Schools of the Three ''RW 217 



A girl and a boy were selected as captains and then 

 the picking and choosing began until there was 

 a row along each side of the schoolroom. A medal, 

 usually a small silver one, in the form of a small 

 shield with a ribbon to suspend it from the neck 

 of the winner, would be furnished the school, and 

 there was great rivalry for its possession. I am 

 hazy on some of the events of schoolboy days, 

 but I can still remember the name of the girl who 

 spelled the whole school down on several occasions. 

 The teacher gave out the words and as one failed 

 to spell a word correctly it was given across to the 

 opposing side. Those who misspelled went to 

 their seats. Darwin's theory of the survival of the 

 fittest was worked out before our eyes in those 

 spelling matches. There would be words handed 

 out that twisted and crawled like serpents — di- 

 syllables, trisyllables and polysyllables in all the 

 complicated forms that the English alphabet may 

 be contorted into. Then there was the grand finale 

 of applause when the winner, usually a girl, went 

 forward and the teacher tied that blue ribbon with 

 the medal about her neck. 



Grammar was mostly rules as I remember it. 

 I had a horror of the very word. Those dread- 

 ful lengthy rules, those confusing parts of speech 

 and the mournful parsing seemed to my school- 

 boy senses a gibberish gabbled in some unknown 

 country for some not understandable purpose. 

 Measles broke out in the section and the word as 

 well as the disease was the subject of much discus- 



