1827 - a Tennessee Country School

My experience in school commenced in the year 1827 and extended to 1832. The school, and all connected with it, was, I believe, a fair specimen of an average school at that time and in that country and I have only written of things as I remember them, all of which I saw, and part of which I was.

It was in east Tennessee nearly forty miles south of Knoxville, among a people of unsurpassed physical development and not wanting in natural faculties but unlearned and untrained in "book larnin." Warm and generous hearted, and open handed but quick tempered, easy to take offense and resent an insult and withal jealous of those who were better bred than themselves. Some of these remarks do not apply to all the people but only to the general masses as I knew them at the time of which I write.

It was sixteen or possibly eighteen feet by twenty feet, built of round logs and "scutched" down on the inside. Some of the cracks were chinked with wooden blocks, but none of them were ever daubed. It was about seven feet from the ground to the eave bar and butting poles and the roof was of clapboards weighted down with weight poles kept in place by knee blocks. The floor was the only part of the building made of sawed lumber. The chimney was built partly of split and partly of round logs and sticks. It was fully as wide as one half the end of the house and I often sat on one end of a log that was rolled in to make a fire when the weather was cold. Sometimes three or four of us would be sitting there at the same time studying our lessons, and looking after our sweet potatoes that were roasting in the fire for our dinners. The door was made of clapboards nailed to a forked sapling, one part of which was set up perpendicularly and the other was of a suitable angle to extend from near the bottom of the upright post of the door on the opposite side. The hinge on which the door turned was a large auger hole in the floor and at the top end of the post was a wooden hook driven into the wall which drew the top of the door near the wall. There were two windows, one in the north and one in the south side. They were perhaps twelve inches square without either glass or anything else to keep out the wind or cold. I suppose the original intention of the architects was to have a door in the north side of the house, as two or three logs had been sawed out to correspond with the door on the other side but that was as far as the work ever proceeded. The big hole was never stopped in any way and it remained as long as I stayed in the country.

The first piece of furniture and one in which all the scholars had particular interest was the "pass." This was a stick a foot long, more or less, with a hook on one end. It was hung up by the door and when a pupil wished to leave the room he carried this little stick with him. When he returned the pass was hung up in its place and the first one who could get it was entitled to it. It was sometimes amusing to see the schemes and tricks resorted to get the pass.

The teacher's desk or table was a little shelf fastened to the wall at one end and one side. A leg or post at the other corner completed the "master's table." An old fashioned kitchen chair completed the master's outfit.

The seats for the scholars were made of poplar slabs with the flat side up and supported by bench legs generally two at each end and one in the middle. As the seats were made to accommodate the congregations that assembled there for worship, they were so high that the scholars could not sit on them without swinging their feet several inches above the floor and as the seats had no backs the children had to sit perched with their backs bent over in a most uncomfortable position for hours. My recollections of the school are all pleasant except this experience which was really a torture sufficient to make my back ache even now to think of it. Our writing desk was a broad poplar slab reaching across the back end of the wall with hooks made of forked saplings. Light was admitted to it by a large crack between two logs of the house.

The master's black hickory switch and his "regulators" must not be omitted here as they played an important part in our discipline. This last article was named for its use in regulating the use made by the former. It was a small block of poplar in the form of a cube each side of which had a figure cut on it beginning at one and running to six. The master would sit with this block in his right hand manipulating his long shaggy eyebrows with his left until he saw or thought he saw some unfortunate culprit neglecting to learn his lesson or perchance doing some naughty thing. Then he would with his thumb and forefinger give the "regulator" a fillip and when it fell in front of the offender the figure on the top side of the regulator was carefully examined and the punishment administered accordingly. It might be one stroke of the black hickory or it might be six or any number between the two.

Among the indispensable articles in a schoolroom in those days were the "dunce block and leather spectacles."

In the morning the scholars would gather in from distances ranging from one-fourth of a mile to two miles and a half to engage in their studies as soon as the master arrived. Each one was careful to find out who was the last to enter the school house for the order of "saying our lessons" was governed by the order of our arrival at the school house. I have seen many a close race in the effort made to get into the house first. Soon as we saw the master coming we commenced our day's work. Except in the matter of spelling books there were nearly as many different books as scholars and each one would begin to learn his lesson, spell or read, in a loud clear voice and the din that was made was simply excruciating. After an hour or so the master's voice would ring out above the din "Who come first?" and up would jump someone, perhaps a little fellow in his a, b, cs, perhaps a larger scholar reading in the old Columbian Orator or the New Testament or it might be an arithmetic or the Life of Washington, or Marion or General Jackson. After going the rounds two or three times the master would call "Get the spelling lesson." This was an exercise in which nearly all the scholars joined and for fifteen or twenty minutes every one was spelling at the top of his voice and as fast as his tongue could run. The noise was deafening and could be heard a quarter of a mile away any day. At last the master's voice was heard again like that of a militia colonel on a parade day crying out, "Put up your books." We were soon arranged in a row across the house and the master would give out the spelling lessons, then each would spell his number in the class and the school was dismissed for an hour or more. The same exercises were repeated in the same manner in the afternoon. On Friday afternoon we had in addition an examination in a catechism of the master's own making. (Our master was a parson.) He would commence by asking "Who was the first man? "Who was the first woman?" "Who killed Abel?" "Who was translated?" It was easy enough to answer "Enoch and Elijah," but what being translated meant, he never told us.

Of school readers we had none. My first reading book was the New Testament in which I commenced at the first chapter of Matthew and for a week worried over the hard names of which the master's pronunciation was unique. Three or four spellers were used; Webster's old American spelling book was still in use in that country. I can remember several different arithmetics used in our school. I had Fisher's, but Dilworth's, Dabol's, Pike's, Smiley's, Fowler's and I think some others were used.

The following is a fair specimen of my recitations in arithmetic:

Master -- Let me see your slate. (I hand it to him.) It is not right, sir, Try it again.

I -- But master, I can't understand it.

Master -- Well you must study hard till you study it out. If I told you, you would most likely forget it, but if you study it out for yourself you will never forget it as long as you live.

We wrote on coarse unruled foolscap paper which cost us fifty cents per half quire. We made our own pens of goose quills and our ink by boiling maple bark and adding a little copperas. If we wanted red ink we would express the juice of the poke berry which looked nice until it faded.

When the holidays approached the scholars turned the master out and held possession themselves until the master agreed to such terms as they dictated. Generally they were satisfied with a week's vacation, a barrel of apples, a good drink of cider for each one when it could be had and a ginger cake of which we were quite as fond as the Hoosiers themselves. I am sorry to have to add that in some neighborhoods they exacted whiskey, especially if cider was scarce. We generally had a great deal of fun on such occasions. I was teaching over in Georgia, not far from the battle field of Chickamauga. After chasing over the country till the third day I was captured and taken to the school house. Terms were quickly and easily arranged except one thing. I refused to give whiskey. The scholars said they would duck me in the creek which was near by. I told them I would pay the amount of money the whiskey would cost, but they said as I was a cold water man I should for once have plenty of it. So saying they carried me to the creek and when they raised me up to throw me in I seized two of them around their necks and we all tumbled into the creek together, I on top and they underneath, where the water was full four feet deep. Having got the advantage of both in the struggle I dictated my own terms amid shouts and hurrahs of the other scholars for the master.