of the surrounding towns, but it was not of the total depravity nor flaming brimstone; far grander themes engrossed my thoughts and speech; the true heroism of keeping ourselves unspotted from the world, the sublime possibilities of our natures if we would walk in the footsteps of the only perfect One ever seen on earth.
By trimming the midnight lamp and ruining my eyes, I won a scholarship which paid my tuition fees and room rent, so that I was released from the necessity of drawing on the hard-earned savings of my father. The usual college pranks were played, tubs of water were poured from upper windows upon the heads of freshmen who insisted upon wearing stove-pipe hats and the forbidden canes; we tore each others' clothes to the verge of nakedness, and broke each others' heads in frantic football rushes; we indulged in ghost-like sheet and pillow-case parades, during which we fought the police and made night hideous with yells and scrimmages with the "townies"; we burned unsightly shanties, and thus improved the appearance of the city.
We tripped up unpopular professors with ropes in the night, on the icy, steep sidewalk of college street, sending them bumping down the long hill, hatless and with badly torn pants till they brought up with dull thuds against the barber shop on South Main Street; we of course stole the college bell so there was nothing to call us to prayers or recitations; we howled for hours under their respective windows:
"Here's to old Harkness, for he is an imp of darkness!Here's to old Cax., for his nose is made of wax!Here's to old Prex—for he likes his double x!"
until some of us were thrust by the police into the nauseating dens of the stationhouse.
Thus, like pendulums, we swung twixt studies and pranks till the boom of the rebel cannon bombarding Fort Sumpter thundered upon our ears. Suddenly our books were forgotten: the university cadets unanimously tendered their services to the government; were at once accepted, and it was the proudest day of my life when, as an officer in our battalion, I marched with the rest to the drill camp on the historic training ground.
The citizens turned out en masse to do us honor, and frantically cheered us on our way to do or die; every house was gay with old glory; our best girls, inspired with patriotic fervor, applauded while they bedewed the streets with their tears; the air resounded with martial music and the boom of saluting cannon; the young war governor, who went up like a rocket and down like a stick, led the way on a prancing charger; the people vied with each other in tendering hospitalities, and every corner afforded its liquid refreshments. We thought it lemonade, but it "had a stick in it" and, presto!—we were no longer seedy theologues, but young heroes all, resplendent with brilliant uniforms and flashing bayonets, marching to defend our great and glorious republic.
We, unsuspecting, imbibed freely the seductive fluids, and soon our heads were in a whirl. We wildly sang the war songs and gave the college yells. It is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. That night, Jupiter Pluvius burst upon our frail tents in all his fury, and I awoke the next morning half covered with water, and in a raging fever. I was taken to the hospital, and as I was a minor my father took me from the service.
For weeks I was a wreck, and all my dreams of martial glory vanished, alas,—like the many which have bloomed in the summer of my heart. Before I regained the little strength I ever had, the war was over, but I had done my best to serve my country, and the rapture of pursuing is the prize the vanquished know. The few remaining students plodded along through the curriculum; but our hearts were far away on the battle-fields, from the glory of which, cruel fate debarred us.
In my senior year I was forced by the necessity for securing lucre to pay the increasing graduation expenses, to teach the high school in Bristol, Conn., and returned to the university to "cram" for the final examinations. For days and nights the merciless grind went on until, as by a miracle, I escaped the lunatic asylum. I knew but little of the higher mathematics, but the "Green" professor was a strong sectarian if not an humble Christian, and when the hour for my private examination arrived, I contrived to waste the most of it telling him about the Bristol Church. It was near his dinner hour, and he yearned for its delights to such an extent, that he did not detect me in copying the "Pons Asinorum" onto the blackboard from a paper hidden in my bosom, and as he glanced at the figures on the board, he said: "That's right, I suppose you know the rest," passed me, and hasted to his walnuts and his wine.
The good president, of blessed memory, had another pressing engagement, as I well knew, when I called for his examination, he asked for but little, was too preoccupied to hear whether my answers were correct, passed me, and my "A.B." was won.
We spoke our pieces on graduation day, rejoiced in the applause of our "mulierculae," took our sheepskins, and went forth from "alma mater" conquering and to conquer the unsympathizing world. I had acquired here but a modicum of that learning which was supposed to flow from this "Pierian Spring," but I rejoiced in the fact that I had cast away forever my belief in the "total depravity" of the human race, that in "Adam's fall we sin-ned all, that in Cain's murder, we sin-ned furder," and could now look hopefully upon my fellow-men in the full assurance that
There lies in the centre of each man's heartA longing and love for the good and pure,And if but an atom, or larger part,I know that this shall forever endure.After the body has gone to decay—Yes, after the world has passed away.
The longer I live and the more I seeOf the struggles of souls towards heights above,The stronger this truth comes home to me,That the universe rests on the shoulders of love—A love so limitless, deep and broadThat men have renamed it, and called it God.
I had cherished the delusive hope that my university diploma would be the open sesame to any exalted position to which I might aspire; but I found there was a multitude of competitors for every professional emolument, and that a "pull" with the powers that be was essential to secure any prize. My change in religious sentiments debarred me from the pulpit, and I had no friends influential enough to give me a profitable position as a teacher in New England.
