Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/68

Rh My school-keeping days were over. My old teacher, Mr. Cyrus Kilburn, had charge of the village school and I took my seat among the pupils. I remained in the school about two weeks, and then my school-days were over. Altogether I had the training of six or seven summer terms in schools kept by women, supplemented two or three times by a private school of a few weeks by the same teacher, and ten or eleven winter terms. In reading, spelling and grammar I had had a good training. To those branches Mr. Kilburn devoted himself, and I recall his teaching of grammar with great satisfaction. He had no knowledge of object-teaching as applied to grammar, but he was skillful in analysis, and his training was methodical and exact. In fine, he was so much devoted to the work of teaching, that the discipline of the school was neglected. Of this there had been complaints for years. At that time I had a good command of arithmetic, I knew something of algebra, and geometry seemed easy from the start. In composition, so-called, I had had no experience. Once only during my school life was an attempt made by a teacher to introduce the exercise of writing, and that attempt I avoided. In Latin I had not gone beyond the study of the grammar, and the training that I had received was from persons poorly qualified to give instruction.

Once or twice the teacher had been a college undergraduate, and Kilburn’s knowledge of the language was measured by his acquisitions at the Groton Academy. Of knowledge wholly useless to me I had learned to read the Hebrew alphabet from Dr. Bard’s elementary Hebrew book. The reading-books, especially Scott’s Lessons, contained extracts from good writers and speakers, with selections from the best of English poets, and these extracts and selections, I had read and had heard read so often that I could repeat many of them at full length. Worcester’s Geography, and Whelpley’s Compend of History were among the books used in the schools.