Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/106

80 as to my ability to earn a living by literary work, and anxious to be relieved from my pecuniary straits, it occurred to me that there lay the possibility of regular employment. To be sure, I had not the slightest knowledge of teaching, but, from what I had seen of the country schools in different places, I was persuaded that I could manage to fill the prescribed requirements. Accordingly, I left Jersey City for Reading on the last of October. On reaching it, I called on the County School Commissioner, to whom I explained my aspirations. He informed me that there was no suitable opening for me in his county, but that he had just received a letter from his colleague in the adjoining county of Lebanon, asking for a teacher for one of the district schools under his administration. I took the next train for Lebanon, and presented myself without delay to the School Commissioner. He was a very kindly, elderly man, speaking very good German, who interested himself at once in my case. He asked me whether I had a teacher's certificate, and, when I replied that I had not, suggested that I should submit to an examination at once, or prepare myself for one, as I could not be accepted as a teacher without a certificate. I declared my willingness to be examined on the spot, though doubting my ability to pass, whereupon he assured me that I need have no fears. He made me sit down, and, for an hour and a half, put me through a series of questions in arithmetic, grammar, history, and geography, three-fourths of which, under his kind leading, I answered correctly. Then, on payment of one dollar, I received a certificate pronouncing me duly qualified to teach any district school in the State of Pennsylvania; also a letter of introduction to the Board of School Directors for Swatara Township, the chairman of which resided in the village of Jonestown, six miles from Lebanon, whither I went on foot the next morning.

I found Jonestown to be a neat, clean place, consisting of a public square from the four sides of which as many streets extended at right angles. The buildings around the