After making many applications, and enduring many hopes deferred which make the heart sick, I struck out for New York one dark, rainy night, with only $10 in my pocket to seek my fortune in that so-called "Modern Sodom and Gomorrah." I knew no one in that great city, and on my arrival before daylight in a dismal drenching storm, I entered the nearest hotel to obtain some much needed sleep.
A villainous looking servitor showed me to a cold barn-like room where I found no way of locking the door, so I barricaded the entrance with the bureau, placing the chair on top as a burglar alarm. The scant bedclothes were so short that one extremity or the other must freeze, so I compromised by protecting the "midway plaisance," and in my cramped quarters, thought with envy of Dr. Root of Byfield, who was said to stretch his long legs out the window to secure plenty of room for himself, and a roost on his pedal extremities for his favorite turkeys.
I was on the point of falling into the arms of Morpheus in the land of Nod, when a stealthy attempt to open the door sent the chair with a crash to the floor. Yelling at the top of my voice, "Get out of that, or I'll put a bullet through you!" I heard a form tumble down the steep stairs, and muffled curses which reminded me of the lines in the Hohenlinden poem: "It is Iser (I sir) rolling rapidly."
At the first dawn of a dismal day I crept down the dirty stairs, and out of the door of what I learned to be one of the most dangerous houses in that sin-cursed city.
The days immediately following while seeking for employment were forlorn and miserable; I was the fifth wheel of a coach which no one wanted. Finally, when I had spent my last cent for a beggarly meal, I saw an advertisement for a teacher in the reform school, and called on a Mr. Atterbury, the trustee. He regarded me with a pitying eye; told me two teachers had recently been driven from the prison by the kicks and cuffs of the toughest boys that ever went unhung; but if I wished to try it, he would pass me to that "den of thieves." I grasped at the chance like a drowning man at a straw, and that very night found myself facing nearly 1,000 hard looking specimens from the slums of all nations. The schoolroom was a huge hall, in which, at a tap of the bell, great doors were rolled on iron tracks to subdivide it into many small class sections, each in charge of a lady assistant. The organ pealed out the notes for the opening song which was given fairly well; but when I attempted to read the Master's beginning of the responsive ritual, a stalwart young giant hurled a book at my head, and bedlam broke loose. I jumped from the platform, seized the ringleader by the hair and collar, and with a strength hitherto undreamed of by me, dragged him before he could collect his thoughts to a closet door, hurled him headlong and turned the key. The boys said afterwards that fire flashed from my eyes, and they thought the devil had come.
I grasped a heavy stick, used for raising the windows, and told them in stentorian tones of a desperate man, that I would break the heads of all who were not instantly in their seats. The schoolma'ams quivered with fear, but the boys slunk to their places and I harangued them to the effect, that they could have peace or war; if peace, they would be treated kindly and be taught to become successful men; if war, they alone would suffer, for I had come there to stay.
I tried to inspire these poor vicious boys, conceived in sin and born in iniquity, with the thought that knowledge is power; that many of the greatest and best of earth had risen from their ranks by persistent endeavor into the light and liberty of the children of God; that they could become happy and successful by being and doing good; that if they would set their faces resolutely towards the better life, I would gladly help to the utmost of my ability.
One by one their eyes kindled with the light that is never seen on sea or shore. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. They had never been appealed to in that way before, and the spark of goodness lying dormant in even the most depraved natures, responded to the breath of kindly words.
I touched the bell, the great subdividing doors were rolled, and my assistants quietly proceeded to the work of instruction, confident that the war was over.
When I had marched my regiment to their cells that night, and retired to my room, I reflected that every human existence has its moments of fate, when the apples of the Hesperides hang ready upon the bough, but, alas! how few are wise enough to pluck them. The decision of an hour may open to us the gates of the enchanted garden where are flowers and sunshine, or it may condemn us, Tantalus-like, to reach evermore after some far-off and unattainable good. I dreamed that the clock of fate had struck the hour for me, that I had found my mission on earth, and that henceforth the "Peace be still" of the Master would calm life's troubled sea.
In reconnoitring the island the next day, I found much to admire. The great domes of the massive buildings towered aloft above the encircling walls, like aerial sentinels warning us to lift our thoughts to the blessings that come from on high. The great ships went sailing by to lands beyond the sea; in front was a veritable bower of paradise, apple and peach-trees fruited deep, green lawns, rippling waters, fair as the garden of the Lord. Every prospect pleases and naught but man is vile.
The signal was given from the Harlem shore for the institution's boat. I jumped on board, and the strong arms of the uniformed boys of our boat's crew propelled us across the river, where two policemen stood on the pier guarding a girl about eighteen years of age. Quick as a flash she pushed one of them into the water, his head stuck in the mud, his legs kicking in the air; then she shrieked with laughter and ran like a deer up the street. The other policeman and myself jumped into an express wagon, seized the reins from the astonished, protesting black driver, plied the whip to his horse and gave chase.
"What for you dune dar?" cried the darky.
"Shut up!" was the only reply, and away we went, Gilpin-like, with the horse on the run. We headed off the girl, and after a rough-and-tumble scrimmage threw her into the wagon, kicking, screaming, and scratching like a wild-cat. We took her by main force to the girls' wing of the prison and put her into a cell.
