THE SCHOOLS OF THE ISLAND.
The First Day at School; John S. Briggs the Teacher
Before the writer was old enough to attend school, and for years
thereafter, the heads of the Island employed well educated,
foreign teachers who seldom "spared the rod to spoil the child."
One of these teachers who taught there seventy-five or eighty
years ago was named Devarough, but for short was called Devnish.
Besides being a competent teacher, he was an artist of no little
note. On the Island he made many fine pictures with paint and
brush--the lord with umbrella over his lady-love dressed
sumptuously in the fashions of that day. Next in turn came one
named Burke, whom I well remember. He wore side-whiskers and had
all the characteristics of the good, but cruety, old-time teacher.
These teachers, as usual in those days, were from Down-East, and
I think their families were tinctured with Irish descent.
These Down-Easters, in those days as now, were well educated; and
as teachers they flooded the other sections of this country,
bringing with them the "blue-book rules."
When the writer was in his tenth year (1842) his father concluded
to give his only boy something to do other than killing birds,
robbing their nests and prowling around ready for any kind of
mischief. So he "intered him forschool," as it was called.
About six miles of Knotts' Island being in North Carolina, the
school house was situated near the half-way mark and about a mile
north of our home.
This house was made up of two houses put together, or else there
had been an addition made to the original north part; for I
recollect a long endbrace of the original, then intact, that
stretched nearly half across in the center of this long double
house. The house was on the east side of the public road with side
thereto. It was clap-boarded with rough hand-sawed lumber, was
unpainted, and no inside finish. At the south end hung one
creaking door and on the east side two others.
On the west and road side were two windows, the upper halves of
which were partially paned with wooden slats. One of these windows
was near the fire-place near which the teacher sat, surrounded
with bundles of seasoned switches ready for use; the other was
used to give light to the advanced pupils, who wrote and ciphered
on a high long desk at their front.
The chimney on the north end afforded a fire-place six by four,
which in winter flamed and roared like the Infernal Regions"
painted to the children of that day.
Just opposite the school house on the western side of the road
lived an eccentric old man named Southey Waterfield, who could
tell some startling stories of events in his young days wherein he
took an active part. Although these bordered on the improbable, in
the main he was a nice old man. The bad school boys would steal
his apples and other fruit, and even make songs about his queer
ways. It was said he put toad frogs in his sweet potato hills in
the Fall in order to trap insects and other intruders out and to
keep potatoes from the rot. Whether toads are a preventive of rot
or not, the truth is that this old man always had potatoes to se11
in Spring. To the south of this old man's premises was an open
lot, wherein at noon could be found a crowd of noisy, nimble boys
playing cat, razor, town-ball, somersaults, bull in-the-pen,
racing, hammer-jumping, and leap frog; or storming, like the
Allies at Sepastopol and the United States troops at Santiago, the
nests of yellow jackets and bumblebees.
The first day the writer strode to school, with his dinner pail
and Dog-Primer, he found the teacher already there. His name was
John S. Briggs, a Down-East bachelor, clothed with the usual and
ever memorable broad-cloth coat and pants sleek with steady wear.
He assigned me a short seat in the opposite corner from his own,
and gave me the alphabet for my lesson.
When setting copies, and making or mending quill pens, his back
was toward me. The boys near me began to squint their eyes and
make faces at those on the teacher's side; this conduct appeared
to be the usual thing and I did likewise, all neglecting the
lessons. I was in a hidden position from Briggs and thought surely
this conduct was the order of the day. Being a new pupil there is
no doubt but that Briggs intended to keep a sharp eye on me, to
see what materials I was made of.
At this instant his head whirled around, his goggles were upon
me. "Come here, Henry" said he.
I went with fear and trembling. He read me the rules; and then
said that the next offence would bring those switches into play.
It did appear he knew precisely when those back of him were
neglecting their lessons; and around his eyes would come. The big
boys told me that Briggs had a masked eye behind and I began to
think that this must be true. This teacher whipped and slashed
from morning till night for just such offences as I had been
guilty of my first day at school. I was afraid of him and needless
to say, I behaved well thereafter.
It made little difference with parents in those days, when or for
what purpose their children were whipped; they calmly submitted
their children to the jurisdiction of the teacher from the moment
the children left their own doors in the morning until their
return at night.
I think old Briggs, as he was called, was an educated man, and I
am quite sure he taught that the Earth is round, turns on its axis
and revolves around the Sun. This was in conflict with many of the
old-timers who pronounced would--woold, and should shoold, and
used "a" in "was" as in "has."
Briggs had been teaching here some time before I entered his
school, and it did seem that every one in and out of school hated
him, excepting Dennis Simmons, and a few others who had first
employed him. I knew the small children had cause to dislike him
for whipping them, not so much for misconduct, but over their
lessons. He would give the small ones a push from his knees and
tell them to go back and have that lesson in ten minutes. Of
course, the child knew less the next time, and received the
inevitable flogging. I was a whole "quarter" getting through my
Dog-Primer and a few pages in the old blue-back speller. If Briggs
had been sympathetic I should have been where I left off in half
the time; for other teachers thereafter, dubbed me apt.
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