Scarcely was I seated at the table when the alarm-bell rang, and, being officer of the day I ran over to inquire the cause, and found the powerful young virago, our prisoner, enjoying herself hugely. When the matron had been handing her some food through a hole in the cell, the girl shot out her arm, grabbed her by the hair and with the other hand was now pulling out the hairs by the roots, sometimes a few at a time, sometimes by the handful, then she would bang the official's nose against the wall, then knockout blows on the face. The matron was in awful agony and faint from loss of blood. Entreaty availed nothing, so I seized a dipper of hot water and dashed it on the girl's naked arm; the matron fell heels over head on one side, and the prisoner executed a somersault in the opposite direction, then jumped to her feet, shook her fist at me and swore like a pirate.
This young Amazon had been arrested in a vile den kept on a house-boat in the harbor, and long made life a burden for our women officials.
A careful study of the five hundred girls in this reform school as compared with the one thousand boys, proved clearly that women, there as elsewhere, are either the best or the worst of the human race. When a girl cuts loose from the angel she was intended to be, she usually descends to the lowest possible pit of degradation; as soon as this girl in question found there was nothing to be gained by her fiendish outbursts of fury, she cunningly changed her tactics with her pious teacher, and pretended to "be born again." She ostensibly chose the Bible for her favorite reading, prayed fervently, and became so circumspect in her deportment that she was promoted to the position of assistant cook in the good girls division.
Here she contrived to bake into a cake a letter which she gave to a visitor, who took it to one of her former companions in sin, and one day, while walking with her confiding teacher in the garden, a boat appeared rowed by four men. Into this the young hypocrite jumped, and like a "sow that was washed, returned to wallowing in the mire."
In contrast to her ungrateful depravity, the boy I had chucked into the closet on my first night here became my firm friend, and the stroke oar of my private boat crew.
One day I was taking a boat ride in the harbor with two of my lady assistants and six stalwart boy oarsmen, when a boat shot out at us from Blackwell's Island with four villainous men and two degraded women. Coming alongside, one of the women said to the boys: "Throw that officer overboard, and come with us; we will get you $400 a piece as bounty, then you can desert from the army, and have a jolly good time." My teachers fainted with fear; my crew rested on their oars, wild with desire to escape; it was a crisis. I looked them steadily in the eyes.
"Boys," I said, quietly, "when sinners entice thee, consent thou not—row."
"We won't hurt you," said my leader; "you have been good to us; let us get into that boat."
"Never," said I. "You shall not go to hell, pull!" The men grabbed at me, my boys pounded them off with their oars, and one of the men fired two shots which whistled close to my head, but the boys pulled vigorously, and we sailed away amid the jeers and curses of our enemies.
"Sherman," said I, to my stroke oarsman, as we landed on our island, "why didn't you throw me overboard?"
"You have been kind to us," he replied, "and we never go back on our friends."
I had the pleasure before I left this school, to secure good positions for all my crew, and they became useful men. I was soon after this promoted to the vice-principalship of the institution, and an ex-minister was appointed my first assistant, a good man, but quite absent-minded. He recalled to my memory the story of a man who came home in a pouring rain, put his wet umbrella into bed with his wife, and stood himself up behind the door where he remained all night.
One day, when I was off duty, I went sailing with two ladies through "Little Hell Gate," which rushes with great fury by our island, to the sea. All at once the alarm bell rang. In my haste to get ashore, I ran the boat onto a partially submerged rock, and it would have been capsized, had I not jumped out onto the rock and pushed it off. Down I went under the rushing tide. When I came to the surface I saw the white belly of a shark, as he turned to seize me in his jaws. I could almost feel his sharp teeth. My head struck the side of the boat, just as the ladies, with great presence of mind, grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me on board. We landed and I rushed, puffing and dripping like a porpoise, to the wall gate, unlocked it and entered.
A frightful scene was before me. Williams, my assistant, was on the ground, covered with blood, and around him was a crowd of the worst boys in the prison, pounding, kicking, and trying to snatch his keys so as to escape by unlocking the gate. Luckily my bat with which I had played baseball with the boys stood in the corner, and grabbing this I struck out with all my strength, knocking down the boys right and left. Just then the guard came up on the run, the wounded man was carried to the hospital, and his assailants locked up.
Williams, it appeared, had, in his absent-mindedness, unlocked the jail instead of the wall gates, and let out upon him this horde of ruffians who had been put in there for safe-keeping. He finally recovered, but left the island through fear of his life.
The discipline of the school was much benefited by forming a school regiment, and drilling them to the music of a brass band composed of the boys themselves. They were as proud of their uniforms, shoulder straps and accoutrements, as were the old guard of Napoleon, and their ambition was stimulated by merited promotions from the ranks.
For more than a year I thoroughly enjoyed the work of uplifting those waifs on our sea of life; they responded appreciatively to the influence of kindly words and acts, even as the Aeolian harp yields its sweetest music to the caresses of the airs of heaven. It was an inspiration to watch the blossoming of purer thoughts and higher aspirations, and to feel that we were cooperating with the invisible spirits in developing the hidden angels in this youthful army.
All at once the shadows fell, the baneful greed of that organized appetite called "Tammany Hall," reached out its devil-fish tentaculae, which neither fear God, nor have any mercy on men, to seek our blood. Evil looking Shylock-faced trustees began to supplant those noble men who had made this refuge a veritable gate of heaven to so many more sinned against than sinning,—children of the vile. These avaricious, beastly emissaries of "Tammany," soon snarled at us poor teachers that we must divide our small salaries with them or give place to those that would. Not a school book, or a shin-bone for soup, could be bought unless these leeches had a commission from it; they brought enormous baskets and filled them with fruit practically stolen from our children, and carted them home for their own cubs.
Our superintendent and chaplain were strong sectarians, but very weak Christians, and they readily made friends of the "Mammon of unrighteousness." One hot Sunday, when I was in command at chapel, the somnolent tones of the chaplain, who, as usual, was pouring forth a stream of mere words—words almost devoid of thought, lulled a large number of my fifteen hundred boys and girls into the land of dreams.
As soon as the services were over and I had surrendered my flock to the yard master, I was summoned before the superintendent where the pious chaplain accused me of insulting him by not keeping the children awake. I quietly asked him how this could be done. "Go among them with a rattan," said he. I told him I thought the preacher deserved the rattan much more than the children, that they would listen gladly if he would give them anything worth hearing. From that moment he was my malicious foe.
One day while returning from a row in the harbor, I treated my boat's crew to apples and pears from our orchard; just then the superintendent's whistle sounded, and I was called before the trustees then in session.
"Are you aware," said he, savagely, "that the rules direct that all fruit shall be gathered by the head gardener, and by him alone?"
"Yes," was my reply.
"Well, then, you were stealing, just now."
"I was simply imitating your example, sir; it takes a thief to catch a thief." The trustees roared with laughter. The president of the board then asked if I had seen others stealing the fruit.
"Yes, sir, the chaplain, superintendent, and nearly all the trustees."
"Well," said he, "this is a den of thieves."
"All except the convicts, sir," I replied.
These incidents did not add to my popularity among the sneaks whose petty slings and arrows were so annoying, and so minimized my power for good that I reluctantly resigned, to accept a more lucrative position as teacher in an aristocratic boarding-school located in the romantic county of Berkshire, much nearer, geographically, to the stars.
Among our responsibilities at the reform school, were many "wharf rats"—so called, because having had no homes or visible parents, like Topsy, they had simply "growed," and slept under the wharves of the city, swarming out at intervals to steal or beg for something to assuage the pangs of hunger. They were vicious to a degree, and at first seemed to prefer a raw shin-bone that they had stolen to an abundant meal obtained honestly. They would rather fight than eat, and prized a penny obtained by lies more than dollars secured by telling the truth. Some were stupid as donkeys; but others possessed minds of surprising acuteness. I once asked one of these why he was sent to the reform school.
"Oh," was the reply, "I stole a sawmill, and when I went back after the water dam the copper scooped me in."
Another quizzed his teacher unmercifully, when, in trying to teach him the alphabet, she drew a figure on the board and told him it was A, he called out: "How do you know that is A?"
"Why, when I went to school my teacher told me it was A."
"Well," said the little imp, "how do ye know but what that feller lied?"
At one of our public meetings, the superintendent introduced as a speaker, a man by the name of Holmes, and wishing to impress the boys favorably, he announced him as Professor Holmes. The orator was annoyed at being called professor, and trying to be "funny," commenced by saying: "I am not Professor Holmes, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass—" At this point, quick as a flash, up jumped one of our wharf rats, and shouted: "Well, if you ain't Professor Holmes' ass, whose ass be ye?"
Then the little barbarian, evidently maddened by the sneering pomposity of our eloquent guest, strutted across the floor in perfect imitation of Holmes' affected grandiloquence; then he launched into the coon song:—
"De bigger dat you see de smokeDe less de fire will be,And de leastest kind ob possumClimbs de biggest kind ob tree.
"De nigger at de camp-groun'Dat kin loudest sing an' shout,Am gwine ter rob some hen-roos'Befo' de week am out."
Thus, often, from a bud seemingly withered and dead, would unexpectedly blossom out an unknown flower of startling brilliancy and unprecedented attractiveness.
My pupils at the reform school were from the dens and hovels of the Bowery, while those at S—— were from the palaces of Fifth Avenue; but to my utter astonishment, the children of the slums were morally and perhaps intellectually superior to those of the plutocrats. I was occasionally the guest of both the poverty-stricken and the millionaire parents of my scholars, and I verily believe that I saw as much depravity and misery in the abodes of the rich as in those of the poor.
On my arrival in Berkshire County, I found both of my employers were off on a spree, and that I was ordered to do the work of receiving and organizing. One day, a princely equipage with liveried coachman and outrider halted at the schoolroom door, a "bloated bondholder" and his wife, arrayed in purple, fine linen, and diamonds, pulled a flashily appareled, humpbacked boy up to me, every lineament of whose face showed depravity and cunning. "There," said the father, "is my d—— d son, he drinks, swears, and breaks all the commandments every day. Take him, and send the bill to me." He handed me his card and away they went.
This was not an isolated case. I did my best for them; but they were satiated with luxury, hated books, and seemed to care for nothing but debauchery. The very next day several of these scamps obtained permission to visit the cave in "Bear Mountain," where ice could be found throughout the year. As they did not return on time, I went in search and found them all drunk. They had no appreciation of the sun-kissed mountains, waving forests, or verdure-clad valleys; the grand scenery awakened no responsive smiles, no ennobling aspirations; they were intent upon nothing but drowning their ignoble souls in the noxious fumes of tobacco and alcohol. I tumbled them into the wagon, drove them to their dormitory and put them to bed, lower than the beasts they seemed to be in their depravity; not all to be sure, for there were a few choice spirits like Julian Hawthorn, who followed to some extent the example of his illustrious father, and has won his spurs in literature.
I found to my disgust that bad eggs would ruin the good ones; but that many good ones could not take the rottenness from even one of the bad. It seemed a hopeless task to endeavor to inspire such impoverished souls, and I retired in despair, to accept the principalship of the ancient academy in the village.
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 theBible."
"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."
Here I had one hundred boys in one room, many of whom went fishing in summer to get up muscle to lick the schoolmaster in winter. They had been quite successful in this latter industry for several years in my school, and at once proceeded to try the same tactics with me. On the first morning, I was saluted with a volley of iced snow balls as hard as brickbats, and I at once reciprocated these favors by knocking down the leader, dragging him into the house, and giving him a sound cowhiding, and when the vinegar-faced committee came in later I was busily engaged in teaching their sons to dance to this same useful instrument.
These owl-like worthies sat solemnly on the platform for awhile, saying no more than the ugly fowls they so much resembled, and then stalked out, leaving me to my fate. A young Hercules fisherman at once suggested, that the first business in order was to throw me out the window as they had so many of my predecessors. To this I stoutly objected, and seizing a big hickory stick window-elevator, I swung it fiercely close to their heads. This was more than they had bargained for, and the uproar pro tem subsided.
This was the winter famed in the history of Massachusetts, as producing the severest snowstorm ever known, and for a week I was snow-bound in my boarding-house, where my bright-eyed, sweet-faced cousins were most agreeable substitutes for my plug-ugly pupils.
One day, this same week, the giant ringleader of my assailants who had moved to baptize me by immersion in the icy waters of the harbor, himself, while fishing, fell through a hole in the ice and was drowned. The loss of their mighty general somewhat demoralized his followers, andvi et armis, I managed to survive the fourteen weeks' term. At the close of the first session of the last day, I threw a football to my enemies, who, not suspecting my trick, rushed off, kicking it down the street, and when they returned in the afternoon to take vengeance upon me for my unprecedented rule over them, I was in the "hub of the universe." I afterwards learned that my discretion was the better part of valor, for my ferocious pupils had the determination and the necessary force to send me unshriven to Davy Jones' locker.
I had never believed in the doctrine of reincarnation until I met in the city, the veritable Judas Iscariot, ready and anxious to sell anybody and everything for thirty pieces of silver, nickel, copper, or any old thing he could pick up. This Jew pretended to wish to sell one-half interest in his commercial school for $2,000. I had some negotiations with him, but found out, by careful investigation, that he had already sold several confiding teachers, who ascertained too late to save their money, that this fraud was collector and treasurer of all funds of the company, that he required his partner to do all the drudgery, and that his report always claimed that all collections had been paid out for expenses.
He reminded me of the legend, that when the devil took Christ to the top of a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the earth, and said: "All these things will I give you to fall down and worship me." Suddenly, the face of a Shylock appeared, saying: "Shentlemen, peeshness ish peeshness, and if you can't trade, I will take dat offer."
I mention this little incident hoping it may prove a warning to the unwary who, like myself, may fall among the sharpers of the Modern Athens. Disgusted with this business experience, and wishing to do good and get good, I advertised, offering $50 for an acceptable position as teacher, and I at once received many responses from thrifty committeemen, and retiring teachers.
I interviewed a clergyman who wanted the reward in advance; but when the time came for him to deliver the goods, he had suddenly decamped in the night to avoid a coat of tar and feathers from indignant parents whose children's morals had been basely ruined by this wolf in sheep's clothing. Others extended itching palms for the money, but failed to secure for me the "sine qua non."
At last, an impecunious teacher in W——, who was retiring to accept a "louder" call in Boston, introduced me to his Board as a particular friend whom he had known for many years, (he had never seen me before), and vouched for me as one of the greatest of living instructors.
When the three doctors, constituting the school board, were about to give me a searching examination, which doubtless would have floored me, prearranged calls summoned them to see pretended patients, and on the mercenary pedagogue's assurance that I was a university graduate, they hastily signed my commission and I was saved.
I shall always remember my two years' experience in this beautiful town, with much pleasure and pride. On the opening of the school I found myself looking upon over one hundred of the finest appearing boys and girls I had ever beheld, seated in a noble new hall well equipped with organ and all the apparatus which wealth could procure.
Soon after the opening exercises, the usual trial of the new master commenced, and a stifling, choking odor threw all into convulsions of coughing, almost to strangulation. Some one had thrown a large quantity of cayenne pepper down the register. I quietly opened the windows, and when the noxious fumes had passed away, the new principal said:
"I feel sure that the pleasant outward appearance of my family here is an expression of the inward goodness and honor of you all, and I am confident that the perpetrator of this disagreeable mischief will take pride in removing suspicion from his companions by rising in his seat and apologizing for his thoughtless rudeness."
A fine, manly looking boy at once arose. "Come up here, my friend, and let us talk it over," I said, and he came and stood by my side. "We are all brothers and sisters here, and I have no doubt you, Arthur, will now express your regrets for what you have done." He did so, the audience applauded, and the incident was closed.
The new master's manner was such a decided contrast to that of his "knock down and drag out" predecessor, that it captivated his protégés at the start, and this was the only unpleasant episode in my delightful intercourse with these charming children.
I established a society called the "Class of Honor," which soon comprised my entire family. Every pupil who had no marks against him or her for failures in scholarship or deportment, was decorated with a blue ribbon, and when he had earned and worn this for one month, he was presented with a handsome diamond shaped pin on which was engraved the words "class of honor." They were prouder of this decoration than ever were the imperial guard of Napoleon of the Cross of the Legion.
If a pupil failed on some point in recitation, he could retrieve himself by reciting it correctly later with extra information on the point, gathered from the reference books, and thus he was saved from humiliation and discouragement, and at the same time, he was stimulated to making independent researches in the school and public libraries. Each class of honor pupil could whisper, go out, or go to the blackboards to draw or cipher without asking permission. The high sense of honor was thus developed which is so essential to a successful career.
We had a system of light gymnastics which, with military drill, gave grace and erectness to the carriage, and every Friday afternoon, the large hall was crowded with the parents to enjoy the singing, declamations, gymnastics, dramatics, and drawing exercises, and all went merry as a marriage bell.
My salary was raised voluntarily every six months; I enjoyed their games with them in our ample playgrounds. We often, on holidays, roamed the woods and seashore together; I often dined with them in their homes, and at picnics; on all public occasions I was one of the principal speakers, and my life was an ideal one in all respects save one. For some cause the air of the valley, too often impregnated with moisture from the sluggish Abajona, kept my throat in an almost chronic state of irritation, and too frequently for days at a time, I could hardly speak above a whisper. Had it not been for this one serious handicap, I think I would gladly have remained there for life.
I kept a saddle horse, and often cantered twenty miles to my father's house, and my boat on the lake furnished many a pleasant sail for myself and pupils.
One incident shows the appreciation of my pupils and neighbors for my efforts in their behalf. During the first campaign of General Grant for the presidency, many of my pupils and I joined the W—Battalion of uniformed and torch bearing "Tanners." We marched to the city as an escort for speakers at a Republican rally. When the hoodlums smashed our lanterns with rocks, our captain, the son of a distinguished statesman, retreated; but I lost my head and charged the rioters, using my torch handle vigorously; I was cut off from my company of which I was lieutenant, and captured by the Democrats. As soon as my men realized this, they rushed upon my captorsen masse; many heads were broken, but I was rescued and carried to the train on the shoulders of my heroic defenders.
If my foresight had been half so good as my hindsight, I would never have left W——, but the tempter came in the form of an offer of a much larger salary from N——, and I foolishly accepted.
The change from W—to N——, was like that from breezy, sunny green fields, where wild birds sang their free, joyous songs, and where wild flowers bloomed free as air exhaling their sweet perfumes, to the suffocating air of a hothouse where the birds drooped in cages and where the few flowers were forced into existence by steam heat and unsavory fertilizers. In the former the people were social, natural and free from the trammels of tyrannical fashions; in the latter they were cold, distant, and valued you according to the size of your bank account and the number of your horses and servants. In the one the teachers were educators, free to develop superior methods along their own original lines; in the other they were mere machines to carry out the ironclad rules of the opinionated precedent-hunting school board.
In the former all seemed like one great family sympathizing and loving; in the latter the newly-rich set the pace of ignoble luxury and display; while the others aped their ways which led many to bankruptcy, poverty, and misery. In the one you were free from all social ostracism if you worshipped according to the dictates of your own conscience; in the other you were ignored and disliked unless you attended and contributed liberally for the support of the palatial orthodox church.
I was early told that I would fail if I persisted in attending the little Unitarian church; but I preferred failure to hypocrisy, and would not sell my birthright of conscience for a mess of pottage. Two of my ancient, sour-faced assistants were bigoted members of the fashionable church, and at once set me down as a corruptor of youth because I was an advocate of the liberal faith. The venomous spite of one of these forcibly suggested the spirit of the inquisition, and one day she found her blackboard decorated with the following truthful poem, suggested by her spirit and the first syllable of her name:
"Old Aunt DunkIs a mean old skunk."
She flew into a furious rage, declared that some Unitarian must have perpetrated this insult, and that I must find the culprit.
She never forgave me because I failed to do so, and at her urgent solicitation the minister, after great exertion, secured a few signatures to a petition for my discharge on the plea that I chewed tobacco and expectorated on the floor in the presence of my class. As I easily proved that I never chewed tobacco, and as my patrons presented an overwhelming protest, the prayer of the petitioners was unanimously refused by the school board.
It would have been laughable had it not been so serious and pitiful, to see the frantic attempts of the poor in this town to keep up appearances, and counterfeit the style of those who had grown rich by cheating widows and orphans in bucket shops and stock gambling. The little minnows put on all the snobbish airs of the whales who had grown so large by devouring all the small fish in their business seas.
One pillar of the church, who was a cashier, ruined his bank by stealing money to enable him, for a while, to live in an elegant house and support servants, equipages, silks and diamonds galore. For a time he was the idol of the town, while he gave costly dinners and showered his ill-gotten gains to embellish his favorite temple, and to build a tower upon it to look down in contempt upon all the lesser shrines.
He barely escaped the sheriff at night-time, and fled beyond the seas, leaving his showy family to poverty and the ill-concealed derision of those who worshipped them while they were supposed to be rich.
Such as these made life very uncomfortable for me, and at the end of my year, I left in disgust; never again to resume the profession in which I had spent so many years of my somewhat checkered existence. My life seemed a failure; I reflected long upon the question of the Psalmist, "What is man?" and here are the answers which I culled from many thoughtful poets, whose names are appended to their several replies.
In this grand wheel, the world, we're spokes made all;— (Brome.)
He who climbs high, endangers many a fall;—(Chaucer.)
A passing gleam called life is o'er us thrown,—(Story.)
It glimmers, like a meteor, and is gone.—(Rogers.)
To-morrow's sun to thee may never rise—(Congreve.)
The flower that smiles to-day, to-morrow dies—(Shelly.)
And what do we, by all our bustle gain?—(Pomfret.)
A drop of pleasure in a sea of pain.—(Tupper.)
Tired of beliefs, we dread to live without;—(Holmes.)
Yet who knows most, the more he knows to doubt.—(Daniel.)
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings.—(Burns.)
And trifles make the sum of human things.—(More.)
If troubles overtake thee, do not wail;—(Herbert.)
Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail.—(Percival.)
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;—(Bryant.)
Great sorrows have no leisure to complain.—(Gaffe.)
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—(Shakespeare.)
For we the same are that our sires have been;—(Knox.)
Nor is a true soul ever born for naught,—(Lowell.)
Yet millions never think a noble thought.—(Bailey.)
Good actions crown themselves with lasting bays,—(Heath.)
And God fulfils Himself in many ways.—(Tennyson.)
The world's a wood in which all lose their way—(Buckingham.)
A fair where thousands meet, but none can stay;—(Fawkes.)
To sport their season, and be seen no more,—(Cowper.)
Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.—(Pope.)
At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, DoctorB——, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of anew town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via theMerchant's and Miner's steamship line.
I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable excursion.
"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart.
"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them, black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would starve though we were slain.
"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor. 'The shoo-fly—the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that? and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,' cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors.
"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everything save life, the professor fled, down over the stairs he fled, pants and unmentionables flying in the air, to the astonishment of the contraband servant girls, for the bath-house—here at length plunged beneath the flood he found relief. After copious ablutions the professor went back for his friend, but the valiant doctor had retreated behind the bars, resolved there to starve rather than again to face his foes.
"After much parleying the doctor's desire for hog and hominy overcame all his fears, and the club marched to breakfast. Here two servant girls armed with long fans, fought a cloud of the famished varmints, while the club swallowed hoe cake covered with a copious lather of the flies of the season. At length our appetites or rather we ourselves, were conquered, and retired in disgust, leaving our foes to bury their dead and divide the spoils of war.
"Our host, who is a true gentleman from Pennsylvania, then ordered the darkies to harness the span. After the inevitable delays which always attend everything that the fifteenth amendments have undertaken to do, we rode out to view the country; and we now congratulated ourselves that our troubles were at an end, but they had but just commenced. Our host had a lame hand, and the professor volunteered to drive; our friends, the varmints, now confined their kind attentions almost exclusively to the horses, which they butchered unmercifully. Oh, such roads! Boys of New England, if you sigh for 'sunny' North Carolina, go; go by all means, and you will return satisfied that old Massachusetts, with all its east winds is a paradise compared with what we saw in the 'old North State,' or in the 'Old Dominion.'
"But to our journey. The horses floundered through quagmires covered in some places with logs, which toss and tumble you till every bone aches, floundered and swam through streams reeking with scum from the cypress swamps; the roads are about six inches wider than your carriage, and the professor found himself obliged to avoid the sharp corners of fences, on either side the deep ditches on whose very edge ran the wheels; to urge his horses over stumps and fallen trees; to whip them over long snouts of prostrate pigs who refused to budge an inch; to jump them over chasms running dark and deep across his path and to spur them down sharp, perpendicular pitches which threatened to break every bone in his body.
"Here and there we saw a few logs piled up together, flanked by mud and sticks, and dignified by the name of house; the naked piccaninnies rolled in the dust, and the poor-white scowled as he lifted his hat, while we worried our miserable way along.
"Now, by the departure of our friend to look after his business, the doctor and the professor were thrown upon their own resources for enjoyment. After shooting at the wild pigs for a while, finding there was great danger of their being melted down into their boots, they threw off their clothes, and regardless of moccasins, regardless of spiders and the whole race of poisonous vermin, they plunged to their necks into the ditch by the roadside. For long weary hours we wallowed till the welcome form of our host appeared, and we recommenced the pitching and stumbling of the dangerous return voyage of this, our pleasure trip.
"For miles the tall, slender pine and cypress-trees festooned with moss and enormous Scuppernong grape-vines, were unbroken by a single clearing or a single shanty. The Scuppernong grapes, by the way, are a great luxury; from these are made a wine equal to anything that can be found (we believe) in the world. One vine is found on Roanoke Island, which is two miles in length, covers several acres of land, and was planted by Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition, centuries ago. For miles that afternoon, we wandered up and down the country seeking for water fit to drink and finding none; looking at the droves of rollicking darkies, making collections of souvenirs, gazing at the good-looking crops of corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, and still fighting the aborigines, the flies.
"We have seen some toothsome things in the South, some beautiful scenes, but at this season of the year, at least, the flies and mosquitoes ruined all as thoroughly as the harpies of olden times defiled the feast of the wandering Trojans.
"The great gala-day of Jamesville has dawned, to-day the great Norfolk steamer honors the town with its presence; everybody (and some more) comes down to the wharf to see the wonderful sight. Here are groups of 'F.F.'s' puffing their long pipes and talking the everlasting 'd—n nigger'; there are crowds of 'fifteenth amendments' laughing and frolicking like children, and here, too, the flea-bitten, mosquito-stabbed, black-fly tortured Doctor B. and Professor F., looking northward as the pilgrim to his loved and far-off Mecca. A scream, a hurrah, a waving of handkerchiefs, and away we go out of the howling wilderness, all that is left of us, and but little indeed that is.
"TheAstoria, is but a wretched tub, and we crawl along at the rate of four or five miles per hour, halting here and there to avoid the wrecks of the war, panting for breath, longing, 'as the heart panteth for the water-brook,' to see once more the shores of our beloved New England. Never will this excruciating sail be forgotten. All day—all night, for long, long, weary hours, the wretched little steamer groaned and screamed its melancholy way over the yellow, nasty Roanoke.
"Hour after hour we sat gazing at the tall cypress-trees and the long trailing mosses, looking like the pale sickly shrouds enveloping a dead and ruined world. Here and there we saw huge nests of the size and shape of a barrel, and near, on the ruined branch of a lightning-struck tree, perched on its topmost bough, the great bald eagle of the South, keeping his sleepless watch and ward, while the wife-bird tended the household gods below. Deadly moccasins and huge turtles lay listless in the sun, and hundreds of bushels of blackberries were wasting their sweetness on the desert air. Now and then there came to us like an inspiration from heaven the ecstatic music of the mockingbird, carrying shame and despair to the breasts of all the other warblers of the aerial choir.
"Nothing could be more inspiring than the notes of this charming singer, as we listened to them here amid these melancholy swamps exhaling the sickly miasma beneath this blighting sun, with not a breath of air to lift the blood red banners of the trumpet creepers, or to cool the fevered brow. Melancholy waitings are heard from the swamps, and the waves in parting, look like fields of fire. The winds come to us, but with them no refreshing, for they came over mile after mile of suffocating, reeking lagoons, stifling with the hot breath of the miasma.
"Every now and then the Rip Van Winkle machinery breaks down, and for hours we are motionless, listening per force to the terrific cursing and pounding in the Vulcanic realms below. At length the sun, not like the rosy-fingered Aurora, daughter of the dawn, but like a huge red monster intent on devouring the world, shoots at us his blighting, withering lances of scorching heat. We touch once more at Plymouth, which greets us with its usual entertainment of murderous fleas, death-dealing watermelons and chain-lightning whiskey. Our ten minute touch here lengthened into three horrid sweltering hours owing to the fact, that the intelligent contrabands were paid by the hour for 'toting' the cargo; but off we are at last, thank heaven, and at length we enter the great canal leading to the North River of Norfolk.
"With chat and jest we were worrying away the leaden-winged hours, when suddenly thug, splash, and like a huge turtle we were floundering in the mud. 'No moving,' said the captain, 'till the tide comes up;' and so for three mortal hours we lay stuck in the mud at the edge of the great dismal swamp of Virginia. 'Ah,' said the mate, 'there is the scene of many a horror, there the nigger was torn limb from limb by the bloodhounds, there the runaway slave chose to endure starvation and death amid deadly snakes and miasma rather than comfort in bondage; there I myself saw crowds of black men swinging from limb to limb like monkeys over reeking scums to their fever-haunted dens to escape the lash.'
"Thus was the story of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe verified by one of Virginia's own sons. All the fearful word paintings of Dred floated again before our mental vision, and we thanked God that the old horror of slavery is passed, and that the old flag now floats indeed 'o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.'
"But these hours of waiting, like all things earthly, at length had their end, and just as the moon gilded the cypress-trees with golden glory, the wheels began to move and we again worried our tortuous way up the North River. 'Ah,' said the melancholy-looking man who had been long gazing in silence at the sad waves below, 'alas, here I am, friendless and alone in this wretched country, peddling beeswax and eggs for hog and hominy, chills and fever; but I was once a schoolmaster with $1,200 a year, down in Connecticut; wine and women did it. But,' said he, 'I'll be rich yet—I've got it—I've discovered perpetual motion, and the world will honor me yet.'
"'Wish you would apply it to this old tub at once,' said the professor; and the forlorn peddler went his way to cherish visions of coming glory. Just then we were electrified by a cheer from the doctor, as the lights of Norfolk flashed over this splendid harbor, yet to float the commerce of a great city.
"We bade farewell without a single regret to the old tubAstoria, and entered the narrow streets, reeking with the horrors of a thousand and one stenches, stumbling over the prostrate forms of sleeping negroes to the hotel, where we indulged once more in the luxury of a bath, which the nasty water of North Carolina had forbidden for many weary days. Suddenly the city was aroused by the roll of drums and the shouts of hundreds, calling to a mass meeting in Court House Square. Thither we followed the crowd, listening for awhile to the blatant Southern orators roaring about the future greatness of the 'Mother of Presidents,' deploring the reign of carpet-baggers and calling for a white man's government amidst the shouts of the great unwashed; while the sons of Ham looked silently and sullenly on.
"We gladly responded to the steamer's shrill call and sailed away to our home in the great and glorious North."